{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_25304/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_25304","id":"gutenberg_25304","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25304","summary":null,"tags":["Category: American Literature","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Politics","Essays"],"text":"Produced by David Widger\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE SHADOW ON THE DIAL AND OTHER ESSAYS\n\nBy Ambrose Bierce\n\nEdited by S. O. HOWES\n\nCopyright 1909\n\n\n\n\nA NOTE BY THE AUTHOR\n\nIT WAS expected that this book would be included in my \"Collected\nWorks\" now in course of publication, but unforeseen delay in the date of\npublication has made this impossible. The selection of its contents was\nnot made by me, but the choice has my approval and the publication my\nauthority.\n\nAMBROSE BIERCE.\n\nWashington, D. C. March 14. 1909.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\nTHE note of prophecy! It sounds sharp and clear in many a vibrant line,\nin many a sonorous sentence of the essays herein collected for the\nfirst time. Written for various Californian journals and periodicals\nand extending over a period of more than a quarter of a century, these\nopinions and reflections express the refined judgment of one who has\nseen, not as through a glass darkly, the trend of events. And having\nseen the portentous effigy that we are making of the Liberty our fathers\ncreated, he has written of it in English that is the despair of those\nwho, thinking less clearly, escape not the pitfalls of diffuseness and\nobscurity. For Mr. Bierce, as did Flaubert, holds that the right word is\nnecessary for the conveyance of the right thought and his sense of word\nvalues rarely betrays him into error. But with an odd--I might almost\nsay perverse--indifference to his own reputation, he has allowed\nthese writings to lie fallow in the old files of papers, while others,\npossessing the knack of publicity, years later tilled the soil with\nsome degree of success. President Hadley, of Yale University, before\nthe Candlelight Club of Denver, January 8, 1900, advanced, as novel and\noriginal, ostracism as an effective punishment of social highwaymen.\nThis address attracted widespread attention, and though Professor\nHadley's remedy has not been generally adopted it is regarded as his\nown. Mr. Bierce wrote in \"The Examiner,\" January 20, 1895, as follows:\n\"We are plundered because we have no particular aversion to plunderers.\"\n\nThe 'predatory rich' (to use Mr. Stead's felicitous term) put their\nhands into our pockets because they know that, virtually, none of us\nwill refuse to take their hands in our own afterwards, in friendly\nsalutation. If notorious rascality entailed social outlawry the only\nrascals would be those properly--and proudly--belonging to the 'criminal\nclass.'\n\nAgain, Edwin Markham has attracted to himself no little attention by\nadvocating the application of the Golden Rule in temporal affairs as a\ncure for evils arising from industrial discontent In this he, too, has\nbeen anticipated. Mr. Bierce, writing in \"The Examiner,\" March 25, 1894,\nsaid: \"When a people would avert want and strife, or having them,\nwould restore plenty and peace, this noble commandment offers the only\nmeans--all other plans for safety and relief are as vain as dreams, and\nas empty as the crooning of fools. And, behold, here it is: 'All things\nwhatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.'\"\n\nRev. Charles M. Sheldon created a nine days' wonder, or rather a seven,\nby conducting for a week a newspaper as he conceived Christ would have\ndone. Some years previously, June 28, 1896, to be exact, the author\nof these essays wrote: \"That is my ultimate and determining test of\nright--'What, under the circumstances, would Christ have done?'--the\nChrist of the New Testament, not the Christ of the commentators,\ntheologians, priests and parsons.\"\n\nI am sure that Mr. Bierce does not begrudge any of these gentlemen the\nacclaim they have received by enunciating his ideas, and I mention the\ninstances here merely to forestall the filing of any other claim to\npriority.\n\nThe essays cover a wide range of subjects, embracing among other\nthings government, dreams, writers of dialect, and dogs, and always the\nauthor's point of view is fresh, original and non-Philistine. Whether\none cares to agree with him or not, one will find vast entertainment in\nhis wit that illuminates with lightning flashes all he touches. Other\nqualities I forbear allusion to, having already encroached too much upon\nthe time of the reader.\n\nS. O. HOWES.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SHADOW ON THE DIAL\n\n\n\n\nI.\n\nTHERE is a deal of confusion and uncertainty in the use of the words\n\"Socialist,\" \"Anarchist,\" and \"Nihilist.\" Even the '1st himself commonly\nknows with as little accuracy what he is as the rest of us know why he\nis. The Socialist believes that most human affairs should be regulated\nand managed by the State--the Government--that is to say, the majority.\nOur own system has many Socialistic features and the trend of republican\ngovernment is all that way. The Anarchist is the kind of lunatic who\nbelieves that all crime is the effect of laws forbidding it--as the pig\nthat breaks into the kitchen garden is created by the dog that chews its\near! The Anarchist favors abolition of all law and frequently belongs to\nan organization that secures his allegiance by solemn oaths and dreadful\npenalties. \"Nihilism\" is a name given by Turgenieff to the general body\nof Russian discontent which finds expression in antagonizing authority\nand killing authorities. Constructive politics would seem, as yet, to\nbe a cut above the Nihilist's intelligence; he is essentially a\ndestructionary. He is so diligently engaged in unweeding the soil that\nhe has not given a thought to what he will grow there. Nihilism may\nbe described as a policy of assassination tempered by reflections upon\nSiberia. American sympathy with it is the offspring of an unholy union\nbetween the tongue of a liar and the ear of a dupe.\n\nUpon examination it will be seen that political dissent, when it takes\nany form more coherent than the mere brute dissatisfaction of a mind\nthat does not know what it wants to want, finds expression in one of but\ntwo ways--in Socialism or in Anarchism. Whatever methods one may think\nwill best substitute for a system gradually evolved from our needs and\nour natures a system existing only in the minds of dreamers, one is\nbound to choose between these two dreams. Yet such is the intellectual\ndelinquency of many who most strenuously denounce the system that we\nhave that we not infrequently find the same man advocating in one\nbreath, Socialism, in the next, Anarchism. Indeed, few of these sons of\ndarkness know that even as coherent dreams the two are incompatible.\nWith Anarchy triumphant the Socialist would be a thousand years further\nfrom realization of his hope than he is today. Set up Socialism on a\nMonday and on Tuesday the country would be _en fete_, gaily hunting down\nAnarchists. There would be little difficulty in trailing them, for they\nhave not so much sense as a deer, which, running down the wind, sends\nits tell-tale fragrance on before.\n\nSocialism and Anarchism are the two extremes of political thought; they\nare parts of the same dung, in the sense that the terminal points of a\nroad are parts of the same road. Between them, about midway, lies\nthe system that we have the happiness to endure. It is a \"blend\" of\nSocialism and Anarchism in about equal parts: all that is not one is the\nother. Everything serving the common interest, or looking to the welfare\nof the whole people, is socialistic in the strictest sense of the word\nas understood by the Socialist Whatever tends to private advantage or\nadvances an individual or class interest at the expense of a public\none, is anarchistic. Cooperation is Socialism; competition is Anarchism.\nCompetition carried to its logical conclusion (which only cooperation\nprevents or can prevent) would leave no law in force no property\npossible no life secure.\n\nOf course the words \"cooperation\" and \"competition\" are not here used in\na merely industrial and commercial sense; they are intended to cover\nthe whole field of human activity. Two voices singing a duet--that is\ncooperation--Socialism. Two voices singing each a different tune and\ntrying to drown each other--that is competition--Anarchism: each is a\nlaw unto itself--that is to say, it is lawless. Everything that ought\nto be done the Socialist hopes to do by associated endeavor, as an army\nwins battles; Anarchism is socialistic in its means only: by cooperation\nit tries to render cooperation impossible--combines to kill combination.\nIts method says to its purpose: \"Thou fool!\"\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\nEverything foretells the doom of authority. The killing of kings is\nno new industry; it is as ancient as the race. Always and everywhere\npersons in high place have been the assassin's prey. We have ourselves\nlost three Presidents by murder, and will doubtless lose many another\nbefore the book of American history is closed. If anything is new in\nthis activity of the regicide it is found in the choice of victims. The\ncontemporary \"avenger\" slays, not the merely great, but the good and\nthe inoffensive--an American President who had struck the chains from\nmillions of slaves; a Russian Czar who against the will and work of his\nown powerful nobles had freed their serfs; a French President from whom\nthe French people had received nothing but good; a powerless Austrian\nEmpress, whose weight of sorrows touched the world to tears; a blameless\nItalian King beloved of his people; such is a part of the recent record\nof the regicide whose every entry is a tale of infamy unrelieved by one\ncircumstance of justice, decency or good intention.\n\nAnd the great Brazilian liberator died in exile.\n\nThis recent uniformity of malevolence in the choice of victims is not\nwithout significance. It points unmistakably to two facts: first, that\nthe selections are made, not by the assassins themselves, but by some\ncentral control inaccessible to individual preference and unaffected\nby the fortunes of its instruments; second, that there is a constant\npurpose to manifest an antagonism, not to any individual ruler, but to\nrulers; not to any system of government, but to Government. It is a war,\nnot upon those in authority, but upon Authority. The issue is defined,\nthe alignment made, the battle set: Chaos against Order, Anarchy against\nLaw.\n\nM. Vaillant, the French gentleman who lacked a \"good opinion of the\nlaw,\" but was singularly rich in the faith that by means of gunpowder\nand flying nails humanity could be brought into a nearer relation with\nreason, righteousness and the will of God, is said to have been nearly\ndevoid of a nose. Of this affliction M. Vaillant made but slight\naccount, as was natural, seeing that but for a brief season did he need\neven so much of nose as remained to him. Yet before its effacement by\npremature disruption of his own petard it must have had a certain value\nto him--he would not wantonly have renounced it; and had he foreseen its\nextinction by the bomb the iron views of that controversial device would\nprobably have been denied expression. Albeit (so say the scientists)\ndoomed to eventual elimination from the scheme of being, and to the\nAnarchist even now something of an accusing conscience, the nose is\nindubitably an excellent thing in man.\n\nThis brings us to consideration of the human nose as a measure of\nhuman happiness--not the size of it, but its numbers; its frequent or\ninfrequent occurrence upon the human face. We have grown so accustomed\nto the presence of this feature that we take it as a matter of course;\nits absence is one of the most notable phenomena of our observation--\"an\noccasion long to be remembered,\" as the society reporter hath it\nYet \"abundant testimony showeth\" that but two or three centuries ago\nnoseless men and women were so common all over Europe as to provoke\nbut little comment when seen and (in their disagreeable way) heard\nThey abounded in all the various walks of life: there were honored\nburgomasters without noses, wealthy merchants, great scholars, artists,\nteachers. Amongst the humbler classes nasal destitution was almost as\nfrequent as pecuniary--in the humblest of all the most common of all.\nWriting in the thirteenth century, Salsius mentions the retainers and\nservants of certain Suabian noblemen as having hardly a whole ear among\nthem--for until a comparatively recent period man's tenure of his ears\nwas even more precarious than that of his nose. In 1436, when a Bavarian\nwoman, Agnes Bemaurian, wife of Duke Albert the Pious, was dropped off\nthe bridge at Prague, she persisted in rising to the surface and trying\nto escape; so the executioner gave himself the trouble to put a long\npole into her hair and hold her under. A contemporary account of the\nmatter hints that her disorderly behavior at so solemn a moment was due\nto the pain caused by removal of her nose; but as her execution was by\norder of her own father it seems more probable that \"the extreme penalty\nof the law\" was not imposed. Without a doubt, though, possession of a\nnose was an uncommon (and rather barren) distinction in those days among\n\"persons designated to assist the executioner,\" as the condemned were\ncivilly called. Nor, as already said, was it any too common among\npersons not as yet consecrated to that service: \"Few,\" says Salsius,\n\"have two noses, and many have none.\"\n\nMan's firmer grasp upon his nose in this our day and generation is\nnot altogether due to invention of the handkerchief. The genesis and\ndevelopment of his right to his own nose have been accompanied with a\ncorresponding advance in the possessory rights all along the line of\nhis belongings--his ears, his fingers and toes, his skin, his bones, his\nwife and her young, his clothes and his labor--everything that is (and\nthat once was not) his. In Europe and America today these things can\nnot be taken away from even the humblest and poorest without somebody\nwanting to \"know the reason why.\" In every decade the nation that is\nmost powerful upon the seas incurs voluntarily a vast expense of blood\nand treasure in suppressing a slave trade which in no way is injurious\nto her interests, nor to the interests of any but the slaves.\n\nSo \"Freedom broadens slowly down,\" and today even the lowliest incapable\nof all Nature's aborted has a nose that he dares to call his own and\nbite off at his own sweet will. Unfortunately, with an unthinkable\nfatuity we permit him to be told that but for the very agencies that\nhave put him in possession he could successfully assert a God-given and\nworld-old right to the noses of others. At present the honest fellow is\nmainly engaged in refreshing himself upon his own nose, consuming that\ncomestible with avidity and precision; but the Vaillants, Ravechols,\nMosts and Willeys are pointing his appetite to other snouts than his,\nand inspiring him with rhinophagic ambition. Meantime the rest of us are\nusing those imperiled organs to snore with.\n\n'Tis a fine, resonant and melodious snore, but it is not going to last:\nthere is to be a rude awakening. We shall one day get our eyes open to\nthe fact that scoundrels like Vaillant are neither few nor distant.\nWe shall learn that our blind dependence upon the magic of words is a\nfatuous error; that the fortuitous arrangement of consonants and vowels\nwhich we worship as Liberty is of slight efficacy in disarming the\nlunatic brandishing a bomb. Liberty, indeed! The murderous wretch loves\nit a deal better than we, and wants more of it. Liberty! one almost\nsickens of the word, so quick and glib it is on every lip--so destitute\nof meaning.\n\nThere is no such thing as abstract liberty; it is not even thinkable.\nIf you ask me, \"Do you favor liberty?\" I reply, \"Liberty for whom to do\nwhat? Just now I distinctly favor the liberty of the law to cut off the\nnoses of anarchists caught red-handed or red-tongued. If they go in for\nmutilation let them feel what it is like. If they are not satisfied with\nthe way that things have been going on since the wife of Duke Albert the\nPious was held under water with a pole, and since the servitors of the\nSuabian nobleman cherished their vestigial ears, it is to be presumed\nthat they favor reversion to that happy state. There is grave objection,\nbut if we must we will. Let us begin (with moderation) by reverting\n_them_.\"\n\nI favor mutilation for anarchists convicted of killing or inciting to\nkill--mutilation followed by death. For those who merely deny the right\nand expediency of law, plain mutilation--which might advantageously take\nthe form of removal of the tongue.\n\nWhy not? Where is the injustice? Surely he who denies men's right to\nmake laws will not invoke the laws that they have wickedly made! That\nwere to say that they must not protect themselves, yet are bound\nto protect him. What! if I beat him will he call the useless and\nmischievous constabulary? If I draw out his tongue shall he (in the\nsign-language) demand it back, and failing of restitution (for surely I\nshould cut it clean away) shall he have the law on me--the naughty law,\ninstrument of the oppressor? Why? that \"goes neare to be fonny!\"\n\nTwo human beings can not live together in peace without laws--laws\ninnumerable. Everything that either, in consideration of the other's\nwish or welfare, abstains from is inhibited by law, tacit or expressed.\nIf there were in all the world none but they--if neither had come with\nany sense of obligation toward the other, both clean from creation, with\nnothing but brains to direct their conduct--every hour would evolve an\nunderstanding, that is to say, a law; every act would suggest one. They\nwould have to agree not to kill nor harm each other. They must arrange\ntheir work and all their activities to secure the best advantage. These\narrangements, agreements, understandings--what are they but laws? To\nlive without law is to live alone. Every family is a miniature State\nwith a complicate system of laws, a supreme authority and subordinate\nauthorities down to the latest babe. And as he who is loudest in\ndemanding liberty for himself is sternest in denying it to others,\nyou may confidently go to the Maison Vaillant, or the Mosthaus, for a\nflawless example of the iron hand.\n\nLaws of the State are as faulty and as faultily administered as those of\nthe Family. Most of them have to be speedily and repeatedly \"amended,\"\nmany repealed, and of those permitted to stand, the greater number fall\ninto disuse and are forgotten. Those who have to be entrusted with the\nduty of administering them have all the limitations of intelligence and\ndefects of character by which the rest of us also are distinguished from\nthe angels. In the wise governor, the just judge, the honest sheriff\nor the patient constable we have as rare a phenomenon as the faultless\nfather. The good God has not given us a special kind of men upon whom to\ndevolve the duty of seeing to the observance of the understandings that\nwe call laws. Like all else that men do, this work is badly done. The\nbest that we can hope for through all the failures, the injustice, the\ndisheartening damage to individual rights and interests, is a fairly\ngood general result, enabling us to walk abroad among our fellows\nunafraid, to meet even the tribesmen from another valley without too\nimminent peril of braining and evisceration. Of that small security the\nAnarchist would deprive us. But without that nothing is of value and we\nshall be willing to renounce all. Let us begin by depriving ourselves of\nthe Anarchist.\n\nOur system of civilization being the natural outgrowth of our wretched\nmoral and intellectual natures, is open to criticism and subject\nto revision. Our laws, being of human origin, are faulty and their\napplication is disappointing. Dissent, dissatisfaction, deprecation,\nproposals for a better system fortified with better laws more\nintelligently administered--these are permissible and should be welcome.\nThe Socialist (when he is not carried away by zeal to pool issues with\nthe Anarchist) has that in him which it does us good to hear. He may be\nwrong b all else, yet right in showing us wherein we ourselves are\nwrong. Anyhow, his mission is amendment, and so long as his paths are\npeace he has the right to walk therein, exhorting as he goes. The\nFrench Communist who does not preach Petroleum and It rectified is to be\nregarded with more than amusement, more than compassion. There is room\nfor him and his fad; there are hospitable ears for his boast that Jesus\nChrist would have been a Communist if there had been Communes. They\nreally did not \"know everything down in Judee.\" But for the Anarchist,\nwhose aim is not amendment, but destruction--not welfare to the race,\nbut mischief to a part of it--not happiness for the future, but revenge\nfor the past--for that animal there should be no close season, for that\nsavage, no reservation. Society has not the right to grant life to one\nwho denies the right to live. The protagonist of reversion to the regime\nof lacking noses should lack a nose.\n\nIt is difficult to say if the bomb-thrower, actual or potential, is\ngreater as scoundrel or fool. Suppose his aim is to compel concession by\nterror. Can not the brute observe at each of his exploits a tightening\nof \"the reins of power?\" Through the necessity of guarding against him\nthe mildest governments are becoming despotic, the most despotic more\ndespotic. Does he suppose that \"the rulers of the earth\" are silly\nenough to make concessions that will not insure their safety? Can _he_\ngive them security?\n\n\n\n\nIII.\n\nOf all the wild asses that roam the plain, the wildest wild ass that\nroams the plain is indubitably the one that lifts his voice and heel\nagainst that socialism known as \"public ownership of public utilities,\"\non the ground of \"principle.\" There may be honest, and in some degree\nintelligent, opposition on the ground of expediency. Many persons whom\nit is a pleasure to respect believe that a Government railway, for\nexample, would be less efficiently managed than the same railway in\nprivate hands, and that political dangers lurk in the proposal so\nenormously to increase the number of Federal employes as Government\nownership of railways would entail. They think, in other words, that\nthe policy is inexpedient. It is a duty to reason with them, which, as\na rule, one can do without being insulted. But the chap who greets the\nproposal with a howl of derision as \"Socialism!\" is not a respectable\nopponent. Eyes he has, but he sees not; ears--oh! very abundant\nears--but he hears not the still, small voice of history nor the still\nsmaller voice of common sense.\n\nObviously to those who, having eyes, do see, public ownership of\nanything is a step in the direction of Socialism, for perfect Socialism\nmeans public ownership of everything. But \"principle\" has nothing to\ndo with it The principle of public ownership is already accepted and\nestablished. It has no visible opponents except in the camp of the\nAnarchists, and fewer of them are visible there than soap and water\nwould reveal. Antagonists of the _principle_ of Socialism lost their\nfight when the first human government held the dedicatory exercises of a\nCave of Legislation. Since then the only question about the matter has\nbeen how far the _extension_ of Socialism is expedient Some would draw\nthe limiting line at one place, some at another; but only a fool thinks\nthere can be government without it, or good government without a great\ndeal of it (The fact that we have always had a great deal of it yet\nnever had good government affirms nothing that it is worth while to\nconsider.) The word-worn example of our Postal Department is only one of\na thousand instances of pure Socialism. If it did not exist how bitter\nan opposition a proposal to establish it would evoke from Adversaries of\nthe Red Rag! The Government builds and operates bridges with general\nassent; but as the late General Walker pointed out, it might under some\ncircumstances be more economical, or better otherwise, to build and\noperate a ferry boat, which is a floating bridge. But that would be\nopposed as rank Socialism.\n\nThe truth is that the men and women of principle are a pretty dangerous\nclass, generally speaking--and they are generally speaking. It is they\nthat hamper us in every war. It is they who, preventing concentration\nand regulation of un-abolishable evils, promote their distribution and\nliberty. Moral principles are pretty good things--for the young and\nthose not well grounded in goodness. If one have an impediment in his\nthought, or is otherwise unequal to emergencies as they arise, it is\nsafest to be provided beforehand with something to refer to in order\nthat a right decision may be made without taking thought. But \"spirits\nof a purer fire\" prefer to decide each question as it comes up, and to\nact upon the merits of the case, unbound and unpledged. With a\nquick intelligence, a capable conscience and a habit of doing right\nautomatically one has little need to burden one's mind and memory with\na set of solemn principles formulated by owlish philosophers who do not\nhappen to know that what is right is merely what, in the long run and\nwith regard to the greater number of cases, is expedient Principle\nis not always an infallible guide. For illustration, it is not always\nexpedient--that is, for the good of all concerned--to tell the truth,\nto be entirely just or merciful, to pay a debt. I can conceive a case in\nwhich it would be right to assassinate one's neighbor. Suppose him to\nbe a desperate scoundrel of a chemist who has devised a means of\nsetting the atmosphere afire. The man who should go through life on an\ninflexible line of principle would border his path with a havoc of human\nhappiness.\n\nWhat one may think perfect one may not always think desirable. By\n\"perfect\" one may mean merely complete, and the word was so used in\nmy reference to Socialism. I am not myself an advocate of \"perfect\nSocialism,\" but as to Government ownership of railways, there is\ndoubtless a good deal to be said on both sides. One argument in its\nfavor appears decisive; under a system subject to popular control the\nlaw of gravitation would be shorn of its preeminence as a means of\nremoving personal property from the baggage car, and so far as it is\napplicable to that work might even be repealed.\n\n\n\n\nIV.\n\nWhen M. Casimir-Perier resigned the French Presidency there were\nthose who regarded the act as weak, cowardly, undutiful and otherwise\ncensurable. It seems to me the act, not of a feeble man, but of a strong\none--not that of a coward, but that of a gentleman. Indeed, I hardly\nknow where to look in history for an act more entirely gratifying to\nmy sense of \"the fitness of things\" than this dignified notification\nto mankind that in consenting to serve one's country one does not\nrelinquish the right to decent treatment--to immunity from factious\nopposition and abuse--to at least as much civil consideration as is due\nfrom the Church to the Devil.\n\nM. Casimir-Perier did not seek the Presidency of the French Republic;\nit was thrust upon him against his protestations by an apparently almost\nunanimous mandate of the French people in an emergency which it was\nthought that he was the best man to meet. That he met it with modesty\nand courage was testified without dissent. That he afterward did\nanything to forfeit the confidence and respect that he then inspired is\nnot true, and nobody believes it true. Yet in his letter of resignation\nhe said, and said truly:\n\n\"For the last six months a campaign of slander and insult has been going\non against the army, magistrates. Parliament and hierarchical Chief of\nState, and this license to disseminate social hatred continues to be\ncalled 'the liberty of thought.'\"\n\nAnd with a dignity to which it seems strange that any one could be\ninsensible, he added:\n\n\"The respect and ambition which I entertain for my country will not\nallow me to acknowledge that the servants of the country, and he who\nrepresents it in the presence of foreign nations, may be insulted every\nday.\"\n\nThese are noble words. Have we any warrant for demanding or expecting\nthat men of clean life and character will devote themselves to the good\nof ingrates who pay, and ingrates who permit them to pay, in flung mud?\nIt is hardly credible that among even those persons most infatuated\nby contemplation of their own merit as pointed out by their thrifty\nsycophants \"the liberty of thought\" has been carried to that extreme.\nThe right of the State to demand the sacrifice of the citizen's life is\na doctrine as old as the patriotism that concedes it, but the right to\nrequire him to forego his good name--that is something new under the\nsun. From nothing but the dunghill of modern democracy could so noxious\na plant have sprung.\n\n\"Perhaps in laying down my functions,\" said M. Casimir-Perier, \"I shall\nhave marked out a path of duty to those who are solicitous for the\ndignity, power and good name of France in the world.\"\n\nWe may be permitted to hope that the lesson is wider than France and\nmore lasting than the French Republic. It is time that not only France\nbut all other countries with \"popular institutions\" should learn that if\nthey wish to command the services of men of honor they must accord them\nhonorable treatment; the rule now is for the party to which they belong\nto give them a half-hearted support while suffering all other parties\nto slander and insult them. The action of the President of the French\nRepublic in these disgusting circumstances is exceptional and unusual\nonly in respect of his courage in expressly resenting his wrong.\nEverywhere the unreasonable complaint is heard that good men will not\n\"go into politics;\" everywhere the ignorant and malignant masses and\ntheir no less malignant and hardly less ignorant leaders and\nspokesmen, having sown the wind of reasonless obstruction and partisan\nvilification, are reaping the whirlwind of misrule. So far as\nconcerns the public service, gentlemen are mostly on a strike against\nintroduction of the mud-machine. This high-minded political workman,\nCasimir-Perier, never showed to so noble advantage as in gathering up\nhis tools and walking out.\n\nIt may be, and a million times has been, urged that abstention from\nactivity in public affairs by men of brains and character leaves the\nbusiness of government in the hands of the incapable and the vicious. In\nwhose hands, pray, in a republic does it logically belong? What does\nthe theory of \"representative government\" affirm? What is the lesson\nof every netherward extension of the suffrage? What do we mean by\npermitting it to \"broaden slowly down\" to lower and lower intelligences\nand moralities?--what but that stupidity and vice, equally with virtue\nand wisdom, are entitled to a voice in political affairs, a finger in\nthe public pie?\n\nA person that is fit to vote is fit to be voted for. He who is competent\nfor the high and difficult function of choosing an officer of the State\nis competent to serve the State as an officer. To deny him the right is\nillogical and unjust. Participation in Government can not be at the same\ntime a privilege and a duty, and he who claims it as a privilege must\nnot speak of another's renunciation (whereby himself is more highly\nprivileged) as \"shirking.\" With every retirement from politics increased\npower passes to those who remain. Shall they protest? Shall they, also,\nwho have retired? Who else is to protest? The complaint of \"incivism\"\nwould be more rational if there were some one by whom it could\nreasonably be made.\n\nMy advice to slandered officials has ever been: \"Resign.\" The public\nofficials of this favored country, Heaven be thanked, are infrequently\nslandered: they are, as a rule, so bad that calumniation is a\ncompliment. Our best men, with here and there an exception, have\nbeen driven out of public life, or made afraid to enter it. Even\nour spasmodic efforts at reform fail ludicrously for lack of leaders\nunaffiliated with \"the thing to be reformed.\" Unless attracted by the\nsalary, why should a gentleman \"aspire\" to the Presidency of the United\nStates? During his canvass (and he is expected to \"run,\" not merely to\n\"stand\") he will have from his own party a support that should make him\nblush, and from all the others an opposition that will stick at nothing\nto accomplish his satisfactory defamation. After his election his\npartition and allotment of the loaves and fishes will estrange an\nimportant and thenceforth implacable faction of his following without\nappeasing the animosity of any one else; and during his entire service\nhis sky will be dark with a flight of dead cats. At the finish of his\nterm the utmost that he can expect in the way of reward not expressible\nin terms of the national currency is that not much more than one-half of\nhis countrymen will believe him a scoundrel to the end of their days.\n\n\n\n\nV.\n\nThe kind of government that we have seems to me one of the worst kinds\nextant A government that does not protect life is a flat failure, no\nmatter what else it may do. Life being almost universally regarded as\nthe most precious possession, its security is the first and highest\nessential--not the life of him who takes life, but the life which is\nexposed defenceless to his hateful hand. In no country in the world,\ncivilized or savage, is life so insecure as in this. In no country in\nthe world is murder held in so light reprobation. In no battle of modern\ntimes have so many lives been taken as are lost annually in the United\nStates through public indifference to the crime of homicide--through\ndisregard of law, through bad government. If American self-government,\nwith its ten thousand homicides a year, is good government, there is no\nsuch thing as bad. Self-government! What monstrous nonsense! Who governs\nhimself needs no government, has no governor, is not governed. If\ngovernment has any meaning it means the restraint of the many by the\nfew--the subordination of numbers to brains. It means the determined\ndenial to the masses of the right to cut their own throats. It means\nthe grasp and control of all the social forces and material enginery--a\nvigilant censorship of the press, a firm hand upon the church, keen\nsupervision of public meetings and public amusements, command of the\nrailroads, telegraph and all means of communication. It means, in\nshort, the ability to make use of all the beneficent influences of\nenlightenment for the good of the people, and to array all the powers\nof civilization against civilization's natural enemies--the people.\nGovernment like this has a thousand defects, but it has one merit: it is\ngovernment.\n\nDespotism? Yes. It is the despotisms of the world that have been the\nconservators of civilization. It is the despot who, most powerful for\nmischief, is alone powerful for good. It is conceded that government is\nnecessary--even by the \"fierce democracies\" that madly renounce it. But\nin so far as government is not despotic it is not government. In Europe\nfor the last one hundred years, the tendency of all government has been\nliberalization. The history of European politics during that period is\na history of renunciation by the rulers and assumption by the ruled.\nSovereign after sovereign has surrendered prerogative after prerogative;\nthe nobility privilege after privilege. Mark the result: society\nhoneycombed with treason; property menaced with partition; assassination\nstudied as a science and practiced as an art; everywhere powerful\nsecret organizations sworn to demolish the social fabric that the slow\ncenturies have but just erected and unmindful that themselves will\nperish in the wreck. No heart in Europe can beat tranquilly under clean\nlinen. Such is the gratitude, such is the wisdom, such the virtue of\n\"The Masses.\" In 1863 Alexander II of Russia freed 25,000,000 serfs. In\n1879 they had killed him and all joined the conspirators.\n\nThat ancient and various device, \"a republican form of government,\"\nappears to be too good for all the peoples of the earth excepting one.\nIt is partly successful in Switzerland; in France and America, where\nthe majority is composed of persons having dark understandings and\ncriminal instincts, it has broken down. In our case, as in every case,\nthe momentum of successful revolution carried us too far. We\nrebelled against tyranny and having overthrown it, overthrew also the\ngovernmental form in which it had happened to be manifest. In their\nanger and their triumph our good old gran'thers acted somewhat in the\nspirit of the Irishman who cudgeled the dead snake until nothing was\nleft of it, in order to make it \"sinsible of its desthroction.\" They\nmeant it all, too, the honest souls! For a long time after the setting\nup of the republic the republic meant active hatred to kings, nobles,\naristocracies. It was held, and rightly held, that a nobleman could not\nbreathe in America--that he left his title and his privileges on the\nship that brought him over. Do we observe anything of that in this\ngeneration? On the landing of a foreign king, prince or nobleman--even a\nmiserable \"knight\"--do we not execute sycophantic genuflexions? Are not\nour newspapers full of flamboyant descriptions and qualming adulation?\nNay, does not our President himself--successor to Washington and\nJefferson!--greet and entertain the \"nation's guest\"? Is not every\nAmerican young woman crazy to mate with a male of title? Does all this\nrepresent no retrogression?--is it not the backward movement of the\nshadow on the dial? Doubtless the republican idea has struck strong\nroots into the soil of the two Americas, but he who rightly considers\nthe tendencies of events, the causes that bring them about and the\nconsequences that flow from them, will not be hot to affirm the\nperpetuity of republican institutions in the Western Hemisphere. Between\ntheir inception and their present stage of development there is scarcely\nthe beat of a pendulum; and already, by corruption and lawlessness,\nthe people of both continents, with all their diversities of race and\ncharacter, have shown themselves about equally unfit. To become a nation\nof scoundrels all that any people needs is opportunity, and what we are\npleased to call by the impossible name of \"self-government\" supplies it.\n\nThe capital defect of republican government is inability to repress\ninternal forces tending to disintegration. It does not take long for a\n\"self-governed\" people to learn that it is not really governed--that an\nagreement enforcible by nobody but the parties to it is not binding.\nWe are learning this very rapidly: we set aside our laws whenever we\nplease. The sovereign power--the tribunal of ultimate jurisdiction--is\na mob. If the mob is large enough (it need not be very large), even\nif composed of vicious tramps, it may do as it will. It may destroy\nproperty and life. It may without proof of guilt inflict upon\nindividuals torments unthinkable by fire and flaying, mutilations that\nare nameless. It may call men, women and children from their beds and\nbeat them to death with cudgels. In the light of day it may assail the\nvery strongholds of law in the heart of a populous city, and assassinate\nprisoners of whose guilt it knows nothing. And these things--observe, O\nvictims of kings--are habitually done. One would as well be at the mercy\nof one's sovereign as of one's neighbor.\n\nFor generations we have been charming ourselves with the magic of words.\nWhen menaced by some exceptionally monstrous form of the tyranny of\nnumbers we have closed our eyes and murmured, \"Liberty.\" When armed\nAnarchists threaten to quench the fires of civilization in a sea of\nblood we prate of the protective power of \"free speech.\" If,\n\n     \"Girt about by friends or foes,\n     A man may speak the thing he will,\"\n\nwe fondly fancy that the thing he will speak is harmless--that immunity\ndisarms his tongue of its poison, his thought of its infection. With a\nfatuity that would be incredible without the testimony of observation,\nwe hold that an Anarchist free to go about making proselytes, free to\npurchase arms, free to drill and parade and encourage his dupes with a\ndemonstration of their numbers and power, is less mischievous than an\nAnarchist with a shut mouth, a weaponless hand and under surveillance of\nthe police. The Anarchist himself is persuaded of the superiority of\nour plan of dealing with him; he likes it and comes over in quantity,\ninpesting the political atmosphere with the \"sweltered venom\" engendered\nby centuries of oppression--comes over here, where he is not oppressed,\nand sets up as oppressor. His preferred field of malefaction is the\ncountry that is most nearly anarchical. He comes here, partly to better\nhimself under our milder institutions, partly to secure immunity while\nconspiring to destroy them. There is thunder in Europe, but if the storm\never break it is in America that the lightning will fall, for here is\na great vortex into which the decivilizing agencies are pouring without\nobstruction. Here gather the eagles to the feast, for the quarry is\ndefenceless. Here is no power in government, no government. Here an\nenemy of order is thought to be least dangerous when suffered to preach\nand arm in peace. And here is nothing between him and his task of\nsupervision--no pampered soldiery to repress his rising, no iron\nauthority to lay him by the heels. The militia is fraternal, the\nmagistracy elective. Europe may hold out a little longer. The Great\nPowers may make what stage-play they will, but they are not maintaining\ntheir incalculable armaments for aggression upon one another, for\nprotection from one another, nor for fun. These vast forces are\npurely constabular--creatures and creators of discontent--phenomena of\ndecivilization. Eventually they will fraternize with Disorder or become\nthemselves Praetorian Guards more dangerous than the perils that have\ncalled them into existence.\n\nIt is easy to forecast the first stages of the End's approach: Rioting.\nDisaffection of constabulary and troops. Subversion of the Government\nA policy of decapitation. Upthrust of the serviceable Anarchist.\nHis prompt effacement by his victorious ally and natural enemy, the\nSocialist. Free minting and printing of money--to every citizen a\nshoulder-load of the latter, to the printers a ton each. Divided\ncounsels. Pandemonium. The man on horseback. Gusts of grape. ------?\n\nFormerly the bearer of evil tidings was only slain; he is now ignored.\nThe gods kept their secrets by telling them to Cassandra, whom no one\nwould believe. I do not expect to be heeded. The crust of a volcano is\nelectric the fumes are narcotic; the combined sensation is delightful no\nend. I have looked at the dial of civilization; I tell you the shadow\nis going back. That is of small importance to men of leisure, with\nwine-dipped wreaths upon their heads. They do not care to know.\n\n\n\n\nCIVILIZATION\n\n\n\n\nI.\n\nTHE question \"Does civilization civilize?