{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_66610/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_66610","id":"gutenberg_66610","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66610","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Politics","Political ethics","Politics, Practical -- United States","United States -- Politics and government"],"text":"PRACTICAL AGITATION\n\n\n\n\n_By the Same Author_\n\n  EMERSON AND OTHER ESSAYS. $1.25.\n  CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES. $1.25.\n\n\n\n\n PRACTICAL AGITATION\n\n  BY\n  JOHN JAY CHAPMAN\n\n  NEW YORK\n  CHARLES SCRIBNER\u2019S SONS\n  1900\n\n\n\n\n  _Copyright, 1900_,\n\n  BY CHARLES SCRIBNER\u2019S SONS.\n\n  UNIVERSITY PRESS \u00b7 JOHN WILSON\n  AND SON \u00b7 CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.\n\n\n\n\n  DEDICATED\n  TO\n  The Memory\n  OF\n  THEODORE BACON\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nThis book is an attempt to follow the track of personal influence\nacross society. The first three chapters are taken up with discussions\nof political reform, the fourth chapter with contemporary journalism.\nThe results of these discussions are then summarized in the chapters\ncalled \u201cPrinciples.\u201d\n\nI know that there are as many ways of stating the main idea of the\nbook as there are minds in the world. That idea is, that we can always\ndo more for mankind by following the good in a straight line than\nwe can by making concessions to evil. The illusion that it is wise\nor necessary to suppress our instinctive love of truth comes from\nan imperfect understanding of what that instinctive love of truth\nrepresents, and of what damage happens both to ourselves and to\nothers when we suppress it. The more closely we look at the facts, the\nmore serious does this damage appear. And on the other hand, the more\nclosely we look at the facts, the more trifling, inconsequent, and\nabsurd do all those reasons appear which strive to make us accept, and\nthereby sanctify and preserve, some portion of the conceded evil in the\nworld.\n\n                                                               J. J. C.\n  NEW YORK, February 5, 1900.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                                PAGE\n\n    I. ELECTION TIME               1\n\n   II. BETWEEN ELECTIONS          34\n\n  III. THE MASSES                 67\n\n   IV. LITERATURE                 83\n\n    V. PRINCIPLES                104\n\n   VI. PRINCIPLES (_continued_)  126\n\n  VII. CONCLUSION                135\n\n\n\n\nPRACTICAL AGITATION\n\nI\n\nELECTION TIME\n\n\nIt is the ambition of the agitator to use the machinery of government\nto make men more unselfish. In so far as he succeeds in this, he is\ncreating a living church, the only sort of State church that would\nbe entirely at one with our system, because it would be merely a\nrepresentation in the formal government of a spirit abroad among the\npeople.\n\nCampaign platforms are merely creeds. \u201cI believe in Civil Service\nReform\u201d is a way of saying \u201cI do not believe in theft,\u201d and the phrase\nwas a fragmentary and incomplete formulation of the greater truth. It\nwas the sign that a movement was beginning among the people due to\nreawakening instinct, reawakening sensibility. It was the forerunner\nof all those changes for the better that have been spreading over\nour administrative government during the last thirty years. A quiet\nrevolution has been going forward under our eyes, recorded step by\nstep. It is only because our standards have been going up faster than\nthe reforms came in that we believe the evils are growing worse. Such\nchanges go on all the time all over the world, but the value and rarity\nof this one come from its unity and coherence. Such a thing might\nhappen in Germany or in England, but you could not disentangle the\nforces.\n\nThirty years ago politics was thought to be no occupation for a\ngentleman. It was a matter of bar-rooms, ballot-box-stuffing, rolls of\ndirty bills. You had as little to do with it as possible. You voted\nyour party ticket, you paid your taxes. You bribed the ashman and\nthe policeman at your uptown house, and the clerk of the court, the\ninspector, the custom-house agent, and the commissioner of jurors at\nyour office.\n\nThat subtle change of attitude in the citizen towards his public duty\nwhich is now in progress, has in it something of the religious. The\nwhole matter becomes comprehensible the moment we cease to think of it\nas politics, and see in it a widespread and perfectly natural reaction\nagainst an era of wickedness. Had our framework of government afforded\nno outlet to the force, had our ills been irremediably crystallized\ninto formal tyranny, we should perhaps have witnessed great revivalist\nupheavals, sacraments, saints, prophets, prostrations, and adoration.\nAs it is, we have seen deadly pamphlets, schedules, enactments,\ndocuments which it required our whole attention and our whole time\nto understand; and behind each of them a remorseless interrogator\nwith a white cravat and a face of iron. What motive drives them on?\nWhat oil fills their lamps? Who feeds them? These horrid things they\nbring, these instruments forged by unremitting toil, technical,\ninsufferable,--they are the cure. With such levers, and with them\nonly, can the stones be lifted off the hearts of men. They are the\nalternatives of revolution.\n\n\u201cReform\u201d may have a thousand meanings, and be used to cover a thousand\nprojects of doubtful utility. But with us it has a definite meaning.\nWhen the foreigner says, \u201cAh, but is your reform the right remedy?\u201d he\nthinks it is a question of policy, or of the incidence of a tax. He\nsupposes there is an intellectual question. But with us the problem is\nhow to protect an attorney against a dishonest judge; how to stop the\nsheriff from stealing a fund, pending the litigation.\n\nWhat we want to do, what we are doing, is to get rid of gross\nmalpractices, gross theft, gross abuse of public trust. It is waste of\ntime to expend learned argument on a judge who has been bought. The\nlitigants must join forces and get rid of that judge before they can\ntalk. Of course we know that the real trouble with our politics is\nthat these attorneys have themselves bribed the judge and share in the\ndivision of their clients\u2019 property. It is to questions of this kind\nthat the conscience of the country has been drawn.\n\nThere is nothing peculiarly sacred about politics, but the history of\nreform movements during the last few years furnishes such striking and\nwonderful illustrations of human nature that it is worth study.\n\nA few men have a desire, a hope of improving some evil. They stagger\ntowards it and fall. The impulse is always good. The mistakes made are\nprogressive. They record the past; they outline the future. If you draw\nan arrow through them, it will point north.\n\nIf you arrange the reform movements against Tammany Hall in a series,\nand consider them minutely, you will find that the earlier ones\nare comparatively corrupt, sporadic, disorganized, ignorant, and\nshortsighted in purpose. They have steadily become more honest, more\nfrequent, more coherent, more intelligent and ambitious. If you examine\nany one of them, it would be impossible to misplace it in the series.\nLooking more closely, you see the reason. The earlier the movement, the\nmore zealously do its leaders imitate the methods of current politics.\nEach movement represents the philosophy of its era. We have had: 1. The\nfrankly corrupt era (fighting the devil with fire). 2. The compromise\nera (buying reform). 3. The educational era, which began two years\nago, after Low was defeated, when people said they were glad of the\nmovement, in spite of the defeat. Note this, that Low did not lead a\nlost cause, nor was any belief in lost causes at the bottom of his\nmovement. But in making the best of his defeat, many minds stumbled\ninto philosophy. And this illustrates the progress of an idea. People\nwill accept it as an explanation of the past before they will take it\nas a guide to the future. It glimmers before them at a moment when\nthey need comfort, and vanishes in the light of a comfortable habit or\nprejudice. This apparition of the educational idea flitted across New\nYork and took root in many minds.\n\nNow the smoky torch of reform has passed from hand to hand, and is\nbeginning to burn brighter. How could the original darkness give\nforth more than a gleam? All progress is experimental. The architects\ndiscovered by practice that the arch would support itself. Their\nearlier efforts were tentative. You can see what notion they had in\nmind, as they very gradually learned how to subserve the laws of\ngravity and tension. Each improvement is qualified by its author\u2019s\nlimitations, but shows a gain as toward the immediate past. You are\nfollowing the steps of the groping and fumbling mind of man, fettered\nat every point by his own conceptions, moving each time towards a\nbolder generalization, each stride forward exactly proportionate to the\nbreadth of thought on which it is calculated.\n\nWhat other method is there? The men who fought the Tweed Ring did what\npassed for \u201cpolitics\u201d in their day. \u201cVotes must be paid for, of course;\nbut let the people vote right.\u201d\n\nThe philosophy of the Strong movement in 1894 showed an advance. \u201cThe\nplunder must be divided, of course; but let _us_ have it because\nwe are virtuous.\u201d\n\nThe Low movement in 1897 appealed to voters on the ground of\nself-interest. Labor had to be conciliated, local politicians of the\nworst sort subsidized; $150,000 was spent, four-fifths of it in ways\nthat did more harm than good. But the methods were delicate.\n\nThe battle of the standards goes forward ceaselessly; but all standards\nare going up. What the half-way reformer calls \u201cpolitics,\u201d the idealist\ncalls chicanery; what the idealist calls politics, the half-way\nreformer calls Utopia. But in 1871 they are discussing whether or not\nthe reformers shall falsify the returns; in 1894 they are discussing\nwhether or not they shall expose fraud in their own camp.\n\nThe men engaged in all these struggles are in perfect ignorance that\nthey are really leading a religious reaction. They think that since\nthey are in politics the doctrines of compromise apply. They are\ndrawn into politics by conscience, but once there, they have only\ntheir business training to guide them,--a training in the art of\nsubserving material interests. Now if a piece of your land has an\nuncertain boundary, you have a right to compromise on any theory you\nlike, because you own the land. But if you start out with the sole\nand avowed purpose of upholding honesty in politics, and you uphold\nanything else or subserve any other interest whatever, you are a\ndeceiver. When you began you did not say \u201cI stand for a readjustment\nof political interests. There will be a continuation of many abuses\nunder my administration, to be sure; but I hope they will not be quite\nso bad as heretofore. I shall not insist on the absolutely unselfish\nconduct of my office. It is not practical.