\" is a fine example of _petitio\nprincipii_. and decides itself in the affirmative; for civilization must\nneeds do that from the doing of which it has its name. But it is not\nnecessary to suppose that he who propounds is either unconscious of his\nlapse in logic or desirous of digging a pitfall for the feet of\nthose who discuss; I take it he simply wishes to put the matter in an\nimpressive way, and relies upon a certain degree of intelligence in the\ninterpretation.\n\nConcerning uncivilized peoples we know but little except what we are\ntold by travelers--who, speaking generally, can know very little but the\nfact of uncivilization as shown in externals and irrelevances, and are\nmoreover, greatly given to lying. From the savages we hear very little.\nJudging them in all things by our own standards, in default of a\nknowledge of theirs, we necessarily condemn, disparage and belittle. One\nthing that civilization certainly has not done is to make us intelligent\nenough to understand that the opposite of a virtue is not necessarily a\nvice. Because we do not like the taste of one another it does not follow\nthat the cannibal is a person of depraved appetite. Because, as a rule,\nwe have but one wife and several mistresses each it is not certain that\npolygamy is everywhere--nor, for that matter, anywhere--either wrong or\ninexpedient. Our habit of wearing clothes does not prove that conscience\nof the body, the sense of shame, is charged with a divine mandate; for\nlike the conscience of the spirit it is the creature of what it seems to\ncreate: it comes to the habit of wearing clothes. And for those who hold\nthat the purpose of civilization is morality it may be said that peoples\nwhich are the most nearly naked are, in our sense, the most nearly\nmoral. Because the brutality of the civilized slave owners and dealers\ncreated a conquering sentiment against slavery it is not intelligent to\nassume that slavery is a maleficent thing amongst Oriental peoples (for\nexample) where the slave is not oppressed.\n\nSome of these same Orientals whom we are pleased to term half-civilized\nhave no regard for truth. \"Takest thou me for a Christian dog,\" said\none of them, \"that I should be the slave of my word?\" So far as I can\nperceive the \"Christian dog\" is no more the slave of his word than the\nTrue Believer, and I think the savage--allowing for the fact that his\ninveracity has dominion over fewer things--as great a liar as either of\nthem. For my part, I do not know what, in all circumstances, is right\nor wrong; but I know, if right, it is at least stupid to judge an\nuncivilized people by the standards of morality and intelligence set up\nby civilized ones. An infinitesimal proportion of civilized men do not,\nand there is much to be said for civilization if they are the product of\nit.\n\nLife in civilized countries is so complex that men there have more ways\nto be good than savages have, and more to be bad; more to be happy, and\nmore to be miserable. And in each way to be good or bad, their generally\nsuperior knowledge--their knowledge of more things--enables them to\ncommit greater excesses than the savage could widi the same opportunity.\nThe civilized philanthropist wreaks upon his fellow creatures a\nranker philanthropy, the civilized scoundrel a sturdier rascality.\nAnd--splendid triumph of enlightenment!--the two characters are, in\ncivilisation, commonly combined in one person.\n\nI know of no savage custom or habit of thought which has not its mate\nin civilized countries. For every mischievous or absurd practice of\nthe natural man I can name you a dozen of the unnatural which are\nessentially the same. And nearly every custom of our barbarian ancestors\nin historic times survives in some form today. We make ourselves look\nformidable in battle--for that matter, we fight. Our women paint their\nfaces. We feel it obligatory to dress more or less alike, inventing the\nmost ingenious reasons for it and actually despising and persecuting\nthose who do not care to conform. Within the memory of living persons\nbearded men were stoned in the streets; and a clergyman in New York\nwho wore his beard as Christ wore his, was put into jail and variously\npersecuted till he died. We bury our dead instead of burning them, yet\nevery cemetery is set thick with urns. As there are no ashes for the\nurns we do not trouble ourselves to make them hollow, and we say\ntheir use is \"emblematic.\" When, following the bent of our ancestral\ninstincts, we go on, age after age, in the performance of some senseless\nact which once had a use and meaning we excuse ourselves by calling\nit symbolism. Our \"symbols\" are merely survivals. We have theology and\npatriotism. We have all the savage's superstition. We propitiate and\ningratiate by means of gifts. We shake hands. All these and hundreds\nof others of our practices are distinctly, in their nature and by their\norigin, savage.\n\nCivilization does not, I think, make the race any better. It makes men\nknow more: and if knowledge makes them happy it is useful and desirable.\nThe one purpose of every sane human being is to be happy. No one\ncan have any other motive than that. There is no such thing as\nunselfishness. We perform the most \"generous\" and \"self-sacrificing\"\nacts because we should be unhappy if we did not. We move on lines of\nleast reluctance. Whatever tends to increase the beggarly sum of human\nhappiness is worth having; nothing else has any value.\n\nThe cant of civilization fatigues. Civilization is a fine and beautiful\nstructure. It is as picturesque as a Gothic cathedral. But it is built\nupon the bones and cemented with the blood of those whose part in all\nits pomp is that and nothing more. It cannot be reared in the generous\ntropics, for there the people will not contribute their blood and bones.\nThe proposition that the average American workingman or European peasant\nis \"better off\" than the South Sea Islander, lolling under a palm and\ndrunk with over-eating, will not bear a moment's examination.\n\nIt is we scholars and gentlemen that are better off.\n\nIt is admitted that the South Sea Islander in a state of nature is\novermuch addicted to the practice of eating human flesh; but concerning\nthat I submit: first, that he likes it; second, that those who supply\nit are mostly dead. It is upon his enemies that he feeds, and these\nhe would kill anyhow, as we do ours. In civilized, enlightened and\nChristian countries, where cannibalism has not yet established itself,\nwars are as frequent and destructive as among the maneaters. The\nuntitled savage knows at least why he goes killing, whereas the private\nsoldier is commonly in black ignorance of the apparent cause of\nquarrel--of the actual cause, always. Their shares in the fruits of\nvictory are about equal: the Chief takes all the dead, the General all\nthe glory. Moreover it costs more human life to supply a Christian\ngentleman with food than it does a cannibal--with food alone: \"board;\"\nif you could figure out the number of lives that his lodging, clothing,\namusements and accomplishment cost the sum would startle. Happily _he_\ndoes not pay it. Considering human lives as having value, cannibalism is\nundoubtedly the more economical system.\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\nTransplanted institutions grow but slowly; and civilization can not be\nput into a ship and carried across an ocean. The history of this country\nis a sequence of illustrations of these truths. It was settled by\ncivilized men and women from civilized countries, yet after two and a\nhalf centuries with unbroken communication with the mother systems, it\nis still imperfectly civilized. In learning and letters, in art and the\nscience of government, America is but a faint and stammering echo of\nEngland.\n\nFor nearly all that is good in our American civilization we are indebted\nto England; the errors and mischiefs are of our own creation. We have\noriginated little, because there is little to originate, but we have\nunconsciously reproduced many of the discredited and abandoned systems\nof former ages and other countries--receiving them at second hand, but\nmaking them ours by the sheer strength and immobility of the national\nbelief in their newness. Newness! Why, it is not possible to make an\nexperiment in government, in art, in literature, in sociology, or in\nmorals, that has not been made over, and over, and over again. Fools\ntalk of clear and simple remedies for this and that evil afflicting the\ncommonwealth. If a proposed remedy is obvious and easily intelligible,\nit is condemned in the naming, for it is morally certain to have been\ntried a thousand times in the history of the world, and had it been\neffective men ere now would have forgotten, from mere disuse, how to\nproduce the evil it cured.\n\nThere are clear and simple remedies for nothing. In medicine there\nhas been discovered but a single specific; in politics not one.\nThe interests, moral and natural, of a community in our highly\ndifferentiated civilization are so complex, intricate, delicate and\ninterdependent, that you can not touch one without affecting all. It\nis a familiar truth that no law was ever passed that did not have\nunforeseen results; but of these results, by far the greater number are\nnever recognized as of its creation. The best that can be said of any\n\"measure\" is, that the sum of its perceptible benefits seems so to\nexceed the sum of its perceptible evils as to constitute a balance of\nadvantage. Yet the magnificent innocence of the statesman or philosopher\nto whose understanding \"the whole matter lies in a nutshell\"--who thinks\nhe can formulate a practical political or social policy within the four\ncorners of an epigram--who fears nothing because he knows nothing--is\nconstantly to the fore with a simple specific for ills whose causes are\ncomplex, constant and inscrutable. To the understanding of this creature\na difficulty well ignored is half overcome; so he buttons up his eyes\nand assails the problems of life with the divine confidence of a blind\npig traversing a labyrinth.\n\nThe glories of England are our glories. She can achieve nothing that our\nfathers did not help to make possible to her. The learning, the power,\nthe refinement of a great nation, are not the growth of a century,\nbut of many centuries; each generation builds upon the work of the\npreceding. For untold ages our ancestors wrought to rear that \"revered\npile,\" the civilization of England. And shall we now try to belittle the\nmighty structure because other though kindred hands are laying the top\ncourses while we have elected to found a new tower in another land? The\nAmerican eulogist of civilization who is not proud of his heritage in\nEngland's glory is unworthy to enjoy his lesser heritage in the lesser\nglory of his own country.\n\nThe English are undoubtedly our intellectual superiors; and as the\nvirtues are solely the product of education--a rogue being only a dunce\nconsidered from another point of view--they are our moral superiors\nlikewise. Why should they not be? It is a land not of log and pine-board\nschoolhouses grudgingly erected and containing schools supported by such\nniggardly tax levies as a sparse and hard-handed population will consent\nto pay, but of ancient institutions splendidly endowed by the State and\nby centuries of private benefaction. As a means of dispensing formulated\nignorance our boasted public school system is not without merit; it\nspreads it out sufficiently thin to give everyone enough to make him a\nmore competent fool than he would have been without it; but to compare\nit with that which is not the creature of legislation acting with malice\naforethought, but the unnoted outgrowth of ages, is to be ridiculous.\nIt is like comparing the laid-out town of a western prairie, its\nright-angled streets, prim cottages, \"built on the installment plan,\"\nand its wooden a-b-c shops, with the grand old town of Oxford, topped\nwith the clustered domes and towers of its twenty-odd great colleges;\nthe very names of many of whose founders have perished from human record\nas have all the chronicles of the times in which they lived.\n\nIt is not alone that we have had to \"subdue the wilderness;\" our\neducational conditions are otherwise adverse. Our political system is\nunfavorable. Our fortunes, accumulated in one generation, are dispersed\nin the next. If it takes three generations to make a gentleman one\nwill not make a thinker. Instruction is acquired, but capacity for\ninstruction is transmitted. The brain that is to contain a trained\nintellect is not the result of a haphazard marriage between a clown and\na wench, nor does it get its tractable tissues from a hard-headed farmer\nand a soft-headed milliner. If you confess the importance of race and\npedigree in a race horse and a bird dog how dare you deny it in a man?\n\nI do not claim that the political and social system that creates an\naristocracy of leisure, and consequently of intellect, is the best\npossible kind of human organization; I perceive its disadvantages\nclearly enough. But I do not hold that a system under which all\nimportant public trusts, political and professional, civil and military,\necclesiastical and secular, are held by educated men--that is, men of\ntrained faculties and disciplined judgment--is not an altogether faulty\nsystem.\n\nIt is only in our own country that an exacting literary taste is\nbelieved to disqualify a man for purveying to the literary needs of a\ntaste less exacting--a proposition obviously absurd, for an exacting\ntaste is nothing but the intelligent discrimination of a judgment\ninstructed by comparison and observation. There is, in fact, no pursuit\nor occupation, from that of a man who blows up a balloon to that of\nthe man who bores out the stove pipes, in which he that has talent and\neducation is not a better worker than he that has either, and he than\nhe that has neither. It is a universal human weakness to disparage\nthe knowledge that we do not ourselves possess, but it is only my own\nbeloved country that can justly boast herself the last refuge and asylum\nof the impotents and incapables who deny the advantage of all knowledge\nwhatsoever. It was an American Senator (Logan) who declared that he\nhad devoted a couple of weeks to the study of finance, and found the\naccepted authorities all wrong. It was another American Senator (Morton)\nwho, confronted with certain ugly facts in the history of another\ncountry, proposed \"to brush away all facts, and argue the question on\nconsiderations of plain common sense.\"\n\nRepublican institutions have this disadvantage: by incessant changes in\nthe _personnel_ of government--to say nothing of the manner of men that\nignorant constituencies elect; and all constituencies are ignorant--we\nattain to no fixed principles and standards. There is no such thing here\nas a science of politics, because it is not to any one's interest to\nmake politics the study of his life. Nothing is settled; no truth finds\ngeneral acceptance. What we do one year we undo the next, and do over\nagain the year following. Our energy is wasted in, and our prosperity\nsuffers from, experiments endlessly repeated.\n\nOne of the disadvantages of our social system, which is the child of our\npolitical, is the tyranny of public opinion, forbidding the utterance of\nwholesome but unpalatable truth. In a republic we are so accustomed\nto the rule of majorities that it seldom occurs to us to examine their\ntitle to dominion; and as the ideas of might and right are, by our\ninnate sense of justice, linked together, we come to consider public\nopinion infallible and almost sacred. Now, majorities rule, not because\nthey are right, but because they are able to rule. In event of collision\nthey would conquer, so it is expedient for minorities to submit\nbeforehand to save trouble. In fact, majorities, embracing, as they\ndo the most ignorant, seldom think rightly; public opinion, being the\nopinion of mediocrity, is commonly a mistake and a mischief. But it is\nto nobody's interest--it is against the interest of most--to dispute\nwith it. Public writer and public speaker alike find their account in\nconfirming \"the plain people\" in their brainless errors and brutish\nprejudices--in glutting their omnivorous vanity and inflaming their\nimplacable racial and national hatreds.\n\nI have long held the opinion that patriotism is one of the most\nabominable vices affecting the human understanding. Every patriot in\nthis world believes his country better than any other country. Now, they\ncannot all be the best; indeed, only one can be the best, and it follows\nthat the patriots of all the others have suffered themselves to\nbe misled by a mere sentiment into blind unreason. In its active\nmanifestation--it is fond of shooting--patriotism would be well enough\nif it were simply defensive; but it is also aggressive, and the same\nfeeling that prompts us to strike for our altars and our fires impels\nus likewise to go over the border to quench the fires and overturn the\naltars of our neighbors. It is all very pretty and spirited, what the\npoets tell us about Thermopylae, but there was as much patriotism at one\nend of that pass as there was at the other. Patriotism deliberately and\nwith folly aforethought subordinates the interests of a whole to the\ninterests of a part. Worse still, the fraction so favored is determined\nby an accident of birth or residence. Patriotism is like a dog which,\nhaving entered at random one of a row of kennels, suffers more in\ncombats with the dogs in the other kennels than it would have done\nby sleeping in the open air. The hoodlum who cuts the tail from a\nChinamen's nowl, and would cut the nowl from the body if he dared,\nis simply a patriot with a logical mind, having the courage of his\nopinions. Patriotism is fierce as a fever, pitiless as the grave, blind\nas a stone and irrational as a headless hen.\n\nThere are two ways of clarifying liquids--ebullition and precipitation;\none forces the impurities to the surface as scum, the other sends them\nto the bottom as dregs. The former is the more offensive, and that\nseems to be our way; but neither is useful if the impurities are merely\nseparated but not removed. We are told with tiresome iteration that our\nsocial and political systems are clarifying; but when is the skimmer to\nappear? If the purpose of free institutions is good government where is\nthe good government?--when may it be expected to begin?--how is it to\ncome about? Systems of government have no sanctity; they are practical\nmeans to a simple end--the public welfare; worthy of no respect if they\nfail of its accomplishment. The tree is known by its fruit. Ours, is\nbearing crab-apples.\n\nIf the body politic is constitutionally diseased, as I verily believe;\nif the disorder inheres in the system; there is no remedy. The fever\nmust burn itself out, and then Nature will do the rest. One does not\nprescribe what time alone can administer. We have put our criminal class\nin power; do we suppose they will efface themselves? Will they restore\nto _us_ the power of governing _them_? They must have their way and\ngo their length. The natural and immemorial sequence is: tyranny,\ninsurrection, combat. In combat everything that wears a sword has a\nchance--even the right. History does not forbid us to hope. But it\nforbids us to rely upon numbers; they will be against us. If history\nteaches anything worth learning it teaches that the majority of mankind\nis neither good nor wise. Where government is founded upon the public\nconscience and the public intelligence the stability of States is a\ndream. Nor have we any warrant for the Tennysonian faith that\n\n     \"Freedom broadens slowly down\n     From precedent to precedent.\"\n\nIn that moment of time that is covered by historical records we have\nabundant evidence that each generation has believed itself wiser and\nbetter than any of its predecessors; that each people has believed\nitself to have the secret of national perpetuity. In support of this\nuniversal delusion there is nothing to be said; the desolate places\nof the earth cry out against it. Vestiges of obliterated civilizations\ncover the earth; no savage but has camped upon the sites of proud\nand populous cities; no desert but has heard the statesman's boast of\nnational stability. Our nation, our laws, our history--all shall go down\nto everlasting oblivion with the others, and by the same road. But I\nsubmit that we are traveling it with needless haste.\n\nBut it is all right and righteous. It can be spared--this Jonah's\ngourd civilization of ours. We have hardly the rudiments of a true\ncivilization; compared with the splendors of which we catch dim glimpses\nin the fading past, ours are as an illumination of tallow candles. We\nknow no more than the ancients; we only know other things, but nothing\nin which is an assurance of perpetuity, and little that is truly wisdom.\nOur vaunted _elixir vito_ is the art of printing with moveable types.\nWhat good will those do when posterity, struck by the inevitable\nintellectual blight, shall have ceased to read what is printed? Our\nlibraries will become its stables, our books its fuel.\n\nOurs is a civilization that might be heard from afar in space as\na scolding and a riot; a civilization in which the race has so\ndifferentiated as to have no longer a community of interest and\nfeeling; which shows as a ripe result of the principles underlying it\na reasonless and rascally feud between rich and poor; in which one is\noffered a choice (if one have the means to take it) between American\nplutocracy and European militocracy, with an imminent chance of\nrenouncing either for a stultocratic republic with a headsman in the\npresidential chair and every laundress in exile.\n\nI have not a \"solution\" to the \"labor problem.\" I have only a story.\nMany and many years ago lived a man who was so good and wise that none\nin all the world was so good and wise as he. He was one of those few\nwhose goodness and wisdom are such that after some time has passed their\nfellowmen begin to think them gods and treasure their words as divine\nlaw; and by millions they are worshiped through centuries of time.\nAmongst the utterances of this man was one command--not a new nor\nperfect one--which has seemed to his adorers so preeminently wise that\nthey have given it a name by which it is known over half the world. One\nof the sovereign virtues of this famous law is its simplicity, which is\nsuch that all hearing must understand; and obedience is so easy that any\nnation refusing is unfit to exist except in the turbulence and adversity\nthat will surely come to it. When a people would avert want and strife,\nor having them, would restore plenty and peace, this noble commandment\noffers the only means--all other plans for safety or relief are as vain\nas dreams, and as empty as the crooning of fools. And behold, here it\nis: \"All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye\neven so to them.\"\n\nWhat! you unappeasable rich, coining the sweat and blood of your workmen\ninto drachmas, understanding the law of supply and demand as mandatory\nand justifying your cruel greed by the senseless dictum that \"business\nis business;\" you lazy workman, railing at the capitalist by\nwhose desertion, when you have frightened away his capital, you\nstarve--rioting and shedding blood and torturing and poisoning by way\nof answer to exaction and by way of exaction; you foul anarchists,\napplauding with indelicate palms when one of your coward kind hurls a\nbomb amongst powerless and helpless women and children; you imbecile\npoliticians with a plague of remedial legislation for the irremediable;\nyou writers and thinkers unread in history, with as many \"solutions to\nthe labor problem\" as there are dunces among you who can not coherently\ndefine it--do you really think yourself wiser than Jesus of Nazareth? Do\nyou seriously suppose yourselves competent to amend his plan for dealing\nwith all the evils besetting states and souls? Have you the effrontery\nto believe that those who spurn his Golden Rule you can bind to\nobedience of an act entitled an act to amend an act? Bah! you fatigue\nthe spirit. Go get ye to your scoundrel lockouts, your villain strikes,\nyour blacklisting, your boycotting, your speech-ing, marching and\nmaundering; but if ye do not to others as ye would that they do to you\nit shall occur, and that right soon, that ye be drowned in your own\nblood and your pickpocket civilization quenched as a star that falls\ninto the sea.\n\n\n\n\nTHE GAME OF POLITICS\n\n\n\n\nI.\n\nIF ONE were to declare himself a Democrat or a Republican and the claim\nshould be contested he would find it a difficult one to prove. The\nmissing link in his chain of evidence would be the major premise in\nthe syllogism necessary to the establishment of his political status--a\ndefinition of \"Democrat\" or \"Republican.\" Most of the statesmen in\npublic and private life who are poll-parroting these words, do so with\nentire unconsciousness of their meaning, or rather without knowledge\nthat they have lost whatever of meaning they once had. The words are\nmere \"survivals,\" marking dead issues and covering allegiances of the\nloosest and most shallow character. On any question of importance each\nparty is divided against itself and dares not formulate a preference.\nThere is no question before the country upon which one may not think\nand vote as he likes without affecting his standing in the political\ncommunion of saints of which he professes himself a member. \"Party\nlines\" are as terribly confused as the parallels of latitude and\nlongitude after a twisting earthquake, or those aimless lines\nrepresenting the competing railroad on a map published by a company\noperating \"the only direct route.\" It is not probable that this state of\nthings can last; if there is to be \"government by party\"--and we should\nbe sad to think that so inestimable a boon were soon to return to Him\nwho gave it--men must begin to let their angry passions rise and take\nrides. \"Ill fares the land to hastening ills a prey,\" where the people\nare too wise to dispute and too good to fight. Let us have the good old\npolitical currency of bloody noses and cracked crowns; let the yawp\nof the demagogue be heard in the land; let ears be pestered with the\nspargent cheers of the masses. Give us a whoop-up that shall rouse us\nlike a rattling peal of thunder. Will nobody be our Moses--there\nshould be two Moseses--to lead us through this detestable wilderness of\npolitical stagnation?\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\nNowhere \"on God's green earth\"--it is fitting, that this paper contain\na bit of bosh--nowhere is so much insufferable stuff talked in a given\nperiod of time as in an American political convention. It is there that\nall those objectionable elements of the national character which evoke\nthe laughter of Europe and are the despair of our friends find freest\nexpression, unhampered by fear of any censorship more exacting than\nthat of \"the opposing party\"--which takes no account of intellectual\ndelinquencies, but only of moral. The \"organs\" of the \"opposing party\"\nwill not take the trouble to point out--even to observe--that the\n\"debasing sentiments\" and \"criminal views\" uttered in speech and\nplatform are expressed in sickening syntax and offensive rhetoric.\nDoubtless an American politician, statesman, what you will, could\ngo into a political convention and signify his views with simple,\nunpretentious common sense, but doubtless he never does.\n\nEvery community is cursed with a number of \"orators\"--men regarded as\n\"eloquent\"--\"silver tongued\" men--fellows who to the common American\nknack at brandishing the tongue add an exceptional felicity of\nplatitude, a captivating mastery of dog's-eared sentiment, a copious and\nobedient vocabulary of eulogium, an iron insensibility to the ridiculous\nand an infinite affinity to fools. These afflicting Chrysostoms are\nalways lying in wait for an \"occasion\" It matters not what it is: a\n\"reception\" to some great man from abroad, a popular ceremony like the\nlaying of a corner-stone, the opening of a fair, the dedication of a\npublic building, an anniversary banquet of an ancient and honorable\norder (they all belong to ancient and honorable orders) or a club\ndinner--they all belong to clubs and pay dues. But it is in the\npolitical convention that they come out particularly strong. By some\nimperious tradition having the force of written law it is decreed that\nin these absurd bodies of our fellow citizens no word of sense shall be\nuttered from the platform; whatever is uttered in set speeches shall be\naddressed to the meanest capacity present As a chain can be no stronger\nthan its weakest link, so nothing said by the speakers at a political\nconvention must be above the intellectual reach of the most pernicious\nidiot having a seat and a vote. I don't know why it is so. It seems to\nbe thought that if he is not suitably entertained he will not attend, as\na delegate, the next convention.\n\nHere are the opening sentences of the speech in which a man was once\nnominated for Governor:\n\n\"Two years ago the Republican party in State and Nation marched to\nimperial triumph. On every hilltop and mountain peak our beacons\nblazed and we awakened the echoes of every valley with songs of our\nrejoicings.\"\n\nAnd so forth. Now, if I were asked to recast those sentences so that\nthey should conform to the simple truth and be inoffensive to good taste\nI should say something like this:\n\n\"Two years ago the Republican party won a general election.\"\n\nIf there is any thing in this inflated rigmarole that is not adequately\nexpressed in my amended statement, what is it? As to eloquence it will\nhardly be argued that nonsense, falsehood and metaphors which were\nold when Rome was young are essential to that. The first man (in early\nGreece) who spoke of awakening an echo did a felicitous thing. Was it\nfelicitous in the second? Is it felicitous now? As to that military\nmetaphor--the \"marching\" and so forth--its inventor was as great an ass\nas any one of the incalculable multitude of his plagiarists. On this\nmatter hear the late Richard Grant White:\n\n\"Is it not time that we had done with the nauseous talk about campaigns,\nand standard-bearers, and glorious victories (imperial triumphs) and\nall the bloated army-bumming bombast which is so rife for the six months\npreceding an election? To read almost any one of our political papers\nduring a canvass is enough to make one sick and sorry.... An election\nhas no manner of likeness to a campaign, or a battle. It is not even a\ncontest in which the stronger or more dexterous party is the winner; it\nis a mere counting, in which the bare fact that one party is the more\nnumerous puts it in power if it will only come up and be counted; to\ninsure which a certain time is spent by each party in reviling and\nbelittling the candidates of its opponents and lauding its own; and\nthis is the canvass, at the likening of which to a campaign every honest\nsoldier might reasonably take offense.\"\n\nBut, after all, White was only \"one o' them dam litery fellers,\" and I\ndare say the original proponent of the military metaphor, away off\nthere in \"the dark backward and abysm of time,\" knew a lot more about\npractical politics than White ever did. And it is practical politics to\nbe an ass.\n\nIn withdrawing his own name from before a convention, a California\npolitician once made a purely military speech of which a single sample\npassage is all that I shall allow myself the happiness to quote:\n\n\"I come before you today as a Republican of the Republican banner county\nof this great State of ours. From snowy Shasta on the north to sunny\nDiego on the south; from the west, where the waves of the Pacific look\nupon our shores, to where the barriers of the great Sierras stand clad\nin eternal snow, there is no more loyal county to the Republican party\nin this State than the county from which I hail. [Applause, naturally.]\nIts loyalty to the party has been tested on many fields of battle\n[Anglice, in many elections] and it has never wavered in the contest\nWherever the fate of battle was trembling in the balance [Homer, and\nsince Homer, Tom, Dick and Harry] Alameda county stepped into the breach\nand rescued the Republican party from defeat.\"\n\nTranslated into English this military mouthing would read somewhat like\nthis:\n\n\"I live in Alameda county, where the Republicans have uniformly outvoted\nthe Democrats.\"\n\nThe orators at the Democratic convention a week earlier were no better\nand no different. Their rhetorical stock-in-trade was the same old\nshop-worn figures of speech in which their predecessors have dealt for\nages, and in which their successors will traffic to the end of--well, to\nthe end of that imitative quality in the national character, which,\nby its superior intensity, serves to distinguish us from the apes that\nperish.\n\n\n\n\nIII.\n\n\"What we most need, to secure honest elections,\" says a well-meaning\nreformer, \"is the Clifford or the Myers voting machine.\" Why, truly,\nhere is a hopeful spirit--a rare and radiant intelligence suffused with\nthe conviction that men can be made honest by machinery--that human\ncharacter is a matter of gearing, ratchets and dials! One would give\nsomething to know how it feels to be like that. A mind so constituted\nmust be as happy in its hope as a hen incubating a nest-ful of porcelain\ndoor-knobs. It lives in rapturous contemplation of a world of its own\ncreation--a world where public morality and political good order are\nto be had by purchase at the machine-shop. In that delectable world\nreligion is superfluous; the true high priest is the mechanical\nengineer; the minor clergy are the village blacksmiths. It is rather\na pity that so fine and fair a sphere should prosper only in the\nattenuated ether of an idiot's understanding.\n\nVoting-machines are doubtless well enough; they save labor and enable\nthe statesmen of the street to know the result within a few minutes of\nthe closing of the polls--whereby many are spared to their country who\nwould otherwise incur fatal disorders by exposure to the night air\nwhile assisting in awaiting the returns. But a voting-machine that human\ningenuity can not pervert, human ingenuity can not invent.\n\nThat is true, too, of laws. Your statesman of a mental stature somewhat\novertopping that of the machine-person puts his faith in law.\nProvidence has designed to permit him to be persuaded of the efficacy\nof statutes--good, stringent, carefully drawn statutes definitively\nrepealing all the laws of nature in conflict with any of their\nprovisions. So the poor devil (I am writing of Mr. Legion) turns for\nrelief from law to law, ever on the stool of repentance, yet ever\nunfouling the anchor of hope. By no power cm earth can his indurated\nunderstanding be penetrated by the truth that his woful state is due,\nnot to any laws of his own, nor to any lack of them, but to his rascally\nrefusal to obey the Golden Rule. How long is it since we were all\nclamoring for the Australian ballot law, which was to make a new Heaven\nand a new earth? We have the Australian ballot law and the same old\nearth smelling to the same old Heaven. Writhe upon the triangle as we\nmay, groan out what new laws we will, the pitiless thong will fall upon\nour bleeding backs as long as we deserve it. If our sins, which are\nscarlet, are to be washed as white as wool it must be in the tears of a\ngenuine contrition: our crocodile deliverances will profit us nothing.\nWe must stop chasing dollars, stop lying, stop cheating, stop ignoring\nart, literature and all the refining agencies and instrumentalities of\ncivilization. We must subdue our detestable habit of shaking hands with\nprosperous rascals and fawning upon the merely rich. It is not permitted\nto our employers to plead in justification of low wages the law of\nsupply and demand that is giving them high profits. It is not permitted\nto discontented employees to break the bones of contented ones and\ndestroy the foundations of social order. It is infamous to look upon\npublic office with the lust of possession; it is disgraceful to solicit\npolitical preferment, to strive and compete for \"honors\" that are\nsullied and tarnished by the touch of the reaching hand. Until we amend\nour personal characters we shall amend our laws in vain. Though Paul\nplant and Apollos water, the field of reform will grow nothing but the\nfigless thistle and the grapeless thorn. The State is an aggregation of\nindividuals. Its public character is the expression of their personal\nones. By no political prestidigitation can it be made better and wiser\nthan the sum of their goodness and wisdom. To expect that men who do not\nhonorably and intelligently conduct their private affairs will honorably\nand intelligently conduct the affairs of the community is to be a fool.\nWe are told that out of nothing God made the Heavens and the earth; but\nout of nothing God never did and man never can, make a public sense of\nhonor and a public conscience. Miracles are now performed but one day\nof the year--the twenty-ninth of February; and on leap year God is\nforbidden to perform them.\n\n\n\n\nIV.\n\nYe who hold that the power of eloquence is a thing of the past and the\norator an anachronism; who believe that the trend of political events\nand the results of parliamentary action are determined by committees\nin cold consultation and the machinations of programmes in holes and\ncorners, consider the ascension of Bryan and be wise. A week before the\nconvention of 1896 William J. Bryan had never heard of himself; upon his\nnatural obscurity was superposed the opacity of a Congressional service\nthat effaced him from the memory of even his faithful dog, and made him\nimmune to dunning. Today he is pinnacled upon the summit of the tallest\npolitical distinction, gasping in the thin atmosphere of his unfamiliar\nenvironment and fitly astonished at the mischance. To the dizzy\nelevation of his candidacy he was hoisted out of the shadow by his own\ntongue, the longest and liveliest in Christendom. Had he held it--which\nhe could not have done with both hands--there had been no Bryan. His\ncreation was the unstudied act of his own larynx; it said, \"Let there\nbe Bryan,\" and there was Bryan. Even in these degenerate days there is\na hope for the orators when one can make himself a Presidential peril by\nmerely waving the red flag in the cave of the winds and tormenting the\ncircumjacence with a brandish of abundant hands.\n\nTo be quite honest, I do not entirely believe that Orator Bryan's tongue\nhad anything to do with it. I have long been convinced that personal\npersuasion is a matter of animal magnetism--what in its more obvious\nmanifestation we now call hypnotism. At the back of the words and the\npostures, and independent of them, is that secret, mysterious\npower, addressing, not the ear, not the eye, nor, through them,\nthe understanding, but through its matching quality in the auditor,\ncaptivating the will and enslaving it That is how persuasion is\neffected; the spoken words merely supply a pretext for surrender. They\nenable us to yield without loss of our self-esteem, in the delusion that\nwe are conceding to reason what is really extorted by charm. The words\nare necessary, too, to point out what the orator wishes us to think,\nif we are not already apprised of it. When the nature of his power is\nbetter understood and frankly recognized, he can spare himself the toil\nof talking. The parliamentary debate of the future will probably be\nconducted in silence, and with only such gestures as go by the name of\n\"passes.\" The chairman will state the question before the House and\nthe side, affirmative or negative, to be taken by the honorable member\nentitled to the floor. That gentleman will rise, train his compelling\norbs upon the miscreants in opposition, execute a few passes and exhaust\nhis alloted time in looking at them. He will then yield to an honorable\nmember of dissenting views. The preponderance in magnetic power and\nhypnotic skill will be manifest in the voting. The advantages of the\nmethod are as plain as the nose on an elephant's face. The \"arena\" will\nno longer \"ring\" with anybody's \"rousing speech,\" to the irritating\nabridgment of the inalienable right to pursuit of sleep. Honorable\nmembers will lack provocation to hurl allegations and cuspidors.\nPitchforking statesmen and tosspot reformers will be unable to play at\npitch-and-toss with reputations not submitted for the performance. In\nshort, the congenial asperities of debate will be so mitigated that the\nhonorable member from Hades will retire permanently from the hauls of\nlegislation.\n\n\n\n\nV.\n\n\"Public opinion,\" says Buckle, \"being the voice of the average man, is\nthe voice of mediocrity.\" Is it therefore so very wise and infallible\na guide as to be accepted without other credentials than its name and\nfame? Ought we to follow its light and leading with no better assurance\nof the character of its authority than a count of noses of those\nfollowing it already, and with no inquiry as to whether it has not on\nmany former occasions let them and their several sets of predecessors\ninto bogs of error and over precipices to \"eternal mock?\" Surely\n\"the average man,\" as every one knows him, is not very wise, not very\nlearned, not very good; how is it that his views, of so intricate and\ndifficult matters as those of which public opinion makes pronouncement\nthrough him are entitled to such respect? It seems to me that the\naverage man, as I know him, is very much a fool, and something of a\nrogue as well. He has only a smattering of education, knows virtually\nnothing of political history, nor history of any kind, is incapable of\nlogical, that is to say clear, thinking, is subject to the suasion of\nbase and silly prejudices, and selfish beyond expression. That such\na person's opinions should be so obviously better than my own that\nI should accept them instead, and assist in enacting them into laws,\nappears to me most improbable. I may \"bow to the will of the people\"\nas gracefully as a defeated candidate, and for the same reason, namely,\nthat I can not help myself; but to admit that I was wrong in my belief\nand flatter the power that subdues me--no, that I will not do. And if\nnobody would do so the average man would not be so very cock-sure of\nhis infallibility and might sometimes consent to be counseled by his\nbetters.\n\nIn any matter of which the public has imperfect knowledge, public\nopinion is as likely to be erroneous as is the opinion of an individual\nequally uninformed. To hold otherwise is to hold that wisdom can be got\nby combining many ignorances. A man who knows nothing of algebra can\nnot be assisted in the solution of an algebraic problem by calling in\na neighbor who knows no more than himself, and the solution approved\nby the unanimous vote of ten million such men would count for nothing\nagainst that of a competent mathematician. To be entirely consistent,\ngentlemen enamored of public opinion should insist that the text books\nof our common schools should be the creation of a mass meeting, and all\ndisagreements arising in the course of the work settled by a majority\nvote. That is how all difficulties incident to the popular translation\nof the Hebrew Scriptures were composed. It should be admitted, however\nthat most of those voting knew a little Hebrew, though not much. A\nproblem in mathematics is a very simple thing compared with many of\nthose upon which the people are called to pronounce by resolution and\nballot--for example, a question of finance.