\u201d If you had said this, you\nmight have got the friendly support of a few doctrinaires. But you\nwould never have got the support and approval of the great public. You\nwould not have been elected. And therefore you did not say it. On the\ncontrary, what our reformers do is this: They begin, before election,\nby promising an absolutely pure administration. They make proclamations\nof a new era, and after they have secured a certain following they\nproceed to chaffer over how much honesty they will demand and how much\ntake, as if they were rescuing property.\n\nThese men are, then, in their desires a part of the future, and in\ntheir practices of the past. Their desires move society forward, their\npractices set it back; and so we have moved forward by jolts, until,\nlike a people emerging from the deep sea, the water looks clearer\nabove our heads and we can almost see the sky.\n\nEvery advance has cost great effort. It took as much courage for a\nMugwump to renounce his party allegiance in 1884 as it does now for\na man to denounce both national parties as dens of thieves. It took\nas much hard thinking some years ago for the leaders of the Reform\nDemocrats to cut loose from Tammany Hall as it does now for the\nIndependent to see that there is in all our politics only one machine,\nheld together by all the bosses and their heelers, and that the whole\nthing must be attacked at once.\n\nHow gradual has been the process of emancipation from intellectual\nbondage! How inevitably people are limited by the terms in which\nthey think! A generation of men has been consumed by the shibboleth\n\u201creform within the party,\u201d--a generation of educated and right-minded\nmen, who accomplished in their day much good, and left the country\nbetter than they found it, but are floating to-day like hulks in the\ntrough of the sea of politics, because all their mind and all their\nenergy were exhausted in discovering certain superficial evils and in\nfighting them. Their analysis of political elements left the deeper\ncauses mysterious. They did not see mere human nature. They still\ntreated Republicanism and Democracy--empty superstitions--as ideas, and\nthey handled with reverence the bones of bogus saints, and the whole\napparatus of clap-trap by which they had been governed.\n\nAnd yet it is owing to the activity of these men that the deeper\npolitical conditions became visible. Men cannot transcend their own\nanalysis and see themselves under the microscope. The work we do\ntransforms us into social factors. We are a part of the changes we\nbring in. Before we know it, we ourselves are the problem.\n\nThe Mugwumps revolt and defeat Blaine. They strengthen the Democratic\nparty. They again revolt and defeat Bryan, and strengthen the\nRepublican party. So in the little towns all over the country, on\nlocal issues the Democrats are put out for being dishonest, or the\nRepublicans are put out for being dishonest. Through this process\nthe younger generation has been led to note one fact: both parties\nare dishonest. \u201cAh! but,\u201d says the parent, \u201cI am a good Democrat. My\nparty is not dishonest all the time. It needs discipline.\u201d It is too\nlate: the young man hates both parties equally. He now looks at his\nfather, and sees in him a sample of corrupted intelligence, a man able\nto repeat meaningless phrases, and he draws hope from the conclusion.\nIt was natural that the father should have been boss-ridden all his\nlife, because he could be whistled back to support iniquity by an\nappeal to party loyalty. He belonged to a race that had lost the power\nof political initiative. They could not act alone. They must daub\nthemselves with party names or they would catch cold. They had not the\nstomach to be merely men.\n\nThirty years ago one-half of society thought that every Democrat was a\nrebel and a scoundrel. The world to that society was composed of two\nclasses,--Republicans (righteous men), Democrats (villains). Twenty\nyears of an almost steady growth in the power of self-government or of\nwhat the Germans would call civic consciousness, has barely sufficed to\nstrike off the adjectives, but it has left mankind still divided, as\nbefore.\n\nMeanwhile there has emerged a group of men who see the whole problem\nin a much simpler light. These men have carried forward the analysis\nwhich their fathers, or let us say their elder brothers, had begun,\nto such a point that there are no words in it which are meaningless,\nno factors which are not reduced to terms of human nature. They did\nnothing but add the last link to a chain of logic. Their predecessors\ndiscovered The Machine, and spent their lives in trying to belong to a\nparty without strengthening its Machine. These latter men discovered\nthat both parties were ruled by the same Machine. They see one issue,\nand only one issue in American politics, namely, the attack on that\nMachine.\n\nMoreover, these men have political initiative; that is to say, they\ncontemplate creating conditions, and not merely making transient use of\nvisible conditions. Their idea is so simple that any one whose mind is\nnot warped by the cant of party politics understands it at once.\n\n\u201cAll this political corruption is a unity. Vote against it and you will\nbeat it. Vote for any part of it and you strengthen it.\u201d This sounds\nsimple. But in practice the prejudices, the interests, the passions and\npolitical temperament of the whole population are against it. Every\nargument that the people understand is against this course. Everything\nthat either party fears or hates in the other party is passionately\npointed out as a reason against independent voting. According to\nRepublicans, independent voting involves \u201callowing Croker to extend his\nrule over the entire State,\u201d and \u201cenabling Tammany Hall to control the\njudiciary,\u201d and \u201cendangering the cause of sound money.\u201d According to\nDemocrats, it involves the encouraging of Trusts, Tariffs, Pensions,\nExpansion and foreign conquest. According to both Democrats and\nRepublicans, independent voting is \u201cvoting in the air,\u201d and is at odds\nwith the spirit of our institutions, which contemplate two parties and\nno more. And, finally, every one condemns the independent because he\nviolates that thumb rule which slovenly thinkers regard as a summary of\nall political philosophy, \u201cBetween two evils choose the least.\u201d\n\nNow the answer to all these arguments is that they are the merest\nmirage. It makes no difference which of the two evils, Platt or\nCroker, has the name of ruling the State. At present they divide the\nrule between them. They can do no more. There is no argument that can\nbe used against Tammany Hall which is powerful enough to make the\nRepublican Ring trustworthy. There is no argument against Expansion\nso excessively convincing that it changes the moral character of the\nDemocratic Party. These learned arguments are useless, ludicrous,\npathetic, irrational, impotent, contemptible. They do but distract us\nfrom the real issue--which is personal corruption. Where shall a man\ncast his vote against it? If I turn out McKinley because he bleeds the\nnatives, I put in a Democrat to bleed the natives. If the whitewashing\nof Alger arouses public indignation, Tammany Hall feeds at the trough.\nIf Croker\u2019s control of the judiciary arouses popular indignation,\nPlatt\u2019s pigs feed at the trough. As for sound money, we have already\nelected one Congress on the issue in 1895, just as in 1892 we elected a\nCongress on the tariff issue. What was done? Why, in each case that was\ndone which the ring wanted done,--nothing.\n\nWhich national party stands for an idea to-day? The only shadow of\nreason for believing that either does, is that the Republicans cried\nsound money and won. They have done nothing. Had Bryan won, he would\nhave done nothing, could have done nothing.\n\nThere are no issues in American politics save this one issue of common\nhonesty. You cannot throw an issue into this whirlpool of vice, for\nyour issue turns to cash by the contact. We need not waste our time\nreading the platforms drawn by Platt and Croker. We must not vote for\nany man who does not go into public life as their enemy, because we\nknow that in so far as he is not their enemy he is ours. As for these\ndreadful consequences that are always about to follow from a refusal\nto support one end of the iniquity, they do not follow. We have the\nevils now. We are at the worst. The powers of darkness may conspire and\nheap all in ruins, but they must not prevent us from beginning upon a\nconstructive line to draw together and build up the powers of light.\n\nNor is there the smallest distinction either in the evil or its cure,\nbetween the case of a village, of a State, or of the whole nation.\nSay you live in a town; you can only get a clean school-board by\nrunning men against both the regular parties. There is no other way of\ngetting rid of Hanna and the Presidential Syndicate than by running\nan independent candidate for the Presidency. No form of Bryanism will\noust it,--no rump Democracy nor any kind of Democracy. Democracy is\nfinished. Republicanism is finished.\n\nThis is the zero point of party loyalty. It has been reached very\nslowly. It means open war. The citizen is now confronted with a third\nticket, which is a deliberate insult to both the others. No matter\nwhat the conditions, it is an appeal which disintegrates the emotions\nof the voter. This is the very elixir of reform. People are forced\nto think. It hurts them. They cry out against those who create the\ndilemma, but they cannot escape it. The vote you poll will vary. If the\nparty war-cries are intense and the party candidates promise fairly,\nvery few men will see the point of your movement. But no one escapes\nits influence. Let us say that five thousand vote your ticket. These\nare the only men whose response is scheduled. But the political vision\nof five hundred thousand has been quickened. No atom of this influence\nis lost. The work was done when the vote was cast. Even if it be not\ncounted at all, it will show in every political camp in the near future.\n\nBut do you ever have outward success? Does the time ever come when\nthe standards of every one are so high that the parties themselves\npresent candidates as good as your own, and there is no excuse for your\nexistence? That depends upon the trend of the age. One thing only is\ncertain, that by pursuing this course you are doing all that you can\ndo. You are wasting no power. No part of your force is helping the\nenemy.\n\nAfter all, the great discovery is a very simple thing. We have found,\nafter many experiments, that what we really want is, not the turning\nout of officials, not the enactment of laws, but the raising of the\ngeneral standards. The way to do this is to set up a standard. Of\ncourse nobody likes to find a foot rule laid against his shortage. Even\nthe vocabulary of the average man is attacked by such a system. Words\nlike \u201ccourage,\u201d \u201chonesty,\u201d \u201cindependence,\u201d \u201cpledge,\u201d \u201cloyalty\u201d pass\ncurrent like clipped coin in the language of politics; and the keying\nup of words to their biblical value brings out one man a thief and the\nnext a hypocrite.\n\nAll these civic commotions, great and small, that surge up and are\nscattered, that form and reform, the People\u2019s Leagues and Citizens\u2019\nUnions, are the altruism of the community fighting its way to the\nsurface through the obstructions, the snares, and the oppressions\nof the organized world. No discouragement sets it back. No betrayal\ndestroys it. The people come forward with ever new faith.\n\nWhat ceaseless endeavor! What patient trial of various forms of\norganization! We live in a society where egoism is so thoroughly\norganized that there is hardly a flicker of faith that cannot be made\nto heat the devil\u2019s pot. The dragon stands ready to eat up the child\nas soon as it shall be born. You cannot hitch your horse to anything\nwithout helping drag the juggernaut. Before you know it, virtue is\npocketed. Take the most obvious case. The reformers imagine they are in\npolitics and must win at all costs. One enthusiast calls twenty friends\ninto a room and organizes a club--and the club ties his hands and sells\nout to the nearest bidder. Before he knows it he has been organized\nback into Tammany Hall. You begin with a call to arms and a plan of\norganization. The men come to you in a moment of hope, showing every\nshade of intelligence, every stage of opinion,--one because he believes\nin your candidate; one because he hates Tammany Hall; one because he\nwants prominence; all because they do not expect to be alone. The men\nwho volunteer have not a clear notion of what they are in for. They\nthought it was a movement to clean the streets. In the course of their\ncampaign it develops into an attack on a bank. They thought it was\na town movement. Some stage of it affects national politics. They\nthought it was a Roosevelt movement. It turns out to involve hostility\nto Roosevelt. Your muster shows the vague hope of a lot of men who\nare utterly incompetent, undisciplined, ignorant. They are merchants,\nlawyers, doctors, professors, clergymen, the respectability and\nintelligence of the town; and so far as self-government goes they are\nthe tattered children of tyranny. Good God, what an army! At the first\ntrumpet they scatter. One sells out, one recants, one disappears. They\nare anywhere and nowhere, a ship of fools, a barnyard. The execution of\nthe one idea for which they were brought together has scattered them\nlike sheep.\n\nLet us take another case. You think that what is needed is to raise a\nstandard. You call your twenty friends about you. They are not corrupt.\nNevertheless, let us see who they will be. We are not dealing with an\nimaginary community, but with American citizens as they exist, with\nmen every one of whom trusts his instincts to a different extent. Each\nman believes in principle in the abstract, but thinks it is sometimes\nhopeless to be severely virtuous in politics. This \u201csometimes\u201d is the\n_crux_. \u201cIs it the time? Is this the year? Can you do it this\nway?\u201d Now, of course, it is always the year. It is never hopeless.\nAbsolute honesty is always the way. But an age of corruption destroys\nfaith. This is the essential injury. This is the disease. You yourself\nhave a little stronger belief, a little more political enterprise than\nyour twenty friends. Otherwise it would be they who were summoning you\nto a conference. It is certain that their joint wisdom will result in\naction less radical than you believe in. They outvote you in council.\nThe standard they set up is not absolute. But this outcome will prevent\nyou from making your point at all. If you are to back your friends up\npublicly and are honest yourself, all you can say will be, \u201cHere\u2019s\na makeshift.\u201d Now, the public instinct understands this very well\nalready. Ten per cent of your own faith you have compromised. It has\ncost you ninety per cent of your educational power; for the heart of\nman will respond only to a true thing.\n\nWhat is it that has led you to compromise? Why, the age you live in.\nYou yourself, being afraid to stand alone, have dipped your flag,\nwith the best intentions, because you cannot see that any other\ncourse is practicable. Yet you yourself can keep your own intellectual\nintegrity only at the price of destroying your own handiwork. If you\ndo not destroy it, you are a hypocrite. Here in the room with you were\ntwenty men, the very flower of the idealism of the town, not chosen\nby accident, but coming together by natural selection. Twenty more\nlike them do not exist in the community, for their activity would have\nrevealed them. And yet there was not found faith enough among these to\nset up an absolute standard. Nay, they hang on your arms and prevent\nyou from raising one. If you are to do it, you must do it alone. Then\nthese men will be the first to denounce you; for your act damns them.\nYou can only be true to the public conscience by rebuking your friends.\nIf you fail to do this, your banner is submerged.\n\nLet us consider the cause of this weakness in Reform organizations.\nYou wish to appeal to the people with as good a show of names as you\ncan. And so you get a lot of well-known men to indorse you. This is\nconsidered practical. Let us see if it is.\n\nWe are fighting Tammany Hall. But no one will for an instant admit\nthat every Tammany man is dishonest. The corruption we started out to\ncorrect was a corruption of the intelligence, a bad habit, a defect of\nvision. The same defect keeps Republicans in line for Platt, because\nhe is the Party, a recognized agent of the community. The same defect\nprevents a just man from joining a new movement unless Banker Jones is\nleading it. The habit of the community is to rely on some one else to\ngovern them. No man trusts himself. The Machine, upon analysis, turns\nout to be a lack of self-reliance. Wherever you see a man who gives\nsome one else\u2019s corruption, some one else\u2019s prejudice as a reason for\nnot taking action himself, you see a cog in The Machine that governs\nus. The proof of it is that he will dissuade you from striking the\niniquity. He will explain that you can\u2019t try it without doing more\nharm than good. You will find that at every point of defence, from\nthe arguments of Mr. Croker himself to the arguments of some sainted\ncollege president, the reasons given are identical. I cannot find\nany one who defends stealing. They only deprecate action as being\ninexpedient. Now, then, if I ask a voter to join my organization, and\nuse as a bait an appeal to this very weakness--his reliance upon other\nmen\u2019s opinion--can I hope to make much headway? I am taking in just so\nmuch of Tammany Hall. My whole body becomes an adjunct of Tammany, in\nthe same sense that Mr. Platt\u2019s machine is an adjunct. I am Croker\u2019s\nlast outpost. I stand there calling myself reform, and yet I do not\nact. Some one else must now come forward and try his hand.\n\nThis process of ebullition, and thereupon stagnation, has happened\nagain and again. I suppose there are a dozen extant wrecks of reform\npolitical organizations in the city. Many people have despaired\naltogether. They think it is a law of God that political organizations\nbecome corrupt in the second year. The experience is entirely due to\nthe persistent putting of new wine into old bottles. In their names\nand hopes these bodies have stood for purity, but in their membership\nthey have, even in their inception, stood for prejudice. Then, too, the\nbottles bore good labels, and bad wine was soon poured into them. A\npolitical organization is a transferable commodity. You could not find\na better way of killing virtue than by packing it into one of these\ncontraptions which some gang of thieves is sure to find useful.\n\nThe short lesson that comes out of long experience in political\nagitation is something like this: _all_ the motive power in\nall of these movements is the instinct of religious feeling. All\nthe obstruction comes from attempting to rely on anything else.\nConciliation is the enemy. It is just as impossible to help reform\nby conciliating prejudice as it is by buying votes. Prejudice is the\nenemy. Whoever is not for you is against you.\n\nWhat, then, must the enthusiast do in the way of organization? Let\nhim go ahead and do some particular thing, and ask the public to help\nhim do it. He will thus get behind him whatever force exists at that\nespecial time for that especial purpose. It may not be much; but no\namount of letterheads and great seals will increase it. Let him abandon\nwritten constitutions. Let him not be bound by a vote nor seek to bind\nothers by a vote. If you have formal procedure, you are tied up, for\nyou will then have to convert six tailors into apostles before you can\nget at the public. Content yourself more modestly. See a friend or two\nand tell them what you intend to do. If they won\u2019t help you, do it\nalone. Do not think you are wasting your time, even if no one joins\nyou. The prejudice against the individual is part of the evil you are\nfighting. If you keep on in a consistent line of action, people will\ncome to you one by one, and your group will grow into a sort of centre\nof influence. There will result a unity of method as well as of aim,\nwhich, as your purposes become understood, will enable you to act with\nthe speed of thought and the force of an avalanche. One great merit of\nthis method will be that your whole policy will remain an enigma to\nevery one except those who really want what you want, namely, to raise\nthe general standards. Only such men will seek you out. Any one else\nis a danger. Thus your organization will grow slowly, but will remain\nuncapturable, un-get-at-able, an influence, a menace, a standard.\nAs fast as adherents appear, you can set up centre after centre of\nenlightenment, preparatory to your campaigns; debates, pamphlets,\ncorrespondence, the battery of agitation. And in the mean time the\nbenefit done to the workers themselves is worth all the pains.\n\nBy adopting formal machinery you would not only organize the wrong\npeople in, but you would organize the right people out. New York\nCity is full of men whose passion for educating can find no vent in\npolitics, because politics are corrupt, and who run civic leagues,\nnight-schools, lyceums, and people\u2019s institutes. They are at work in\nyour cause although they call it by different names. All this zeal is\nat your disposal if you will only leave your office doors open and do\nsomething to deserve its support. Do not adopt a scheme that excludes\nthese men. You cannot impress them into your army, but you do not need\nto impress them,--only to know them personally. You cannot make them\ndistrict captains, but they are district captains already.