\n\n\"The voice of the people is the voice of God\"--the saying is so\nrespectably old that it comes to us in the Latin. He is a strange, an\nunearthly politician who has not a score of times publicly and solemnly\nsignified his faith in it But does anyone really believe it? Let us see.\nIn the period between 1859 and 1885, the Democratic party was defeated\nsix times in succession. The voice of the people pronounced it in error\nand unfit to govern. Yet after each overthrow it came back into the\nfield gravely reaffirming its faith in the principles that God had\ncondemned. Then God twice reversed Himself, and the Republicans \"never\nturned a hair,\" but set about beating Him with as firm a confidence of\nsuccess (justified by the event) as they had known in the years of their\nprosperity. Doubtless in every instance of a political party's defeat\nthere are defections, but doubtless not all are due to the voice that\nspoke out of the great white light that fell about Saul of Tarsus. By\nthe way, it is worth observing that that clever gentleman was under no\nillusion regarding the origin of the voice that wrought his celebrated\n\"flop\"; he did not confound it with the _vox populi_ The people of\nhis time and place had no objection to the persecution that he was\nconducting, and could persecute a trifle themselves upon occasion.\n\nMajorities rule, when they do rule, not because they ought, but because\nthey can. We vote in order to learn without fighting which party is the\nstronger; it is less disagreeable to learn it that way than the other\nway. Sometimes the party that is numerically the weaker is by possession\nof the Government actually the stronger, and could maintain itself in\npower by an appeal to arms, but the habit of submitting when outvoted\nis hard to break. Moreover, we all recognize in a subconscious way, the\nreasonableness of the habit as a practical method of getting on; and\nthere is always the confident hope of success in the next canvass. That\none's cause will succeed because it ought to succeed is perhaps the most\ngeneral and invincible folly affecting the human judgment Observation\ncan not shake it, nor experience destroy. Though you bray a partisan in\nthe mortar of adversity till he numbers the strokes of the pestle by the\nhairs of his head, yet will not this fool notion depart from him. He is\nalways going to win the next time, however frequently and disastrously\nhe has lost before. And he can always give you the most cogent reasons\nfor the faith that is in him. His chief reliance is on the \"fatal\nmistakes\" made since the last election by the other party. There never\nwas a year in which the party in power and the party out of power did\nnot make bad mistakes--mistakes which, unlike eggs and fish, seem always\nworst when freshest. If idiotic errors of policy were always fatal, no\nparty would ever win an election and there would be a hope of better\ngovernment under the benign sway of the domestic cow.\n\n\n\n\nVI.\n\nEach political party accuses the \"opposing candidate\" of refusing to\nanswer certain questions which somebody has chosen to ask him. I think\nmyself it is discreditable for a candidate to answer any questions at\nall, to make speeches, declare his policy, or to do anything whatever\nto get himself elected. If a political party choose to nominate a man so\nobscure that his character and his views on all public questions are\nnot known or inferable he ought to have the dignity to refuse to expound\nthem. As to the strife for office being a pursuit worthy of a noble\nambition, I do not think so; nor shall I believe that many do think so\nuntil the term \"office seeker\" carries a less opprobrious meaning\nand the dictum that \"the office should seek the man, not the man the\noffice,\" has a narrower currency among all manner of persons. That by\nacts and words generally felt to be discreditable a man may evoke great\npopular enthusiasm is not at all surprising. The late Mr. Barnum was not\nthe first nor the last to observe that the people love to be humbugged.\nThey love an impostor and a scamp, and the best service that you can do\nfor a candidate for high political preferment is to prove him a little\nbetter than a thief, but not quite so good as a thug.\n\n\n\n\nVII.\n\nThe view is often taken that a representative is the same thing as a\ndelegate; that he is to have, and can honestly entertain, no opinion\nthat is at variance with the whims and the caprices of his constituents.\nThis is the very _reductio ad absurdum_ of representative government.\nThat it is the dominant theory of the future there can be little doubt,\nfor it is of a piece with the progress downward which is the invariable\nand unbroken tendency of republican institutions. It fits in well with\nmanhood suffrage, rotation in office, unrestricted patronage, assessment\nof subordinates, an elective judiciary and the rest of it. This theory\nof representative institutions is the last and lowest stage in our\npleasant performance of \"shooting Niagara.\" When it shall have universal\nrecognition and assent we shall have been fairly engulfed in the\nwhirlpool, and the buzzard of anarchy may hopefully whet his beak for\nthe national carcass. My view of the matter--which has the further merit\nof being the view held by those who founded this Government--is that a\nman holding office from and for the people is in conscience and honor\nbound to do what seems to his judgment best for the general welfare,\nrespectfully regardless of any and all other considerations. This is\nespecially true of legislators, to whom such specific \"instructions\" as\nconstituents sometimes send are an impertinence and an insult. Pushed to\nits logical conclusion, the \"delegate\" idea would remove all necessity\nof electing men of brains and judgment; one man properly connected\nwith his constituents by telegraph would make as good a legislator as\nanother. Indeed, as a matter of economy, one representative should act\nfor many constituencies, receiving his instructions how to vote from\nmass meetings in each. This, besides being logical, would have the added\nadvantage of widening and hardening the power of the local \"bosses,\"\nwho, by properly managing the showing of hands could have the same\nbeneficent influence in national affairs that they now enjoy in\nmunicipal. The plan would be a pretty good one if there were not so many\nother ways for the Nation to go to the Devil that it appears needless.\n\n\n\n\nVIII.\n\nWith a wiser wisdom than was given to them, our forefathers in making\nthe Constitution would not have provided that each House of Congress\n\"shall be the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of\nits own members.\" They would have foreseen that a ruling majority of\nCongress could not safely be trusted to exercise this power justly in\nthe public interest, but would abuse it in the interest of party. A\nman's right to sit in a legislative body should be determined, not by\nthat body, which has neither the impartiality, the knowledge of evidence\nnor the time to determine it rightly, but by the courts of law. That is\nhow it is done in England, where Parliament voluntarily surrendered the\nright to say by whom the constituencies shall be represented, and there\nis no disposition to resume it. As the vices hunt in packs, so, too,\nvirtues are gregarious; if our Congress had the righteousness to decide\ncontested elections justly it would have also the self-denial not to\nwish to decide them at all.\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\nThe purpose of the legislative custom of \"eulogizing\" dead members of\nCongress is not apparent unless it is to add a terror to death and make\nhonorable and self-respecting members rather bear the ills they have\nthan escape through the gates of death to others that they know a good\ndeal about. If a member of that kind, who has had the bad luck to \"go\nbefore,\" could be consulted he would indubitably say that he was sorry\nto be dead; and that is not a natural frame of mind in one who is exempt\nfrom the necessity of himself \"delivering a eulogy.\"\n\nIt may be urged that the Congressional \"eulogy\" expresses in a general\nway the eulogist's notion of what he would like to have somebody say\nof himself when he is by death elected to the Lower House. If so, then\nHeaven help him to a better taste. Meanwhile it is a patriotic duty to\nprevent him from indulging at the public expense the taste that he has.\nThere have been a few men in Congress who could speak of the character\nand services of a departed member with truth and even eloquence. One\nsuch was Senator Vest. Of many others, the most charitable thing that\none can conscientiously say is that one would a little rather hear a\n\"eulogy\" by them than on them. Considering that there are many kinds\nof brains and only one kind of no brains, their diversity of gifts is\nremarkable, but one characteristic they have in common: they are all\npoets. Their efforts in the way of eulogium illustrate and illuminate\nPascal's obscure saying that poetry is a particular sadness. If not sad\nthemselves, they are at least the cause of sadness in others, for no\nsooner do they take to their legs to remind us that life is fleeting,\nand to make us glad that it is, than they burst into bloom as poets all!\nSome one has said that in the contemplation of death there is something\nthat belittles. Perhaps that explains the transformation. Anyhow the\nCongressional eulogist takes to verse as naturally as a moth to a\ncandle, and with about the same result to his reputation for sense.\n\nThe poetry is commonly not his own; what it violates every law of sense,\nfitness, metre, rhyme and taste it is. But nine times in ten it is\nsome dog's-eared, shop-worn quotation from one of the \"standard\" bards,\nusually Shakspere. There are familiar passages from that poet which\nhave been so often heard in \"the halls of legislation\" that they have\nacquired an infamy which unfits them for publication in a decent family\nnewspaper; and Shakspere himself, reposing in Elysium on his bed of\nasphodel and moly, omits them when reading his complete works to the\nshades of Kit Marlowe and Ben Jonson, for their sins.\n\nThis whole business ought to be \"cut out\" It is not only a waste of\ntime and a sore trial to the patience of the country; it is absolutely\nimmoral. It is not true that a member of Congress who, while living\nwas a most ordinary mortal, becomes by the accident of death a hero, a\nsaint, \"an example to American youth.\" Nobody believes these abominable\n\"eulogies,\" and nobody should be permitted to utter them in the time\nand place designated for another purpose. A \"tribute\" that is exacted\nby custom and has not the fire and light of spontaneity is without\nsincerity or sense. A simple resolution of regret and respect is all\nthat the occasion requires and would not inhibit any further utterance\nthat friends and admirers of the deceased might be moved to make\nelsewhere. If any bereaved gentlemen, feeling his heart getting into his\nhead, wishes to tickle his ear with his tongue by way of standardizing\nhis emotion let him hire a hall and do so. But he should not make the\nCapitol a \"Place of Wailing\" and the Congressional Record a book of\nbathos.\n\n\n\n\nSOME FEATURES OF THE LAW\n\n\n\n\nI.\n\nTHERE is a difference between religion and the amazing circumstructure\nwhich, under the name of theology, the priesthoods have builded round\nabout it, which for centuries they made the world believe was the true\ntemple, and which, after incalculable mischiefs wrought, immeasurable\nblood spilled in its extension and consolidation, is only now beginning\nto crumble at the touch of reason. There is the same difference between\nthe laws and the law--the naked statutes (bad enough, God knows) and\nthe incomputable additions made to them by lawyers. This immense body of\nsuperingenious writings it is that we all are responsible to in person\nand property. It is unquestionable authority for setting aside any\nstatute that any legislative body ever passed or can pass. In it are\ndictates of recognized validity for turning topsy-turvy every principle\nof justice and reversing every decree of reason. There is no fallacy so\nmonstrous, no deduction so hideously unrelated to common sense, as not\nto receive, somewhere in the myriad pages of this awful compilation, a\nsupport that any judge in the land would be proud to recognize with a\ndecision if ably persuaded. I do not say that the lawyers are altogether\nresponsible for the existence of this mass of disastrous rubbish, nor\nfor its domination of the laws. They only create and thrust it down\nour throats; we are guilty of contributory negligence in not biting the\nspoon.\n\nAs long as there exists the right of appeal there is a chance of\nacquittal. Otherwise the right of appeal would be a sham and an insult\nmore intolerable, even, than that of the man convicted of murder to say\nwhy he should not receive the sentence which nothing he may say will\navert. So long as acquittal may ensue guilt is not established. Why,\nthan are men sentenced before they are proved guilty? Why are they\npunished in the middle of proceedings against them? A lawyer can reply\nto these questions in a thousand ingenious ways; there is but one\nanswer. It is because we are a barbarous race, submitting to laws made\nby lawyers for lawyers. Let the \"legal fraternity\" reflect that a lawyer\nis one whose profession it is to circumvent the law; that it is a\npart of his business to mislead and befog the court of which he is an\nofficer; that it is considered right and reasonable for him to live by\na division of the spoils of crime and misdemeanor; that the utmost\natonement he ever makes for acquitting a man whom he knows to be guilty\nis to convict a man whom he knows to be innocent. I have looked into\nthis thing a bit and it is my judgment that all the methods of our\ncourts, and the traditions of bench and bar exist and are perpetuated,\naltered and improved, for the one purpose of enabling the lawyers as a\nclass to exact the greatest amount of money from the rest of mankind.\nThe laws are mostly made by lawyers, and so made as to encourage and\ncompel litigation. By lawyers they are interpreted and by lawyers\nenforced for their own profit and advantage. The whole intricate and\ninterminable machinery of precedent, rulings, decisions, objections,\nwrits of error, motions for new trials, appeals, reversals, affirmations\nand the rest of it, is a transparent and iniquitous systems of\n\"cinching.\" What remedy would I propose? None. There is none to propose.\nThe lawyers have \"got us\" and they mean to keep us. But if thoughtless\nchildren of the frontier sometimes rise to tar and feather the legal\npelt may God's grace go with them and amen. I do not believe there is a\nlawyer in Heaven, but by a bath of tar and a coating of hen's-down they\ncan be made to resemble angels more nearly than by any other process.\n\nThe matchless villainy of making men suffer for crimes of which they may\neventually be acquitted is consistent with our entire system of laws--a\nsystem so complicated and contradictory that a judge simply does as he\npleases, subject only to the custom of giving for his action reasons\nthat at his option may or may not be derived from the statute. He may\nsternly affirm that he sits there to interpret the law as he finds it,\nnot to make it accord with his personal notions of right and justice. Or\nhe may declare that it could never have been the Legislature's intention\nto do wrong, and so, shielded by the useful phrase _contra bonos mores_,\npronounce that illegal which he chooses to consider inexpedient. Or\nhe may be guided by either of any two inconsistent precedents, as best\nsuits his purpose. Or he may throw aside both statute and precedent,\ndisregard good morals, and justify the judgment that he wishes to\ndeliver by what other lawyers have written in books, and still others,\nwithout anybody's authority, have chosen to accept as a part of the law.\nI have in mind judges whom I have observed to do all these things in a\nsingle term of court, and could mention one who has done them all in a\nsingle decision, and that not a very long one. The amazing feature\nof the matter is that all these methods are lawful--made so, not by\nlegislative enactment, but by the judges. Language can not be used with\nsufficient lucidity and positiveness to land them.\n\nThe legal purpose of a preliminary examination is not the discovery of\na criminal; it is the ascertaining of the probable guilt or innocence\nof the person already charged. To permit that person's counsel to insult\nand madden the various assisting witnesses in the hope of making them\nseem to incriminate themselves instead of him by statements that may\nafterward be used to confuse a jury--that is perversion of law to defeat\njustice. The outrageous character of the practice is seen to better\nadvantage what contrasted with the tender consideration enjoyed by the\nperson actually accused and presumably guilty--the presumption of his\ninnocence being as futile a fiction as that a sheep's tail is a leg when\ncalled so. Actually, the prisoner in a criminal trial is the only\nperson supposed to have a knowledge of the facts who is not compelled to\ntestify! And this amazing exemption is given him by way of immunity\nfrom the snares and pitfalls with which the paths of all witnesses are\nwantonly beset! To a visiting Lunarian it would seem strange indeed\nthat in a Terrestrial court of justice it is not deemed desirable for an\naccused person to incriminate himself, and that it _is_ deemed desirable\nfor a subpoena to be more dreaded than a warrant.\n\nWhen a child, a wife, a servant, a student--any one under personal\nauthority or bound by obligation of honor--is accused or suspected an\nexplanation is demanded, and refusal to testify is held, and rightly\nheld, a confession of guilt To question the accused--rigorously and\nsharply to examine him on all matters relating to the offense, and even\ntrap him if he seem to be lying--that is Nature's method of criminal\nprocedure; why in our public trials do we forego its advantages? It may\nannoy; a person arrested for crime must expect annoyance. It can not\nmake an innocent man incriminate himself, not even a witness, but it can\nmake a rogue do so, and therein lies its value. Any pressure short of\nphysical torture or the threat of it, that can be put upon a rogue to\nmake him assist in his own undoing is just and therefore expedient.\n\nThis ancient and efficient safeguard to rascality, the right of a\nwitness to refuse to testify when his testimony would tend to convict\nhim of crime, has been strengthened by a decision of the United States\nSupreme Court. That will probably add another century or two to its\nmischievous existence, and possibly prove the first act in such an\nextension of it that eventually a witness can not be compelled to\ntestify at all. In fact it is difficult to see how he can be compelled\nto now if he has the hardihood to exercise his constitutional right\nwithout shame and with an intelligent consciousness of its limitless\napplication.\n\nThe case in which the Supreme Court made the decision was one in which a\nwitness refused to say whether he had received from a defendant railway\ncompany a rate on grain shipments lower than the rate open to all\nshippers. The trial was in the United States District Court for the\nNorthern District of Illinois, and Judge Gresham chucked the scoundrel\ninto jail. He naturally applied to the Supreme Court for relief, and\nthat high tribunal gave joy to every known or secret malefactor in the\ncountry by deciding--according to law, no doubt--that witnesses in a\ncriminal case can not be compelled to testify to anything that \"_might\ntend_ to criminate them _in any way_, or subject them to _possible_\nprosecution.\" The italics are my own and seem to me to indicate, about\nas clearly as extended comment could, the absolutely boundless nature\nof the immunity that the decision confirms or confers. It is to be\nhoped that some public-spirited gentleman called to the stand in some\ncelebrated case may point the country's attention to the state of the\nlaw by refusing to tell his name, age or occupation, or answer any\nquestion whatever. And it would be a fitting _finale_ to the farce if he\nwould threaten the too curious attorney with an action for damages for\ncompelling a disclosure of character.\n\nMost lawyers have made so profound a study of human nature as to think\nthat if they have shown a man to be of loose life with regard to women\nthey have shown him to be one that would tell needless lies to a jury--a\nconviction unsupported by the familiar facts of life and character.\nDifferent men have different vices, and addiction to one kind of\n\"upsetting sin\" does not imply addiction to an unrelated kind. Doubtless\na rake is a liar in so far as is needful to concealment, but it does\nnot follow that he will commit perjury to save a horsethief from the\npenitentiary or send a good man to the gallows. As to lying, generally,\nhe is not conspicuously worse than the mere lover, male or female; for\nlovers have been liars from the beginning of time. They deceive when it\nis necessary and when it is not. Schopenhauer says that it is because of\na sense of guilt--they contemplate the commission of a crime and, like\nother criminals, cover their tracks. I am not prepared to say if that\nis the true explanation, but to the fact to be explained I am ready to\ntestify with lifted arms. Yet no cross-examining attorney tries to break\nthe credibility of a witness by showing that he is in love.\n\nAn habitual liar, if disinterested, makes about as good a witness\nas anybody. There is really no such thing as \"the lust of lying:\"\nfalsehoods are told for advantage--commonly a shadowy and illusory\nadvantage, but one distinctly enough had in mind. Discerning no\nopportunity to promote his interest, tickle his vanity or feed a grudge,\nthe habitual liar will tell the truth. If lawyers would study human\nnature with half the assiduity that they give to resolution of hairs\ninto their longitudinal elements they would be better fitted for service\nof the devil than they have now the usefulness to be.\n\nI have always asserted the right and expediency of cross-examining\nattorneys in court with a view to testing their credibility. An\nattorney's relation to the trial is closer and more important than that\nof a witness. He has more to say and more opportunities to deceive\nthe jury, not only by naked lying, but by both _suppressio veri_ and\n_suggestio falsi_. Why is it not important to ascertain his credibility;\nand if an inquiry into his private life and public reputation will\nassist, as himself avers, why should he not be put upon the grill and\ncompelled to sweat out the desired incrimination? I should think it\nmight give good results, for example, to compel him to answer a few\nquestions touching, not his private life, but his professional. Somewhat\nlike this:\n\n\"Did you ever defend a client, knowing him to be guilty?\"\n\n\"What was your motive in doing so?\"\n\n\"But in addition to your love of fair play had you not also the hope and\nassurance of a fee?\"\n\n\"In defending your guilty client did you declare your belief in his\ninnocence?\"\n\n\"Yes, I understand, but necessary as it may have been (in that it helped\nto defeat justice and earn your fee) was not your declaration a lie?\"\n\n\"Do you believe it right to lie for the purpose of circumventing\njustice?--yes or no?\"\n\n\"Do you believe it right to lie for personal gain--yes or no?\"\n\n\"Then why did you do both?\"\n\n\"A man who lies to beat the laws and fill his purse is--what?\"\n\n\"In defending a murderer did you ever misrepresent the character, acts,\nmotives and intentions of the man that he murdered--never mind the\npurpose and effect of such misrepresentation--yes or no?\"\n\n\"That is what we call slander of the dead, is it not?\"\n\n\"What is the most accurate name you can think of for one who slanders\nthe dead to defeat justice and promote his own fortune?\"\n\n\"Yes, I know--such practices are allowed by the 'ethics' of your\nprofession, but can you point to any evidence that they are allowed by\nJesus Christ?\"\n\n\"If in former trials you have obstructed justice by slander of the\ndead, by falsely affirming the innocence of the guilty, by cheating in\nargument, by deceiving the court whom you are sworn to serve and assist,\nand have done all this for personal gain, do you expect, and is it\nreasonable for you to expect, the jury in this case to believe you?\"\n\n\"One moment more, please. Did you ever accept an annual, or other fee\nconditioned on your not taking any action against a corporation?\"\n\n\"While in receipt of such refrainer--I beg you pardon, retainer--did you\never prosecute a blackmailer?\"\n\nIt will be seen that in testing the credibility of a lawyer it is\nneedless to go into his private life and his character as a man and\na citizen: his professional practices are an ample field in which to\nsearch for offenses against man and God. Indeed, it is sufficient simply\nto ask him: \"What is your view of 'the ethics of your profession' as a\nsuitable standard of conduct for a pirate of the Spanish Main?\"\n\nThe moral sense of the laymen is dimly conscious of something wrong\nin the ethics of the noble profession; the lawyers affirming, rightly\nenough, a public necessity for them and their mercenary services, permit\ntheir thrift to construe it vaguely as personal justification. But\nnobody has blown away from the matter its brumous encompassment and let\nin the light upon it It is very simple.\n\nIs it honorable for a lawyer to try to clear a man that he knows\ndeserves conviction? That is not the entire question by much. Is it\nhonorable to pretend to believe what you do not believe? Is it honorable\nto lie? I submit that these questions are not answered affirmatively by\nshowing the disadvantage to the public and to civilization of a lawyer\nrefusing to serve a known offender. The popular interest, like any other\ngood cause, can be and commonly is, served by foul means. Justice itself\nmay be promoted by acts essentially unjust. In serving a sordid ambition\na powerful scoundrel may by acts in themselves wicked augment the\nprosperity of a whole nation. I have not the right to deceive and lie in\norder to advantage my fellowmen, any more than I have the right to steal\nor murder to advantage them, nor have my fellowmen the power to grant me\nthat indulgence.\n\nThe question of a lawyer's right to clear a known criminal (with the\nseveral questions involved) is not answered affirmatively by showing\nthat the law forbids him to decline a case for reasons personal to\nhimself--not even if we admit the statute's moral authority.\nPreservation of conscience and character is a civic duty, as well as a\npersonal; one's fellow-men have a distinct interest in it. That, I\nadmit, is an argument rather in the manner of an attorney; clearly\nenough the intent of this statute is to compel an attorney to cheat and\nlie for any rascal that wants him to. In that sense it may be regarded\nas a law softening the rigor of all laws; it does not mitigate\npunishments, but mitigates the chance of incurring them. The infamy of\nit lies in forbidding an attorney to be a gentleman. Like all laws it\nfalls something short of its intent: many attorneys, even some who\ndefend that law, are as honorable as is consistent with the practice of\ndeceit to serve crime.\n\nIt will not do to say that an attorney in defending a client is not\ncompelled to cheat and lie. What kind of defense could be made by any\none who did not profess belief in the innocence of his client?--did\nnot affirm it in the most serious and impressive way?--did not lie? How\nwould it profit the defense to be conducted by one who would not meet\nthe prosecution's grave asseverations of belief in the prisoner's guilt\nby equally grave assurances of faith in his innocence? And in point\nof fact, when was counsel for the defense ever known to forego the\nadvantage of that solemn falsehood? If I am asked what would become\nof accused persons if they had to prove their innocence to the lawyers\nbefore making a defense in court, I reply that I do not know; and in my\nturn I ask: What would become of Humpty Dumpty if all the king's horses\nand all the king's men were an isosceles triangle?\n\nIt all amounts to this, that lawyers want clients and are not particular\nabout the kind of clients that they get All this is very ugly work,\nand a public interest that can not be served without it would better be\nunserved.\n\n     I grant, in short, 'tis better all around\n     That ambidextrous consciences abound\n     In courts of law to do the dirty work\n     That self-respecting scavengers would shirk.\n     What then? Who serves however clean a plan\n     By doing dirty work, he is a dirty man.\n\nBut in point of fact I do not \"grant\" any such thing. It is not for\nthe public interest that a rogue have the same freedom of defense as an\nhonest man; it should be a good deal harder for him. His troubles should\nbegin, not when he seeks acquital, but when he seeks counsel. It would\nbe better for the community if he could not obtain the services of a\nreputable attorney, or any attorney at all. A defense that can not be\nmade without his attorney's actual knowledge of his guilt should be\nimpossible to him. Nor should he be permitted to remain off the witness\nstand lest he incriminate himself. It ought to be the aim of the court\nto let him incriminate himself--to make him do so if his testimony\nwill. In our courts that natural method would serve the ends of justice\ngreatly better than the one that we have. Testimony of the guilty would\nassist in conviction; that of the innocent would not.\n\nAs to the general question of a judge's right to inflict arbitrary\npunishment for words that he may be pleased to hold disrespectful to\nhimself or another judge, I do not myself believe that any such right\nexists; the practice seems to be merely a survival--a heritage from the\ndark days of irresponsible power, when the scope of judicial authority\nhad no other bounds than fear of the royal gout or indigestion. If in\nthese modern days the same right is to exist it may be necessary to\nrevive the old checks upon it by restoring the throne. In freeing us\nfrom the monarchial chain, the coalition of European Powers commonly\nknown in American history as \"the valor of our forefathers\" stripped us\nstarker than they knew.\n\nSuppose an attorney should find his client's interests imperiled by\na prejudiced or corrupt judge--what is he to do? If he may not make\nrepresentations to that effect, supporting them with evidence, where\nevidence is possible and by inference where it is not, what means of\nprotection shall he venture to adopt? If it be urged in objection that\njudges are never prejudiced nor corrupt I confess that I shall have no\nanswer: the proposition will deprive me of breath.\n\nIf contempt is not a crime it should not be punished; if a crime it\nshould be punished as other crimes are punished--by indictment\nor information, trial by jury if a jury is demanded, with all the\nsafeguards that secure an accused person against judicial blunders and\njudicial bias. The necessity for these safeguards is even greater\nin cases of contempt than in others--particularly if the prosecuting\nwitness is to sit in judgment on his own grievance. That should, of\ncourse, not be permitted: the trial should take place before another\njudge.\n\nWhy should twelve able-bodied jurymen, with their oaths to guide them\nand the law to back, submit to the dictation of one small judge armed\nwith nothing better than an insolent assumption of authority? A judge\nhas not the moral right to order a jury to acquit, the utmost that he\ncan rightly do is to point out what state of the law or facts may seem\nto him unfavorable to conviction. If the jurors, holding a different\nview, persist in conviction the accused will have grounds, doubtless,\nfor a new trial. But under no circumstances is a judge justified in\nrequiring a responsible human being to disregard the solemn obligation\nof an oath.\n\nThe public ear is dowered with rather more than just enough of clotted\nnonsense about \"attacks upon the dignity of the Bench,\" \"bringing the\njudiciary into disrepute\" and the rueful rest of it. I crave leave\nto remind the solicitudinarians sounding these loud alarums on their\nseveral larynges that by persons of understanding men are respected, not\nfor what they do, but for what they are, and that one public functionary\nwill stand as high in their esteem as another if as high in character.\nThe dignity of a wise and righteous judge needs not the artificial\nsafeguarding which is a heritage of the old days when if dissent found a\ntongue the public executioner cut it out. The Bench will be sufficiently\nrespected when it is no longer a place where dullards dream and rogues\nrob--when its _personnel_ is no longer chosen in the back-rooms of\ntipple-shops, forced upon yawning conventions and confirmed by the votes\nof men who neither know what the candidates are nor what they should be.\nWith the gang that we have and under our system must continue to have,\nrespect is out of the question and ought to be. They are entitled to\njust as much of its forms and observances as are needful to maintenance\nof order in their courts and fortification of their lawful power--no\nmore. As to their silence under criticism, that is as they please. No\nbody but themselves is holding their tongues.\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\nA law under which the unsuccessful respondent in a divorce proceeding\nmay be forbidden to marry again during the life of the successful\ncomplainant, the latter being subject to no such disability, is\ninfamous infinitely. If the disability is intended as a punishment it\nis exceptional among legal punishments in that it is inflicted without\nconviction, trial or arraignment, the divorce proceedings being quite\nanother and different matter. It is exceptional in that the period\nof its continuance, and therefore the degree of its severity, are\nindeterminate; they are dependent on no limiting statute, and on\nneither the will of the power inflicting nor the conduct of the person\nsuffering.\n\nTo sentence a person to a punishment that is to be mild or severe\naccording to chance or--which is even worse--circumstance, which but one\nperson, and that person not officially connected with administration of\njustice, can but partly control, is a monstrous perversion of the main\nprinciples that are supposed to underlie the laws.\n\nIn \"the case at bar\" it can be nothing to the woman--possibly herself\nremarried--whether the man remarries or not; that is, can affect only\nher feelings, and only such of them as are least creditable to her.\nYet her self-interest is enlisted against him to do him incessant\ndisservice. By merely caring for her health she increases the sharpness\nof his punishment--for punishment it is if he feels it such; every hour\nthat she wrests from death is added to his \"term.\" The expediency of\npreventing a man from marrying, without having the power to prevent him\nfrom making his marriage desirable in the interest of the public and\nvital to that of some woman, is not discussable here. If a man is ever\njustified in poisoning a woman who is no longer his wife it is when, by\nway of making him miserable, the State has given him, or he supposes it\nto have given him, a direct and distinct interest in her death.\n\n\n\n\nIII.\n\nWith a view, possibly, to promoting respect for law by making the\nstatutes so conform to public sentiment that none will fall into\ndisesteem and disuse, it has been advocated that there be a formal\nrecognition of sex in the penal code, by making a difference in the\npunishment of men and of women for the same crimes and misdemeanors. The\nargument is that if women were \"provided\" with milder punishment\njuries would sometimes convict them, whereas they now commonly get off\naltogether.\n\nThe plan is not so new as might be thought. Many of the nations of\nantiquity of whose laws we have knowledge, and nearly all the European\nnations until within a comparatively recent time, punished women\ndifferently from men for the same offenses. And as recently as the\nperiod of the Early Puritan in New England women were punished for some\noffenses which men might commit without fear if not without reproach.\nThe ducking-stool, for example, was an appliance for softening the\nfemale temper only. In England women used to be burned at the stake for\ncrimes for which men were hanged, roasting being regarded as the milder\npunishment. In point of fact, it was not punishment at all, the victim\nbeing carefully strangled before the fire touched her. Burning was\nsimply a method of disposing of the body so expeditiously as to give\nno occasion and opportunity for the unseemly social rites commonly\nperformed about the scaffold of the erring male by the jocular populace.\nAs lately as 1763 a woman named Margaret Biddingfield was burned in\nSuffolk as an accomplice in the crime of \"petty treason.\" She had\nassisted in the murder of her husband, the actual killing being done by\na man; and he was hanged, as no doubt he richly deserved. For \"coining,\"\ntoo (which was \"treason\"), men were hanged and women burned. This\ndistinction between the sexes was maintained until the year of grace\n1790, after which female offenders ceased to have \"a stake in the\ncountry,\" and like Hood's martial hero, \"enlisted in the line.\"\n\nIn still earlier days, before the advantages of fire were understood,\nour good grandmothers who sinned were admonished by water--they were\ndrowned; but in the reign of Henry III a woman was hanged--without\nstrangulation, apparently, for after a whole day of it she was cut down\nand pardoned. Sorceresses and unfaithful wives were smothered in mud, as\nalso were unfaithful wives among the ancient Burgundians. The punishment\nof unfaithful husbands is not of record; we only know that there were\nno austerely virtuous editors to direct the finger of public scorn their\nway.\n\nAmong the Anglo-Saxons, women who had the bad luck to be detected in\ntheft were drowned, while men meeting with the same mischance died a dry\ndeath by hanging. By the early Danish laws female thieves were buried\nalive, whether or not from motives of humanity is not now known. This\nseems to have been the fashion in France also, for in 1331 a woman named\nDuplas was scourged and buried alive at Abbeville, and in 1460 Perotte\nMauger, a receiver of stolen goods, was inhumed by order of the Provost\nof Paris in front of the public gibbet. In Germany in the good old\ndays certain kinds of female criminals were \"impaled,\" a punishment too\ngrotesquely horrible for description, but likely enough considered by\nthe simple German of the period conspicuously merciful.\n\nIt is, in short, only recently that the civilized nations have placed\nthe sexes on an equality in the matter of the death penalty for crime,\nand the new system is not yet by any means universal. That it is a\nbetter system than the old, or would be if enforced, is a natural\npresumption from human progress, out of which it is evolved. But\ncoincidently with its evolution has evolved also a sentiment adverse\nto punishment of women at all. But this sentiment appears to be of\nindependent growth and in no way a reaction against that which caused\nthe change. To mitigate the severity of the death penalty for women to\nsome pleasant form of euthanasia, such as drowning in rose-water, or\nin their case to abolish the death penalty altogether and make their\ncapital punishment consist in a brief interment in a jail with a\nsoftened name, would probably do no good, for whatever form it might\ntake, it would be, so far as woman is concerned, the \"extreme penalty\"\nand crowning disgrace, and jurors would be as reluctant to inflict it as\nthey now are to inflict hanging.\n\n\n\n\nIV.\n\nTestators should not, from the snug security of the grave, utter a\nperpetual threat of disinheritance or any other uncomfortable fate to\ndeter an American citizen, even one of his own legatees, from applying\nto the courts of his country for redress of any wrong from which he\nmight consider himself as suffering. The courts of law ought to be open\nto any one conceiving himself a victim of injustice, and it should be\nunlawful to abridge the right of complaint by making its exercise more\nhazardous than it naturally is. Doubtless the contesting of wills is\na nuisance, generally speaking, the contestant conspicuously devoid of\nmoral worth and the verdict singularly unrighteous; but as long as\nsome testators really _are_ daft, or subject to interested suasion, or\nwantonly sinful, they should be denied the power to stifle dissent by\nfining the luckless dissenter. The dead have too much to say in this\nworld at the best, and it is monstrous and intolerable tyranny for them\nto stand at the door of the Temple of Justice to drive away the suitors\nthat themselves have made.\n\nObedience to the commands of the dead should be conditional upon their\ngood behavior, and it is not good behavior to set up a censure of\nactions at law among the living. If our courts are not competent to\nsay what actions are proper to be brought and what are unfit to be\nentertained let us improve them until they are competent, or abolish\nthem altogether and resort to the mild and humane arbitrament of the\ndice. But while courts have the civility to exist they should refuse\nto surrender any part of their duties and responsibilities to such\nexceedingly private persons as those under six feet of earth, or sealed\nup in habitations of hewn stone. Persons no longer affectible by human\nevents should be denied a voice in determining the character and trend\nof them. Respect for the wishes of the dead is a tender and beautiful\nsentiment, certainly. Unfortunately, it can not be ascertained that\nthey have any wishes. What commonly go by that name are wishes once\nentertained by living persons who are now dead, and who in dying\nrenounced them, along with everything else. Like those who entertained\nthem, the wishes are no longer in existence. \"The wishes of the dead,\"\ntherefore, are not wishes, and are not of the dead. Why they should\nhave anything more than a sentimental influence upon those still in the\nflesh, and be a factor to be reckoned with in the practical affairs\nof the super-graminous world, is a question to which the merely human\nunderstanding can find no answer, and it must be referred to the\nlawyers. When \"from the tombs a doleful sound\" is vented, and \"thine ear\"\nis invited to \"attend the cry,\" an intelligent forethought will suggest\nthat you inquire if it is anything about property. If so pass on--that\nis no sacred spot.\n\n\n\n\nV.\n\nMuch of the testimony in French courts, civil and martial, appears to\nconsist of personal impressions and opinions of the witnesses. All very\nimproper and mischievous, no doubt, if--if what? Why, obviously, if\nthe judges are unfit to sit in judgment By designating them to sit the\ndesignating power assumes their fitness--assumes that they know enough\nto take such things for what they are worth, to make the necessary\nallowances; if needful, to disregard a witness's opinion altogether. I\ndo not know if they are fit. I do not know that they do make the needful\nallowances. It is by no means clear to me that any judge or juror,\nFrench, American or Patagonian, is competent to ascertain the truth when\nlying witnesses are trying to conceal it under the direction of skilled\nand conscientiousless attorneys licensed to deceive. But his competence\nis a basic assumption of the law vesting him with the duty of deciding.\nHaving chosen him for that duty the French law very logically lets him\nalone to decide for himself what is evidence and what is not. It does\nnot trust him a little but altogether. It puts him under conditions\nfamiliar to him--makes him accessible to just such influences and\nsuasions as he is accustomed to when making conscious and unconscious\ndecisions in his personal affairs.\n\nThere may be a distinct gain to justice in permitting a witness to\nsay whatever he wants to say. If he is telling the truth he will not\ncontradict himself; if he is lying the more rope he is given the more\nsurely he will entangle himself. To the service of that end defendants\nand prisoners should, I think, be compelled to testify and denied the\nadvantage of declining to answer, for silence is the refuge of guilt\nIn endeavoring by austere means to make an accused person incriminate\nhimself the French judge logically applies the same principle that a\nparent uses with a suspected child. When the Grandfather of His Country\narraigned the wee George Washington for arboricide the accused was not\ncarefully instructed that he need not answer if a truthful answer would\ntend to convict him. If he had refused to answer he would indubitably\nhave been lambasted until he did answer, as right richly he would have\ndeserved to be.\n\nThe custom of permitting a witness to wander at will over the entire\nfield of knowledge, hearsay, surmise and opinion has several distinct\nadvantages over our practice. In giving hearsay evidence, for example,\nhe may suggest a new and important witness of whom the counsel for the\nother side would not otherwise have heard, and who can then be brought\ninto court. On some unguarded and apparently irrelevant statement he may\nopen an entirely new line of inquiry, or throw upon the case a flood\nof light. Everyone knows what revelations are sometimes evoked by\napparently the most insignificant remarks. Why should justice be denied\na chance to profit that way?\n\nThere is a still greater advantage in the French \"method.\" By giving a\nwitness free rein in expression of his personal opinions and feelings we\nshould be able to calculate his frame of mind, his good or ill will\nto the prosecution or defense and, therefore, to a certain extent his\ncredibility. In our courts he is able by a little solemn perjury to\nconceal all this, even from himself, and pose as an impartial witness,\nwhen in truth, with regard to the accused, he is full of rancor or\nreeking with compassion.\n\nIn theory our system is perfect. The accused is prosecuted by a public\nofficer, who having no interest in his conviction, will serve the State\nwithout mischievous zeal and perform his disagreeable task with fairness\nand consideration. He is permitted to entrust his defense to another\nofficer, whose duty it is to make a rigidly truthful and candid\npresentation of his case in order to assist the court to a just\ndecision. The jurors, if there are jurors, are neither friendly nor\nhostile, are open-minded, intelligent and conscientious. As to the\nwitnesses, are they not sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth (in\nso far as they are permitted) and nothing but the truth? What could\nbe finer and better than all this?--what could more certainly assure\njustice? How close the resemblance is between this ideal picture and\nwhat actually occurs all know, or should know. The judge is commonly\nan ignoramus incapable of logical thought and with little sense of the\ndread and awful nature of his responsibility. The prosecuting attorney\nthinks it due to his reputation to \"make a record\" and tries to convict\nby hook or crook, even when he is himself persuaded of the defendant's\ninnocence. Counsel for the defense is equally unscrupulous for\nacquittal, and both, having industriously coached their witnesses,\ncontend against each other in deceiving the court by every artifice\nof which they are masters. Witnesses on both sides perjure themselves\nfreely and with almost perfect immunity if detected. At the close of it\nall the poor weary jurors, hopelessly bewildered and dumbly resentful of\ntheir duping, render a random or compromise verdict, or one which best\nexpresses their secret animosity to the lawyer they like least or their\nfaith in the newspapers which they have diligently and disobediently\nread every night Commenting upon Rabelais' old judge who, when impeached\nfor an outrageous decision, pleaded his defective eye-sight which made\nhim miscount the spots on the dice, the most distinguished lawyer of my\nacquaintance seriously assured me that if all the cases with which he\nhad been connected had been decided with the dice substantial justice\nwould have been done more frequently than it was done. If that is true,\nor nearly true, and I believe it, the American's right to sneer at the\nFrenchman's \"judicial methods\" is still an open question.\n\nIt is urged that the corrupt practices in our courts of law be uncovered\nto public view, whenever that is possible, by dial impeccable censor,\nthe press. Exposure of rascality is very good--better, apparently\nfor rascals than for anybody else, for it usually suggests something\nrascally which they had overlooked, and so familiarizes the public with\ncrime that crime no longer begets loathing. If the newspapers of the\ncountry are really concerned about corrupter practices than their own\nand willing to bring our courts up to the English standard there is\nsomething better than exposure--which fatigues. Let the newspapers set\nabout creating a public opinion favorable to non-elective judges, well\npaid, powerful to command respect and holding office for life or good\nbehavior. That is the only way to get good men and great lawyers on the\nBench. As matters are, we stand and cry for what the English have and\nrail at the way they get it. Our boss-made, press-ridden and mob-fearing\npaupers and ignoramuses of the Bench give us as good a quality of\njustice as we merit A better quality awaits us whenever the will to have\nit is attended by the sense to take it.\n\n\n\n\nARBITRATION\n\nTHE universal cry for arbitration is either dishonest or unwise. For\nevery evil there are quack remedies galore--especially for every evil\nthat is irremediable. Of this order of remedies is arbitration, for of\nthis order of evils is the inadequate wage of manual labor. Since the\nbeginning of authentic history everything has been tried in the hope\nof divorcing poverty and labor, but nothing has parted them. It is not\nconceivable that anything ever will; success of arbitration, antecedently\nimprobable, is demonstrably impossible. Most of the work of the world\nis hard, disagreeable work, requiring little intelligence. Most of the\npeople of the world are unintelligent--unfit to do any other work. If\nit were not done by them it would not be done, and it is the basic work.\nWithdraw them from it and the whole superstructure would topple and\nfall. Yet there is too little of the work, and there are so many\nincapable of doing anything else that adequate return is out of the\nquestion. For the laboring _class_ there is no hope of an existence that\nis comfortable in comparison with that of the other class; the hope of\nan individual laborer lies in the possibility of fitting himself for\nhigher employment--employment of the head; not manual but cerebral\nlabor. While selfishness remains the main ingredient of human nature\n(and a survey of the centuries accessible to examination shows but a\nslow and intermittent decrease) the cerebral workers, being the wiser\nand no better, will manage to take the greater profit. In justice it\nmust be said of them that they extend a warm and sincere invitation to\ntheir ranks, and take \"apprentices;\" every chance of education that the\nother class enjoys is proof of that.\n\nAll this is perhaps a trifle abstruse; let us, then, look at arbitration\nmore nearly; in our time it is, in form at least something new. It\nbegan as \"international arbitration,\" which already, in settling a few\ndisputes of no great importance, has shown itself a dangerous remedy. In\nthe necessary negotiation to determine exactly what points to submit to\nwhom, and how, and where, and when to submit them, and how to carry out\nthe arbitrator's decision, scores of questions are raised, upon each of\nwhich it is as easy to disagree and fight as upon the original issue.\nInternational arbitration may be defined as the substitution of many\nburning questions for a smouldering one; for disputes that have reached\na really acute stage are not submitted. The animosities that it has\nkindled have been hotter than those it has quenched.\n\nIndustrial arbitration is no better; it is manifestly worse, and any law\nenforcing it and enforcing compliance with its decisions, is absurd and\nmischievous. \"Compulsory arbitration\" is not arbitration, the essence\nwhereof is voluntary submission of differences and voluntary submission\nto judgment. If either reference or obedience is enforced the\narbitrators are simply a court with no powers to do anything but apply\nthe law. Proponents of the fad would do well to consider this: If a\nparty to a labor dispute is _compelled_ to invoke and obey a decision\nof arbitrators that decision must follow strictly the line of law; the\nsmallest invasion of any constitutional, statutory or common-law right\nwill enable him to upset the whole judgment No legislative body can\nestablish a tribunal empowered to make and enforce illegal or extra\nlegal decisions; for making and enforcing legal ones the tribunals that\nwe already have are sufficient This talk of \"compulsory arbitration\"\nis the maddest nonsense that the industrial situation has yet evolved.\nDoubtless it is sent upon us for our sins; but had we not already a\nplague of inveracity?\n\nArbitration of labor disputes means compromise with the unions. It can,\nin this country, mean nothing else, for the law would not survive a\nhalf-dozen failures to concede some part of their demands, however\nreasonless. By repeated strikes they would eventually get all their\noriginal demand and as much more as on second thought they might choose\nto ask for. Each concession would be, as it is now, followed by a new\ndemand, and the first arbitrators might as well allow them all that they\ndemand and all that they mean to demand hereafter.\n\nWould not employers be equally unscrupulous. They would not. They could\nnot afford the disturbance, the stoppage of the business, the risk\nof unfair decisions in a country where it is \"popular\" to favor and\nencourage, not the just, but the poor. The labor leaders have nothing to\nlose, not even their jobs, for their work is labor leading. Their dupes,\nby the way, would be dupes no longer, for with enforced arbitration the\ngame of \"follow my leader\" would pay until there should be nothing to\nfollow him to but empty treasuries of dead industries in an extinct\ncivilization. If there must be enforced arbitration it should at least\nnot apply to that sum of all impudent rascalities, the \"sympathetic\nstrike.\"\n\nAs to the men who have set up the monstrous claim asserted by the\n\"sympathetic strike,\" I shall refer to the affair of 1904. If it was\ncreditable in them to feel so much concern about a few hundred aliens in\nIllinois, how about the grievances of the whole body of their countrymen\nin California? When their employers, who they confess were good to them,\nwere plundering the Californians, they did not strike, sympathetically\nnor otherwise. Year after year the railway companies picked the pockets\nof the Californians; corrupted their courts and legislatures; laid its\nBriarean hands in exaction upon every industry and interest; filled the\nland with lies and false reasoning; threw honest men into prisons and\nlocked the gates of them against thieves and assassins; by open defiance\nof the tax collector denied to children of the poor the advantages of\neducation--did all this and more, and these honest working men stood\nloyally by it, sharing in wages its dishonest gains, receivers, in one\nsense, of stolen goods. The groans of their neighbors were nothing to\nthem; even the wrongs of themselves, their wives and their children did\nnot stir them to revolt. On every breeze that blew, this great chorus\nof cries and curses was borne past their ears unheeded. Why did they not\nstrike then? Where then were their fiery altruists and storm-petrels\nof industrial disorder? No!--the ingenious gods who have invented the\nDebses and Gomperses, and humorously branded them with names that would\nmake a cat laugh, have never put it into their cold selfish hearts to\norder out their misguided followers to redress a public wrong, but only\nto inflict one--to avenge a personal humiliation, gratify an appetite\nfor notoriety, slake a thirst for the intoxicating cup of power, or\npunish the crime of prosperity.\n\nIt is a practical, an illogical, a turbulent time, yes; it always\nis. The age of Jesus Christ was a practical age, yet Jesus Christ was\nsweetly impractical. In an illogical period Socrates reasoned clearly,\nand logically died for it. Nero's time was a time of turbulence, yet\nSeneca's mind was not disturbed, nor his conscience perverted. Compare\ntheir fame with the everlasting infamy that time has fixed upon the\nnames of the Jack Cades, the Robespierres, the Tomaso Nielos--guides and\ngods of the \"fierce democracies\" which rise with a sickening periodicity\nto defile the page of history with a quickly fading mark of blood and\nfire, their own awful example their sole contribution to the good of\nmankind. To be a child of your time, imbued with its spirit and endowed\nwith its aims--that is to petition Posterity for a niche in the Temple\nof Shame.\n\nNo strike of any prominence ever takes place in this country without\nthe concomitants of violence and destruction of property, and usually\nmurder. These cheerful incidents one who does not personally suffer them\ncan endure with considerable fortitude, but the sniveling, hypocritical\ncondemnation of them by the press that has instigated them and the\nstrikers who have planned and executed them, and who invariably ascribe\nthem to those whom they most injure; the solemn offers of the leaders to\nassist in protecting the imperiled property and avenging the dead, while\nopenly employing counsel for every incendiary and assassin arrested in\nspite of them--these are pretty hard to bear. A strike means (for it\nincludes as its main method) violence, lawlessness, destruction of the\nproperty of others than the strikers, riot and if necessary bloodshed.\nEven when the strikers themselves have no hand in these crimes they are\nmorally liable for the foreknown consequences of their act. Nay, they\nare morally liable for _all the_ consequences--all the inconveniences\nand losses to the community, all the sufferings of the poor entailed by\ninterruptions of trade, all the privations of other workingmen whom\na selfish attention to their own supposed advantage throws out of the\nclosed industries. They are liable in morals and should be made so in\nlaw--only that strikes are needless. It is not worth while to create a\nmultitude of complex criminal responsibilities for acts which can easily\nbe prevented by a single and simple one. How?\n\nFirst, I should like to point out that we are hearing a deal too much\nabout a man's inalienable right to work or play, at his own sovereign\nwill. In so far as that means--and it is always used to mean--his right\nto quit any kind of work at any moment, without notice and regardless of\nconsequences to others, it is false; there is no such moral right, and\nthe law should have at least a speaking acquaintance with morality. What\nis mischievous should be illegal. The various interests of civilization\nare so complex, delicate, intertangled and interdependent that no man,\nand no set of men, should have power to throw the entire scheme into\nconfusion and disorder for pro-motion of a trumpery principle or a class\nadvantage. In dealing with corporations we recognize that. If for any\nselfish purpose the trade union of railway managers had done what their\nsacred brakemen and divine firemen did--had decreed that \"no wheel\nshould turn,\" until Mr. Pullman's men should return to work--they would\nhave found themselves all in jail the second day. _Their_ right to quit\nwork was not conceded: they lacked that authenticating credential of\nmoral and legal irresponsibility, an indurated palm. In a small lockout\naffecting a mill or two the offender finds a half-hearted support in\n_the_ law if he is willing to pay enough deputy sheriffs; but even\nthen he is mounted by the hobnailed populace, at its back the daily\nnewspapers, clamoring and spitting like cats. But let the manager of a\ngreat railway discharge all its men without warning and \"kill\" its own\nengines! Then see what you will see. To commit a wrong so gigantic with\nimpunity a man must wear overalls.\n\nHow prevent anybody from committing it? How break up this _regime_ of\nstrikes and boycotts and lockouts, more disastrous to others than to\nthose at whom the blows are aimed--than to those, even, who deliver\nthem. How make all those concerned in the management and operation\nof great industries, about which have grown up tangles of related and\ndependent interests, conduct them with some regard to the welfare of\nothers? Before committing ourselves to the dubious and irretraceable\ncourse of \"Government ownership,\" or to the infectious expedient of a\n\"pension system,\" is there anything of promise yet untried?--anything of\nsuperior simplicity and easier application? I think so. Make a breach\nof labor contract by either party to it a criminal offense punishable by\nimprisonment \"Fine or imprisonment\" will not do--the employee, unable to\npay the fine, would commonly go to jail, the employer seldom. That would\nnot be fair.\n\nThe purpose of such a law is apparent: Labor contracts would then be\ndrawn for a certain time, securing both employer and employee and\n(which is more important) helpless persons in related and dependent\nindustries--the whole public, in fact--against sudden and disastrous\naction by either \"capital\" or \"labor\" for accomplishment of a purely\nselfish or frankly impudent end. A strike or lockout compelled to\nannounce itself thirty days in advance would be innocuous to the public,\nwhilst securing to the party of initiation all the advantages that\nanybody professes to want--all but the advantage of ruining others and\nof successfully defying the laws.\n\nUnder the present _regime_ labor contracts are useless; either party can\nviolate them with impunity. They offer redress only through a civil suit\nfor damages, and the employee commonly has nothing with which to\nconduct an action or satisfy a judgment. The consequence is seen in\nthe incessant and increasing industrial disturbances, with their\never-attendant crimes against property, life and liberty--disturbances\nwhich by driving capital to investments in which it needs employ no\nlabor, do more than all the other causes so glibly enumerated by every\nnewspaper and politician, though by no two alike, to bring about the\n\"hard times\"--which in their turn cause further and worse disturbances.\n\n\n\n\nINDUSTRIAL DISCONTENT\n\n\n\n\nI.\n\nTHE time seems to have come when the two antagonistic elements of\nAmerican society should, and could afford to, throw off their disguise\nand frankly declare their principles and purposes. But what, it may be\nasked, are the two antagonistic elements? Dividing lines parting the\npopulation into two camps more or less hostile may be drawn variously;\nfor example, one may be run between the law-abiding and the criminal\nclass. But the elements to which reference is here made are those\nimmemorable and implacable foes which the slang of modern economics\nroughly and loosely distinguishes as \"Capital\" and \"Labor.\" A more\naccurate classification--as accurate a one as it is possible to\nmake--would designate them as those who do muscular labor and those who\ndo not. The distinction between rich and poor does not serve: to the\nlaborer the rich man who works with his hands is not objectionable; the\npoor man who does not, is. Consciously or unconsciously, and alike by\nthose whose necessities compel them to perform it and those whose better\nfortune enables them to avoid it, manual labor is considered the most\ninsufferable of human pursuits. It is a pill that the Tolstois, the\n\"communities\" and the \"Knights\" of Labor can not sugarcoat. We may prate\nof the dignity of labor; emblazon its praise upon banners; set apart a\nday on which to stop work and celebrate it; shout our teeth loose in its\nglorification--and, God help our fool souls to better sense, we think we\nmean it all!\n\nIf labor is so good and great a thing let all be thankful, for all\ncan have as much of it as may be desired. The eight-hour law is\nnot mandatory to the laborer, nor does possession of leisure entail\nidleness. It is permitted to the clerk, the shopman, the street\npeddler--to all who live by the light employment of keeping the wolf\nfrom the door without eating him--to abandon their ignoble callings,\nseize the shovel, the axe and the sledge-hammer and lay about them right\nsturdily, to the ample gratification of their desire. And those who are\nengaged in more profitable vocations will find that with a part of their\nincomes they can purchase from their employers the right to work as hard\nas they like in even the dullest times.\n\nManual labor has nothing of dignity, nothing of beauty. It is a hard,\nimperious and dispiriting necessity. He who is condemned to it feels\nthat it sets upon his brow the brand of intellectual inferiority. And\nthat brand of servitude never ceases to burn. In no country and at\nno time has the laborer had a kindly feeling for the rest of us, for\neverywhere and always has he heard in our patronising platitudes the\nnote of contempt. In his repression, in the denying him the opportunity\nto avenge his real and imaginary wrongs, government finds its main\nusefulness, activity and justification. Jefferson's dictum that\ngovernments are instituted among men in order to secure them in \"life,\nliberty and the pursuit of happiness\" is luminous nonsense. Governments\nare not instituted; they grow. They are evolved out of the necessity of\nprotecting from the handworker the life and property of the brain worker\nand the idler. The first is the most dangerous because the most numerous\nand the least content. Take from the science and the art of government,\nand from its methods, whatever has had its origin in the consciousness\nof his ill-will and the fear of his power and what have you left? A pure\nrepublic--that is to say, no government.\n\nI should like it understood that, if not absolutely devoid of\npreferences and prejudices, I at least believe myself to be; that except\nas to result I think no more of one form of government than of another;\nand that with reference to results all forms seem to me bad, but bad in\ndifferent degrees. If asked my opinion as to the results of our own, I\nshould point to Homestead, to Wardner, to Buffalo, to Coal Creek, to the\ninterminable tale of unpunished murders by individuals and by mobs, to\nlegislatures and courts unspeakably corrupt and executives of criminal\ncowardice, to the prevalence and immunity of plundering trusts and\ncorporations and the monstrous multiplication of millionaires. I should\ninvite attention to the pension roll, to the similar and incredible\nextravagance of Republican and Democratic \"Houses\"--a plague o' them\nboth! If addressing Democrats only, I should mention the protective\ntariff; if Republicans, the hill-tribe clamor for free coinage of\nsilver. I should call to mind the existence of prosperous activity of a\nthousand lying secret societies having for their sole object mitigation\nof republican simplicity by means of pageantry and costumes grotesquely\nresembling those of kings and courtiers, and titles of address and\ncourtesy exalted enough to draw laughter from an ox.\n\nIn contemplation of these and a hundred other \"results,\" no less\nshameful in themselves than significant of the deeper shame beneath\nand prophetic of the blacker shame to come, I should say: \"Behold the\noutcome of hardly more than a century of government by the people!\nBehold the superstructure whose foundations our forefathers laid upon\nthe unstable overgrowth of popular caprice surfacing the unplummeted\nabysm of human depravity! Behold the reality behind our dream of the\nefficacy of forms, the saving grace of principles, the magic of words!\nWe have believed in the wisdom of majorities and are fooled; trusted to\nthe good honor of numbers, and are betrayed. Our touching faith in\nthe liberty of the rascal, our strange conviction that anarchy making\nproselytes and bombs is less dangerous than anarchy with a shut mouth\nand a watched hand--lo, this is the beginning of the aid of the dream!\"\n\nOur Government has broken down at every point, and the two\nirreconcilable elements whose suspensions of hostilities are mistaken for\npeace are about to try their hands at each other's tempting display of\nthroats. There is no longer so much as a pretense of amity; apparently\nthere will not much longer be a pretense of regard for mercy and morals.\nAlready \"industrial discontent\" has attained to the magnitude of war.\nIt is important, then, that there be an understanding of principles and\npurposes. As the combatants will not define their positions truthfully\nby words, let us see if it can be inferred from the actions which\nare said to speak more plainly. If one of the really able men who now\n\"direct the destinies\" of the labor organizations in this country,\ncould be enticed into the Palace of Truth and \"examined\" by a skilful\ncatechist he would indubitably say something like this:\n\n\"Our ultimate purpose is abolition of the distinction between employer\nand employee, which is but a modification of that between master and\nslave.\n\n\"We propose that the laborer shall be chief owner of all the property\nand profits of the enterprise in which he is engaged, and have through\nhis union a controlling voice in all its affairs.\n\n\"We propose to overthrow the system under which a man can grow richer by\nworking with his head than with his hands, and prevent the man who works\nwith neither from having anything at all.\n\n\"In the attainment of these ends any means is to be judged, as to its\nfitness for our use, with sole regard to its efficacy. We shall punish\nthe innocent for the sins of the guilty. We shall destroy property and\nlife under such circumstances and to such an extent as may seem to us\nexpedient. Falsehood, treachery, arson, assassination, all these we look\nupon as legitimate if effective.\n\n\"The rules of 'civilized warfare' we shall not observe, but shall put\nprisoners to death or torture them, as we please.\n\n\"We do not recognize a non-union man's right to labor, nor to live. The\nright to strike includes the right to strike _him_.\"\n\nDoubtless all that (and \"the half is not told\") sounds to the\nunobservant like a harsh exaggeration, an imaginative travesty of the\nprinciples of labor organizations. It is not a travesty; it has no\nelement of exaggeration. Not in the last twenty-five years has a great\nstrike or lockout occurred in this country without supplying facts,\nnotorious and undisputed, upon which some of these confessions of faith\nare founded. The war is practically a servile insurrection, and\nservile insurrections are today what they ever were: the most cruel and\nferocious of all manifestations of human hate. Emancipation is rough\nwork; when he who would be free, himself strikes the blow, he can not\nconsider too curiously with what he strikes it nor upon whom it falls.\nIt will profit you to understand, my fine gentleman with the soft hands,\nthe character of that which is confronting you. You are not threatened\nwith a bombardment of roses.\n\nLet us look into the other camp, where General Hardhead is so engrossed\nwith his own greatness and power as not clearly to hear the shots on his\npicket line. Suppose we hypnotize him and make him open his \"shut soul\"\nto our searching. He will say something like this:\n\n\"In the first place, I claim the right to own and enclose for my own use\nor disuse as much of the earth's surface as I am desirous and able to\nprocure. I and my kind have made laws confirming us in the occupancy of\nthe entire habitable and arable area as fast as we can get it. To\nthe objection that this must eventually here, as it has actually done\nelsewhere, deprive the rest of you places upon which legally to be born,\nand exclude you after surreptitious birth as trespassers from all chance\nto procure directly the fruits of the earth, I reply that you can be\nborn at sea and eat fish.\n\n\"I claim the right to induce you, by offer of employment, to colonize\nyourselves and families about my factories, and then arbitrarily, by\nwithdrawing the employment, break up in a day the homes that you have\nbeen years in acquiring where it is no longer possible for you to\nprocure work.\n\n\"In determining your rate of wages when I employ you, I claim the right\nto make your necessities a factor in the problem, thus making your\nmisfortunes cumulative. By the law of supply and demand (God bless its\nexpounder!) the less you have and the less chance to get more, the more\nI have the right to take from you in labor and the less I am bound to\ngive you in wages.\n\n\"I claim the right to ignore the officers of the peace and maintain a\nprivate army to subdue you when you rise.\n\n\"I claim the right to make you suffer, by creating for my advantage an\nartificial scarcity of the necessaries of life.\n\n\"I claim the right to employ the large powers of the government in\nadvancing my private welfare.\n\n\"As to falsehood, treachery and the other military virtues with which\nyou threaten me, I shall go, in them, as far as you; but from arson\nand assassination I recoil with horror. You see you have very little to\nburn, and you are not more than half alive anyhow.\"\n\nThat, I submit, is a pretty fair definition of the position of the\nwealthy man who works with his head. It seems worth while to put it on\nrecord while he is extant to challenge or verify; for the probability is\nthat unless he mend his ways he will not much longer be wealthy, work,\nnor have a head.\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\nIn discussion of the misdoings at Homestead and Coeur d' Alene it is\namusing to observe all the champions of law and order gravely prating\nof \"principles\" and declaring with all the solemnity of owls that these\nsacred things have been violated. On that ground they have the argument\nall their own way. Indubitably there is hardly a fundamental principle\nof law and morals that the rioting laborers have not footballed out\nof the field of consideration. Indubitably, too, in doing so they have\nforfeited as they must have expected to forfeit, all the \"moral support\"\nfor which they did not care a tinker's imprecation. If there were any\nquestion of their culpability this solemn insistence upon it would lack\nsomething of the humor with which it is now invested and which saves the\nobserver from death by dejection.\n\nIt is not only in discussions of the \"labor situation\" that we hear this\neternal babble of \"principles.\" It is never out of ear, and in politics\nis especially clamant. Every success in an election is yawped of as\n\"a triumph of Republican (or Democratic) principles.\" But neither\nin politics nor in the quarrels of laborers and their employers have\nprinciples a place as \"factors in the problem.\" Their use is to supply\nto both combatants a vocabulary of accusation and appeal. All the fierce\ntalk of an antagonist's violation of those eternal principles upon which\norganized society is founded--and the rest of it--what is it but the\ncry of the dog with the chewed ear? The dog that is chewing foregoes the\nadvantage of song.\n\nHuman contests engaging any number of contestants are not struggles of\nprinciples but struggles of interests; and this is no less true of those\ndecided by the ballot than of those in which the franker bullet gives\njudgment. Nor, but from considerations of prudence and expediency, will\neither party hesitate to transgress the limits of the law and outrage\nthe sense of right. At Homestead and Wardner the laborers committed\nrobbery, pillage and murder, as striking workmen invariably do when they\ndare, and as cowardly newspapers and scoundrel politicians encourage\nthem in doing. But what would you have? They conceive it to be to their\ninterest to do these things. If capitalists conceive it to be to theirs\nthey too would do them. They do not do them for their interest lies in\nthe supremacy of the law--under which they can suffer loss but do not\nsuffer hunger.\n\n\"But they do murder,\" say the labor unions; \"they bring in gangs of\narmed mercenaries who shoot down honest workmen striving for their\nrights.\" This is the baldest nonsense, as they know very well who utter\nit. The Pinkerton men are mere mercenaries and have no right place in\nour system, but there have been no instances of their attacking men not\nengaged in some unlawful prank. In the fight at Homestead the workmen\nwere actually intrenched on premises belonging to the other side, where\nthey had not the ghost of a legal right to be. American working men are\nnot fools; they know well enough when they are rogues. But confession is\nnot among the military virtues, and the question. Is roguery expedient?\nis not so simple that it can be determined by asking the first preacher\nyou meet.\n\nIt would be very nice and fine all round if idle workmen would not riot\nnor idle employers meet force with force, but invoke the impossible\nSheriff. When the Dragon has been chained in the Bottomless Pit and we\nare living under the rule of the saints, things will be so ordered, but\nin these rascal times \"revolutions are not made with rosewater,\" and\nthis is a revolution. What is being revolutionized is the relation\nbetween our old friends. Capital and Labor. The relation has already\nbeen altered many times, doubtless; once, we know, within the period\ncovered by history, at least in the countries that we call civilized.\nThe relation was formerly a severely simple one--the capitalist owned\nthe laborer. Of the difficulty and the cost of abolishing that system\nit is needless to speak at length. Through centuries of time and with\nan appalling sacrifice of life the effort has gone on, a continuous\nwar characterized by monstrous infractions of law and morals, by\nincalculable cruelty and crime. Our own generation has witnessed the\nculminating triumphs of this revolution, and of its three mightiest\nleaders the assassination of two, the death in exile of the third. And\nnow, while still the clank of the falling chains is echoing through the\nworld, and still a mighty multitude of the world's workers is in bondage\nunder the old system, the others, for whose liberation was all this\n\"expense of spirit in a waste of shame,\" are sharply challenging the\nadvantage of the new. The new is, in troth, breaking down at every\npoint The relation of employer and employee is giving but little better\nsatisfaction than that of master and slave. The difference between the\ntwo is, indeed, not nearly so broad as we persuade ourselves to think\nit. In many of the industries there is practically no difference at all,\nand the tendency is more and more to effacement of the difference where\nit exists.\n\nLabor unions, strikes and rioting are no new remedies for this insidious\ndisorder; they were common in ancient Rome and still more ancient Egypt.\nIn the twenty-ninth year of Rameses III a deputation of workmen employed\nin the Theban necropolis met the superintendent and the priests with\na statement of their grievances. \"Behold,\" said the spokesman, \"we\nare brought to the verge of famine. We have neither food, nor oil, nor\nclothing; we have no fish; we have no vegetables. Already we have sent\nup a petition to our sovereign lord the Pharaoh, praying that he will\ngive us these things and we are going to appeal to the Governor that we\nmay have the wherewithal to live.\" The response to this complaint was\none day's rations of corn. This appears to have been enough only while\nit lasted, for a few weeks later the workmen were in open revolt.\nThrice they broke out of their quarter, rioting like mad and defying the\npolice. Whether they were finally shot full of arrows by the Pinkerton\nmen of the period the record does not state.\n\n\"Organized discontent\" in the laboring population is no new thing under\nthe sun, but in this century and country it has a new opportunity and\nOmniscience alone can forecast the outcome. Of one thing we may be very\nsure, and the sooner the \"capitalist\" can persuade himself to discern it\nthe sooner will his eyes guard his neck: the relations between those who\nare able to live without physical toil and those who are not are a\nlong way from final adjustment, but are about to undergo a profound and\nessential alteration. That this is to come by peaceful evolution is a\nhope which has nothing in history to sustain it. There are to be bloody\nnoses and cracked crowns, and the good people who suffer themselves to\nbe shocked by such things in others will have a chance to try them for\nthemselves. The working man is not troubling himself greatly about a\njust allotment of these blessings; so that the greater part go to those\nwho do not work with their hands he will not consider too curiously any\nperson's claim to exemption. It would perhaps better harmonize with his\nsense of the fitness of things (as it would, no doubt, with that of the\nangels) if the advantages of the transitional period fell mostly to the\nshare of such star-spangled impostors as Andrew Carnegie; but almost any\ndistribution that is sufficiently objectionable as a whole to the other\nside will be acceptable to the distributor. In the mean time it is to be\nwished that the moralize, and homilizers who prate of \"principles\" may\nhave a little damnation dealt out to them on account. The head that\nis unable to entertain a philosophical view of the situation would be\nnotably advantaged by removal.\n\n\n\n\nIII.\n\nIt is the immigration of \"the oppressed of all nations\" that has made\nthis country one of the worst on the face of the earth. The change from\ngood to bad took place within a generation--so quickly that few of us\nhave had the nimbleness of apprehension to \"get it through our heads.\"\nWe go on screaming our eagle in the self-same note of triumph that we\nwere taught at our fathers' knees before the eagle became a buzzard.\nAmerica is still \"an asylum for the oppressed;\" and still, as always and\neverywhere, the oppressed are unworthy of asylum, avenging upon those\nwho give them sanctuary the wrongs from which they fled. The saddest\nthing about oppression is that it makes its victims unfit for anything\nbut to be oppressed--makes them dangerous alike to their tyrants, their\nsaviors and themselves. In the end they turn out to be fairly energetic\noppressors. The gentleman in the cesspool invites compassion, certainly,\nbut we may be very well assured, before undertaking his relief without\na pole, that his conception of a prosperous life is merely to have his\nnose above the surface with another gentleman underfoot.\n\nAll languages are spoken in Hell, but chiefly those of Southeastern\nEurope. I do not say that a man fresh from the fields or the factories\nof Europe--even of Southeastern Europe--may not be a good man; I say\nonly that, as a matter of fact, he commonly is not. In nine instances in\nten he is a brute whom it would be God's mercy to drown on his arrival,\nfor he is constitutionally unhappy.\n\nLet us not deny him his grievance: he works--when he works--for men no\nbetter than himself. He is required, in many instances, to take a part\nof his pay in \"truck\" at prices of breathless altitude; and the pay\nitself is inadequate--hardly more than double what he could get in his\nown country. Against all this his howl is justified; but his rioting and\nassassination are not--not even when directed against the property and\npersons of his employers. When directed against the persons of other\nlaborers, who choose to exercise the fundamental human right to work for\nwhom and for what pay they please--when he denies this right, and with\nit the right of organized society to exist, the necessity of shooting\nhim is not only apparent; it is conspicuous and imperative. That he and\nhis horrible kind, of whatever nationality, are usually forgiven this\njust debt of nature, and suffered to execute, like rivers, their annual\nspring rise, constitutes the most valid of the many indictments that\ndecent Americans by birth or adoption find against the feeble form of\ngovernment under which their country groans, A nation that will not\nenforce its laws has no claim to the respect and allegiance of its\npeople.\n\nThis \"citizen soldiery\" business is a ghastly failure. The National\nGuard is not worth the price of its uniforms. It is intended to be a\nGreater Constabulary: its purpose is to suppress disorders with which\nthe civil authorities are too feeble to cope. How often does it do so?\nNine times in ten it fraternizes with, or is cowed or beaten by\nthe savage mobs which it is called upon to kill. In a country with\na competent militia and competent men to use it there would be crime\nenough and some to spare, but no rioting. Rioting in a Republic is\nwithout a shadow of excuse. If we have bad laws, or if our good laws are\nnot enforced; if corporations and capital are \"tyrannous and strong;\" if\nwhite men murder one another and black men outrage white women, all this\nis our own fault--the fault of those, among others, who seek redress\nor revenge by rioting and lynching. The people have always as good\ngovernment, as good industrial conditions, as effective protection of\nperson, property and liberty, as they deserve. They can have what ever\nthey have the honesty to desire and the sense to set about getting\nin the right way. If as citizens of a Republic we lack the virtue and\nintelligence rightly to use the supreme power of the ballot so that it\n\n     \"Executes a freeman's will\n     As lightning does the will of God\"\n\nwe are unfit to be citizens of a Republic, undeserving of peace,\nprosperity and liberty, and have no right to rise against conditions due\nto our own moral and intellectual delinquency. There is a simple way,\nMessieurs the Masses to correct public evils: put wise and good men into\npower. If you can not do that for you are not yourselves wise, or will\nnot for you are not yourselves good, you deserve to be oppressed when\nyou submit and shot when you rise.