\n\n\u201cBut,\u201d you say, \u201care not the votes of your twenty friends as valuable\nas your own? Whence this egoism?\u201d It is not egoism. I am ready to\nfollow any one who wants to do this particular thing, that is, make an\nappeal to absolute unselfishness, at no point to conciliate any one.\n\u201cBut this is anarchy: every man his own party.\u201d On the contrary, it is\nconsolidation; for should two men arise, proposing this course, they\nwould coalesce at once.\n\n\u201cBut,\u201d you say, \u201cwho is to do all the work? How are you to get men\nto come forward unless you give them tangible, formulated doctrines,\npapers to sign, and words to mumble?\u201d The answer is that the men who\ndo the work in reform campaigns do not need these things. Literature\nand doctrines you will undoubtedly produce. It is not necessary for the\neffective distribution of them, that you should adopt the parade of\nAmerican party discipline.\n\nOrganization, head-quarters, and a distribution of labor you must\ndevelop. But you must not have them on paper faster than they exist in\nreality. \u201cBut,\u201d you say, \u201cthis is not representative government. Where\nare your convention, your argument, your vote, your majority, your\nloyalty? Our people must have these things.\u201d\n\nThe answer is that, in spite of their views on representative\ngovernment, our people still remain human beings. As fast as they find\nthemselves spiritually represented by some person or body, they follow\nthat influence. It is representative government, but it represents\nonly the positive and aspiring part of the community,--the part which\nnever gets represented under your system, because that system insists\nupon alloying it with other elements and ruining its power. It is\neducational activity in the purest form. By what other means can you\nspeak to the whole people at once in the language of action? By what\nother means can you reach the conscience of the unknown man, who has\nnot touched politics for twenty years because he could take no part in\nit, because he did not understand it,--the disfranchised, scattered,\nand dumb men on whose voice the future waits?\n\nConsider what you are trying to do. A party under control of a\nmachine is held together by an appeal to self-interest. Its caucuses,\naffiliations, resources, methods are constructed on that principle.\nYour body, whose aim is to increase the unselfishness and intellect\nof your fellow-citizens, must be held together at every point by\nself-sacrifice.\n\nIf the reform body shall blindly do just the opposite of what a party\ndoes, it will pursue practical politics. The regular party is in\ntheory representative of enrolled voters. You represent the sentiment\nof undiscovered people. The party appeals to old forces and extant\nconditions. You appeal to new feelings and new voters. The party offers\na gift to every adherent. You must offer him nothing but labor. That\nis your protection against traitors. The party accords every man the\nweight of his vote in its counsels. You must give him nothing but the\ninfluence of his mind.\n\n\u201cBut,\u201d you shout, \u201cthis is not politics. You can never hold men\ntogether without bonds.\u201d The fact is otherwise. There is some force\nat work in this town which, year after year, brings forward groups of\nmen who proclaim a new dispensation. They are, in so far as they have\nany cohesion, held together without bonds now. All formal bonds will\nchain them to the past. For electrical force you must adopt electrical\nmachinery; for moral force, moral bonds. All this political system\nis the harness for the wrong passion. Every scrap of it imprisons\nyour power. The average American citizen is slow to see that you can\nexercise political influence without the current machinery. This is a\npart of The Machine in his brain. He cannot see the operation of law\nby which virtue always tells. But his ignorance does not affect the\noperation of that law, even upon himself.\n\nThis elaborate analysis of just how the force of feeling in yourself\ncan best be used politically, is, after all, only an instance of a\ngeneral law. The shortest path between two points always turns out to\nbe a straight line. People who believe in the complexity of life, and\nhave theories about crooked lines, want something else beside moral\ninfluence. They want influence through office, or influence toward\nspecial ends, or influence with particular persons. \u201cCan\u2019t you see\nyou are destroying your influence?\u201d they cry, while every stroke is\ntelling. \u201cA thinks you are a lunatic.\u201d Praise God. \u201cB has withdrawn his\nsubscription.\u201d I had not hoped for this so soon. \u201cBut he has joined\nPlatt.\u201d You misstate the case. He was always with Platt, but now he has\nrevealed it. These refractory molecules are breaking up. See the lines\nof force begin to show a clean cleavage. Ten thousand intelligences now\nsee the man for what he is.\n\nAt what point in the progress of this movement will people begin to\nsee that it is practical politics of the most effective kind? Some\npeople see it now. The first people to feel the strain are the men\nwhose livelihood depends on the outcome. The last illustration of\nthis was given in Roosevelt\u2019s campaign against Van Wyck in New York\nState. In this case, as generally happens, the real battle was fought\nin committee rooms before the forces were in the field. It was the\nstruggle for position. Roosevelt was to be Republican candidate for\ngovernor, and was sure of election. The fight came over the minor\noffices. Our New York form of ballot practically forces a man to\nvote for a \u201cstraight\u201d ticket, and half a dozen independents put up a\ncomplete ticket with Roosevelt at the head of it. Their purpose was to\nprevent the Republicans from using Roosevelt\u2019s military popularity to\nsweep into office a lot of henchmen. Within ten days the Republican\nhenchmen all over the State were taken with convulsions. Every crank\nof the Machine trembled. It turned its awful power upon Roosevelt and\nordered him to get off the Independent ticket. He obeyed and protected\nthe henchmen. The episode illustrates the practical power of a few\nindependents who can act quickly. The panic in the Republican camp\nwas entirely justified. If three tickets had remained in the field\nwith Roosevelt at the head of two of them, thousands of Democrats and\nthousands of Republicans would have voted for the Reform ticket. The\nRepublican ticket would have polled merely the dyed-in-the-wool machine\nRepublicans.\n\nThe rumpus among the Republican heelers--following so slight a cause\nas the action of five or six citizens who took the field with a ticket\nof their own--resembled the action of a geyser when a cake of soap is\nthrown into it--rumbling--followed by terrific vomiting.\n\nA little practical discipline among the reformers is all that is\nrequired to make them formidable,--the discipline of experience, of\nacting together, of personal trust. This is to be acquired only in the\nfield of action.\n\nIt is encouraging to find how small a body of men it takes--even at the\npresent moment--to upset the calculations of the politicians. The force\nthat made the Republicans afraid did not lie in the parcel of men who\nthrew in the soap. It came from the great public. The episode showed\nthat the Republicans were afraid to appeal to the country. They knew\nthat their cabal was almost as much hated as Tammany Hall.\n\nThere is always great difficulty in this world as to who shall bell the\ncat; but conventions of mice do not further the matter. The way to do\nit is for a parcel of mice to take their political lives in their hands\nand proceed to do it.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe real meaning of all these movements will not be perceived till\ntheir work has been done. As history, the cause and course of them will\nbe so plain that a word will suffice to explain them. In the light\nof history it will be clear that the improvement in the personnel of\nour public life was due to the demands of the public--expressed in\ncitizen\u2019s movements. We have already reached a point where neither\nparty dares appeal to the public--as they did ten years ago--on purely\nparty grounds. Roosevelt and Van Wyck both claimed to be men superior\nto the average partisan. The advance of political thought has already\nmade the dullest man perceive the Machine within his own party, and\nevery day spreads the news that there is only a single machine in all\nour politics. The destruction of this machine will not be like the\ndestruction of the monasteries by Henry VIII., but it will consist in\nthe substitution of new timber for old in the parties themselves.\n\nAny one who looks for an expulsion of Tammany Hall like the expulsion\nof the Moors from Spain, will be disappointed. There will always be a\nTammany Hall. But it will be run by respectable men, who will look back\nwith wonder and disgust upon this period, and who will give the public\nan honest administration because the public has demanded it.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nBETWEEN ELECTIONS\n\n\nAn election is like a flash of lightning at midnight. You get an\ninstantaneous photograph of what every man is doing. You see his real\nrelation toward his government. But an election happens only once a\nyear. Government goes on day and night.\n\nIt is hard breaking down the popular fallacy that there is such a\nthing as \u201cpolitics,\u201d governed by peculiar conditions, which must be\nunderstood and respected; that the whole thing is a mystic avocation,\nrun as a trade by high priests and low priests, and is remote from\nour daily life. Our system of party government has been developed\nwith the aim of keeping the control in the hands of professionals.\nTechnicalities have been multiplied, and the rules of the game\nhave become more and more complex. There exists, consequently, an\nunformulated belief that the corruption of politics is something by\nitself. Yet there probably never was a civilization where the mesh\nof all powers and interests was so close. It is like the interlocking\nof roots in a swamp. Such density and cohesion were never seen in any\nepoch, such a mat and tangle of personalities, where every man is tied\nup with the fibres of every other. If you take an axe or a saw, and\ncut a clean piece out of it anywhere, you will maim every member of\nsociety. How idle, then, even to think of politics as a subject by\nitself, or of the corruptions of the times as localized!