\n\nTo shoot a rioter or lyncher is a high kind of mercy. Suppose that\ntwenty-five years ago (the longer ago the better) two or three criminal\nmobs in succession had been exterminated in that way, \"as the law\nprovides.\" Suppose that several scores of lives had been so taken,\nincluding even those of \"innocent spectators\"--though that kind of\nangel does not abound in the vicinity of mobs. Suppose that no demagogue\njudges had permitted officers in command of the \"firing lines\" to be\npersecuted in the courts. Suppose that these events had writ themselves\nlarge and red in the public memory. How many lives would this have\nsaved? Just as many as since have been taken and lost by rioters, plus\nthose that for a long time to come will be taken, and minus those that\nwere taken at that time. Make your own computation from your own data; I\ninsist only that a rioter shot in time saves nine.\n\nYou know--you, the People--that all this is true. You know that in\na Republic lawlessness is villainy entailing greater evils than it\ncures--that it cures none. You know that even the \"money power\" is\npowerful only through your own dishonesty and cowardice. You know that\nnobody can bribe or intimidate a voter who will not take a bribe or\nsuffer himself to be intimidated--that there can be no \"money power\"\nin a nation of honorable and courageous men. You know that \"bosses\" and\n\"machines\" can not control you if you will not suffer then to divide you\ninto \"parties\" by playing upon your credulity and senseless passions.\nYou know all this, and know it all the time. Yet not a man has the\ncourage to stand forth and say to your faces what you know in your\nhearts. Well, Messieurs the Masses, I don't consider you dangerous--not\nvery. I have not observed that you want to tear anybody to pieces for\nconfessing your sins, even if at the same time he confesses his own.\nFrom a considerable experience in that sort of thing I judge that you\nrather like it, and that he whom, secretly, you most despise is he who\nechoes back to you what he is pleased to think you think and flatters\nyou for gain. Anyhow, for some reason, I never hear you speak well of\nnewspaper men and politicians, though in the shadow of your disesteem\nthey get an occasional gleam of consolation by speaking fairly well of\none another.\n\n\n\n\nCRIME AND ITS CORRECTIVES\n\n\n\n\nI.\n\nSOCIOLOGISTS have been debating the theory that the impulse to commit\ncrime is a disease, and the ayes appear to have it--not the impulse but\nthe decision. It is gratifying and profitable to have the point settled:\nwe now know \"where we are at,\" and can take our course accordingly.\nIt has for a number of years been known to all but a few back-number\nphysicians--survivals from an exhausted _regime_--that all disease is\ncaused by bacilli, which worm themselves into the organs that secrete\nhealth and enjoin them from the performance of that rite. The\nmedical conservatives mentioned attempt to whittle away the value and\nsignificances of this theory by affirming its inadequacy to account\nfor such disorders as broken heads, sunstroke, superfluous toes,\nhome-sickness, burns and strangulation on the gallows; but against the\ntestimony of so eminent bacteriologists as Drs. Koch and Pasteur their\ncarping is as that of the idle angler. The bacillus is not to be denied;\nhe has brought his blankets and is here to stay until evicted, and\neviction can not be wrought by talking. Doubtless we may confidently\nexpect his eventual suppression by a fresher and more ingenious\ndisturber of the physiological peace, but the bacillus is now chief\namong ten thousand evils and it is futile to attempt to read him out of\nthe party.\n\nIt follows that in order to deal intelligently with the criminal impulse\nin our afflicted fellow-citizens we must discover the bacillus of crime.\nTo that end I think that the bodies of hanged assassins and such persons\nof low degree as have been gathered to their fathers by the cares of\npublic office or consumed by the rust of inactivity in prison should be\nhanded over to the microscopists for examination. The bore, too, offers\na fine field for research, and might justly enough be examined alive.\nWhether there is one general--or as the ancient and honorable orders\nprefer to say, \"grand\"--bacillus, producing a general (or grand)\ncriminal impulse covering a multitude of sins, or an infinite number of\nwell defined and several bacilli, each inciting to a particular crime,\nis a question to the determination of which the most distinguished\nmicroscopist might be proud to devote the powers of his eye. If the\nlatter is the case it will somewhat complicate the treatment, for\nclearly the patient afflicted with chronic robbery will require\nmedicines different from those that might be efficacious in a gentleman\nsuffering from constitutional theft or the desire to represent his\nDistrict in the Assembly. But it is permitted to us to hope that all\ncrimes, like all arts, are essentially one; that murder, arson and\nconservatism are but different symptoms of the same physical disorder,\nback of which is a microbe vincible to a single medicament, albeit the\nsame awaits discovery.\n\nIn the fascinating theory of the unity of crime we may not unreasonably\nhope to find another evidence of the brotherhood of man, another\nspiritual bond tending to draw the various classes of society more\nclosely together.\n\nFrom time to time it is said that a \"wave\" of some kind of crime\nis sweeping the country. It is all nonsense about \"waves\" of crime.\nOccasionally occurs some crime notable for its unusual features, or for\nthe renown of those concerned. It arrests public attention, which for a\ntime is directed to that particular kind of crane, and the newspapers,\nwith business-like instinct, give, for a season, unusual prominence to\nthe record of similar offenses. Then, self-deceived, they talk about a\n\"wave,\" or \"epidemic\" of it. So far is this from the truth that one of\nthe most noticeable characteristics of crime is the steady and unbroken\nmonotony of its occurrence in certain forms. There is nothing so dull\nand unvarying as this tedious uniformity of repetition. The march of\ncrime is never retarded, never accelerated. The criminals appear to be\nthoroughly well satisfied with their annual average, as shown by the\nperiodical reports of their secretary, the statistician.\n\nA marked illustration occurs to me. Many years ago in London a\nwell-known and respectable gentleman was brutally garroted. It was during\nthe \"silly season\"--between sessions of Parliament, when the newspapers\nare likely to be dull. They at once began to report cases of garroting.\nThere appeared to be an \"epidemic of garroting.\" The public mind was\nterribly excited, and when Parliament met it hastened to pass the\ninfamous \"flogging act\"--a distinct reversion to the senseless and\ndiscredited methods of physical torture, so alluring to the half\ninstructed mind of the average journalist of today. Yet the statistics\npublished by the Home Secretary under whose administration the act was\npassed show that neither at the time of the alarm was there any\nmaterial increase of garroting, nor in the period of public tranquillity\nsucceeding was there any appreciable diminution.\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\nBy advocating painless removal of incurable idiots and lunatics,\nincorrigible criminals and irreclaimable drunkards from this vale of\ntears Dr. W. Duncan McKim provoked many a respectable but otherwise\nblameless person to throw a catfit of great complexity and power. Yet\nDr. McKim seemed only to anticipate the trend of public opinion and\nforecast its crystallization into law. It is rapidly becoming a question\nof not what we ought to do with these unfortunates, but what we shall be\ncompelled to do. Study of the statistics of the matter shows that in\nall civilized countries mental and moral diseases are increasing,\nproportionately to population, at a rate which in the course of a few\ngenerations will make it impossible for the healthy to care for the\nafflicted. To do so will require the entire revenue which it is possible\nto raise by taxation--will absorb all the profits of all the industries\nand professions and make deeper and deeper inroads upon the capital\nfrom which they are derived. When it comes to that there can be but\none result. High and humanizing sentiments are angel visitants, whom we\nentertain with pride and pleasure, but when _fine_ entertainment becomes\ntoo costly to be borne we \"speed the parting guest\" forthwith. And\nit may happen that in inviting to his vacant place a less exciting\nsuccessor--that in replacing Sentiment with Reason--we shall, in this\ninstance, learn to our joy that we do but entertain another angel. For\nnothing is so heavenly as Reason; nothing is so sweet and compassionate\nas her voice--\n\n     \"Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose,\n     But musical as is Apollo's lute,\"\n\nIs it cruel, is it heartless, is it barbarous to use something of the\nsame care in breeding men and women as in breeding horses and dogs?\nHere is a determining question: Knowing yourself doomed to hopeless\nidiocy, lunacy, crime or drunkenness, would you, or would you not,\nwelcome a painless death? Let us assume that you would. Upon what\nground, then, would you deny to another a boon that you would desire for\nyourself?\n\n\n\n\nIII.\n\nThe good American is, as a rule, pretty hard upon roguery, but he\natones for his austerity by an amiable toleration of rogues. His\nonly requirement is that he must personally know the rogues. We all\n\"denounce\" thieves loudly enough, if we have not the honor of their\nacquaintance. If we have, why, that is different--unless they have the\nactual odor of the prison about them. We may know them guilty, but we\nmeet them, shake hands with them, drink with them, and if they happen to\nbe wealthy or otherwise great invite them to our houses, and deem it an\nhonor to frequent theirs. We do not \"approve their methods\"--let that be\nunderstood; and thereby they are sufficiently punished. The notion that\na knave cares a pin what is thought of his ways by one who is civil and\nfriendly to himself appears to have been invented by a humorist. On the\nvaudeville stage of Mars it would probably have made his fortune.\nIf warrants of arrest were out for every man in this country who is\nconscious of having repeatedly shaken hands with persons whom he knew to\nbe knaves there would be no guiltless person to serve them.\n\nI know men standing high in journalism who today will \"expose\" and\nbitterly \"denounce\" a certain rascality and tomorrow will be hobnobbing\nwith the rascals whom they have named. I know legislators of renown who\nhabitually in \"the halls of legislation\" raise their voices against the\ndishonest schemes of some \"trust magnate,\" and are habitually seen in\nfamiliar conversation with him. Indubitably these be hypocrites all.\nBetween the head and the heart of such a man is a wall of adamant, and\nneither organ knows what the other is doing.\n\nIf social recognition were denied to rogues they would be fewer by many.\nSome would only the more diligently cover their tracks along the devious\npaths of unrighteousness, but others would do so much violence to their\nconsciences as to renounce the disadvantages of rascality for those\nof an honest life. An unworthy person dreads nothing so much as the\nwithholding of an honest hand, the slow inevitable stroke of an ignoring\neye.\n\nFor one having knowledge of Mr. John D. Rockefeller's social life and\nconnections it would be easy to name a dozen men and women who by a\nconspiracy of conscription could profoundly affect the plans and profits\nof the Standard Oil Company. I have been asked: \"If John D. Rockefeller\nwere introduced to you by a friend, would you refuse to take his hand?\"\nI certainly should--and if ever thereafter I took the hand of that hardy\n\"friend\" it would be after his repentance and promise to reform his\nways. We have Rockefellers and Morgans because we have \"respectable\"\npersons who are not ashamed to take them by the hand, to be seen with\nthem, to say that they know them. In such it is treachery to censure\nthem; to cry out when robbed by them is to turn State's evidence.\n\nOne may smile upon a rascal (most of us do so many times a day) if one\ndoes not know him to be a rascal, and has not said he is; but\nknowing him to be, or having said he is, to smile upon him is to be a\nhypocrite--just a plain hypocrite or a sycophantic hypocrite, according\nto the station in life of the rascal smiled upon. There are more plain\nhypocrites than sycophantic ones, for there are more rascals of no\nconsequence than rich and distinguished ones, though they get fewer\nsmiles each. The American people will be plundered as long as the\nAmerican character is what it is; as long as it is tolerant of\nsuccessful knavery; as long as American ingenuity draws an imaginary\ndistinction between a man's public character and his private--his\ncommercial and his personal In brief, the American people will be\nplundered as long as they deserve to be plundered. No human law can stop\nit, none ought to stop it, for that would abrogate a higher and more\nsalutary law: \"As ye sow ye shall reap.\"\n\nIn a sermon by the Rev. Dr. Parkhurst is the following: \"The story of\nall our Lord's dealings with sinners leaves upon the mind the invariable\nimpression, if only the story be read sympathetically and earnestly,\nthat He always felt kindly towards the transgressor, but could have\nno tenderness of regard toward the transgression. There is no safe and\nsuccessful dealing with sin of any kind save as that distinction is\nappreciated and made a continual factor in our feelings and efforts.\"\n\nWith all due respect for Dr. Parkhurst, that is nonsense. If he will\nread his New Testament more understandingly he will observe that\nChrist's kindly feeling to transgressors was not to be counted on by\nsinners of every kind, and it was not always in evidence; for example,\nwhen he flogged the money-changers out of the temple. Nor is Dr.\nParkhurst himself any too amiably disposed toward the children of\ndarkness. It is not by mild words and gentle means that he has hurled\nthe mighty from their seats and exalted them of low degree. Such\nrevolutions as he set afoot are not made with spiritual rose-water;\nthere must be the contagion of a noble indignation fueled with harder\nwood than abstractions. The people can not be collected and incited to\ntake sides by the spectacle of a man fighting something that does\nnot fight back. It is men that Dr. Parkhurst is trouncing--not their\ncrimes--not Crime. He may fancy himself \"dowered with the hate of hate,\nthe scorn of scorn,\" but in reality he does not hate hate but hates the\nhateful, and scorns, not scorn, but the scornworthy.\n\nIt is singular with what tenacity that amusing though mischievous\nsuperstition keeps its hold upon the human mind--that grave _bona\nfide_ personification of abstractions and the funny delusion that it is\npossible to hate or love them. Sin is not a thing; there is no existing\nobject corresponding to any of the mere counter-words that are properly\nnamed abstract nouns. One can no more hate sin or love virtue than\none can hate a vacuum (which Nature--itself imaginary--was once by the\nscientists of the period solemnly held to do) or love one of the three\ndimensions. We may think that while loving a sinner we hate the sin,\nbut that is not so; if anything is hated it is other sinners of the same\nkind, who are not quite so close to us.\n\n\"But,\" says Citizen Goodheart, who thinks with difficulty, \"shall I\nthrow over my friend when he is in trouble?\" Yes, when you are convinced\nthat he deserves to be in trouble; throw him all the harder and the\nfurther because he is your friend. In addition to his particular offense\nagainst society he has disgraced _you_. If there are to be lenity and\ncharity let them go to the criminal who has foreborne to involve you\nin his shame. It were a pretty state of affairs if an undetected scamp,\nfearing exposure, could make you a co-defendant by so easy a precaution\nas securing your acquaintance and regard. Don't throw the first stone,\nof course, but when convinced that your friend is a proper target, heave\naway with a right hearty good-will, and let the stone be of serviceable\ndimensions, scabrous, textured flintwise and delivered with a good aim.\n\nThe French have a saying to the effect that to know all is to pardon\nall; and doubtless with an omniscient insight into the causes of\ncharacter we should find the field of moral responsibility pretty\nthickly strewn with extenuating circumstances very suitable indeed for\nconsideration by a god who has had a hand in besetting \"with pitfall\nand with gin\" the road we are to wander in. But I submit that universal\nforgiveness would hardly do as a working principle. Even those who are\nmost apt and facile with the incident of the woman taken in adultery\ncommonly cherish a secret respect for the doctrine of eternal damnation;\nand some of them are known to pin their faith to the penal code of their\nstate. Moreover there is some reason to believe that the sinning woman,\nbeing \"taken,\" was penitent--they usually are when found out.\n\nI care nothing about principles--they are lumber and rubbish. What\nconcerns our happiness and welfare, as affectible by our fellowmen, is\nconduct \"Principles, not men,\" is a rogue's cry; rascality's counsel to\nstupidity, the noise of the duper duping on his dupe. He shouts it most\nloudly and with the keenest sense of its advantage who most desires\ninattention to his own conduct, or to that forecast of it, his\ncharacter. As to sin, that has an abundance of expounders and is already\nuniversally known to be wicked. What more can be said against it, and\nwhy go on repeating that? The thing is a trifle wordworn, whereas the\nsinner cometh up as a flower every day, fresh, ingenious and inviting.\nSin is not at all dangerous to society; it is the sinner that does all\nthe mischief. Sin has no arms to thrust into the public treasury and\nthe private; no hands with which to cut a throat; no tongue to wreck\na reputation withal. I would no more attack it than I would attack an\nisosceles triangle, a vacuum, or Hume's \"phantasm floating in a void.\"\nMy chosen enemy must be something that has a skin for my switch, a head\nfor my cudgel--something that can smart and ache and, if so minded,\nfight back. I have no quarrel with abstractions; so far as I know they\nare all good citizens.\n\n\n\n\nTHE DEATH PENALTY\n\n\n\n\nI.\n\n\"DOWN with the gallows!\" is a cry not unfamiliar in America. There is\nalways a movement afoot to make odious the just principle of \"a life for\na life\"--to represent it as \"a relic of barbarism,\" \"a usurpation of\nthe divine authority,\" and the rotten rest of it The law making murder\npunishable by death is as purely a measure of self-defense as is the\ndisplay of a pistol to one diligently endeavoring to kill without\nprovocation. Even the most brainless opponent of \"capital punishment\"\nwould do that if he knew enough. It is in precisely the same sense an\nadmonition, a warning to abstain from crime. Society says by that law:\n\"If you kill one of us you die,\" just as by display of the pistol\nthe individual whose life is attacked says: \"Desist or be shot.\" To be\neffective the warning in either case must be more than an idle threat.\nEven the most unearthly reasoner among the gallows-downing unfortunates\nwould hardly expect to frighten away an assassin who knew the pistol\nto be unloaded. Of course these queer illogicians can not be made to\nunderstand that their position commits them to absolute non-resistance\nto any kind of aggression, and that is fortunate for the rest of us,\nfor if as Christians they frankly and consistently took that ground we\nshould be under the miserable necessity of respecting them.\n\nWe have good reason to hold that the horrible prevalence of murder in\nthis country is due to the fact that we do not execute our laws--that\nthe death penalty is threatened but not inflicted--that the pistol is\nnot loaded. In civilized countries, where there is enough respect for\nthe laws to administer them, there is enough to obey them. While man\nstill has as much of the ancestral brute as his skin can hold widiout\ncracking we shall have thieves and demagogues and anarchists and\nassassins and persons with a private system of lexicography who define\nhanging as murder and murder as mischance, and many another disagreeable\ncreation, but in all this welter of crime and stupidity are areas where\nhuman life is comparatively secure against the human hand. It is at\nleast a significant coincidence that in these the death penalty for\nmurder is fairly well enforced by judges who do not derive any part of\ntheir authority from those for whose restraint and punishment they hold\nit. Against the life of one guiltless person the lives of ten thousand\nmurderers count for nothing; their hanging is a public good, without\nreference to the crimes that disclose their deserts. If we could\ndiscover them by other signs than their bloody deeds they should be\nhanged anyhow. Unfortunately we must have a death as evidence. The\nscientists who will tell us how to recognize the potential assassin, and\npersuade us to kill him, will be the greatest benefactor of his century.\n\nWhat would these enemies of the gibbet have?--these lineal descendants\nof the drunken mobs that pelted the hangmen at Tyburn Tree; this progeny\nof criminals, which has so defiled with the mud of its animosity the\nnoble office of public executioner that even \"in this enlightened\nage\" he shirks his high duty, entrusting it to a hidden or unnamed\nsubordinate? If murder is unjust of what importance is it whether it's\npunishment by death be just or not?--nobody needs to incur it.\n\nMen are not drafted for the death penalty; they volunteer. \"Then it is\nnot deterrent,\" mutters the gentleman whose rude forefather pelted the\nhangman. Well, as to that, the law which is to accomplish more than a\npart of its purpose must be awaited with great patience. Every murder\nproves that hanging is not altogether deterrent; every hanging that it\nis somewhat deterrent--it deters the person hanged. A man's first murder\nis his crime, his second is ours.\n\nThe voice of Theosophy has been heard in favor of downing the gallows.\nAs usual the voice is a trifle vague and it babbles. Clear speech is the\noutcome of clear thought, and that is something to which Theosophists\nare not addicted. Considering their infirmity in that way, it would be\nhardly fair to take them as seriously as they take themselves, but\nwhen any considerable number of apparently earnest citizens unite in a\npetition to the Governor of their State, to commute the death sentence\nof a convicted assassin without alleging a doubt of his guilt the\nphenomenon challenges a certain attention to what they do allege. What\nthese amiable persons hold, it seems, is what was held by Alphonse Karr:\nthe expediency of abolishing the death penalty; but apparently they do\nnot hold, with him, that the assassins should begin. They want the State\nto begin, believing that the magnanimous example will effect a change of\nheart in those about to murder. This, I take it, is the meaning of their\nassertion that \"death penalties have not the deterring influence which\nimprisonment for life carries.\" In this they obviously err: death deters\nat least the person who suffers it--he commits no more murder; whereas\nthe assassin who is imprisoned for life and immune from further\npunishment may with impunity kill his keeper or whomsoever he may be\nable to get at. Even as matters now are, the most incessant vigilance is\nrequired to prevent convicts in prison from murdering their attendants\nand one another. How would it be if the \"life-termer\" were assured\nagainst any additional inconvenience for braining a guard occasionally,\nor strangling a chaplain now and then? A penitentiary may be described\nas a place of punishment and reward; and under the system proposed the\ndifference in desirableness between a sentence and an appointment would\nbe virtually effaced. To overcome this objection a life sentence would\nhave to mean solitary confinement, and that means insanity. Is that what\nthese Theosophical gentlemen propose to substitute for death?\n\nThese petitioners call the death penalty \"a relic of barbarism,\" which\nis neither conclusive nor true. What is required is not loose assertion\nand dogs-eared phrases, but evidence of futility, or, in lack of that,\ncogent reasoning. It is true that the most barbarous nations inflict the\ndeath penalty most frequently and for the greatest number of offenses,\nbut that is because barbarians are more criminal in instinct and less\neasily controlled by gentle methods than civilized peoples. That is\nwhy we call them barbarous. It is not so very long since our English\nancestors punished more than forty kinds of crime with death. The fact\nthat the hangman, the boiler-in-oil and the breaker-on-the-wheel had\ntheir hands full does not show that the laws were futile; it shows that\nthe dear old boys from whom we are proud to derive ourselves were a bad\nlot--of which we have abundant corroborative evidence in their brutal\npastimes and in their manners and customs generally. To have restrained\nthat crowd by the rose-water methods of modern penology--that is\nunthinkable.\n\nThe death penalty, say the memorialists, \"creates blood-thirstiness in\nthe unthinking masses and defeats its own ends. It is a cause of\nmurder, not a check.\" These gentlemen are themselves of \"the unthinking\nmasses\"--they do not know how to think. Let them try to trace and\nlucidly expound the chain of motives lying between the knowledge that\na murderer has been hanged and the wish to commit a murder. How,\nprecisely, does the one beget the other? By what unearthly process of\nreasoning does a man turning away from the gallows persuade himself that\nit is expedient to incur the danger of hanging? Let us have pointed out\nto us the several steps in that remarkable mental progress. Obviously,\nthe thing is absurd; one might as reasonably say that contemplation of\na pitted face will make a man go and catch smallpox, or the spectacle of\nan amputated limb on the scrap-heap of a hospital tempt him to cut off\nhis arm.\n\n\"An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,\" says the Theosophist, \"is\nnot justice. It is revenge and unworthy of a Christian civilization.\" It\nis exact justice: nobody can think of anything more accurately just\nthan such punishments would be, whatever the motive in awarding them.\nUnfortunately such a system is not practicable, but he who denies its\nabsolute justice must deny also the justice of a bushel of corn for a\nbushel of corn, a dollar for a dollar, service for service. We can not\nundertake by such clumsy means as laws and courts to do to the criminal\nexactly what he has done to his victim, but to demand a life for a life\nis simple, practicable, expedient and (therefore) right.\n\nHere are two of these gentlemen's dicta, between which they inserted the\none just considered, though properly they should go together in frank\ninconsistency:\n\n\"6. It [the death penalty] punishes the innocent a thousand times more\nthan the guilty. Death is merciful to the tortures which the living\nrelatives must undergo. And they have committed no crime.\"\n\n\"8. Death penalties have not the deterring influence which imprisonment\nfor life carries. Mere death is not dreaded. See the number of suicides.\nHopeless captivity is much more severe.\"\n\nMerely noting that the \"living relatives\" whose sorrows so\nsympathetically affect these soft-hearted and soft-headed persons are\nthose of the murderer, not those of his victim, let us consider what\nthey really say, not what they think they say: \"Death is no very\ngreat punishment, for the criminal doesn't mind it much, but hopeless\ncaptivity is a very great punishment indeed Therefore, let us spare\nthe assassin's family the tortures they will suffer if we inflict\nthe lighter penalty. Let us make it easier for them by inflicting the\nseverer one.\"\n\nThere is sense for you!--sense of the sound old fruity Theosophical\nsort--the kind of sense that has lifted \"The Beautiful Cult\" out of the\ndark domain of reason into the serene altitudes of inexpressible Thrill!\n\nAs to \"hopeless captivity,\" though, there is no such thing.\nIn legislation, today can not bind tomorrow. By an act of the\nLegislature--even by a constitutional prohibition, we may do away with\nthe pardoning power; but laws can be repealed, constitutions amended.\n\nThe public has a short memory, signatures to petitions in the line of\nmercy are had for the asking, and tender-hearted Governors are familiar\nafflictions. We have life sentences already, and sometimes they are\nserved to the end--if the end comes soon enough! but the average length\nof \"life imprisonment\" is, I am told, a little more than seven years.\nHope springs eternal in the human beast, and matters simply can not\nbe so arranged that in entering the penitentiary he will \"leave hope\nbehind.\" Hopeless captivity is a dream.\n\nI quote again:\n\n\"9. Life imprisonment is the natural and humane check upon one who has\nproven his unfitness for freedom by taking life deliberately.\"\n\nWhat! it is no longer \"much more severe\" than the \"relic of barbarism?\"\nIn the course of a half dozen lines of petition it has become \"humane\".\nTruly these are lightning changes of character! It would be pleasing to\nknow just what these worthy Theosophers have the happiness to think that\nthey think.\n\n\"It is the only punishment that receives the consent of conscience.\"\n\nThat is to say, their conscience and that of the convicted assassin.\n\n\"Taking the life of a murderer does not restore the life he took\ntherefore, it is a most illogical punishment. Two wrongs do not make a\nright.\"\n\nHere's richness! Hanging an assassin is illogical because it does\nnot restore the life of his victim; incarceration does; therefore,\nincarceration is logical--_quod erat demonstrandum_.\n\nTwo wrongs certainly do not make a right, but the veritable thing in\ndispute is whether taking the life of a life-taker is a wrong. So naked\nand unashamed an example of _petitio principii_ would disgrace a debater\nin a pinafore. And these wonder-mongers have the incredible effrontery\nto babble of \"logic\"! Why, if one of them were to meet a syllogism in a\nlonely road he would run away in a hundred and fifty directions as hard\nas ever he could hook it. One is almost ashamed to dispute with such\nintellectual cloudings.\n\nWhatever an individual may rightly do to protect himself society may\nrightly do to protect him, for he is a part of itself. If he may\nrightly take life in defending himself society may rightly take life in\ndefending him. If society may rightly take life in defending him it may\nrightly threaten to take it. Having rightly and mercifully threatened to\ntake it, it not only rightly may take it, but expediently must.\n\nThe law of a life for a life does not altogether prevent murder. No law\ncan altogether prevent any form of crime, nor is it desirable that it\nshould. Doubtless God could so have created us that our sense of right\nand justice could have existed without contemplation of injustice and\nwrong, as doubtless he could so have created us that we could have felt\ncompassion without a knowledge of suffering, but doubtless he did not.\nConstituted as we are, we can know good only by contrast with evil. Our\nsense of sin is what our virtues feed upon; in the thin air of universal\nmorality the altar-fires of honor and the beacons of conscience could\nnot be kept alight A community without crime would be a community\nwithout warm and elevated sentiments--without the sense of justice,\nwithout generosity, without courage, without magnanimity--a community of\nsmall, smug souls, uninteresting to God and uncoveted by the Devil. We\ncan have too much of crime, no doubt; what the wholesome proportion is\nnone can say. Just now we are running a good deal to murder, but he who\ncan gravely attribute that phenomenon, or any part of it, to infliction\nof the death penalty, instead of virtual immunity from any penalty at\nall, is justly entitled to the innocent satisfaction that comes of being\na simpleton.\n\nThe New Woman is against the death penalty, naturally, for she is hot\nand hardy in the conviction that whatever is is wrong. She has visited\nthis world in order to straighten things about a bit, and is in distress\nlest the number of things be insufficient to her need. The matter is\nimportant variously; not least so in its relation to the new heaven and\nthe new earth that are to be the outcome of woman suffrage. There can be\nno doubt that the vast majority of women have sentimental objections to\nthe death penalty that quite outweigh such practical considerations in\nits favor as they can be persuaded to comprehend. Aided by the minority\nof men afflicted by the same mental malady, they will indubitably effect\nits abolition in the first lustrum of their political activity. The\nNew Woman will scarcely feel the seat of power warm beneath her before\ngiving to the assassin's \"unhand me villain!\" the authority of law.\nSo we shall make again the old experiment, discredited by a thousand\nfailures, of preventing crime by tenderness to caught criminals. And\nthe criminal uncaught will treat us to a quality of toughness notably\naugmented by the Christian spirit of the regime.\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\nAs to painless executions, the simple and practical way to make them\nboth just and popular is the adoption by murderers of a system of\npainless assassinations. Until this is done there seems to be no hope\nthat the people will renounce the wholesome discomfort of the style\nof executions endeared to them by memories and associations of the\ntenderest character. There is also, I fancy, a shaping notion in the\npublic mind that the penologists and their allies have gone about as\nfar as they can safely be permitted to go in the direction of a softer\nsuasion of the criminal nature toward good behavior. The modern prison\nhas become a rather more comfortable habitation than the dangerous\nclasses are accustomed to at home. Modern prison life has in their eyes\nsomething of the charm and glamor of an ideal existence, like that in\nthe Happy Valley from which Rasselas had the folly to escape. Whatever\nadvantages to the public may be secured by abating the rigors of\nimprisonment and inconveniences incident to execution, there is\nthis objection, it makes them less deterrent. Let the penologers and\nphilanthrope, have their way and even hanging might be made so pleasant\nand withal so interesting a social distinction that it would deter\nnobody but the person hanged. Adopt the euthanasian method of\nelectricity, asphyxia by smothering in rose-leaves, or slow poisoning\nwith rich food, and the death penalty may come to be regarded as the\nobject of a noble ambition to the _bon vivant_, and the rising young\nsuicide may go and murder somebody else instead of himself in order to\nreceive a happier dispatch than his own 'prentice hand can assure him.\n\nBut the advocates of agreeable pains and penalties tell us that in the\ndarker ages, when cruel and degrading punishment was the rule, and was\nfreely inflicted for every light infraction of the law, crime was more\ncommon than it is now; and in this they appear to be right. But they one\nand all overlook a fact equally obvious and vastly significant: that\nthe intellectual, moral and social condition of the masses was very low.\nCrime was more common because ignorance was more common, poverty was\nmore common, sins of authority, and therefore hatred of authority, were\nmore common. The world of even a century ago was a quite different\nworld from the world of today, and a vastly more uncomfortable one. The\npopular adage to the contrary notwithstanding, human nature was not by a\nlong cut the same then that it is now. In the very ancient time of that\nearly English king, George III, when women were burned at the stake\nin public for various offenses and men were hanged for \"coining\" and\nchildren for theft, and in the still remoter period, (circa 1530) when\npoisoners were boiled in several waters, divers sorts of criminals were\ndisemboweled and some are thought to have undergone _the pene forte et\ndure_ of cold-pressing (an infliction which the pen of Hugo has since\nmade popular--in literature)--in these wicked old days it is possible\nthat crime flourished, not because of the law's severity, but in spite\nof it. It is possible that our respected and respectable ancestors\nunderstood the situation as it then was a trifle better than we can\nunderstand it on the hither side of this gulf of years, and that they\nwere not the reasonless barbarians that we think them to have been.\nAnd if they were, what must have been the unreason and barbarity of the\ncriminal element with which they had to deal?\n\nI am far from thinking that severity of punishment can have the same\nrestraining effect as probability of some punishment being inflicted;\nbut if mildness of penalty is to be superadded to difficulty of\nconviction, and both are to be mounted upon laxity in detection, the\n\"pile\" will be \"complete\" with a vengeance. There is a peculiar fitness,\nperhaps, in the fact that all these ideas for comfortable punishment\nshould be urged at a time when there appears to be a tolerably general\ndisposition to inflict no punishment at all. There are, however, still a\nfew old-fashioned persons who hold it obvious that one who is ambitious\nto break the laws of his country will not with as light a heart and as\nairy an indifference incur the peril of a harsh penalty as he will the\nchance of one more nearly resembling that which he would select for\nhimself.\n\n\n\n\nIII.\n\nAfter lying for more than a century dead I was revived, given a new\nbody, and restored to society. This was in the year 2015. The first\nthing of interest that I observed was an enormous building, covering a\nsquare mile of ground. It was surrounded on all sides by a high, strong\nwall of hewn stone upon which armed sentinels paced to and fro. In one\nface of the wall was a single gate of massive iron, strongly guarded.\nWhile admiring the cyclopean architecture of the \"reverend pile\" I was\naccosted by a man in uniform, evidently The Warden, with a cheerful\nsalutation.\n\n\"Colonel,\" I said, pressing his hand, \"it gives me pleasure to find some\none that I can believe. Pray tell me what is this building.\"\n\n\"That,\" said the colonel, \"is the new State penitentiary. It is one of\ntwelve, all alike.\"\n\n\"You surprise me,\" I replied. \"Surely the criminal element must have\nincreased enormously.\"\n\n\"Yes, indeed,\" he assented; \"under the Reform _regime_, which began in\nyour day, it became so powerful, bold and fierce that arrests were no\nlonger possible and the prisons then in existence were soon overcrowded.\nThe State was compelled to erect others of greater capacity.\"\n\n\"But, Colonel,\" I protested, \"if the criminals were too bold and\npowerful to be taken into custody, of what use are the prisons! And how\nare they crowded?\"\n\nHe fixed upon me a look that I could not fail to interpret as expressing\na doubt of my sanity. \"What?\" he said, \"is it possible that the modern\nPenology is unknown to you? Do you suppose we practise the antiquated\nand ineffective method of shutting up the rascals? Sir, the growth of\nthe criminal element has, as I said, compelled the erection of more and\nlarger prisons. We have enough to hold comfortably all the honest men\nand women of the State. Within these protecting walls they carry on all\nthe necessary vocations of life excepting commerce. That is necessarily\nin the hands of the rogues as before.\"\n\n\"Venerated representative of Reform,\" I exclaimed, wringing his hand\nwith effusion, \"you are Knowledge, you are History, you are the Higher\nEducation! We must talk further. Come, let us enter this benign edifice;\nyou shall show me your dominion and instruct me in the rules. You shall\npropose me as an inmate.\"\n\nI walked rapidly to the gate. When challenged by the sentinel, I\nturned to summon my instructor. He was nowhere visible: desolate and\nforbidding, as about the broken statue of Ozymandias,\n\n     \"The lone and level sands stretched far away.\"\n\n\n\n\nRELIGION\n\n\n\n\nI.\n\nThis is my ultimate and determining test of right--\"What, in the\ncircumstances, would Christ have done?\"--the Christ of the New\nTestament, not the Christ of the commentators, theologians, priests\nand parsons. The test is perhaps not infallible, but it is exceedingly\nsimple and gives as good practical results as any. I am not a Christian,\nbut so far as I know, the best and truest and sweetest character in\nliterature, is next to Buddha, Jesus Christ. He taught nothing new in\ngoodness, for all goodness was ages old before he came; but with an\nalmost infallible intuition he applied to life and conduct the entire\nlaw of righteousness. He was a lightning moral calculator: to his\nluminous intelligence the statement of the problem carried the\nsolution--he could not hesitate, he seldom erred. That upon his deeds\nand words was founded a religion which in a debased form persists and\neven spreads to this day is mere attestation of his marvelous gift:\nadoration is a primitive mode of recognition.\n\nIt seems a pity that this wonderful man had not a longer life under more\ncomplex conditions--conditions more nearly identical with those of the\nmodern world and the future. One would like to be able to see, through\nthe eyes of his biographers, his genius applied to more and more\ndifficult questions. Yet one can hardly go wrong in inference of his\nthought and act. In many of the complexities and entanglements of\nmodern affairs it is no easy matter to find an answer off-hand to the\nquestion,\"What is it right to do?\" But put it in another way: \"What\nwould Christ have done?\" and lo! there is light. I Doubt spreads her\nbat-like wings and is away; the sun of truth springs into the sky,\nsplendoring the path of right and marking that of error with a deeper\nshade.\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\nGentlemen of the secular press dealt with the Rev. Mr. Sheldon not\naltogether fairly. To some very relevant considerations they gave no\nweight. It was not fair, for example, to say, as the distinguished\neditor of the \"North American Review\" did, that in professing to conduct\na daily newspaper for a week as he conceived that Christ would have\nconducted it, Mr. Sheldon acted the part of \"a notoriety seeking\nmountebank.\" It seldom is fair to go into the question of motive, for\nthat is something upon which one has the least light, even when the\nmotive is one's own. The motives that we think dominale us seem simple\nand obvious; they are in most instances exceedingly complex and obscure.\nComplacently surveying the wreck and ruin that he has wrought, even that\ngreat anarch, the \"well meaning person,\" can not have entire assurance\nthat he meant as well as the disastrous results appear to him to show.\n\nThe trouble with Mr. Harvey of the \"Review\" was inability to put himself\nin another's place if that happened to be at any considerable distance\nfrom his own place. He made no allowance for the difference in the point\nof view--for the difference, that is, between his mind and the mind\nof Mr. Sheldon. If Mr. Harvey had undertaken to conduct that Kansas\nnewspaper as Christ would have done he would indeed have been \"a\nnotoriety seeking mountebank,\" or some similarly unenviable thing, for\nonly a selfish purpose could persuade him to an obviously resultless\nwork. But Mr. Sheldon was different--his was the religious mind--a mind\nhaving faith in an \"overruling\" Providence who can, and frequently does,\ninterfere with the orderly relation of cause and effect, accomplishing\nan end by means otherwise inadequate to its production. Believing\nhimself a faithful servant of that Power, and asking daily for its\ninterposition for promotion of a highly moral purpose, why should he not\nhave expected his favor to the enterprise? To expect that was, in\nMr. Sheldon, natural, reasonable, wise; his folly lay in believing in\nconditions making it expectable. A person convinced that the law of\ngravitation is suspended is no fool for walking into a bog. Mr. Harvey\nmay understand, but Mr. Sheldon can not understand, that Jesus Christ\nwould not edit a newspaper at all.\n\nThe religious mind, it should be understood, is not logical. It may\nacquire, as Whateley's did, a certain familiarity with the syllogism as\nan abstraction, but of the syllogism's practical application, its\nreal relation to the phenomena of thought, the religious mind can know\nnothing. That is merely to say that the mind congenitally gifted with\nthe power of logic and accessible to its light and leading does not take\nto religion, which is a matter, not of reason, but of feeling--not of\nthe head, but of the heart. Religions are conclusions for which the\nfacts of nature supply no major premises. They are accepted or rejected\naccording to the original mental make-up of the person to whom they\nappeal for recognition. Believers and unbelievers are like two boys\nquarreling across a wall. Each got to his place by means of a ladder.\nThey may fight if they will, but neither can kick away the other's\nsupport.\n\nBelieving the things that he did believe, Mr. Sheldon was entirely right\nin thinking that the main purpose of a newspaper should be the salvation\nof souls. If his religious belief is true that should be the main\npurpose, not only of a newspaper, but of everything that has a purpose,\nor can be given one. If we have immortal souls and the consequences of\nour deeds in the body reach over into another life in another world,\ndetermining there our eternal state of happiness or pain, that is the\nmost momentous fact conceivable. It is the only momentous fact; all\nothers are chaff and rags. A man who, believing it to be a fact, does\nnot make it the one purpose of his life to save his soul and the souls\nof others that are willing to be saved is a fool and a rogue. If he\nthink that any part of this only needful work can be done by turning a\nnewspaper into a gruelpot he ought to do so or (preferably) perish in\nthe attempt.\n\nThe talk of degrading the sacred name, and all that, is mostly nonsense.\nIf one may not test his conduct in this life by reference to the highest\nstandard that his religion affords it is not easy to see how religion\nis to be made anything but a mere body of doctrine. I do not think the\nChristian religion will ever be seriously discredited by an attempt to\ndetermine, even with too dim a light, what under given circumstances,\nthe man miscalled its \"founder\" would do. What else is his great example\ngood for? But it is not always enough to ask oneself, \"How would Christ\ndo this?\" One should first consider whether Christ would do it. It is\nconceivable that certain of his thrifty contemporaries may have asked\nhim how he would change money in the Temple.\n\nIf Mr. Sheldon's critics were unfair his defenders were, as a rule,\nnot much better. They meant to be fair, but they had to be foolish. For\nexample, there is the Rev. Dr. Parkhurst, whose defence was published\nwith Mr. Harvey's attack. I shall give a single illustration of how this\nmore celebrated than cerebrated \"divine\" is pleased to think that he\nthinks. He is replying to some one's application to this matter of\nChrist's injunction, \"Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth.\"\nThis command, he gravely says, \"is not against money, nor against the\nmaking of money, but against the loving it for its own sake and the\ndedicating of it to self-aggrandizing uses.\" I call this a foolish\nutterance, because it violates the good old rule of not telling an\nobvious falsehood. In no word nor syllable does Christ's injunction give\nthe least color of truth to the reverend gentleman's \"interpretation;\"\nthat is the reverend gentleman's very own, and doubtless he feels\nan honest pride in it. It is the product of a controversial need--a\ncharacteristic attempt to crawl out of a hole in an enclosure which\nhe was not invited to enter. The words need no \"interpretation;\" are\ncapable of none; are as clear and unambiguous a proposition as language\ncan frame. Moreover, they are consistent with all that we think we know\nof their author's life and character, for he not only lived in poverty\nand taught poverty as a blessing, but commanded it as a duty and a means\nof salvation. The probable effect of universal obedience among those who\nadore him as a god is not at present an urgent question. I think even so\nfaithful a disciple as the Rev. Dr. Parkhurst has still a place to lay\nhis head, a little of the wherewithal to be clothed, and a good deal of\nthe power of interpretation to excuse it.\n\n\n\n\nIII.\n\nThere are other hypocrites than those of the pulpit Dr. Gatling, the\ningenious scoundrel who invented the gun that bears his name with\ncommendable fortitude, says he has given much thought to the task of\nbringing the forces of war to such perfection that war will be no more.\nCommonly the man who talks of war becoming so destructive as to be\nimpossible is only a harmless lunatic, but this fellow utters his cant\nto conceal his cupidity. If he thought there was any danger of the\nnations beating their swords into plowshares we should see him \"take the\nstump\" against agriculture forthwith. The same is true of all military\ninventors. They are lions' parasites; themselves, of cold blood they\nfatten upon hot. The sheep-tick's paler fare is not at all to their\ntaste.\n\nI sometimes wish I were a preacher: preachers do so blindly ignore their\nshining opportunities. I am indifferently versed in theology--whereof,\nso help me Heaven, I do not believe one word--but know something of\nreligion. I know, for example, that Jesus Christ was no soldier; that\nwar has two essential features which did not command His approval:\naggression and defence. No man can either attack or defend and remain\nChristian; and if no man, no nation. I could quote texts by the hour\nproving that Christ taught not only absolute abstention from violence\nbut absolute non-resistance. Now what do we see? Nearly all the\nso-called Christian nations of the world sweating and groaning under\ntheir burdens of debt contracted in violation of these injunctions which\nthey believe divine--contracted in perfecting their means of offense\nand defense. \"We must have the best,\" they cry; and if armor plates\nfor ships were better when alloyed with silver, and guns if banded with\ngold, such armor plates would be put upon the ships, such guns would be\nfreely made. No sooner does one nation adopt some rascal's costly device\nfor taking life or protecting it from the taker (and these soulless\ninventors will as readily sell the product of their malign ingenuity to\none nation as to another) than all the rest either possess themselves\nof it or adopt something superior and more expensive; and so all pay the\npenalty for the sins of each. A hundred million dollars is a moderate\nestimate of what it has cost the world to abstain from strangling the\ninfant Gatling in his cradle.\n\nYou may say, if you will, that primitive Christianity--the Christianity\nof Christ--is not adapted to these rough-and-tumble times; that it is\nnot a practical scheme of conduct. As you please; I have not undertaken\nto say what it is not, but what it partly is. I am no Christian, though\nI think that Christ probably knew what was good for man about as well\nas Dr. Gatling or the United States Ordnance Office. It is not for me to\ndefend Christianity; Christ did not. Nevertheless, I can not forbear the\nwish that I were a preacher, in order sincerely to affirm that the awful\nburdens borne by modern nations are obvious judgments of Heaven for\ndisobedience to the Prince of Peace. What a striking theme to kindle\nfires upon the heights of imagination--to fill the secret sources of\neloquence--to stir the very stones in the temple of truth! What a\nnoble subject for the pious gentlemen who serve (with rank, pay and\nallowances) as chaplains in the Army and the Navy, or the civilian\ndivines who offer prayer at the launching of an ironclad!\n\n\n\n\nIV.\n\nA matter of missionaries commonly is to the fore as a cause of quarrel\namong nations which have the hardihood to prefer their own religions\nto ours. Missionaries constitute, in truth, a perpetual menace to the\nnational peace. I dare say the most of them are conscientious men and\nwomen of a certain order of intellect. They believe, and from the way\nthat they interpret their sacred book have some reason to believe, that\nin meddling uninvited with the spiritual affairs of others they perform\na work acceptable to God--their God. They think they discern a moral\ndifference between \"approaching\" a man of another religion about the\nstate of his soul and approaching him on the condition of his linen\nor the character of his wife. I think there is no difference. I have\nobserved that the person who volunteers an interest in my spiritual\nwelfare is the same person from whom I must expect an impudent concern\nabout my temporal affairs. The missionary is one who goes about throwing\nopen the shutters of other men's bosoms in order to project upon the\nblank walls a shadow of himself.\n\nNo ruler nor government of sense would willingly permit foreigners to\nsap the foundation of the national religion. No ruler nor government\never does permit it except under the stress of compulsion. It is through\nthe people's religion that a wise government governs wisely--even in our\nown country we make only a transparent pretense of officially ignoring\nChristianity, and a pretense only because we have so many kinds of\nChristians, all jealous and inharmonious. Each sect would make this a\nTheocracy if it could, and would that make short work of any missionary\nfrom abroad. Happily all religions but ours have the sloth and timidity\nof error; Christianity alone, drawing vigor from eternal truth, is\ncourageous enough and energetic enough to make itself a nuisance to\npeople of every other faith. The Jew not only does not bid for converts,\nbut discourages them by imposition of hard conditions, and the Moslem\nTrue Believer's simple, forthright method of reducing error is to cut\noff the head holding it. I don't say that this is right; I say only\nthat, being practical and comprehensible, it commands a certain respect\nfrom the impartial observer not conversant with scriptural justification\nof the other practice.\n\nIt is only where the missionaries have made themselves hated that there\nis any molestation of Europeans engaged in the affairs of this world.\nChinese antipathy to Caucasians in China is neither a racial animosity\nnor a religious; it is an instinctive dislike of persons who will not\nmind their own business. China has been infested with missionaries from\nthe earliest centuries of our era, and they have rarely been molested\nwhen they have taken the trouble to behave themselves. In the time of\nthe Emperor Justinian the fact that the Christian religion was openly\npreached throughout China enabled that sovereign to wrest from the\nChinese the jealously-guarded secret of silk-making. He sent two monks\nto Pekin, who alternately preached seriousness and studied sericulture,\nand who brought away silkworms' eggs concealed in sticks.\n\nIn religious matters the Chinese are more tolerant than we. They let the\nreligions of others alone, but naturally and rightly demand that others\nshall let theirs alone. In China, as in other Oriental countries\nwhere the color line is not drawn and where slavery itself is a light\naffliction, the mental attitude of the zealot who finds gratification\nin \"spreading the light\" of which he deems himself custodian, is not\nunderstood. Like most things not understood, it is felt to be bad, and\nis indubitably offensive.\n\n\n\n\nV.\n\nAt a church club meeting a paper was read by a minister entitled, \"Why\nthe Masses Do not Attend the Churches.\" This good and pious man was not\nashamed to account for it by the fact that there is no Sunday law,\nand \"the masses\" can find recreation elsewhere, even in the drinking\nsaloons. It is frank of him to admit that he and his professional\nbrethren have not brains enough to make religious services more\nattractive than shaking dice for cigars or playing cards for drink; but\nif it is a fact he must not expect the local government to assist in\nspreading the gospel by rounding-up the people and corralling them in\nthe churches. The truth is, and this gentleman suspects it, that \"the\nmasses\" stay out of hearing of his pulpit because he talks nonsense\nof the most fatiguing kind; they would rather do any one of a thousand\nother things than go to hear it. These parsons are like a scolding wife\nwho grieves because her husband will not pass his evenings with her. The\nmore she grieves, the more she scolds and the more diligently he keeps\naway from her. I don't think Jack Satan is conspicuously wise, but he\nis in the main a good entertainer, with a right pretty knack at making\npeople come again; but the really reprehensible part of his performance\nis not the part that attracts them. The parsons might study his methods\nwith great advantage to religion and morality.\n\nIt may be urged that religious services have not entertainment for their\nobject. But the people, when not engaged in business or labor, have\nit for _their_ object. If the clergy do not choose to adapt their\nministrations to the characters of those to whom they wish to minister,\nthat is their own affair; but let them accept the consequences. \"The\nmasses\" move along the line of least reluctance. They do not really\nenjoy Sunday at all; they try to get through the day in the manner that\nis least wearisome to the spirit. Possibly their taste is not what it\nought to be. If this minister were a physician of bodies instead of\nsouls, and patients who had not called him in should refuse to take\nthe medicine which he thought his best and they his nastiest, he should\neither offer them another, a little less disagreeable if a little less\nefficacious, or let them alone. In no case is he justified in asking the\ncivil authority to hold their noses while he plies the spoon.\n\n\"The masses\" have not asked for churches and services; they really do\nnot care for anything of the kind--whether they ought is another matter.\nIf the clergy choose to supply them, that is well and worthy. But they\nshould understand their relation to the impenitent worldling, which is\nprecisely that of a physician without a mandate from the patient, who\nmay not be convinced that there is very much the matter with him. The\nphysician may have a diploma and a State certificate authorizing him to\npractise, but if the patient do not deem himself bound to be practised\nupon has the physician a right to make him miserable until he will\nsubmit? Clearly, he has not. If he can not persuade him to come to the\ndispensary and take medicine there is an end to the matter, and he may\njustly conclude that he is misfitted to his vocation.\n\nI am sure that the ministers and that singularly small contingent of\nearnest and, on the whole, pretty good persons who cluster about them do\nnot perceive how alien they are in their convictions, tastes, sympathies\nand general mental habitudes to the great majority of their fellow men\nand women. Their voices, like \"the gushing wave\" which, to the ears of\nthe lotus-eaters,\n\n     \"Far, far away did seem to mourn and rave,\"\n\ncome to us as from beyond a great gulf--mere ghosts of sound, almost\ndestitute of signification. We know that they would have us do\nsomething, but what it is we do not clearly apprehend. We feel that they\nare concerned for us, but why we are imperfectly able to conceive. In an\nintelligible tongue they tell us of unthinkable things. Here and there\nin the discourse we catch a word, a phrase, a sentence--something\nwhich, from ancestors whose mother-speech it was, we have inherited the\ncapacity to understand; but the homily as a whole is devoid of meaning.\nSolemn and sonorous enough it all is, and not unmusical, but it lacks\nits natural accompaniment of shawm and sackbut and the wind-swept harp\nin the willows by the waters of Babylon. It is, in fact, something of a\nsurvival--the memory of a dream.\n\n\n\n\nVI.\n\nThe first week of January is set apart as a week of prayer. It is a\ncustom of more than a half century's age, and it seems that \"gracious\nanswers have been received in proportion to the earnestness and\nunanimity of the petitions.\" That is to say, in this world's speech, the\nmore Christians that have prayed and the more they have meant it, the\nbetter the result is known to have been. I don't believe all that. I\ndon't believe that when God is asked to do something that he had not\nintended to do he counts noses before making up his mind whether to do\nit or not God probably knows the character of his work, and knowing that\nhe has made this a world of knaves and dunces he must know that the\nmore of them that ask for something, and the more loudly they ask, the\nstronger is the presumption that they ought not to have it. And I think\nGod is perhaps less concerned about his popularity than some good folk\nseem to suppose.\n\nDoubtless there are errors in the record of results--some things\nset down as \"answers\" to prayer which came about through the orderly\noperation of natural laws and would have occurred anyhow. I am told that\nsimilar errors have been made, or are believed to have been made, in\nthe past. In 1730, for example, a good Bishop at Auvergne prayed for an\neclipse of the sun as a warning to unbelievers. The eclipse ensued and\nthe pious prelate made the most of it; but when it was shown that\nthe astronomers of the period had foretold it he was a sufferer from\nirreverent gibes. A monk of Treves prayed that an enemy of the church,\nthen in Paris, might lose his head, and it fell off; but it transpired\nthat, unknown (or known) to the monk, the man was under sentence of\ndecapitation when the prayer was made. This is related by Ausolus, who\npiously explains, however, that but for the prayer the sentence might\nperhaps have been commuted to service in the galleys. I have myself\nknown a minister to pray for rain, and the rain came. Perhaps you can\nconceive his discomfiture when I showed him that the weather bureau had\npreviously predicted a fair day.\n\nI do not object to a week of prayer. But why only a week? If prayer\nis \"answered\" Christians ought to pray all the time. That prayer is\n\"answered\" the Scripture affirms as positively and unequivocally as\nanything can be affirmed in words: \"All things whatsoever ye shall ask\nin prayer, believing, that ye shall receive.\" Why, then, when all the\nclergy of this country prayed, publicly for the recovery of President\nMcKinley, did the man die? Why is it that although two pious Chaplains\nask almost daily that goodness and wisdom may descend upon Congress,\nCongress remains wicked and unwise? Why is it that although in all the\nchurches and half the dwellings of the land God is continually asked for\ngood government, good government remains what it always and everywhere\nhas been, a dream? From Earth to Heaven in unceasing ascension flows a\nstream of prayer for every blessing that man desires, yet man remains\nunblest, the victim of his own folly and passions, the sport of fire,\nflood, tempest and earthquake, afflicted with famine and disease, war,\npoverty and crime, his world an incredible welter of evil, his life'\na labor and his hope a lie. Is it possible that all this praying is\nfutilized and invalidated by the lack of faith?--that the \"asking\"\nis not credentialed by the \"believing?\" When the anointed minister\nof Heaven spreads his palms and uprolls his eyes to beseech a general\nblessing or some special advantage is he the celebrant of a hollow,\nmeaningless rite, or the dupe of a false promise? One does not know, but\nif one is not a fool one does know that his every resultless petition\nproves him by the inexorable laws of logic to be the one or the other.\n\n\n\n\nVII.\n\nModern Christianity is beautiful exceedingly, and he who admires not is\neyed batly and minded as the mole. \"Sell all thou hast,\" said Christ and\n\"give to the poor.\" All--no less--in order \"to be saved.\" The poor were\nChrist's peculiar care. Ever for them and their privations, and\nnot greatly for their spiritual darkness, fell from his lips the\ncompassionate word, the mandate divine for their relief and cherishing.\nOf foreign missions, of home missions, of mission schools, of church\nbuildings, of work among pagans _in partibus infidelium_, of work among\nsailors, of communion table, of delegates to councils--of any of these\nthings he knew no more than the moon man. They were inventions of\nothers, as is the entire florid and flamboyant fabric of ecclesiasticism\nthat has been reared, stone by stone and century after century, upon his\nsimple life and works and words. \"Founder,\" indeed! He founded nothing,\ninstituted nothing; Paul did all that Christ simply went about doing,\nand being, good--admonishing the rich, whom he regarded as criminals,\ncomforting the luckless and uttering wisdom with that Oriental\nindirection wherein our stupid ingenuity finds imaginary warrant for all\ndesiderated pranks and fads.\n\n\n\n\nIMMORTALITY\n\nTHE desire for life everlasting has commonly been affirmed to be\nuniversal--at least that is the view taken by those unacquainted with\nOriental faiths and with Oriental character. Those of us whose knowledge\nis a trifle wider are not prepared to say that the desire is universal\nor even general.\n\nIf the devout Buddhist, for example, wishes to \"live alway,\" he has not\nsucceeded in very clearly formulating the desire. The sort of thing that\nhe is pleased to hope for is not what we should call life, and not what\nmany of us would care for.\n\nWhen a man says that everybody has \"a horror of annihilation,\" we may be\nvery sure that he has not many opportunities for observation, or that\nhe has not availed himself of all that he has. Most persons go to sleep\nrather gladly, yet sleep is virtual annihilation while it lasts; and if\nit should last forever the sleeper would be no worse off after a million\nyears of it than after an hour of it There are minds sufficiently\nlogical to think of it that way, and to them annihilation is not a\ndisagreeable thing to contemplate and expect.\n\nIn this matter of immortality, people's beliefs appear to go along with\ntheir wishes. The chap who is content with annihilation thinks he will\nget it; those that want immortality are pretty sure they are immortal,\nand that is a very comfortable allotment of faiths. The few of us that\nare left unprovided for are those who don't bother themselves much about\nthe matter, one way or another.\n\nThe question of human immortality is the most momentous that the mind\nis capable of conceiving. If it is a fact that the dead live, all other\nfacts are in comparison trivial and without interest. The prospect of\nobtaining certain knowledge with regard to this stupendous matter is not\nencouraging. In all countries but those in barbarism the powers of the\nprofoundest and most penetrating intelligences have been ceaselessly\naddressed to the task of glimpsing a life beyond this life; yet today no\none can truly say that he knows. It is still as much a matter of faith\nas ever it was.\n\nOur modern Christian nations hold a passionate hope and belief in\nanother world, yet the most popular writer and speaker of his time, the\nman whose lectures drew the largest audiences, the work of whose pen\nbrought him the highest rewards, was he who most strenuously strove to\ndestroy the ground of that hope and unsettle the foundations of that\nbelief.\n\nThe famous and popular Frenchman, Professor of Spectacular Astronomy,\nCamille Flammarion, affirms immortality because he has talked with\ndeparted souls who said that it was true. Yes, Monsieur, but surely\nyou know the rule about hearsay evidence. We Anglo-Saxons are very\nparticular about that. Your testimony is of that character.\n\n\"I don't repudiate the presumptive arguments of school men. I merely\nsupplement them with something positive. For instance, if you assumed\nthe existence of God this argument of the scholastics is a good one. God\nhas implanted in all men the desire of perfect happiness. This desire\ncan not be satisfied in our lives here. If there were not another life\nwherein to satisfy it then God would be a deceiver. _Voila tout_.\"\n\nThere is more: the desire of perfect happiness does not imply\nimmortality, even if there is a God, for:\n\n( 1 ) God may not have implanted it, but merely suffers it to exist, as\nHe suffers sin to exist, the desire of wealth, the desire to live longer\nthan we do in this world. It is not held that God implanted all the\ndesires of the human heart. Then why hold that He implanted that of\nperfect happiness?\n\n(2) Even if He did--even if a divinely implanted desire entail its own\ngratification--even if it can not be gratified in this life--that does\nnot imply immortality. It implies _only_ another life long enough for\nits gratification just once. An eternity of gratification is not a\nlogical inference from it.\n\n(3) Perhaps God _is_ \"a deceiver\" who knows that He is not? Assumption\nof the existence of a God is one thing; assumption of the existence of\na God who is honorable and candid according to our finite conception of\nhonor and candor is another.\n\n(4) There may be an honorable and candid God. He may have implanted\nin us the desire of perfect happiness. It may be--it is--impossible to\ngratify that desire in this life. Still, another life is not implied,\nfor God may not have intended us to draw the inference that He is going\nto gratify it. If omniscient and omnipotent, God must be held to have\nintended, whatever occurs, but no such God is assumed in M. Flammarion's\nillustration, and it may be that God's knowledge and power are limited,\nor that one of them is limited.\n\nM. Flammarion is a learned, if somewhat \"yellow\" astronomer.\n\nHe has a tremendous imagination, which naturally is more at home in\nthe marvelous and catastrophic than in the orderly regions of familiar\nphenomena. To him the heavens are an immense pyrotechnicon and he is the\nmaster of the show and sets off the fireworks. But he knows nothing\nof logic, which is the science of straight thinking, and his views of\nthings have therefore no value; they are nebulous.\n\nNothing is clearer than that our pre-existence is a dream, having\nabsolutely no basis in anything that we know or can hope to know. Of\nafter-existence there is said to be evidence, or rather testimony,\nin assurances of those who are in present enjoyment of it--if it is\nenjoyable. Whether this testimony has actually been given--and it is the\nonly testimony worth a moment's consideration--is a disputed point Many\npersons while living this life have professed to have received it.\nBut nobody professes, or ever has professed, to have received a\ncommunication of any kind from one in actual experience of the\nfore-life. \"The souls as yet ungarmented,\" if such there are, are dumb\nto question. The Land beyond the Grave has been, if not observed,\nyet often and variously described: if not explored and surveyed, yet\ncarefully charted. From among so many accounts of it that we have, he\nmust be fastidious indeed who can not be suited. But of the Fatherland\nthat spreads before the cradle--the great Heretofore, wherein we all\ndwelt if we are to dwell in the Hereafter, we have no account. Nobody\nprofesses knowledge of that. No testimony reaches our ears of flesh\nconcerning its topographical or other features; no one has been so\nenterprising as to wrest from its actual inhabitants any particulars of\ntheir character and appearance, to refresh our memory withal. And among\neducated experts and professional proponents of worlds to be there is a\ngeneral denial of its existence.\n\nI am of their way of thinking about that. The fact that we have no\nrecollection of a former life is entirely conclusive of the matter.\nTo have lived an unrecollected life is impossible and unthinkable, for\nthere would be nothing to connect the new life with the old--no thread\nof continuity--nothing that persisted from the one life to the other.\nThe later birth is that of another person, an altogether different\nbeing, unrelated to the first--a new John Smith succeeding to the late\nTom Jones.\n\nLet us not be misled here by a false analogy. Today I may get a\nthwack on the mazzard which will give me an intervening season of\nunconsciousness between yesterday and tomorrow. Thereafter I may live to\na green old age with no recollection of anything that I knew, or did, or\nwas before the accident; yet I shall be the same person, for between the\nold life and the new there will be a _nexus_, a thread of continuity,\nsomething spanning the gulf from the one state to the other, and the\nsame in both--namely, my body with its habits, capacities and powers.\nThat is I; that identifies me as my former self--authenticates and\ncredentials me as the person that incurred the cranial mischance,\ndislodging memory.\n\nBut when death occurs _all_ is dislodged if memory is; for between\ntwo merely mental or spiritual existences memory is the only _nexus_\nconceivable; consciousness of identity is the only identity. To\nlive again without memory of having lived before is to live another.\nRe-existence without recollection is absurd; there is nothing to\nre-exist.\n\n\n\n\nOPPORTUNITY\n\nTHIS is not a country of equal fortunes; outside a Socialist's dream no\nsuch country exists or can exist. But as nearly as possible this is a\ncountry of equal opportunities for those who begin life with nothing but\nnature's endowments--and of such is the kingdom of success.\n\nIn nine instances in ten successful Americans--that is Americans\nwho have succeeded in any worthy ambition or legitimate field of\nendeavor--have started with nothing but the skin they stood in. It\nalmost may be said, indeed, that to begin with nothing is a main\ncondition of success--in America.\n\nTo a young man there is no such hopeless impediment as wealth or the\nexpectation of wealth. Here a man and there a man will be born so\nabundantly endowed by nature as to overcome the handicap of artificial\n\"advantages,\" but that is not the rule; usually the chap \"born with\na gold spoon in his mouth\" puts in his time sucking that spoon, and\nwithout other employment. Counting possession of the spoon success, why\nshould he bestir himself to achieve what he already has?\n\nThe real curled darling of opportunity has nothing in his mouth but his\nteeth and his appetite--he knows, or is likely to know, what it is to\nfeel his belly sticking to his back. If he have brains a-plenty he\nwill get on, for he must be up and doing--the penalty of indiligence is\nfamine. If he have not, he may up and do to the uttermost satisfaction\nof his mind and heart, but the end of that man is failure, with possibly\nSocialism, that last resort of conscious incompetence. It fatigues, this\ntalk of the narrowing opportunities of today, the \"closed avenues to\nsuccess,\" and the rest of it. Doubtless it serves its purpose of making\nmischief for the tyrant trusts and the wicked rich generally, but in a\nsix months' bound volume of it there is not enough of truth to float a\nreligion.\n\nMen of brains never had a better chance than now to accomplish all that\nit is desirable that they should accomplish; and men of no brains never\ndid have much of a chance, nor under any possible conditions can have\nin this country, nor in any other. They are nature's failures,\nGod's botchwork. Let us be sorry for them, treating them justly and\ngenerously; but the Socialism that would level us all down to their\nplane of achievement and reward is a proposal of which they are\nthemselves the only proponents.\n\nOpportunity, indeed! Who is holding me from composing a great opera that\nwould make me rich and famous?\n\nWhat oppressive laws forbade me to work my passage up the Yukon as\ndeckhand on a steamboat and discover the gold along Bonanza creek?\n\nWhat is there in our industrial system that conceals from me the secret\nof making diamonds from charcoal?\n\nWhy was it not I who, entering a lawyer's office as a suitable person to\nsweep it out, left it as an appointed Justice of the Supreme Court?\n\nThe number of actual and possible sources of profit and methods of\ndistinction is infinite. Not all the trusts in the world combined in one\ntrust of trusts could appreciably reduce it--could condemn to permanent\nfailure one man with the talent and the will to succeed. They can\nabolish that doubtful benefactor of the \"small dealer,\" who lives\nby charging too much, and that very thickly disguised blessing the\n\"drummer,\" whom they have to add to the price of everything they sell;\nbut for every opportunity they close they open a new one and leave\nuntouched a thousand actual and a million possible ones. As to their\ndishonest practices, these are conspicuous and striking, because\n\"lumped,\" but no worse than the silent, steady aggregate of cheating;\nby which their constituent firms and individuals, formerly consumed the\nconsumer without his special wonder.\n\n\n\n\nCHARITY\n\nTHE promoter of organized charity protests against \"the wasteful and\nmischievous method of undirected relief.\" He means, naturally,\nrelief that is not directed by somebody else than the person\ngiving it--undirected by him and his kind--professional\nalmoners--philanthropists who deem it more blessed to allot than\nto bestow. Indubitably much is wasted and some mischief done by\nindiscriminate giving--and individual givers are addicted to that faulty\npractice. But there is something to be said for \"undirected relief\"\nquite the same. It blesses not only him who receives (when he is worthy;\nand when he is not upon his own head be it), but him who gives. To\nthose uncalculating persons who, despite the protests of the organized\ncharitable, concede a certain moral value to the spontaneous impulses of\nthe heart and read in the word \"relief\" a double meaning, the office\nof the mere distributor is imperfectly sacred. He is even without\nscriptural authority, and lives in the perpetual challenge of a moral\n_quo warranto_. Nevertheless he is not without his uses. He is a\ntapper of tills that do not open automatically. He is almoner to the\nuncompassionate, who but for him would give no alms. He negotiates\nunnatural but not censurable relations between selfishness and\ningratitude. The good that he does is purely material. He makes two\nleaves of fat to grow where but one grew before, lessens the sum of\ngastric pangs and dorsal chills. All this is something, certainly,\nbut it generates no warm and elevated sentiments and does nothing in\nmitigation of the poor's animosity to the rich. Organized charity is a\nsapid and savorless thing; its place among moral agencies is no higher\nthan that of root beer.\n\nChrist did not say \"Sell whatsoever thou hast and give to the church to\ngive to the poor.\" He did not mention the Associated Charities of the\nperiod. I do not find the words \"The Little Sisters of the Poor ye have\nalways with you,\" nor \"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of\nthese Dorcas societies ye have done it unto me.\" Nowhere do I find\nmyself commanded to enable others to comfort the afflicted and visit the\nsick and those in prison. Nowhere is recorded God's blessing upon him\nwho makes himself a part of a charity machine--no, not even if he be the\nguiding lever of the whole mechanism.\n\nOrganized charity is a delusion and a snare. It enables Munniglut to\nthink himself a good man for paying annual dues and buying transferable\nmeal tickets. Munniglut is not thereby, a good man. On the Last Great\nDay, when he cowers in the Ineffable Presence and is asked for an\naccounting it will not help him to say, \"Hearing that A was in want I\ngave money for his need to B.\" Nor will it help B to say, \"When A was\nin distress I asked C to relieve him, and myself allotted the relief\naccording to a resolution of D, E and F.\"\n\nThere are blessings and benefactions that one would willingly\nforego--among them the poor. Quack remedies for poverty amuse; a real\nspecific would kindle a noble enthusiasm. Yet the world would lose much\nby it; human nature would suffer a change for the worse. Happily and\nunhappily poverty is not abolishable: \"The poor ye have always with you\"\nis a sentence that can never become unintelligible. Effect of a thousand\ncauses, poverty is invincible, eternal. And since we must have it let us\nthank God for it and avail ourselves of all its advantages to mind and\ncharacter. He who is not good to the deserving poor--who knows not those\nof his immediate environment, who goes not among them making inquiry of\ntheir personal needs, who does not wish with all his heart and both his\nhands to relieve them--is a fool.\n\n\n\n\nEMANCIPATED WOMAN\n\nWHAT I should like to know is, how \"the enlargement of woman's sphere\"\nby entrance into the various activities of commercial, professional and\nindustrial life benefits the sex. It may please Helen Gougar and satisfy\nher sense of logical accuracy to say, as she does: \"We women must work\nin order to fill the places left vacant by liquor-drinking men.\" But who\nfilled these places before? Did they remain vacant, or were there then\ndisappointed applicants, as now? If my memory serves, there has been no\ntime in the period that it covers when the supply of workers--abstemious\nmale workers--was not in excess of the demand. That it has always been\nso is sufficiently attested by the universally inadequate wage rate.\n\nEmployers seldom fail, and never for long, to get all the workmen they\nneed. The field, then, into which women have put their sickles was\nalready overcrowded with reapers. Whatever employment women have\nobtained has been got by displacing men--who would otherwise be\nsupporting women. Where is the general advantage? We may shout \"high\ntariff,\" \"combination of capital,\" \"demonetization of silver,\" and what\nnot, but if searching for the cause of augmented poverty and crime,\n\"industrial discontent,\" and the tramp evil, instead of dogmatically\nexpounding it, we should take some account of this enormous, sudden\naddition to the number of workers seeking work. If any one thinks that\nwithin the brief period of a generation the visible supply of labor can\nbe enormously augmented without profoundly affecting the stability of\nthings and disastrously touching the interests of wage-workers, let no\nrude voice dispel his dream of such maleficent agencies as his slumbrous\nunderstanding may joy to affirm. And let our Widows of Ashur unlung\nthemselves in advocacy of quack remedies for evils for which they\nthemselves are cause; it remains true that when the contention of two\nlions for one bone is exacerbated by the accession of a lioness the\nsquabble is not composable by stirring up some bears in the cage\nadjacent.\n\nIndubitably a woman is under no obligation to sacrifice herself to the\ngood of her sex by refusing needed employment in the hope that it\nmay fall to a man gifted with dependent women. Nevertheless our\ncongratulations are more intelligent when bestowed upon her individual\nhead than when sifted into the hair of all Eve's daughters. This is\na world of complexities, in which the lines of interest are so\nintertangled as frequently to transgress that of sex; and one ambitious\nto help but half the race may profitably know that every effort to that\nend provokes a counterbalancing mischief. The \"enlargement of woman's\nopportunities\" has benefited individual women. It has not benefited the\nsex as a whole, and has distinctly damaged the race. The mind that can\nnot discern a score of great and irreparable general evils distinctly\ntraceable to \"emancipation of woman\" is as impregnable to the light as a\ntoad in a rock.\n\nA marked demerit of the new order of things--the regime of female\ncommercial service--is that its main advantage accrues, not to the race,\nnot to the sex, not to the class, not to the individual woman, but to\nthe person of least need and worth--the male employer. (Female employers\nin any considerable number there will not be, but those that we have\ncould give the male ones profitable instruction in grinding the faces\nof their employees.) This constant increase of the army of labor--always\nand everywhere too large for the work in sight--by accession of a new\ncontingent of natural oppressibles makes the very teeth of old Munniglut\nthrill with a poignant delight. It brings in that situation known as two\nlaborers seeking one job---and one of them a person whose bones he can\neasily grind to make his bread. And Munniglut is a miller of skill and\nexperience, dusted all over with the evidence of his useful craft. When\nHeaven has assisted the Daughters of Hope to open to women a new \"avenue\nof opportunities\" the first to enter and walk therein, like God in the\nGarden of Eden, is the good Mr. Munniglut, contentedly smoothing the\nfolds out of the superior slope of his paunch, exuding the peculiar\naroma of his oleagmous personality, and larding the new roadway with the\noverflow of a righteousness secreted by some spiritual gland stimulated\nto action by relish of his own identity. And ever thereafter the subtle\nsuggestion of a fat Philistinism lingers along the path of progress like\nan assertion of a possessory right.