\n\nPolitics gives what the chemists call a \u201cmirror,\u201d and shows the\ningredients in the average man\u2019s composition. But you must take your\nmind off politics if you want to understand America. You must take up\nthe lives of individuals and follow them out, as they play against each\nother in counterpoint. As soon as you do this you will not be able to\ndetermine where politics begins and where it stops. It is all politics:\nit is all social intercourse: it is all business. Any square foot of\nthis soil will give you the whole fauna and flora of the land. Where\nwill you put in your wedge of reform? There is not a cranny anywhere.\nThe mass is like crude copper ore that cannot be blasted. It blows out\nthe charge.\n\nWe think that political agitation must show political results. This is\nlike trying to alter the shape of a shadow without touching its object.\nThe hope is not only mistaken, it is absurd. The results to be obtained\nfrom reform movements cannot show in the political field till they have\npassed through the social world.\n\n\u201cBut, after all, what you want is votes, is it not?\u201d \u201cIt would be\nso encouraging to see virtue win, that everybody would vote for you\nthereafter. Why don\u2019t you manage it somehow?\u201d This sort of talk is the\nbest record of incompetence which corruption has imprinted. Enlighten\nthis class and you have saved the Republic. Why, my friend, you are so\nlost, you are so much a mere product of tyranny that you do not know\nwhat a vote is. True, we want votes, but the votes we want must be cast\nspontaneously. We do not want them so badly as to buy them. A vote is\nonly important because it is an opinion. Even a dictator cannot force\nopinions upon his subjects by six months of rule; and yet the complaint\nis that decency gets few votes after a year of effort by a handful of\nradicals who are despised by the community. We only enter the field of\npolitics because we can there get a hearing. The candidates in reform\nmovements are tools. They are like crowbars that break open the mind of\nthe age. They cannot be dodged, concealed, or laughed away. Every one\nis aroused from his lethargy by seeing a real man walk on the scene,\namid all the stage properties and marionettes of conventional politics.\n\u201cNo fair!\u201d the people cry. They do not vote for him, of course, but\nthey talk about the portent with a vigor no mere doctrine could call\nforth, and the discussion blossoms at a later date into a new public\nspirit, a new and genuine demand for better things.\n\nIt is apparent that between the initial political activity of reformers\nand their ultimate political accomplishments, there must intervene\nthe real agitation, the part that does the work, which goes on in the\nbrains and souls of individual men, and which can only be observed in\nsocial life, in manners and conversation.\n\nNow let us take up the steps by which, in practical life, the reaction\nis set going. Enter the nearest coterie of radicals and listen to\nthe quarrel. Reformers proverbially disagree, and \u2018their sects mince\nthemselves almost to atoms.\u2019 With us the quarrel always arises over the\nsame point. \u201cCan we afford, under these particular circumstances, to\ntell the exact truth?\u201d I have never known a reform movement in which\nthis discussion did not rage from start to finish, nor have I known one\nwhere any other point was involved. You are a citizens\u2019 committee. The\nparties offer to give you half a loaf. Well and good. But this is not\ntheir main object. They want you to call it a whole loaf. They want to\ndissipate your agitation by getting you to tell the public that you are\nsatisfied. What they hate is the standard. The war between you and them\nis a spiritual game of chess. They must get you to say they are right.\nIt is their only means of retaining their power.\n\nThus the apple of discord falls into the Reform camp. Half its members\ntake the bait. In New York City our politics have been so picturesque,\nthe pleas of the politician so shallow, the lies demanded from the\nreformers so obvious, that the eternal principles of the situation have\nbeen revealed in their elemental simplicity. It is just because the\nimpulse towards better things carries no material content--we do not\nwant any particular thing, but we want an improvement in everything--it\nis just because the whole movement is purely moral, that the same\nquestions always arise.\n\nWe ought not to grieve over the discussion, over the heart-burn and\nheated argument that start from a knot of radicals and run through the\ncommunity, setting men against each other. The quarrel in the executive\ncommittee of this reform body is the initiative of much wholesome life.\nThey are no more responsible for it, they can no more avoid it, the\ncommunity can no more advance to higher standards before they have had\nit, than a child can skate before it can walk.\n\nThe executive committee is discussing the schools. In consequence of\na recent agitation, the politicians have put up a candidate who will\ngive new plumbing, even if he does steal the books, and the question\nis whether the School Association shall indorse this candidate. If it\ndoes, he wins. If it does not, both plumbing and books are likely to\nremain the prey of the other party, and the Lord knows how bad that is.\nThe fight rages in the committee, and some sincere old gentleman is\nprophesying typhoid.\n\nThe practical question is: \u201cDo you want good plumbing, or do you want\nthe truth?\u201d You cannot have both this year. If the association goes\nout and tells the public exactly what it knows, it will get itself\nlaughed at, insult the candidate, and elect his opponent. If it tells\nthe truth, it might as well run a candidate of its own as a protest\nand an advertisement of that truth. It can buy good plumbing with a\nlie, and the old gentleman thinks it ought to do so. The reformers are\ngoing to endorse the candidate, and upon their heads will be visited\nhis theft of the books. They have sold out the little public confidence\nthey held. Had they stood out for another year, under the practical\nr\u00e9gime which they had already endured for twenty, and had they devoted\nthemselves to augmenting the public interest in the school question,\nboth parties would have offered them plumbing and books to allay the\nexcitement. The parties might, perhaps, have relaxed their grip on the\nwhole school system rather than meet the issue.\n\nBut the Association does not understand this. It does not, as yet,\nclearly know its own mind. All this procedure, this going forward and\nback, is necessary. The community must pass through these experiences\nbefore it discovers that the shortest road to good schools is truth.\nA few men learn by each turn of the wheel, and these men tend to\nconsolidate. They become a sort of school of political thought. They\nsee that they do not care a whit more about the schools than they do\nabout the parks; that the school agitation is a handy way to make the\ncitizens take notice of maladministration in all departments; that\nthe parties may be left to reform themselves, and to choose the most\ntelling bid for popular favor; that the parties must do this and will\ndo this, in so far as the public demands it, and will not do it under\nany other circumstances.\n\nIt is the very greatest folly in the world for an agitator to be\ncontent with a partial success. It destroys his cause. He fades\ninstantly. You cannot see him. He is become part of the corrupt\nand contented public. His business is to make others demand good\nadministration. He must never reap, but always sow. Let him leave the\nreaping to others. There will be many of them, and their material\naccomplishments will be the same whether he endorses them or not. If\nby chance some party, some administration gives him one hundred per\ncent of what he demands, let him acknowledge it handsomely; but he need\nnot thank them. They did it because they had to, or because their\nconscience compelled them. In neither case was it done for him.\n\nIn other words, reform is an idea that must be taken up as a whole. You\ndo not want any specific thing. You use every issue as a symbol. Let\nus give up the hope of finding any simpler way out of it. Let us take\nup the burden at its heaviest end, and acknowledge that nothing but an\nincrease of personal force in every American can change our politics.\nIt is curious that this course, which is the shortest cut to the\nmillennium, should be met with the reproach that it puts off victory.\nThis is entirely due to a defect in the imagination of people who are\ndealing with an unfamiliar subject. We have to learn its principles.\nWe know that what we really want is all of virtue; but it seems so\nunreasonable to claim this, that we try to buy it piecemeal,--item, a\nschoolhouse, item, four parks; and with each gain comes a sacrifice of\nprinciple, disintegration, discouragement. Fools, if you had asked for\nall, you would have had this and more. We are defeated by compromise\nbecause, no matter how much we may deceive ourselves into thinking that\ngood government is an aggregate of laws and parks, it is not true.\nGood government is the outcome of private virtue, and virtue is one\nthing,--a unit, a force, a mode of motion. It cannot pass through a\nnon-conductor of casuistry at any point. Compromise is loss: first,\nbecause it stops the movement, and kills energy; second, because it\nencourages the illusion that the wooden schoolhouse is good government.\nAs against this, you have the fact that some hundreds of school\nchildren do get housed six months before they would have been housed\notherwise. But this is like cashing a draft for a thousand pounds with\na dish of oatmeal.\n\nWe have, perhaps, followed in the wake of some little Reform movement,\nand it has left us with an insight into the relation between private\nopinion and public occurrences. We have really found out two things:\nfirst, that in order to have better government, the talk and private\nintelligence upon which it rests must be going forward all the time;\nand second, that the individual conscience, intelligence, or private\nwill is always set free by the same process,--to wit, by the telling\nof truth. The identity between public and private life reveals itself\nthe instant a man adopts the plan of indiscriminate truthtelling. He\nunmasks batteries and discloses wires at every dinner-party; he sees\npractical politics in every law office, and social influence in every\nconvention; and wherever he is, he suddenly finds himself, by his own\nwill or against it, a centre of forces. Let him blurt out his opinion.\nInstantly there follows a little flash of reality. The shams drop,\nand the lines of human influence, the vital currents of energy, are\ndisclosed. The only difference between a reform movement, so-called,\nand the private act of any man who desires to better conditions, is\nthat the private man sets one drawing-room in a ferment by speaking his\nmind or by cutting his friend, and the agitator sets ten thousand in a\nferment by attacking the age.