\n\nIt is God's own crystal truth that in dealing with women unfortunate\nenough to be compelled to earn their own living and fortunate enough\nto have wrested from Fate an opportunity to do so, men of business and\naffairs treat them with about the same delicate consideration that they\nshow to dogs and horses of the inferior breeds. It does not commonly\noccur to the wealthy \"professional man,\" or \"prominent merchant,\" to be\nashamed to add to his yearly thousands a part of the salary justly due\nto his female bookkeeper or typewriter, who sits before him all day with\nan empty belly in order to have an habilimented back. He has a vague,\nhazy notion that the law of supply and demand is mandatory, and that in\nsubmitting himself to it by paying her a half of what he would have to\npay a man of inferior efficiency he is supplying the world with a noble\nexample of obedience. I must take the liberty to remind him that the\nlaw of supply and demand is not imperative; it is not a statute, but\na phenomenon. He may reply: \"It is imperative; the penalty for\ndisobedience is failure. If I pay more in salaries and wages than I need\nto, my competitor will not; and with that advantage he will drive me\nfrom the field.\" If his margin of profit is so small that he must eke\nit out by coining the sweat of his workmen into nickels, I've nothing to\nsay to him. Let him adopt in peace the motto, \"I cheat to eat\" I do not\nknow why he should eat, but Nature, who has provided sustenance for the\nworming sparrow, the sparrowing owl, and the owling eagle, approves the\nneedy man of prey, and makes a place for him at table.\n\nHuman nature is pretty well balanced; for every lacking virtue there is\na rough substitute that will serve at a pinch--as cunning is the\nwisdom of the unwise, and ferocity the courage of the coward. Nobody\nis altogether bad; the scoundrel who has grown rich by underpaying\nthe workmen in his factory will sometimes endow an asylum for indigent\nseamen. To oppress one's own workmen, and provide for the workmen of\na neighbor--to skin those in charge of one's own interests, while\ncottoning and oiling the residuary product of another's skinnery--that\nis not very good benevolence, nor very good sense, but it serves in\nplace of both. The man who eats _pate de fois gras_ in the sweat of his\ngirl cashier's face, or wears purple and fine linen in order that his\ntypewriter may have an eocene gown and a pliocene hat, seems a tolerably\nsatisfactory specimen of the genus thief; but let us not forget that in\nhis own home--a fairly good one--he may enjoy and merit that highest\nand most honorable title in the hierarchy of woman's favor, \"a good\nprovider.\" One having a just claim to that glittering distinction should\nenjoy a sacred immunity from the coarse and troublesome question, \"From\nwhose backs and bellies do you provide?\"\n\nSo much for the material results to the sex. What are the moral results?\nOne does not like to speak of them, particularly to those who do not and\ncan not know--to good women in whose innocent minds female immorality\nis inseparable from flashy gowning and the painted face; to foolish,\nbook-taught men who honestly believe in some protective sanctity that\nhedges womanhood. If men of the world with years enough to have lived\nout of the old _regime_ into the new would testify in this matter there\nwould ensue a great rattling of dry bones in bodices of reform ladies.\nNay, if the young man about town, knowing nothing of how things were\nin the \"dark backward and abysm of time,\" but something of the moral\ndifference between even so free-running a creature as the society girl\nand the average working girl of the factory, the shop and the office,\nwould speak out (under assurance of immunity from prosecution) his\ntestimony would be a surprise to the cartilaginous virgins, blowsy\nmatrons, acrid relicts and hairy males of Emancipation. It would pain,\ntoo, some very worthy but unobservant persons not in sympathy with \"the\ncause.\"\n\nCertain significant facts are within the purview of all but the very\nyoung and the comfortably blind. To the woman of today the man of today\nis imperfectly polite. In place of reverence he gives her \"deference;\"\nto the language of compliment has succeeded the language of raillery.\nMen have almost forgotten how to bow. Doubtless the advanced female\nprefers the new manner, as may some of her less forward sisters,\nthinking it more sincere. It is not; our giddy grandfather talked\nhigh-flown nonsense because his heart had tangled his tongue. He treated\nhis woman more civilly than we ours because he loved her better. He\nnever had seen her on the \"rostrum\" and in the lobby, never had seen\nher in advocacy of herself, never had read her confessions of his sins,\nnever had felt the stress of her competition, nor himself assisted by\ndaily personal contact in rubbing the bloom off her. He did not know\nthat her virtues were due to her secluded life, but thought, dear old\nboy, that they were a gift of God.\n\n\n\n\nTHE OPPOSING SEX\n\nEMANCIPATION of woman is not of American invention. The \"movement,\"\nlike most others that are truly momentous, originated in Europe, and has\nbroken through and broken down more formidable barriers of law, custom\nand tradition there than here. It is not true that the English married\nwoman is \"virtually a bondwoman\" to her husband; that \"she can hardly\ngo and come without his consent, and usually he does not consent;\" that\n\"all she has is his.\" If there is such a thing as \"the bitterness of the\nEnglish married woman to the law,\" underlying it there is such a thing\nas ignorance of what the law is. The \"subjection of woman,\" as it exists\ntoday in England, is customary and traditionary--a social, not a legal,\nsubjection. Nowhere has law so sharply challenged that male dominion\nwhose seat is in the harder muscles, the larger brain and the coarser\nheart And the law, it may be worth while to point out, was not of woman\nborn; nor was it handed down out of Heaven engraved on tables of stone.\nLearned English judges have decided that virtually the term \"marital\nrights\" has no longer a legal signification. As one writer puts it,\n\"The law has relaxed the husband's control over his wife's person and\nfortune, bit by bit, until legally it has left him nothing but the power\nto prevent her, if he is so disposed, and arrives in time, from jumping\nout of the window.\" He will find it greatly to his interest to arrive in\ntime when he conveniently can, and to be so disposed, for the husband is\nstill liable for the wife's torts; and if she makes the leap he may have\nto pay for the telescoping of a subjacent hat or two.\n\nIn England it is the Tyrant Man himself who is chafing in his chain. Not\nonly is a husband still liable for the wrongs committed by the wife whom\nhe has no longer the power to restrain from committing them, but in many\nways--in one very important way--his obligation to her remains intact\nafter she has had the self-sacrifice to surrender all obligation to him.\nMoreover, if his wife has a separate estate he has to endure the pain\nof seeing it hedged about from her creditors (themselves not altogether\nhappy in the contemplation) with restrictions which do not hamper the\nright of recourse against his own. Doubtless all this is not without a\nsoftening effect upon his character, smoothing down his dispositional\nasperities and endowing him day by day with fresh accretions of\nhumility. And that is good for him. I do not say that female autonomy is\nnot among the most efficacious agencies for man's reclamation from the\nsin of pride; I only say that it is not indigenous to this country, the\nsweet, sweet home of the assassiness, the happy hunting ground of the\nwhiplady, the paradise of the vitrioleuse.\n\nIf the protagonists of woman suffrage are frank they are shallow; if\nwise, uncandid. Continually they affirm their conviction that political\npower in the hands of women will give us better government. To proof of\nthat proposition they address all the powers that they have and marshal\nsuch facts as can be compelled to serve under their flag. They either\nthink or profess to think that if they can show that women's votes will\npurify politics they will have proved their case. That is not true;\nwhether they know it or not, the strongest objection to woman suffrage\nwould remain untouched. Pure politics is desirable, certainly, but it\nis not the chief concern of the best and most intelligent citizens. Good\ngovernment is \"devoutly to be wished,\" but more than good government we\nneed good women. If all our public affairs were to be ordered with\nthe goodness and wisdom of angels, and this state of perfection were\nobtained by sacrifice of any of those qualities which make the best of\nour women, if not what they should be, nor what the mindless male thinks\nthem, at least what they are, we should have purchased the advantage too\ndearly. The effect of woman suffrage upon the country is of secondary\nimportance: the question for profitable consideration is, How will it\naffect the character of woman? He who does not see in the goodness and\ncharm of such women as are good and charming something incalculably more\nprecious than any degree of political purity or national prosperity may\nbe a patriot: doubtless he is; but also he has the distinction to be a\npig.\n\nI should like to ask the gallant gentlemen who vote for removal of\nwoman's political disability if they have observed in the minds and\nmanners of the women in the forefront of the movement nothing \"ominous\nand drear.\" Are not these women different--I don't say worse, just\ndifferent--from the best types of women of peace who are not exhibits\nand audibles? If they are different, is the difference of such a nature\nas to encourage a hope that activity in public affairs will work an\nimprovement in women generally? Is \"the glare of publicity\" good for her\ngrowth in grace and winsomeness? Would a sane and sensible husband or\nlover willingly forego in wife or sweetheart all that the colonels of her\nsex appear to lack, or find in her all that they appear to have and to\nvalue?\n\nA few more questions--addressed more particularly to veteran observers\nthan to those to whom the world is new and strange. Have you observed\nany alteration in the manner of men toward women? If so, is it in the\ndirection of greater rudeness or of more ceremonious respect? And again,\nif so, has not the change, in point of time, been coincident with the\ngenesis and development of woman's \"emancipation\" and her triumphal\nentry into the field of \"affairs\"? Are you really desirous that the\nchange go further? Or do you think that when women are armed with the\nballot they will compel a return of the old _regime_ of deference\nand delicate consideration--extorting by their power the tribute once\nvoluntarily paid to their weakness? Is there any known way by which\nwomen can at once be our political equals and our social superiors, our\ncompetitors in the sharp and bitter struggle for glory, gain or bread,\nand the objects of our unselfish and undiminished devotion? The present\npredicts the future; of the foreshadow of the coming event all sensitive\nfemale hearts feel the chill. For whatever advantages, real or illusory,\nsome women enjoy under this _regime_ of partial \"emancipation\" all women\npay. Of the coin in which payment is made the shouldering shouters of\nthe sex have not a groat and can bear the situation with impunity. They\nhave either passed the age of masculine attention or were born without\nthe means to its accroachment. Dwelling in the open bog, they can afford\nto defy eviction.\n\nWhile men did nearly all the writing and public speaking of the world,\nsetting so the fashion in thought, women, naturally extolled with true\nsexual extravagance, came to be considered, even by themselves, as a\nvery superior order of beings, with something in them of divinity which\nwas denied to man. Not only were they represented as better, generally,\nthan men, as indeed anybody could see that they were, but their goodness\nwas supposed to be a kind of spiritual endowment and more or less\nindependent of environmental influences.\n\nWe are changing all that. Women are beginning to do much of the writing\nand public speaking, and not only are they going to extol us (to the\nfattening of our conceit) but they are bound to disclose, even to the\nunthinking, certain defects of character in themselves which their\nsilence had veiled. Their competition, too, in several kinds of affairs\nwill slowly but certainly provoke resentment, and moreover expose them\nto temptations which will distinctly lower the morality of their\nsex. All these changes, and many more having a similar effect and\nsignificance, are occurring with amazing rapidity, and the stated\nresults are already visible to even the blindest observation. In\naccurate depiction of the new order of things conjecture fails, but\nso much we know: the woman-superstition has already received its death\nwound and must soon expire.\n\nEverywhere, and in no reverential spirit, men are questioning the\ndear old idolatry; not \"sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer,\" but\ndispassionately applying to its basic doctrine the methods of scientific\ncriticism. He who within even the last twenty years has not marked in\nsociety, in letters, in art, in everything, a distinct change in man's\nattitude toward women--a change which, were one a woman, one would not\nwish to see--may reasonably conclude that much, otherwise observable, is\nhidden by his nose. In the various movements--none of them consciously\niconoclastic--engaged in overthrowing this oddest of modern\nsuperstitions there is something to deprecate, and even deplore, but\nthe superstition can be spared. It never had much in it that was either\ncreditable or profitable, and all through its rituals ran a note of\ninsincerity which was partly Nature's protest against the rites, but\npartly, too, hypocrisy. There is no danger that good men will ever cease\nto respect and love good women, and if bad men ever cease to adore\nthem for their sex when not beating them for their virtues the gain in\nconsistency will partly offset the loss in religious ecstasy.\n\nLet the patriot abandon his fear, his betters their hope, that only\nthe low class woman will vote--the unlettered wench of the slums, the\nraddled hag of the dives, the war-painted _protegee_ of the police. Into\nthe vortex of politics goes every floating thing that is free to move.\nThe summons to the polls will be imperative and incessant. Duty will\nthunder it from every platform, conscience whisper it into every ear,\npride, interest, the lust of victory--all the motives that impel men to\npartisan activity will act with equal power upon women as upon men; and\nto all the other forces flowing irresistibly toward the polls will be\nadded the suasion of men themselves. The price of votes will not decline\nbecause of the increased supply, although it will in most instances be\noffered in currencies too subtle to be counted. As now, the honest and\nrespectable elector will habitually take bribes in the invisible coin\nof the realm of Sentiment--a mintage peculiarly valued by woman. For\none reason or another all women will vote, even those who now view the\n\"right\" widi aversion. The observer who has marked the strength and\nactivity of the forces pent in the dark drink of politics and given off\nin the act of bibation will not expect inaction to the victim of the\n\"habit,\" be he male or she female. In the partisan, conviction is\ncompulsion---opinions bear fruit in conduct. The partisan thinks in\ndeeds, and woman is by nature a partisan--a blessing for which the Lord\nhas never made her male relatives and friends sufficiently thankful. Not\na mere man of them would have the effrontery to ask her toleration if\nshe were not Depend upon it, the full strength of the female vote will\neventually be cast at every election. And it would be well indeed for\ncivilization and the interests of the race if woman suffrage meant no\nmore than going to the polling-place and polling--which clearly is all\nthat it has been thought out to mean by the headless horsemen spurring\ntheir new hobbies bravely at the tail of the procession. That would be\na very simple matter; the opposition based upon the impropriety of the\nfemale rubbing shoulders at the polls with such scurvy blackguards\nas ourselves may with advantage be retired from service. Nor is it\nparticularly important what men and measures the women will vote for. By\none means or another Tyrant Man will have his way; the Opposing Sex can\nmerely obstruct him in his way of having it. And should that obstruction\never be too pronounced, the party line and the sex line coinciding,\nwoman suffrage will then and henceforth be no more.\n\nIn the politics of this bad world majorities are of several kinds. One\nof the most \"overwhelming\" is made up of these simple elements: (1) a\nnumerical minority; (2) a military superiority. If not a single election\nwere ever in any degree affected by it, the introduction of woman\nsuffrage into our scheme of manners and morals would nevertheless be the\nmost momentous and mischievous event of modern history. Compared with\nthe action of this destructive solvent, that of all other disintegrating\nagencies concerned in our decivilization is as the languorous\nindiligence of rosewater to the mordant fury of nitric acid.\n\nLively Woman is indeed, as Carlyle would put it, \"hellbent\" on\npurification of politics by adding herself as an ingredient. It is\nunlikely that the injection of her personality into the contention\n(and politics is essentially a contention) will allay any animosities,\nsweeten any tempers, elevate any motives. The strifes of women are\ndistinctly meaner than those of men--which are out of all reason mean;\ntheir methods of overcoming opponents distinctly more unscrupulous. That\ntheir participation in politics will notably alter the conditions of the\ngame is not to be denied; that, unfortunately, is obvious; but that it\nwill make the player less malignant and the playing more honorable is\na proposition in support of which one can utter a deal of gorgeous\nnonsense, with a less insupportable sense of its unfitness, than in the\nservice of any other delusion.\n\nThe frosty truth is that except in the home the influence of women is\nnot elevating, but debasing. When they stoop to uplift men who need\nuplifting, they are themselves pulled down, and that is all that is\naccomplished. Wherever they come into familiar contact with men who are\nnot their relatives they impart nothing, they receive all; they do not\naffect us with their notions of morality; we infect them with ours.\n\nIn the last forty years, in this country, they have entered a hundred\navenues of activity from which they were previously debarred by an\nunwritten law. They are found in the offices, the shops, the factories.\nLike Charles Lamb's fugitive pigs, they have run up all manner of\nstreets. Does any one think that in that time there has been an advance\nin professional, commercial and industrial morality? Are lawyers\nmore scrupulous, tradesmen more honest? When one has been served by a\n\"saleslady\" does one leave the shop with a feebler sense of injury\nthan was formerly inspired by a transaction at the counter--a duller\nconsciousness of being oneself the commodity that has changed hands?\nHave actresses elevated the stage to a moral altitude congenial to the\ncolder virtues? In studios of the artists is the \"sound of revelry by\nnight\" invariably a deep, masculine bass? In literature are the immoral\nbooks--the books \"dealing\" with questionable \"questions\"--always, or\neven commonly, written by men?\n\nThere is one direction in which \"emancipation of woman\" and enlargement\nof her \"sphere\" have wrought a reform: they have elevated the\n_personnel_ of the little dinner party in the \"private room.\" Formerly,\nas any veteran man-about-town can testify, if he will, the female\ncontingent of the party was composed of persons altogether unspeakable.\nThat element now remains upon its reservation; among the superior\nadvantages enjoyed by the man-about-town of today is that of the\ncompanionship, at his dinner _in camera_, of ladies having an honorable\nvocation. In the corridors of the \"French restaurant\" the swish of\nPseudonyma's skirt is no longer heard; she has been superseded by the\nPrincess Tap-tap (with Truckle & Cinch), by my lady Snip-snip (from the\n\"emporium\" of Boltwhack & Co.), by Miss Chink-chink, who sits at the\nreceipt of customs in that severely un-French restaurant, the Maison\nHash. That the man-about-town has been morally elevated by this\nEmancipation of Girl from the seclusion of home to that of the \"private\nroom\" is too obvious for denial. Nothing so uplifts Tyrant Man as the\ntable talk of good young women who earn their own living.\n\nI do not wish to be altogether ironical about this rather serious\nmatter--not so much so as to forfeit anything of lucidity. Let me state,\nthen, in all earnestness and sobriety and simplicity of speech, what is\nknown to every worldly-wise male dweller in the cities, to every scamp\nand scapegrace of the clubs, to every reformed sentimentalist and every\nobserver with a straight eye--namely, that in all the various classes of\nyoung women in our cities who support, or partly support, themselves\nin vocations which bring them into personal contact with men, female\nchastity is a vanishing tradition. In the lives of the \"main and\ngeneral\" of these, all those _considerate_ which have their origin in\npersonal purity, and cluster about it, and are its signs and safeguards,\nhave almost ceased to cut a figure. It is needless to remind me that\nthere are exceptions--I know that. With some of them I have personal\nacquaintance, or think I have, and for them a respect withheld from\nany woman of the rostrum who points to their misfortune and calls it\nemancipation--to their need and calls it a spirit of independence. It\nis not from these good girls that you will hear the flippant boast of an\nunfettered life, with \"freedom to develop;\" nor is it they who will be\nforemost and furious in denial and resentment of my statements regarding\nthe morals of their class. They do not know the whole truth, thank\nHeaven, but they know enough for a deprecation too deep to find relief\nin a cheap affirmation of woman's purity, which is, and always has been,\nthe creature of seclusion.\n\nThe fitness of women for political activity is not in present question;\nI am considering the fitness of political activity for women. For women\nas men say they are, wish them to be, and try to think them, it is unfit\naltogether--as unfit as anything else that \"mixes them up\" with us,\ncompelling a communication and association that are not social. If\nwe wish to have women who are different from ourselves in knowledge,\ncharacter, accomplishments, manners; as different mentally as\nphysically--and in these and in all odier expressible differences reside\nall the charms that they have for us--we must keep them, or they must\nkeep themselves, in an environment unlike our own. One would think that\nobvious to the meanest capacity, and might even hope that it would\nbe understood by the Daughters of Thunder. Possibly the Advanced One,\nhospitably accepting her karma, is not concerned to be charming to\n\"the likes o' we'\"--would prefer the companionship of her blue gingham\numbrella, her corkscrew curls, her epicene audiences and her name in\nthe newspapers. Perhaps she is content with the comfort of her raucous\nvoice. Therein she is unwise, for self-interest is the first law. When\nwe no longer find woman charming we may find a way to make them more\nuseful--more truly useful, even, than the speech-ladies would have them\nmake themselves by competition. Really, there is nothing in the world\nbetween them and slavery but their power of interesting us; and that has\nits origin in the very differences which the Colonels are striving to\nabolish. God has made no law of miracles and none of His laws are going\nto be suspended in deference to woman's desire to achieve familiarity\nwithout contempt. If she wants to please she must retain some scrap of\nnovelty; if she desires our respect she must not be always in evidence,\ndisclosing the baser side of her character, as in competition with us\nshe must do (as we do to one another) or lamentably fail. Mrs. Edmund\nGosse, like \"Ouida,\" Mrs. Atherton, and all other women of\nbrains, declares that the taking of unfair advantages--the lack of\nmagnanimity--is a leading characteristic of her sex. Mrs. Gosse adds,\nwith reference to men's passive acquiescence in this monstrous folly\nof \"emancipation,\" that possibly our quiet may be the calm before the\nstorm; and she utters this warning, which, also, more strongly, \"Ouida\"\nhas uttered: \"How would it be with us if the men should suddenly rise\n_en masse_ and throw the whole surging lot of us into convents and\nharems?\"\n\nIt is not likely that men will \"rise _en masse_\" to undo the mischief\nwrought by noisy protagonists of Woman Suffrage working like beavers to\nrear their airy fad upon the sandy foundation of masculine tolerance\nand inattention. No rising will be needed. All that is required for the\nwreck of their hopes is for a wave of reason to slide a little farther\nup the sands of time, \"loll out its large tongue, lick the whole\nlabor flat\" The work has prospered so far only because nobody but its\npromoters has taken it seriously. It has not engaged attention from\nthose having the knowledge and the insight to discern beneath its\ncap-and-bells and the motley that is its only wear a serious menace to\nall that civilized men hold precious in woman. It is of the nature of\nmen--themselves cheerful polygamists, with no penitent intentions--to\nset a high value upon chastity in woman. (We need not inquire why they\ndo so; those to whom the reasons are not clear can profitably remain in\nthe valley of the shadow of ignorance.) Valuing it, they purpose having\nit, or some considerable numerical presumption of it. As they perceive\nthat in a general way women are virtuous in proportion to the remoteness\nof their lives and interests from the lives and interests of men--their\nseclusion from the influences of which men's own vices are a main\npart--an easy and peaceful means will doubtless be found for the\nrepression of the shouters.\n\nIn the orchestration of mind woman's instruments might have kept silence\nwithout injury to the volume and quality of the music; efface the\nimpress of her touch upon the world and, by those who come after, the\nblank must be diligently sought. Go to the top of any large city\nand look about and below. It is not much that you will see, but it\nrepresents an amazing advance from the conditions of primitive man. No\nwhere in the wide survey will you see the work of woman. It is all the\nwork of men's hands, and before it was wrought into form and substance,\nexisted as conscious creations in men's brains. Concealed within\nthe visible forms of buildings and ships--themselves miracles of\nthought--lie such wonder-worlds of invention and discovery as no human\nlife is long enough to explore, no human understanding capacious enough\nto hold in knowledge. If, like Asmodeus, we could rive the roofs and\nsee woman's part of this prodigious exhibition--the things that she has\nactually created with her brain--what kind of display would it be? It is\nprobable that all the intellectual energy expended by women from first\nto last would not have sufficed, if directed into the one channel, for\nthe genesis and evolution of the modern bicycle.\n\nI once heard a lady who had playfully competed with men in a jumping\nmatch gravely attribute her defeat to the trammeling of her skirt.\nSimilarly, women are pleased to explain their penury of mental\nachievement by repressive education and custom, and therein they are not\naltogether in heresy. But even in regions where they have ever had the\nfreedom of the quarries they have not builded themselves monuments.\nNobody, for example, is holding them from greatness in poetry, which\nneeds no special education, and music, in which they have always been\nspecially educated; yet where is the great poem by a woman? where the\ngreat musical composition? In the grammar of literature what is the\nfeminine of Homer, of Shakspere, of Goethe, of Hugo? What female names\nare the equivalents of the names of Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, Wagner?\nWomen are not musicians--they \"sing and play.\" In short, if woman had no\nbetter claim to respect and affection than her brain; no sweeter charms\nthan those of her reason; no means of suasion but her power upon men's\nconvictions, she would long ago have been \"improved off the face of\nthe earth.\" As she is, men accord her such homage as is compatible with\ncontempt, such immunities as are consistent with exaction; but whereas\nshe is not altogether filled with light and is moreover, imperfectly\nreverent, it is but right that in obedience to Scriptural injunction she\nkeep silence in our churches while we are worshipping Ourselves.\n\nShe will not have it so, the good, good girl; as moral as the best of\nus, she will be as intellectual as the rest of us. She will have out her\nlittle taper and set the rivers of thought all ablaze, legging it over\nthe land from stream to stream till all are fired. She will widen her\nsphere, forsooth, herself no wider than before. It is not enough that we\nhave edified her a pedestal and perform impossible rites in celebration\nof her altitude and distinction. It does not suffice that with never\na smile we assure her that she is the superior sex--a whopper by the\nrepetition whereof certain callow youth among us have incurred the\ndivine vengeance of belief. It does not satisfy her that she is\nindubitably gifted with pulchritude and an unquestionable genius for\nits embellishing; that Nature has endowed her with a prodigious knack\nat accroachment, whereby the male of her species is lured to a\nsuitable doom. No; she has taken unto herself in these evil days that\n\"intelligent discontent\" which giveth its beloved fits. To her flock of\ngraces and virtues she must add our one poor ewe lamb of brains. Well,\nI tell her that intellect is a monster which devours beauty; that the\nwoman of exceptional mind is exceptionally masculine in face, figure,\naction; that in transplanting brains to an unfamiliar soil God leaves\nmuch of the original earth about the roots. And so with a reluctant\nfarewell to Lovely Woman, I humbly withdraw from her presence and hasten\nto overtake the receding periphery of her \"sphere.\"\n\nOne moment more. Mesdames: I crave leave to estop your disfavor--which\nwere affliction and calamity--by \"defining my position\" in the words\nof one of yourselves, who has said of me (though with reprehensible\nexaggeration, believe me) that I hate woman and love women--have an\nacute animosity to your sex and adoring each individual member of\nit. What matters my opinion of your understandings so long as I am in\nbondage to your charms? Moreover, there is one service of incomparable\nutility and dignity for which I esteem you eminently fit--to be mothers\nof men.\n\n\n\n\nTHE AMERICAN SYCOPHANT\n\nAN AMERICAN newspaper holds this opinion: \"If republican government\nhad done nothing else than give independence to American character and\npreserve it from the servility inseparable from the allegiance to kings,\nit would have accomplished a great work.\"\n\nI do not doubt that the writer of that sentence believes that republican\ngovernment has actually wrought the change in human nature which\nchallenges his admiration. He is very sure that his countrymen are not\nsycophants; that before rank and power and wealth they stand covered,\nmaintaining \"the godlike attitude of freedom and a man\" and exulting in\nit. It is not true; it is an immeasurable distance from the truth. We\nare as abject toadies as any people on earth--more so than any European\npeople of similar civilization. When a foreign emperor, king, prince or\nnobleman comes among us the rites of servility that we execute in his\nhonor are baser than any that he ever saw in his own land. When a\nforeign nobleman's prow puts into shore the American shin is pickled in\nbrine to welcome him; and if he come not in adequate quantity those of\nus who can afford the expense go swarming over sea to struggle for front\nplaces in his attention. In this blind and brutal scramble for social\nrecognition in Europe the traveling American toady and impostor has many\nchances of success: he is commonly unknown even to ministers and consuls\nof his own country, and these complaisant gentlemen, rather than incur\nthe risk of erring on the wrong side, take him at his own valuation and\npush him in where his obscurity being again in his favor, he is treated\nwith kindly toleration, and sometimes a genuine hospitality, to which he\nhas no shadow of right nor title, and which, if he were a gentleman, he\nwould not accept if it were voluntarily proffered. It should be said in\nmitigation that all this delirious abasement in no degree tempers his\nrancor against the system of which the foreign notable is the flower and\nfruit. He keeps his servility sweet by preserving it in the salt of\nvilification. In the character of a blatant blackguard the American snob\nis so happily disguised that he does not know himself.\n\nAn American newspaper once printed a portrait of her whom the irreverent\nBriton had a reprehensible habit of designating colloquially as \"The Old\nLady,\" But the editor in question did not so designate her--his simple\nAmerican manhood and republican spirit would not admit that she was\na lady. So he contented himself with labeling the portrait \"Her Most\nGracious Majesty, Queen Victoria\" This incident raises an important\nquestion.\n\nImportant Question Raised by This Incident: Is it better to be a subject\nand a man, or a citizen and a flunkey--to own the sway of a \"gory\ntyrant\" and retain one's self-respect, or dwell, a \"sovereign elector,\"\nin the land of liberty and disgrace it?\n\nHowever it may be customary for English newspapers to designate the\nEnglish sovereign, they are at least not addicted to sycophancy in\ndesignating the rulers of other countries than their own. They would\nnot say \"His Abracadabral Humpti-dumptiness Emperor William,\" nor \"His\nPestilency the Speaker of the American House of Representatives.\"\nThey would not think of calling even the most ornately self-bemedaled\nAmerican sovereign elector \"His Badgesty.\" Of a foreign nobleman they do\nnot say \"His Lordship;\" they will not admit that he is a lord; nor when\nspeaking of their own noblemen do they spell \"lord\" with a capital L, as\nwe do. In brief, when mentioning foreign dignitaries, of whatever rank\nin their own countries, the English press is simply and serviceably\ndescriptive: the king is a king, the queen a queen, the jack a jack. We\nuse \"another kind of common sense.\" At the very foundation of our\npolitical system lies the denial of hereditary and artificial rank. Our\nfathers created this government as a protest against all that, and all\nthat it implies. They virtually declared that kings and noblemen could\nnot breathe here, and no American loyal to the principles of the\nRevolution which made him one will ever say in his own country \"Your\nMajesty\" or \"Your Lordship\"--the words would choke him and they ought.\n\nThere are a few of us who keep the faith, who do not bow the knee\nto Baal, who hold fast to what is high and good in the doctrine of\npolitical equality; in whose hearts the altar-fires of rational liberty\nare kept aglow, beaconing the darkness of that illimitable inane where\ntheir countrymen, inaccessible to the light, wander witless in the bogs\nof political unreason, alternately adoring and damning the man-made\ngods of their own stature. Of that bright band fueling the bale-fires\nof political consistency I can not profess myself a member in good\nstanding. In view of this general recreancy and treason to the\nprinciples that our fathers established by the sword--having in constant\nobservation this almost universal hospitality to the solemn nonsense\nof hereditary rank and unearned distinction, my faith in practical\nrealization of republican ideals is small, and I falter in the work\nof their maintenance in the interest of a people for whom they are\ntoo good. Seeing that we are immune to none of the evils besetting\nmonarchies, excepting those for which we secretly yearn; that inequality\nof fortune and unjust allotment of honors are as conspicuous among us as\nelsewhere; that the tyranny of individuals is as intolerable, and that\nof the public more so; that the law's majesty is a dream and its failure\na fact--hearing everywhere the footfalls of disorder and the watchwords\nof anarchy, I despair of the republic and catch in every breeze that\nblows \"a cry prophetic of its fall.\"\n\nI have seen a vast crowd of Americans change color like a field of\nwaving grain, as it uncovered to do such base homage to a petty foreign\nprincess as in her own country she had never received. I have seen\nfull-grown, self-respecting American citizens tremble and go speechless\nwhen spoken to by the Emperor of Brazil. I have seen a half-dozen\nAmerican gentlemen in evening clothes trying to outdo one another in the\nprofundity of their bows in the presence of the nigger King of Hawaii.\nI have not seen a Chinese \"Earl\" borne in a chair by four Americans\nofficially detailed for the disgraceful service, but it was done,\nand did not evoke a hiss of disapproval. And I did not--thank\nHeaven!--observe the mob of American \"simple republicans\" that dogged\nthe heels of a disreputable little Frenchman who is a count by courtesy\nonly, and those of an English duke quietly attending to his business of\nmaking a living by being a married man. The republican New World is\nno less impested with servility than the monarchial Old. One form of\ngovernment may be better than another for this purpose or for that; all\nare alike in the futility of their influence upon human character. None\ncan affect man's instinctive abasement in the contemplation of power and\nrank.\n\nNot only are we no less sycophantic than the people of monarchial\ncountries; we are more so. We grovel before their exalted personages,\nand perform in addition a special prostration at the clay feet of\nour own idols--which _they_ do not revere. The typical \"subject,\"\nhat-in-hand to his sovereign and his nobleman, is a less shameful figure\nthan the \"citizen\" executing his genuflexion before the public of which\nhe is himself a part. No European court journal, no European courtier,\nwas ever more abject in subservience to the sovereign than are the\nAmerican newspaper and the American politician in flattery of the\npeople. Between the courtier and the demagogue I see nothing to choose.\nThey are moved by the same sentiment and fired by the same hope. Their\nmethod is flattery, and their purpose profit. Their adulation is not a\ntestimony to character, but a tribute to power, or the shadow of power.\nIf this country were governed by its criminal idiots we should have the\nsame attestations of their goodness and wisdom, the same competition for\ntheir favor, the same solemn doctrine that their voice is the voice of\nGod. Our children would be brought up to believe that an Idiotocracy is\nthe only natural and rational form of government And for my part I'm\nnot at all sure that it would not be a pretty good political system, as\npolitical systems go. I have always, however, cherished a secret faith\nin Smithocracy, which seems to combine the advantages of both the\nmonarchial and the republican idea. If all the offices were held for\nlife by Smiths--the senior John being President--we should have a\nsettled and orderly succession to allay all fears of anarchy and a\nsufficiently wide eligibility to feed the fires of patriotic ambition.\nAll could not be Smiths, but many could marry into the family.\n\nThe Harrison \"progress\" left its heritage of shame, whereof each abaser\nwould gladly have washed the hands of him in his neighbor's basin. All\nthis was in due order of Nature, and was to have been expected. It was\na phenomenon of the same character as, in the loves of the low, the\nsquabbling consequent upon satiety and shame. We could not slink out\nof sight; we could deny our sycophancy, albeit we might give it another\nname; but we could somewhat medicine our damaged self-esteem by dealing\ndamnation 'round on one another. The blush of shame turned easily to the\nglow of indignation, and many a hot hatred was kindled at the rosy flame\nof self-contempt. Persons conscious of having dishonored themselves are\ndoubly sensitive to any indignity put upon them by others. The vices and\nfollies of human nature are interdependent; they do not move alone,\nnor are they singly aroused to activity. In my judgment, this entire\nincident of the President's \"tour\" was infinitely discreditable to\nPresident and people. I do not go into the question of his motive in\nmaking it. Be that what it may, the manner of it seems to me an\noutrage upon all the principles and sentiments underlying republican\ninstitutions. In all but the name it was a \"royal progress\"--the same\ncostly ostentation, the same civic and military pomp, the same solemn\nand senseless adulation, the same abasement of spirit of the Many before\nthe One. And according to republican traditions, ten thousand times a\nyear affirmed, in every way in which affirmation is possible, we fondly\npersuade ourselves, as a true faith in the hearts of our hearts,\nthat the One is the inferior of the Many! And it is no mere political\ncatch-phrase: he _is_ their servant; he _is_ their creature; all that\nin him to which they grovel (dignifying and justifying their instinctive\nand inherited servility by names as false as anything in ceremonial\nimposture) they themselves have made, as truly as the heathen has\nmade the wooden god before which he performs his unmanly rite. It\nis precisely this thing--the superiority of the people to their\nservants--that constitutes, and was by our fathers understood to\nconstitute, the essential, fundamental difference between the monarchial\nsystem which they uprooted and the democratic one which they planted in\nits stead. Deluded men! how little they guessed the length and strength\nand vitality of the roots left in the soil of the centuries when their\nnoxious harvestage of mischievous institutions had been cast as rubbish\nto the void!\n\nI am no contestant for forms of government--no believer in either the\npractical value or the permanence of any that has yet been devised. That\nall men are created equal, in the best and highest sense of the phrase,\nI hold; not as I observe it held by others, but as a living faith. That\nan officeholder is a servant of the people; that I am his political\nsuperior, owing him no deference, and entitled to such deference\nfrom him as may be serviceable to keep him in mind of his\nsubordination--these are propositions which command my assent, which\nI _feel_ to be true and which determine the character of my personal\nrelations with those whom they concern. That I should give my hand, or\nbend my neck, or uncover my head to any man in homage to or recognition\nof his office, great or small, is to me simply inconceivable. These\ntricks of servility with the softened names are the vestiges of an\ninvoluntary allegiance to power extraneous to the performer. They\nrepresent in our American life obedience and propitiation in their most\nprimitive and odious forms. The man who speaks of them as manifestations\nof a proper respect for \"the President's great office\" is either a\nrogue, a dupe or a journalist They come to us out of a fascinating but\nterrible past as survivals of servitude. They speak a various language\nof oppression, and the superstition of man-worship; they cany forward\nthe traditions of the sceptre and the lash. Through the plaudits of the\npeople may be heard always the faint, far cry of the beaten slave.