\n\nAs a practical matter, the conduct of politics depends upon the\ndinner-table talk of men who are not in politics at all. Government is\ncarried on from moment to moment by the people. The executive is a mere\nhand and arm. For instance, there is a public excitement about Civil\nService Reform. A law is passed and is being evaded. If the governor\nis to set it up again, he must be sustained by the public. They must\nfollow and understand the situation or the official is helpless. But do\nwe sustain him? We do not. We are half-hearted. To lend power to his\nhand we shall have to be strong men. If we now stood ready to denounce\nhim for himself falling short by the breadth of a hair of his whole\nduty, our support, when we gave it, would be worth having. But we are\nstarchless, and deserve a starchless service.\n\nWhat did you find out at the last meeting of the Library Committee? You\nfound out that Commissioner Hopkins\u2019s nephew was in the piano business;\nhence the commissioner\u2019s views on the music question. Repeat it to the\nfirst man you meet in the street, and bring it up at the next meeting\nof the committee. You did not think you had much influence in town\npolitics, and hardly knew how to step in. Yet the town seems to have\nno time for any other subject than your attack on the commissioner.\nFrom this point on you begin to understand conditions. Every man in\ntown reveals his real character, and his real relation to the town\nwickedness and to the universe by the way he treats you. You are\nbeginning to get near to something real and something interesting.\nThere is no one in the United States, no matter how small a town he\nlives in, or how inconspicuous he or she is, who does not have three\ninvitations a week to enter practical politics by such a door as this.\nIt makes no difference whether he regard himself as a scientific man\nstudying phenomena, or a saint purifying society; he will become both.\nThere is no way to study sociology but this. The books give no hint\nof what the science is like. They are written by men who do not know\nthe world, but who go about gleaning information instead of trying\nexperiments.\n\nThe first discovery we make is that the worst enemy of good government\nis not our ignorant foreign voter, but our educated domestic railroad\npresident, our prominent business man, our leading lawyer. If there is\nany truth in the optimistic belief that our standards are now going\nup, we shall soon see proofs of it in our homes. We shall not note\nour increase of virtue so much by seeing more crooks in Sing Sing, as\nby seeing fewer of them in the drawing-rooms. You can acquire more\nknowledge of American politics by attacking, in open talk, a political\nlawyer of social standing, than you can in a year of study. These\nbackstair men are in every Bar Association and every Reform Club.\nThey are the agents who supervise the details of corruption. They run\nbetween the capitalist, the boss, and the public official. They know\nas fact what every one else knows as inference. They are the priestly\nclass of commerce, and correspond to the intriguing ecclesiastics in\nperiods of church ascendency. Some want money, some office, some mere\npower, others want social prominence; and their art is to play off\ninterest against interest and advance themselves.\n\nAs the president of a social club I have a power that I can use against\nmy party boss or for him. If he can count upon me to serve him at\nneed, it is a gain to him to have me establish myself as a reformer.\nThe most dependable of these confidence men (for they betray nobody,\nand are universally used and trusted) can amass money and stand in\nthe forefront of social life; and now and then one of them is made an\narchbishop or a foreign minister. They are, indeed, the figure-heads\nof the age, the essence of all the wickedness and degradation of our\ntimes. So long as such men enjoy public confidence we shall remain as\nwe are. They must be deposed in the public mind.\n\nAnd yet these gentlemen are the weakest point in the serried ranks\nof iniquity. They are weak because they have social ambition, and\nthe place to reach them is in their clubs. They are the best possible\nobject lessons, because everybody knows them. Social punishment is the\none cruel reality, the one terrible weapon, the one judgment against\nwhich lawyers cannot protect a man. It is as silent as theft, and it\nraises the cry of \u201cStop thief!\u201d like a burglar alarm.\n\nThe general cowardice of this age covers itself with the illusion of\ncharity, and asks, in the name of Christ, that no one\u2019s feelings be\nhurt. But there is not in the New Testament any hint that hypocrites\nare to be treated with charity. This class is so intrenched on all\nsides that the enthusiasts cannot touch them. Their elbows are\ninterlocked; they sit cheek by jowl with virtue. They are rich; they\npossess the earth. How shall we strike them? Very easily. They are so\nsoft with feeding on politic lies that they drop dead if you give them\na dose of ridicule in a drawing-room. Denunciation is well enough,\nbut laughter is the true ratsbane for hypocrites. If you set off a\nfew jests, the air is changed. The men themselves cannot laugh or be\nlaughed at; for nature\u2019s revenge has given them masks for faces. You\nmay see a whole room full of them crack with pain because they cannot\nlaugh. They are angry, and do not speak.\n\nEverybody in America is soft, and hates conflict. The cure for this,\nboth in politics and social life, is the same,--hardihood. Give them\nraw truth. They think they will die. Their friends call you a murderer.\nFour thousand ladies and eighty bank directors brought vinegar and\nbrown paper to Low when he was attacked, and Roosevelt posed as a\nmartyr because it was said, up and down, that he acted the part of\na selfish politician. What humbug! How is it that all these things\ngrow on the same root,--fraud, cowardice, formality, sentimentalism,\nand a lack of humor? Why do people become so solemn when they are\nmaking a deal, and so angry when they are defending it? The righteous\nindignation expended in protecting Roosevelt would have founded a\nchurch.\n\nThe whole problem of better government is a question of how to get\npeople to stop simpering and saying \u201cAfter you\u201d to cant. A is an\naristocrat. B is a boss. C is a candidate. D is a distiller. E is an\nexcellent citizen. They dine. Gloomy silence would be more respectable\nthan this chipper concern that all shall go well. Is not this\npolitics? Yes, and the very essence of it. Is not the exposure of it\npractical reform? How easily the arrow goes in! A does not think you\nshould confound him with B, nor E with C. Each is a reformer when he\nlooks to the right, and a scamp as seen from the left. What is their\nfault? Collusion. \u201cBut A means so well.\u201d They all mean well. Let us not\nconfound the gradations of their virtue; but can we call any one an\nhonest man who knowingly consorts with thieves? This they all do. Let\nus declare it. Their resentment at finding themselves classed together\ndrives the wedge into the clique.\n\nRemember, too, that there is no such thing as abstract truth. You must\ntalk facts, you must name names, you must impute motives. You must say\nwhat is in your mind. It is the only means you have of cutting yourself\nfree from the body of this death. Innuendo will not do. Nobody minds\ninnuendo. We live and breathe nothing else. If you are not strong\nenough to face the issue in private life, do not dream that you can\ndo anything for public affairs. This, of course, means fight, not\nto-morrow, but now. It is only in the course of conflict that any one\ncan come to understand the system, the habit of thought, the mental\ncondition, out of which all our evils arise. The first difficulty is\nto see the evils clearly; and when we do see them it is like fighting\nan atmosphere to contend against them. They are so universal and\nomnipresent that you have no terms to name them by. You must burn a\ndisinfectant.\n\nWe have observed, thus far, that no question is ever involved in\npractical agitation except truth-telling. So long as a man is trying to\ntell the truth, his remarks will contain a margin which other people\nwill regard as mystifying and irritating exaggeration. It is this very\nmargin of controversy that does the work. The more accurate he is, the\nless he exaggerates, the more he will excite people. It is only by the\ntrue part of what is said that the interest is roused. No explosion\nfollows a lie.\n\nThe awaking of the better feelings of the individual man is not only\nthe immediate but the ultimate end of all politics. Nor need we be\nalarmed at any collateral results. No one has ever succeeded in drawing\nany valid distinction between positive and negative educational\nwork, except this: that in so far as a man is positive himself, he\ndoes positive work. It is necessary to destroy reputations when\nthey are lies. Peace be to their ashes. But war and fire until they\nbe ashes. This is positive and constructive work. You cannot state\nyour case without using popular illustrations, and in clearing the\nground for justice and mercy, some little great man gets shown up as a\nmake-believe. This is constructive work.\n\nIt is impossible to do harm to reform, unless you are taking some\ncourse that tends to put people to sleep. Strangely enough, the great\noutcry is made upon occasions when men are refusing to take such a\ncourse. This is due to the hypnotism of self-interest. \u201cDon\u2019t wake us\nup!\u201d they cry, \u201cWe cannot stand the agony of it;\u201d and the rising energy\nwith which they speak wakes other sleepers. In the early stages of\nany new idea the only advertising it gets is denunciation. This is so\nmuch better than silence, that one may hail it as the dawn. You must\nspeak till you draw blood. The agitators have always understood this.\nSuch men as Wendell Phillips were not extravagant. They were practical\nmen. Their business was to get heard. They used vitriol, but they were\ndealing with the hide of the rhinoceros.