\n\nRespect? Respect the good. Respect the wise. Respect the dead. Let the\nPresident look to it that he belongs to one of these classes. His going\nabout the country in gorgeous state and barbaric splendor as the guest\nof a thieving corporation, but at our expense--shining and dining and\nswining--unsouling himself of clotted nonsense in pickled platitudes\ncalculated for the meridian of Coon Hollow, Indiana, but ingeniously\nadapted to each water tank on the line of his absurd \"progress,\" does\nnot prove it, and the presumption of his \"great office\" is against him.\n\nCan you not see, poor misguided \"fellow citizens,\" how you permit your\npolitical taskmasters to forge leg-chains of your follies and load you\ndown with them? Will nothing teach you that all this fuss-and-feathers,\nall this ceremony, all this official gorgeousness and brass-banding,\nthis \"manifestation of a proper respect for the nation's head\" has no\ndecent place in American life and American politics? Will no experience\nopen your stupid eyes to the fact that these shows are but absurd\nimitations of royalty, to hold you silly while you are plundered by the\nmanagers of the performance?--that while you toss your greasy caps in\nair and sustain them by the ascending current of your senseless hurrahs\nthe programmers are going through your blessed pockets and exploiting\nyour holy dollars? No; you feel secure; \"power is of the People,\"\nand you can effect a change of robbers every four years. Inestimable\nprivilege--to pull off the glutted leech and attach the lean one! And\nyou can not even choose among the lean leeches, but must accept those\ndesignated by the programmers and showmen who have the reptiles on tap!\nBut then you are not \"subjects;\" you are \"citizens\"--there is much\nin that Your tyrant is not a \"King;\" he is a \"President.\" He does\nnot occupy a \"throne,\" but a \"chair.\" He does not succeed to it by\ninheritance; he is pitchforked into it by the boss. Altogether, you are\ndistinctly better off than the Russian mujik who wears his shirt outside\nhis trousers and has never shaken hands with the Czar in all his life.\n\nI hold that kings and noblemen can not breathe in America. When they set\nfoot upon our soil their kingship and their nobility fall away from them\nlike the chains of a slave in England. Whatever a man may be in his\nown country, here he is but a man. My countrymen may do as they please,\nlickspittling the high and mighty of other nations even to the filling\nof their spiritual bellies, but I make a stand for simple American\nmanhood. I will meet no man on this soil who expects from me a greater\ndeference than I could properly accord to the President of my own\ncountry. My allegiance to republican institutions is slack through lack\nof faith in them as a practical system of governing men as men are. All\nthe same, I will call no man \"Your Majesty,\" nor \"Your Lordship.\" For\nme to meet in my own country a king or a nobleman would require as much\npreliminary negotiation as an official interview between the Mufti of\nMoosh and the Ahkoond of Swat. The form of salutation and the style and\ntide of address would have to be settled definitively and with precision.\nWith some of my most esteemed and patriotic friends the matter is more\nsimple; their generosity in concession fills me with admiration and\ntheir forbearance in exaction challenges my astonishment as one of the\nseven wonders of American hospitality. In fancy I see the ceremony of\ntheir \"presentation\" and as examples of simple republican dignity I\ncommend their posture to the youth of this fair New World, inviting\nparticular attention to the grand, bold curves of character shown in the\noutlines of the Human Ham.\n\n\n\n\nA DISSERTATION ON DOGS\n\nOF ALL anachronisms and survivals, the love of the dog; is the most\nreasonless. Because, some thousands of years ago, when we wore other\nskins than our own and sat enthroned upon our haunches, tearing\ntangles of tendons from raw bones with our teeth, the dog ministered\npurveyorwise to our savage needs, we go on cherishing him to this day,\nwhen his only function is to lie sun-soaken on a door mat and insult\nus as we pass in and out, enamored of his fat superfluity. One dog in\na thousand earns his bread--and takes beefsteak; the other nine hundred\nand ninety-nine we maintain, by cheating the poor, in the style suitable\nto their state.\n\nThe trouble with the modern dog is that he is the same old dog. Not an\ninch has the rascal advanced along the line of evolution. We have ceased\nto squat upon our naked haunches and gnaw raw bones, but this companion\nof the childhood of the race, this vestigial remnant of _juventus mundi_\nthis dismal anachronism, this veteran inharmony of the scheme of\nthings, the dog, has abated no jot nor tittle of his unthinkable\nobjection-ableness since the morning stars sang together and he had sat\nup all night to deflate a lung at the performance. Possibly he may some\ntime be improved otherwise than by effacement, but at present he is\nstill in that early stage of reform that is not incompatible with a\nmouthful of reformer.\n\nThe dog is a detestable quadruped. He knows more ways to be\nunmentionable than can be suppressed in seven languages.\n\nThe word \"dog\" is a term of contempt the world over. Poets have sung and\nprosaists have prosed of the virtues of individual dogs, but nobody\nhas had the hardihood to eulogize the species. No man loves the Dog; he\nloves his own dog or dogs, and there he stops; the force of perverted\naffection can no further go. He loves his own dog partly because that\nthrifty creature, ever cadging when not maurauding, tickles his vanity\nby fawning upon him as the visible source of steaks and bones; and\npartly because the graceless beast insults everybody else, harming as\nmany as he dares. The dog is an encampment of fleas, and a reservoir of\nsinful smells. He is prone to bad manners as the sparks fly upward. He\nhas no discrimination; his loyalty is given to the person that feeds\nhim, be the same a blackguard or a murderer's mother. He fights for his\nmaster without regard to the justice of the quarrel--wherein he is no\nbetter than a patriot or a paid soldier. There are men who are proud of\na dog's love--and dogs love that kind of men. There are men who, having\nthe privilege of loving women, insult them by loving dogs; and there are\nwomen who forgive and respect their canine rivals. Women, I am told, are\ntrue cynolaters; they adore not only dogs, but Dog--not only their\nown horrible little beasts, but those of others. But women will love\nanything; they love men who love dogs. I sometimes wonder how it is that\nof all our women among whom the dog fad is prevalent none have incurred\nthe husband fad, or the child fad. Possibly there are exceptions, but\nit seems to be a rule that the female heart which has a dog in it\nis without other lodgers. There is not, I suppose, a very wild and\nimportunate demand for accommodation. For my part, I do not know which\nis the less desirable, the tenant or the tenement There are dogs that\nsubmit to be kissed by women base enough to kiss them; but they have a\nsecret, coarse revenge. For the dog is a joker, withal, gifted with as\nmuch humor as is consistent with biting.\n\nMiss Louise Imogen Guiney has replied to Mrs. Meynell's proposal to\nabolish the dog--a proposal which Miss Guiney has the originality to\ncall \"original.\" Divested of its \"literature,\" Miss Guiney's plea for\nthe defendant consists, essentially, of the following assertions: (1)\nDogs are whatever their masters are. (2) They bite only those who fear\nthem. (3) Really vicious dogs are not found nearer than Constantinople.\n(4) Only wronged dogs go mad, and hydrophobia is retaliation. (5) In\nactions for damages for dog-bites judicial prejudice is against the dog.\n(6) \"Dogs are continually saving children from death.\" (7) Association\nwith dogs begets piety, tenderness, mercy, loyalty, and so forth; in\nbrief, the dog is an elevating influence: \"to walk modestly at a dog's\nheels is a certificate of merit!\" As to that last, if Miss Guiney had\never observed the dog himself walking modestly at the heels of another\ndog she would perhaps have wished that it was not the custom of her sex\nto seal the certificate of merit with a kiss.\n\nIn all this absurd woman's statements, thus fairly epitomized, there\nis not one that is true--not one of which the essential falsity is not\nevident, obvious, conspicuous to even the most delinquent observation.\nYet with the smartness and smirk of a graduating seminary girl refuting\nEpicurus she marshals them against the awful truth that every year in\nEurope and the United States alone more than five thousand human beings\nthe of hydrophobia--a fact which her controversial conscience does not\npermit her to mention. The names on this needless death-roll are mostly\nthose of children, the sins of whose parents in cherishing their own\nhereditary love of dogs is visited upon their children because they have\nnot the intelligence and agility to get out of the way. Or perhaps they\nlack that tranquil courage upon which Miss Guiney relies to avert the\ncanine tooth from her own inedible shank.\n\nFinally this amusing illogician, this type and example of the female\ncontroversialist, has the hardihood to hope that there may be fathers\nwho can see their children the the horrible death of hydrophobia without\nwishing \"to exile man's best ideal of fidelity from the hearthstones of\ncivilization.\" If we must have an \"ideal of fidelity\" why not find it,\nnot in the dog that kills the child, but in the father that kills the\ndog. The profit of maintaining a standard and pattern of the virtues (at\nconsiderable expense in the case of this insatiable canine consumer) may\nbe great, but are we so hard pushed that we must go to the animals for\nit? In life and letters are there no men and women whose names kindle\nenthusiasm and emulation? Is fidelity, is devotion, is self-sacrifice\nunknown among ourselves? As a model of the higher virtues why will not\none's mother serve at a pinch? And what is the matter with Miss Guiney\nherself? She is faithful, at least to dogs, whatever she may be to\nthe hundreds of American children inevitably foredoomed to a death of\nunthinkable agony.\n\nThere is perhaps a hope that when the sun's returning flame shall gild\nthe hither end of the thirtieth century this savage and filthy brute,\nthe dog, will have ceased to \"banquet on through a whole year\" of human\nfat and lean; that he will have been gathered to his variously unworthy\nfathers to give an account of the deeds done in body of man. In the\nmeantime, those of us who have not the enlightened understanding to be\nenamored of him may endure with such fortitude as we can command\nhis feats of tooth among the shins and throats of those who have; we\nourselves are so few that there is a strong numerical presumption of\npersonal immunity.\n\nIt is well to have a clear understanding of such inconveniences as\nmay be expected to ensue from dog-bites. That inconveniences and even\ndiscomforts do sometimes flow from, or at least follow, the mischance of\nbeing bitten by dogs, even the sturdiest champion of \"man's best friend\"\nwill admit when not heated fay controversy. True, he is disposed to\nsympathy for those incurring the inconveniences and discomforts, but\nagainst apparent incompassion may be offset his indubitable sympathy\nwith the dog. No one is altogether heartless.\n\nAmongst the several disadvantages of a close personal connection with\nthe canine tooth, the disorder known as hydrophobia has long held an\nundisputed primacy. The existence of dus ailment is attested by so many\nwitnesses, many of whom, belonging to the profession of medicine, speak\nwith a certain authority, that even the breeders and lovers of snap-dogs\nare compelled reluctantly to concede it, though as a rule they stoutly\ndeny that it is imparted by the dog. In their view, hydrophobia is a\ntheory, not a condition. The patient imagines himself to have it, and\nacting upon that unsupported assumption or hypothesis, suffers and dies\nin the attempt to square his conduct with his opinions.\n\nIt seems there is firmer ground for their view of the matter than the\nrest of us have been willing to admit There is such a thing, doubtless,\nas hydrophobia proper, but also there is such another thing as\npseudo-hydrophobia, or hydrophobia improper.\n\nPseudo-hydrophobia, the physicians explain, is caused by fear of\nhydrophobia. The patient, having been chewed by a healthy and harmless\ndog, broods upon his imaginary peril, solicitously watches his imaginary\nsymptoms, and, finally, persuading himself of their reality, puts them\non exhibition, as he understands them. He runs about (when permitted) on\nhis hands and knees, growls, barks, howls, and in default of a tail wags\nthe part of him where it would be if he had one. In a few days he is\ngone before, a victim to his lack of confidence in man's best friend.\n\nThe number of cases of pseudo-hydrophobia, relatively, to those of true\nhydrophobia, is not definitely known, the medical records having been\nimperfectly made, and never collated; champions of the snap-dog, as\nintimated, believe it is many to nothing. That being so (they argue),\nthe animal is entirely exonerated, and leaves the discussion without a\nstain upon his reputation.\n\nBut that is feeble reasoning. Even if we grant their premises we can not\nembrace their conclusion. In the first place, it hurts to be bitten by\na dog, as the dog himself audibly confesses when bitten by another\ndog. Furthermore, pseudo-hydrophobia is quite as fatal as if it were a\nlegitimate product of the bite, not a result of the terror which that\nmischance inspires.\n\nHuman nature being what it is, and well known to the dog to be what it\nis, we have a right to expect that the creature will take our weaknesses\ninto consideration--that he will respect our addiction to reasonless\npanic, even as we respect his when, as we commonly do, we refrain from\nattaching tinware to his tail. A dog that runs himself to death to evade\na kitchen utensil which could not possibly harm him, and which if he did\nnot flee would not pursue, is the author of his own undoing in precisely\nthe same sense as is the victim of pseudo-hydrophobia. He is slain by\na theory, not a condition. Yet the wicked boy that set him going is\nnot blameless, and no one would be so zealous and strenuous in his\nprosecution as the cynolater, the adorer of dogs, the person who holds\nthem guileless of pseudo-hydrophobia.\n\nMr. Nicholas Smith, while United States Consul at Liege, wrote, or\ncaused to be written, an official report, wickedly, willfully and\nmaliciously designed to abridge the privileges, augment the ills and\nimpair the honorable status of the domestic dog. In the very beginning\nof this report Mr. Smith manifests his animus by stigmatizing\nthe domestic dog as an \"hereditary loafer;\" and having hurled the\nallegation, affirms \"the dawn of a [Belgian] new era\" wherein the\npampered menial will loaf no more. There is to be no more sun-soaking on\ndoor mats having a southern exposure, no more usurpation of the warmest\nsegment of the family circle, no more successful personal solicitation\nof cheer at the domestic board. The dog's place in the social scale is\nno longer to be determined by consideration of sentiment, but will be\nthe result of cold commercial calculation, and so fixed as best to serve\nthe ends of industrial expediency. All this in Belgium, where the dog\nis already in active service as a beast of burden and draught; doubtless\nthe transition to that humble condition from his present and\nimmemorial social elevation in less advanced countries will be slow and\ncharacterized by bitter factional strife. America, especially, though\never accessible to the infection of new and profitable ideas, will\nbe angularly slow to accept so radical a subversion of a social\nsuperstructure that almost may be said to rest upon the domestic dog as\na basic verity.\n\nThe dogs are our only true \"leisure class\" (for even the tramps are\nsometimes compelled to engage in such simple industries as are possible\nwithin the \"precincts\" of the county jail) and we are justly proud of\nthem. They toil not, neither spin, yet Solomon in all his glory was not\na dog. Instead of making them hewers of wood and drawers of water, it\nwould be more consonant with the Anglomaniacal and general Old World\nspirit, now so dominant in the councils of the nation, to make them\n\"hereditary legislators.\" And Mr. Smith must permit me to add, with a\nspecial significance, that history records an instance of even a horse\nmaking a fairly good Consul.\n\nMr. Smith avers with obvious and impudent satisfaction that in Liege\ntwice as many draught dogs as horses are seen in the streets, attached\nto vehicles. He regards \"a gaily painted cart\" drawn by \"a well fed\ndog\" and driven by a well fed (and gaily painted) woman as a \"pleasing\nvision.\" I do not; I should prefer to see the dog sitting at the receipt\nof steaks and chops and the lady devoting herself to the amelioration of\nthe condition of the universe, and the manufacture of poetry and stories\nthat are not true. A more pleasing vision, too, one endeared to eye and\nheart by immemorial use and wont, is that of stranger and dog indulging\nin the pleasures of the chase--stranger a little ahead--while the woman\nin the case manifests a characteristically compassionate solicitude lest\nthe gentleman's trousers do not match Fido's mustache. It is, indeed,\nimpossible to regard with any degree of approval the degradation to\ncommercial utility of two so noble animals as Dog and Woman; and if Man\nhad joined them together by driving-reins I should hope that God would\nput them asunder, even if the reins were held by Dog. There would\nno doubt be a distinct gain as well as a certain artistic fitness in\nunyoking the strong-minded female of our species from the Chariot of\nProgress and yoking her to the apple-cart or fish-wagon, and--but that\nis another story; the imminence of the draughtwoman is not foreshadowed\nin the report of our Consul at Liege.\n\nMr. Smith's estimate of the number of dogs in this country at 7,000,000\nis a \"conservative\" one, it must be confessed, and can hardly have been\nbased on observations by moonlight in a suburban village; his estimate\nof the effective strength of the average dog at 500 pounds is probably\nabout right, as will be attested by any intelligent boy who in campaigns\nagainst orchards has experienced detention by the Cerberi of the places.\nTaking his own figures Mr. Smith calculates that we have in this country\n3,500,000,000 pounds of \"idle dog power.\" But this statement is more\ningenious than ingenuous; it gives, as doubtless it was intended to\ngive, the impression that we have only idle dogs, whereas of all mundane\nforces the domestic dog is most easily stirred to action. His expense\nof energy in pursuit of the harmless, necessary flea, for example, is\nprodigious; and he is not infrequently seen in chase of his own tail,\nwith an activity scarcely inferior. If there is anything worth while\nin accepted theories of the conversion and conservation of force these\ngigantic energies are by no means wasted; they appear as heat, light\nand electricity, modifying climate, reducing gas bills and assisting\nin propulsion of street cars. Even in baying the moon and insulting\nvisitors and bypassers the dog releases a certain amount of vibratory\nforce which through various mutations of its wave-length, may do its\npart in cooking a steak or gratifying the olfactory nerve by throwing\nfresh perfume on the violet. Evidently the commercial advantages of\ndeposing the dog from the position of Exalted Personage and subduing him\nto that of Motor would not be all clear gain. He would no longer have\nthe spirit to send, Whitmanwise, his barbarous but beneficent yawp over\nthe housetops, nor the leisure to throw off vast quantities of energy\nby centrifugal efforts at the conquest of his tail. As to the fleas, he\nwould accept them with apathetic satisfaction as preventives of thought\nupon his fallen fortunes.\n\nHaving observed with attention and considered with seriousness the\nLondon _Daily News_ declares its conviction that the dog, as we have the\nhappiness to know him, is dreadfully bored by civilization. This is one\nof the gravest accusations that the friends of progress and light have\nbeen called out to meet--a challenge that it is impossible to ignore and\nunprofitable to evade; for the dog as we have the happiness to know him\nis the only dog that we have the happiness really to know. The wolf is\nhardly a dog within the meaning of the law, nor is the scalp-yielding\ncoyote, whether he howls or merely sings and plays the piano; moreover,\nthese are beyond the pale of civilization and outside the scope of our\nsympathies.\n\nWith the dog it is different His place is among us; he is with us and of\nus--a part of our life and love. If we are maintaining and promoting a\ncondition of things that gives him \"that tired feeling\" it is befitting\nthat we mend our ways lest, shaking the carpet dust from his feet and\nthe tenderloin steaks from his teeth, he depart from our midst and\nconnect himself with the enchanted life of the thrilling barbarian. We\ncan not afford to lose him. The cynophobes may call him a \"survival\" and\nsneer at his exhausted mandate--albeit, as Darwin points out, they are\nindebted for their sneer to his own habit of uncovering his teeth to\nbite; they may seek to cast opprobrium upon the nature of our affection\nfor him by pronouncing it hereditary--a bequest from our primitive\nancestors, for whom he performed important service in other ways than\ndepriving visitors of their tendons; but quite the same we should miss\nhim at his meal time and in the (but for him) silent watches of the\nnight. We should miss his bark and his bite, the feel of his forefeet\nupon our shirt-fronts, the frou-frou of his dusty sides against our\nnether habiliments. More than all, we should miss and mourn that visible\nyearning for chops and steaks, which he has persuaded us to accept as\nthe lovelight of his eye and a tribute to our personal worth. We must\nkeep the dog, and to that end find means to abate his weariness of us\nand our ways.\n\nDoubtless much might be done to reclaim our dogs from their uncheerful\nstate of mind by abstention from debate on imperialism; by excluding\nthem from the churches, at least during the sermons; by keeping them\noff the streets and out of hearing when rites of prostration are in\nperformance before visiting notables; by forbidding anyone to read aloud\nin their hearing the sensational articles in the newspapers, and by\neducating them to the belief that Labor and Capital are illusions. A\nlimitation of the annual output of popular novels would undoubtedly\nreduce the dejection, which could be still further mitigated by\nabolition of the more successful magazines. If the dialect story or poem\ncould be prohibited, under severe penalties, the sum of night-howling\n(erroneously attributed to lunar influence) would experience an audible\ndecrement, which, also, would enable the fire department to augment its\nown uproar without reproach. There is, indeed, a considerable number of\nways in which we might effect a double reform--promoting the advantage\nof Man, as well as medicating the mental fatigue of Dog. For another\nexample, it would be \"a boon and a blessing to man\" if Society would put\nto death, or at least banish, the mill-man or manufacturer who persists\nin apprising the entire community many times a day by means of a steam\nwhistle that it is time for his oppressed employees (every one of whom\nhas a gold watch) to go to work or to leave off. Such things not only\nmake a dog tired, they make a man mad. They answer with an accented\naffirmative Truthful James' plaintive inquiry,\n\n     \"Is civilization a failure,\n     Or is the Caucasian played out?\"\n\nUnquestionably, from his advantageous point of view as a looker-on at\nthe game, the dog is justified in the conviction that they are.\n\n\n\n\nTHE ANCESTRAL BOND\n\nA WELL-KNOWN citizen of Ohio once discovered another man of the same\nname exactly resembling him, and writing a \"hand\" which, including the\nsignature, he was unable to distinguish from his own. The two men\nwere unable to discover any blood relationship between them. It is\nnevertheless almost absolutely certain that a relationship existed,\nthough it may have been so remote a degree that the familiar term\n\"forty-second cousin\" would not have exaggerated the slenderness of the\ntie. The phenomena of heredity have been inattentively noted; its laws\nare imperfectly understood, even by Herbert Spencer and the prophets. My\nown small study in this amazing field convinces me that a man is the\nsum of his ancestors; that his character, moral and intellectual,\nis determined before his birth. His environment with all its varied\nsuasions, its agencies of good and evil; breeding, training, interest,\nexperience and the rest of it--have little to do with the matter and can\nnot alter the sentence passed upon him at conception, compelling him to\nbe what he is.\n\nMan is the hither end of an immeasurable line extending back to the\nultimate Adam--or, as we scientists prefer to name him, Protoplasmos.\nMan travels, not the mental road that he would, but the one that he\nmust--is pushed this way and that by the resultant of all the forces\nbehind him; for each member of the ancestral line, though dead, yet\npusfaedi. In one of what Dr. Nolmes (Holmes, ed.) calls his \"medicated\nnovels,\" _The Guardian Angel_, this truth is most admirably and lucidly\nset forth with abundant instance and copious exposition. Upon another\nwork of his, _Elsie Venner_--in which he erroneously affirms the\ninfluence of circumstance and environment--let us lay a charitable hand\nand fling it into the fire.\n\nClearly all one's ancestors have not equal power in shaping his\ncharacter. Conceiving them, according to our figure, as arranged in line\nbehind him and influential in the ratio of their individuality, we shall\nget the best notion of their method by supposing them to have taken\ntheir places in an order somewhat independent of chronology and a little\ndifferent from their arrangement behind his brother. Immediately at his\nback, with a controlling hand (a trifle skinny) upon him, may stand his\ngreat-grandmother, while his father may be many removes arear. Or\nthe place of power may be held by some fine old Asian gentleman who\nflourished before the confusion of tongues on the plain of Shinar; or by\nsome cave-dweller who polished the bone of life in Mesopotamia and was\nperhaps a respectable and honest troglodyte.\n\nSometimes a whole platoon of ancestors appears to have been moved\nbackward or forward, _en bloc_ not, we may be sure, capriciously, but in\nobedience to some law that we do not understand. I know a man to whose\ncharacter not an ancestor since the seventeenth century has contributed\nan element. Intellectually he is a contemporary of John Dryden, whom\nnaturally he reveres as the greatest of poets. I know another who has\ninherited his handwriting from his great-grandfather, although he has\nbeen trained to the Spencerian system and tried hard to acquire it.\nFurthermore, his handwriting follows the same order of progressive\ndevelopment as that of his greatgrandfather. At the age of twenty he\nwrote exactly as his ancestor did at the same age, and, although at\nforty-five his chirography is nothing like what it was even ten years\nago, it is accurately like his great-grandfather's at forty-five. It was\nonly five years ago that the discovery of some old letters showed\nhim how his great-grandfather wrote, and accounted for the absolute\ndissimilarity of his own handwriting to that of any known member of his\nfamily.\n\nTo suppose that such individual traits as the configuration of the\nbody, the color of the hair and eyes, the shape of hands and feet, the\nthousand-and-one subtle characteristics that make family resemblances\nare transmissible, and that the form, texture and capacities of\nthe brain which fix the degree of natural intellect, are _not_\ntransmissible, is illogical and absurd. We see that certain actions,\nsuch as gestures, gait, and so forth, resulting from the most complex\nconcurrences of brain, nerves and muscles, are hereditary. Is it\nreasonable to suppose that the brain alone of all the organs performs\nits work according to its own sweet will, free from congenital\ntendencies? Is it not a familiar fact that racial characteristics are\npersistent?--that one race is stupid and indocile, another quick and\nintelligent? Does not each generation of a race inherit the intellectual\nqualities of the preceding generation? How could this be true of\ngenerations and not of individuals?\n\nAs to stirpiculture, the intelligent and systematic breeding of men and\nwomen with a view to improvement of the species--it is a thing of the\nfar future, It is hardly in sight. Yet, what splendid possibilities it\ncarries! Two or three generations of as careful breeding as we bestow\non horses, dogs and pigeons would do more good than all the penal,\nreformatory and educating agencies of the world accomplish in a thousand\nyears. It is the one direction in which human effort to \"elevate the\nrace\" can be assured of a definitive, speedy and adequate success. It\nis hardly better than nonsense to prate of any good coming to the race\nthrough (for example) medical science, which is mainly concerned in\nreversing the beneficent operation of natural laws and saving the\nunfittest to perpetuate their unfitness. Our entire system of charities\nis of, to the same objection; it cares for the incapables whom Nature\nis trying to \"weed out,\" This not only debases the race physically,\nintellectually and morally, but constantly increases the rate of\ndebasement. The proportion of criminals, paupers and the various kinds\nof \"inmates\" of charitable institutions augments its horrible percentage\nyearly. On the other hand, our wars destroy the capable; so thus we make\ninroads upon the vitality of the race from two directions. We preserve\nthe feeble and extirpate the strong. He who, in view of this amazing\nfolly can believe in a constant, even slow, progress of the human\nrace toward perfection ought to be happy. He has a mind whose Olympian\nheights are inaccessible--the Titans of fact can never scale them to\nstorm its ancient reign.\n\n\n\n\nTHE RIGHT TO WORK\n\nALL kinds of relief, charitable or other, doubtless tend to perpetuation\nof pauperism, inasmuch as paupers are thereby kept alive; and living\npaupers unquestionably propagate their unthrifty kind more abundantly\nthan dead ones. It is not true, though, that relief interferes with\nNature's beneficent law of the survival of the fittest, for the power\nto excite sympathy and obtain relief is a kind of fitness. I am still a\ndevotee of the homely primitive doctrine that mischance, disability or\neven unthrift, is not a capital crime justly and profitably punishable\nby starvation. I still regard the Good Samaritan with a certain\ntoleration and Jesus Christ's tenderness to the poor as something more\nthan a policy of obstruction.\n\nIf no such thing as an almshouse, a hospital, an asylum or any one of\nthe many public establishments for relief of the unfortunate were known\nthe proposal to found one would indubitably evoke from thousands of\nthroats notes of deprecation and predictions of disaster. It would be\ncalled Socialism of the radical and dangerous kind--of a kind to menace\nthe stability of government and undermine the very foundations of\norganized society! Yet who is more truly unfortunate than an able-bodied\nman out of work through no delinquency of will and no default of effort?\nIs hunger to him and his less poignant than to the feeble in body and\nmind whom we support for nothing in almshouse or asylum? Are cold and\nexposure less disagreeable to him than to them? Is not his claim to the\nright to live as valid as theirs if backed by the will to pay for life\nwith work? And in denial of his claim is there not latent a far greater\nperil to society than inheres in denial of theirs? So unfortunate and\ndangerous a creature as a man willing to work, yet having no work to do,\nshould be unknown outside of the literature of satire. Doubtless there\nwould be enormous difficulties in devising a practicable and beneficent\nsystem, and doubtless the reform, like all permanent and salutary\nreforms, will have to grow. The growth naturally will be delayed by\nopposition of the workingmen themselves--precisely as they oppose prison\nlabor from ignorance that labor makes labor.\n\nIt matters not that nine in ten of all our tramps and vagrants are such\nfrom choice, and irreclaimable degenerates into the bargain; so long as\none worthy man is out of employment and unable to obtain it our duty\nis to provide it by law. Nay, so long as industrial conditions are such\nthat so pathetic a phenomenon is possible we have not the moral right\nto disregard that possibility. The right to employment being the right\nto life, its denial is homicide. It should be needless to point out\nthe advantages of its concession. It would preserve the life and\nself-respect of him who is needy through misfortune, and supply an\ninfallible means of detection of his criminal imitator, who could\nthen be dealt with as he deserves, widiout the lenity that finds\njustification in doubt and compassion. It would diminish crime, for an\nempty stomach has no morals. With a wage rate lower than the commercial,\nit would disturb no private industries by luring away their workmen,\nand with nothing made to sell there would be no competition with private\nproducts. Properly directed, it would give us highways, bridges and\nembankments which we shall not otherwise have.\n\nIt is difficult to say if our laws relating to vagrancy and vagrants\nare more cruel or more absurd. If not so atrocious they would evoke\nlaughter; if less ridiculous we should read them with indignation. Here\nis an imaginary conversation:\n\nThe Law: It is forbidden to you to rob. It is forbidden to you to steal.\nIt is forbidden to you to beg.\n\nThe Vagrant: Being without money, and denied employment, I am compelled\nto obtain food, shelter and clothing in one of these ways, else I shall\nbe hungry and cold.\n\nThe Law: That is no affair of mine. Yet I am considerate--you are\npermitted to be as hungry as you like and as cold as may suit you.\n\nThe Vagrant: Hungry, yes, and many thanks to you; but if I go naked I am\narrested for indecent exposure. You require me to wear clothing.\n\nThe Law: You'll admit that you need it.\n\nThe Vagrant: But not that you provide a way for me to get it. No one\nwill give me shelter at night; you forbid me to sleep in a straw stack.\n\nThe Law: Ungrateful man! we provide a cell.\n\nThe Vagrant: Even when I obey you, starving all day and freezing all\nnight, and holding my tongue with both hands, I am liable to arrest for\nbeing \"without visible means of support.\"\n\nThe Law: A most reprehensible condition.\n\nThe Vagrant: One thing has been overlooked--a legal punishment for\nbegging for work.\n\nThe Law: True; I am not perfect.\n\n\n\n\nTHE RIGHT TO TAKE ONESELF OFF\n\nA PERSON who loses heart and hope through a personal bereavement is like\na grain of sand on the seashore complaining that the tide has washed\na neighboring grain out of reach. He is worse, for the bereaved grain\ncannot help itself; it has to be a grain of sand and play the game of\ntide, win or lose; whereas he can quit--by watching his opportunity\ncan \"quit a winner.\" For sometimes we do beat \"the man who keeps the\ntable\"--never in the long run, but infrequently and out of small stakes.\nBut this is no time to \"cash in\" and go, for you can not take your\nlittle winning with you. The time to quit is when you have lost a big\nstake, your fool hope of eventual success, your fortitude and your love\nof the game. If you stay in the game, which you are not compelled to do,\ntake your losses in good temper and do not whine about them. They are\nhard to bear, but that is no reason why you should be.\n\nBut we are told with tiresome iteration that we are \"put here\" for some\npurpose (not disclosed) and have no right to retire until summoned--it\nmay be by small-pox, it may be by the bludgeon of a blackguard, it may\nbe by the kick of a cow; the \"summoning\" Power (said to be the same as\nthe \"putting\" Power) has not a nice taste in the choice of messengers.\nThat \"argument\" is not worth attention, for it is unsupported by either\nevidence or anything remotely resembling evidence. \"Put here.\" Indeed!\nAnd by the keeper of the table who \"runs\" the \"skin game.\" We were put\nhere by our parents--that is all anybody knows about it; and they had no\nmore authority than we, and probably no more intention.\n\nThe notion that we have not the right to take our own lives comes of\nour consciousness that we have not the courage. It is the plea of the\ncoward--his excuse for continuing to live when he has nothing to live\nfor--or his provision against such a time in the future. If he were not\negotist as well as coward he would need no excuse. To one who does not\nregard himself as the center of creation and his sorrow as the throes of\nthe universe, life, if not worth living, is also not worth leaving. The\nancient philosopher who was asked why he did not the if, as he taught,\nlife was no better than death, replied: \"Because death is no better than\nlife.\" We do not know that either proposition is true, but the matter is\nnot worth bothering about, for both states are supportable--life despite\nits pleasures and death despite its repose.\n\nIt was Robert G. Ingersoll's opinion that there is rather too little\nthan too much suicide in the world--that people are so cowardly as to\nlive on long after endurance has ceased to be a virtue. This view is but\na return to the wisdom of the ancients, in whose splendid civilization\nsuicide had as honorable place as any other courageous, reasonable and\nunselfish act. Antony, Brutus, Cato, Seneca--these were not of the kind\nof men to do deeds of cowardice and folly. The smug, self-righteous\nmodern way of looking upon the act as that of a craven or a lunatic is\nthe creation of priests, Philistines and women. If courage is manifest\nin endurance of profitless discomfort it is cowardice to warm oneself\nwhen cold, to cure oneself when ill, to drive away mosquitoes, to go in\nwhen it rains. The \"pursuit of happiness,\" then, is not an \"inalienable\nright,\" for that implies avoidance of pain. No principle is involved in\nthis matter; suicide is justifiable or not, according to circumstances;\neach case is to be considered on its merits and he having the act under\nadvisement is sole judge. To his decision, made with whatever light\nhe may chance to have, all honest minds will bow. The appellant has\nno court to which to take his appeal. Nowhere is a jurisdiction so\ncomprehensive as to embrace the right of condemning the wretched to\nlife.\n\nSuicide is always courageous. We call it courage in a soldier merely to\nface death--say to lead a forlorn hope--although he has a chance of life\nand a certainty of \"glory.\" But the suicide does more than face death;\nhe incurs it, and with a certainty, not of glory, but of reproach. If\nthat is not courage we must reform our vocabulary.\n\nTrue, there may be a higher courage in living than in dying--a moral\ncourage greater than physical. The courage of the suicide, like that of\nthe pirate, is not incompatible with a selfish disregard of the rights\nand interests of others--a cruel recreancy to duty and decency. I have\nbeen asked: \"Do you not think it cowardly when a man leaves his family\nunprovided for, to end his life, because he is dissatisfied with life\nin general?\" No, I do not; I think it selfish and cruel. Is not that\nenough to say of it? Must we distort words from their true meaning\nin order more effectually to damn the act and cover its author with a\ngreater infamy? A word means something; despite the maunderings of\nthe lexicographers, it does not mean whatever you want it to mean.\n\"Cowardice\" means the fear of danger, not the shirking of duty. The\nwriter who allows himself as much liberty in the use of words as he is\nallowed by the dictionary-maker and by popular consent is a bad writer.\nHe can make no impression on his reader, and would do better service at\nthe ribbon-counter.\n\nThe ethics of suicide is not a simple matter; one can not lay down laws\nof universal application, but each case is to be judged, if judged\nat all, with a full knowledge of all the circumstances, including\nthe mental and moral make-up of the person taking his own life--an\nimpossible qualification for judgment. One's time, race and religion\nhave much to do with it. Some people, like the ancient Romans and\nthe modern Japanese, have considered suicide in certain circumstances\nhonorable and obligatory; among ourselves it is held in disfavor. A man\nof sense will not give much attention to considerations of that kind,\nexcepting in so far as they affect others, but in judging weak offenders\nthey are to be taken into the account. Speaking generally, then, I\nshould say that in our time and country the following persons (and some\nothers) are justified in removing themselves, and that to some of them\nit is a duty:\n\nOne afflicted with a painful or loathsome and incurable disease.\n\nOne who is a heavy burden to his friends, with no prospect of their\nrelief.\n\nOne threatened with permanent insanity.\n\nOne irreclaimably addicted to drunkenness or some similarly destructive\nor offensive habit.\n\nOne without friends, property, employment or hope.\n\nOne who has disgraced himself.\n\nWhy do we honor the valiant soldier, sailor, fireman? For obedience to\nduty? Not at all; that alone--without the peril--seldom elicits remark,\nnever evokes enthusiasm. It is because he faced without flinching the\nrisk of that supreme disaster--or what we feel to be such--death. But\nlook you: the soldier braves the danger of death; the suicide braves\ndeath itself! The leader of the forlorn hope may not be struck. The\nsailor who voluntarily goes down with his ship may be picked up or cast\nashore. It is not certain that the wall will topple until the fireman\nshall have descended with his precious burden. But the suicide--his\nis the foeman that never missed a mark, his the sea that gives nothing\nback; the wall that he mounts bears no man's weight And his, at the end\nof it all, is the dishonored grave where the wild ass of public opinion\n\n     \"Stamps o'er his head but can not break his sleep.\"","title":"The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays: 1909","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":59303}