\n\nIf you look at the work of the anti-slavery people by the light\nof what they were trying to do, you will find that they had a very\nclear understanding of their task. The reason of some of them canted\na little from the strain and stress; but they were so much nearer\nbeing right-minded than their contemporaries that we may claim them as\nrespectable human beings. They were the rock on which the old politics\nsplit. They were a new force. As soon as they had gathered head enough\nto affect political issues, they broke every public man at the North\nby forcing him to take sides. There is not a man of the era whom they\ndid not shatter. Finally their own leaders got into public life, and it\nwas not till then that the new era began. The same thing is happening\nto-day. It is the function of the reformer to crack up any public man\nwho dodges the issue of corruption, or who tries to ride two horses by\nremaining a straight party man and shouting reform. This is no one\u2019s\nfault. It is a natural process. It is fate. Some fall on one side of\nthe line, and some on the other. One gets the office, and the next\nloses it; but oblivion yawns for all of them. There is no cassia that\ncan embalm their deeds; they can do nothing interesting, nothing that\nit lies in the power of the human mind to remember. Why is it that\nCalhoun\u2019s Speeches are unreadable? He had the earnestness of a prophet\nand the strength almost of a Titan; but he was engaged in framing a\nphilosophy to protect an interest. He was maintaining something that\nwas not true. It was a fallacy. It was a pretence. It was a house built\non the sands of temporary conditions. Such are the ideas of those\nmiddling good men, who profess honesty in just that degree which will\nkeep them in office. Honesty beyond this point is, in their philosophy,\nincompatible with earthly conditions. These men must exist at present.\nThey are an organic product of the times; they are samples of\nmediocrity. But they have nothing to offer to the curiosity of the next\ngeneration. No, not though their talent was employed in protecting an\nEmpire--as it is now employed in eking out the supremacy of a disease\nin a country whose deeper health is beginning to throw the poison off.\n\nOur public men are confronted with two systems of politics. They\ncannot hedge. If the question were suddenly to be lost in a riot,\nno doubt a good administrator might win applause, even a Tammany\nchief. But we have no riots. We have finished the war with Spain,\nand, unless foreign complications shall set in, we are about to sit\ndown with the politicians over our domestic issue--theft. Are you for\ntheft or against it? You can\u2019t be both; and your conversation, the\nviews you hold and express to your friends, are the test. It is only\nbecause politics affect or reflect these views that politics have\nany importance at all. Your agents--Croker, Hanna--are serving you\nfaithfully now. Nothing else is to be heard at the clubs but the sound\nof little hammers riveting abuse.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere is another side to this shield that calls not for scorn but for\npity. Have you ever been in need of money? Almost every man who enters\nour society joins it as a young man in need of money. His instincts are\nunsullied, his intellect is fresh and strong, but he must live. How\ncomes it that the country is full of maimed human beings, of cynics\nand feeble good men, and outside of this no form of life except the\ndiabolical intelligence of pure business?\n\nHow to make yourself needed,--it is the sycophant\u2019s problem; and why\nshould we expect a young American to act differently from a young\nSpaniard at the Court of Philip the Second? He must get on. He goes\ninto a law office, and if he is offended at its dishonest practices\nhe cannot speak. He soon accepts them. Thereafter he cannot see them.\nHe goes into a newspaper office, the same; a banker\u2019s, a merchant\u2019s,\na dry-goods\u2019 shop. What has happened to these fellows at the end of\nthree years, that their minds seem to be drying up? I have seen many\nmen I knew in college grow more and more uninteresting from year to\nyear. Is there something in trade that desiccates and flattens out,\nthat turns men into dried leaves at the age of forty? Certainly there\nis. It is not due to trade, but to intensity of self-seeking, combined\nwith narrowness of occupation. If I had to make my way at the court of\nQueen Elizabeth, I should need more kinds of wits and more knowledge of\nhuman nature than in the New York button trade. No doubt I should be a\npreoccupied, cringing, and odious sort of person at a feudal festivity;\nbut I should be a fascinating man of genius compared to John H.\nPainter, who at the age of thirty is making $15,000 a year by keeping\nhis mouth shut and attending to business. Put a pressure gauge into\nPainter, and measure the business tension at New York in 1900. He is\npassing his youth in a trance over a game of skill, and thereby earning\nthe respect and admiration of all men. Do not blame him. The great\ncurrent of business force that passes through the port of New York has\ntouched him, and he is rigid. There are hundreds of these fellows, and\nthey make us think of the well-meaning young man who has to support his\nfamily, and who must compete against them for the confidence of his\nbusiness patrons. Our standard of commercial honesty is set by that\ncurrent. It is entirely the result of the competition that comes from\neverybody\u2019s wanting to do the same thing.\n\n\u201cBut,\u201d you say, \u201cwe are here dealing with a natural force. If you like,\nit withers character, and preoccupies one part of a man for so long\nthat the rest of him becomes numb. He is hard and queer. He cannot\nwrite because he cannot think; he cannot draw because he cannot think;\nhe cannot enter real politics because he cannot think. He is all the\nwretch you depict him, but we must have him. Such are men.\u201d This is the\nbiggest folly in the world, and shows as deep an intellectual injury\nin the mind that thinks it as self-seeking can inflict. Business has\ndestroyed the very knowledge in us of all other natural forces except\nbusiness.\n\nWhat shall we do to diminish this awful pressure that makes politics a\nhell, and wrings out our manhood, till (you will find) the Americans\ncondone the death of their brothers and fathers who perished in home\ncamps during the Spanish war, because it all happened in the cause\nof trade, it was business thrift, done by smart men in pursuance of\nself-interest? You ask what you can do to diminish the tension of\nselfishness, which is as cruel as superstition, and which is not in one\nplace, but everywhere in the United States. It runs a hot iron over\nyoung intellect, and crushes character in the bud. It is blindness,\npalsy, and hip disease. You can hardly find a man who has not got some\nform of it. There is no newspaper which does not show signs of it. You\ncan hardly find a man who does not proclaim it to be the elixir of\nlife, the vade-mecum of civilization. What can you do? Why, you can\noppose it with other natural forces.\n\nYou yourself cannot turn Niagara; but there is not a town in America\nwhere one single man cannot make his force felt against the whole\ntorrent. He takes a stand on a practical matter. He takes action\nagainst some abuse. What does this accomplish? Everything. How many\npeople are there in your town? Well, every one of them gets a thrill\nthat strikes deeper than any sermon he ever heard. He may howl, but\nhe hears. The grocer\u2019s boy, for the first time in his life, believes\nthat the whole outfit of morality has any place in the practical\nworld. Every class contributes its comment. Next year a new element\ncomes forward in politics, as if the franchise had been extended.\nRemember this: you cannot, though you owned the world, do any good in\nit except by devising new ways of manifesting the fact that you felt\nin a particular way. It is the personal influence of example that is\nthe power. Nothing else counts. You can do harm by other methods, but\nnot good. This influence is a natural force, and works like steam\npower. Why all this commotion over your protest? If you accuse the\nmayor of being a thief, why does he not reply, in the words of modern\nphilosophy, \u201cOf course I\u2019m a thief, I\u2019m made that way\u201d? Instead of\nthat he resents it, and there ensues a discussion that takes people\u2019s\nattention off of trade, and qualifies the atmosphere of the place. You\nhave appreciably relieved the tension and checked the plague.\n\nThis whole subject must be looked at as a crusade in the cause of\nhumanity. You are making it easier for every young man in town to earn\nhis livelihood without paying out his soul and conscience. You cannot\nhelp any one man. You are forced into helping them all at once. Every\ntime a man asserts himself he cuts a cord that is strangling somebody.\nThe first time that independent candidates for local office were run in\nNew York City, strong men cried in the street for rage. The supremacy\nof commerce had been affronted. New York, in all that makes life worth\nliving, is a new city since the reform movements began to break up the\ntorpor of serfdom.\n\nYou asked how to fight force. It must be fought with force, and not\nwith arguments. Indeed, it is easier to start a reform and carry it\nthrough, than it is to explain either why or how it is done. You can\nonly understand this after you have been three times ridiculed as a\nreformer; and then you will begin to see that throughout the community,\nrunning through every one, there are currents of beneficent power that\naccomplish changes, sometimes visible, sometimes hard to see; that this\npower is in its nature quite as strong, quite as real and reliable,\nas that Wall Street current,--terrible forces both of them, forever\noperative and struggling and contending together as they surge and\nswell through the people. It is the sight of that power for good that\nyou need. I cannot give it to you. You must sink your own shaft for\nit. It is this beneficent current passing from man to man that makes\nthe unity of all efforts for public betterment. You have a movement\nand an excitement over bad water, and it leaves you with kindergartens\nin your schools. It is this current that turns your remark at the club\n(which every one repeated in order to injure you) into a piece of\nencouragement to the banker\u2019s clerk, who could not have made it himself\nexcept at the cost of his livelihood. It is this current--not only the\nfear of it, but the presence of it--in the heart of your merchants that\nleaves them at your mercy. Cast anything into this current and it goes\neverywhere, like aniline dye put into a reservoir; it tinges the whole\nlocal life in twenty-four hours. It is to this current that all appeals\nare made. All party platforms, all resolutions, all lies are dedicated\nto it; all literature lives by it. The head of power is near and easy\nif you strike directly for it.\n\nThere is an opinion abroad that good politics requires that every\nman should give his whole time to politics. This is another of the\nsuperstitions disseminated by the politicians who want us to go to\ntheir primaries, and accepted by people so ignorant of life that they\nbelieve that the temperature depends upon the thermometer.\n\nWhy, you are running those primaries now. If you were different, they\nwould become different. You need never go near them. Go into that camp\nwhere your instinct leads you. The improvement in politics will not\nbe marked by any cyclonic overturn. There will always be two parties\ncompeting for your vote. It takes no more time to vote for a good man\nthan for a bad man. There will be no more men in public life then\nthan now. There will be no overt change in conditions. A few leaders\nwill stand for the new forces. It is true that it requires a general\nincrease of interest on the part of every one, in order that these men\nshall be found. Your personal duty is to support them in private and\npublic. That is all. The extent to which you yourself become involved\nin public affairs depends upon chances with which you need not concern\nyourself. Only try to understand what is happening under your eyes.\nEvery time you see a group of men advancing some cause that seems\nsensible, and being denounced on all hands as \u201cself-appointed,\u201d see if\nit was not something in yourself, after all, that appointed those men.\n\nAs we grow old, what have we to rely on as a touchstone for the times?\nYou once had your own causes and enthusiasms, but you cannot understand\nthese new ones. You had your certificate from the Almighty, but these\nfellows are \u201cself-appointed.\u201d What you wanted was clear, but these men\nwant something unattainable, something that society, as you know it,\ncannot supply. Calm yourself, my friend; perhaps they bring it.\n\nHas the great Philosophy of Evolution done nothing for the mind of man,\nthat new developments, as they arrive, are received with the same stony\nsolemnity, are greeted with the same phrases as ever? How can you have\nthe ingenuousness to argue soberly against me, supplying me, by every\nword you say, with new illustrations, new hope, new fuel? Until I heard\nyou repeat word by word the prayer-book of crumbling conservatism, I\nwas not sure I was right. You have placed the great seal of the world\nupon new truth. Thus should it be received.\n\nThe radicals are really always saying the same thing. They do not\nchange; everybody else changes. They are accused of the most\nincompatible crimes, of egoism and a mania for power, indifference to\nthe fate of their own cause, fanaticism, triviality, want of humor,\nbuffoonery and irreverence. But they sound a certain note. Hence the\ngreat practical power of consistent radicals. To all appearance nobody\nfollows them, yet every one believes them. They hold a tuning-fork and\nsound A, and everybody knows it really is A, though the time-honored\npitch is G flat. The community cannot get that A out of its head.\nNothing can prevent an upward tendency in the popular tone so long as\nthe real A is kept sounding. Every now and then the whole town strikes\nit for a week, and all the bells ring, and then all sinks to suppressed\ndiscord and denial.\n\nThe reason why we have not, of late years, had strong consistent\ncentres of influence, focuses of steady political power, has been that\nthe community has not developed men who could hold the note. It was\nonly when the note made a temporary concord with some heavy political\nscheme that the reform leaders could hear it themselves. For the rest\nof the time it threw the whole civilization out of tune. The terrible\nclash of interests drowned it. The reformers themselves lost it, and\nwandered up and down, guessing.\n\nIt is imagined that nature goes by jumps, and that a whole community\ncan suddenly sing in tune, after it has been caterwauling and murdering\nthe scale for twenty years. The truth is, we ought to thank God\nwhen any man or body of men make the discovery that there is such a\nthing as absolute pitch, or absolute honesty, or absolute personal\nand intellectual integrity. A few years of this spirit will identify\ncertain men with the fundamental idea that truth is stronger than\nconsequences, and these men will become the most serious force and\nthe only truly political force in their community. Their ambition is\nillimitable, for you cannot set bounds to personal influence. But it is\nan ambition that cannot be abused. A departure from their own course\nwill ruin any one of them in a night, and undo twenty years of service.\n\nIt would be natural that such sets of men should arise all over\nthe country, men who \u201cwanted\u201d nothing, and should reveal the\ninverse position of the Boss System; a set of moral bosses with no\norganizations, no politics; men thrown into prominence by the operation\nof all the forces of human nature now suppressed, and the suppression\nof those now operative. It is obvious that one such man will suffice\nfor a town. In the competition of character, one man will be naturally\nfixed upon, whom his competitors will be the first to honor; and\nupon him will be condensed the public feeling, the confidence of the\ncommunity. If the extreme case do not arise, nevertheless it is certain\nthat the tendencies toward a destruction of the present system, will\nreveal themselves as a tendency making for the weight of personal\ncharacter in practical politics.\n\nReform politics is, after all, a simple thing. It demands no great\nattainments. You can play the game in the dark. A child can understand\nit. There are no subtleties nor obscurities, no higher analysis or\nmystery of any sort. If you want a compass at any moment in the midst\nof some difficult situation, you have only to say to yourself, \u201cLife\nis larger than this little imbroglio. I shall follow my instinct.\u201d As\nyou say this, your compass swings true. You may be surprised to find\nwhat course it points to. But what it tells you to do will be practical\nagitation.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nTHE MASSES\n\n\nLet us examine current beliefs on popular education, and then\nthereafter let us look very closely at the work done among the poor,\nand see upon what lines it has been found possible to establish\ninfluence.\n\nWhy is it that if you go down to the Bowery and set up a kindergarten\nor give a course of lectures on the Duties of Citizenship, every one\ncommends you; whereas if you go into some abandoned district where a\nTammany thug is running for the State Assembly against a Republican\nheeler, and if you put an honest man in the field against them both,\nyour friends call you a fool, and say that your reform consists of mere\nnegation?\n\nWho asks to see the results upon the public welfare of a night school\nin astronomy? Yet, if you get ten mechanics to labor for six months\nwith the fire of enthusiasm in them, building up a radical club, and as\na result, one hundred and fifty men cast for the first time in their\nlives a vote that represents the heart and conscience of each, your\nintelligent friends ask, \u201cWhat have you done? You are howling against\nthe moon.\u201d\n\nWhy is it that if you are a grocer and refuse to sand your sugar, you\nare called honest? Yet, if a young politician takes this course, it is\nsupposed that life is not long enough for the world to discover his\nvalue; he is a visionary. In the sugar trade, the man insisted upon\ndealing with the community as a whole. He was not trying to sell sugar\nto a club, or to benefit some district. He dealt with the public. Now,\nif a politician deals directly with the public, we condemn him because\nwe cannot see the empire of confidence he is building up. The reason we\ndo not see it is entirely due to historical causes. We have had little\nexperience recently in the utility of large appeals. We forget their\npower. Yet we are not without examples. Grover Cleveland dealt directly\nwith the people on a great scale. He established a personal relation\nthat was stronger than party bonds. This made him President, preserved\nhis character and gave reality to politics. It was a bit of education\nto every man in the United States to see what riff-raff our political\narks were made of: a man laid his hand on the end of one of them and\ntore off the roof.\n\nWe are rather more familiar with the power of public confidence as\nseen in times of revolution. In the year of the Lexow investigation\nthe people of New York City believed that Dr. Parkhurst and John Goff\nwere in earnest. There was a period of a few weeks when Goff exercised\nthe powers of a dictator. The Police Commissioners had threatened to\ndiscipline a subordinate who had testified before Goff\u2019s committee.\nHe subpoenaed them all the next morning, and he browbeat them like\nschool-boys. They went back humbled. The revelations of the summer\nhad awakened the spirit of revolt in the masses of the people, and it\nexpressed itself directly as power. The machinery of government was\nnot in abeyance, but it was seen to be a mere vehicle. It could be\nmade to work justice. Here were two men, Goff and Parkhurst, rendered\nall-powerful by the existence of popular confidence. The state of mind\nof the community was unusual, and the indignation soon subsided; but it\nsubsided to a new level, and the abuses and inhumanity of Boss tyranny\nhave never since been so severe in New York.\n\nOur people have seen several volcanic eruptions of this sort, and\ntherefore they believe in them. They believe in the moral power of the\ncommunity, but are afraid it can only act by convulsion. They think\nthat some new principle comes into play at such times, something which\nis not a constant factor in daily government. On the other hand, we\nhave all been trained to respect plodding methods in common education,\nand we know that much can be done by kindergartens, boys\u2019 clubs, and\npropaganda to change the standards of the community and make men trust\nvirtue. We believe in the boys\u2019 club, and we believe in the earthquake;\nwe forget that the same principle underlies them both. When some one\napplies this principle to the field of political education that lies\nbetween them, we are cynical because we have no experience.\n\nApart from the lack of experience that prevents people from seeing the\nuse of this practical activity, there are two distressing elements that\nmake men not want to see it. In the first place, even if you work in\nthe Bowery and a friend votes in Harlem, you are apt to be hitting his\ninterests and prejudices. And in the second place your conduct is a\nhorrid appeal. If this work is useful, he ought to be doing it. He had\nhoped that nothing could be done.\n\nThe real distinction between this particular sort of work and other\nphilanthropy is, that other philanthropy is preparatory drill; this\nis war. The other is feeding, training, and preaching; this is\npractice. Now, you may have your license to preach all you please in\nthe vineyard, but if you touch the soil with the spade, you find the\nground is pre-empted; you are fighting a railroad. And this condition\nis openly recognized in cities where the evil forces are completely\ndominant.\n\nIn lecturing before the University Extension in Pennsylvania, you\nare not allowed to talk politics. It is against the policy of the\nphilanthropists who run the institution, and who are run by the\nrailroad. The situation in Philadelphia is merely illustrative of\nthe distinction between philanthropy and political reform, which is\nalways ready to become apparent. Of course, so long as the railroad\ndistributes the philanthropy, there will result nothing but tyranny.\nThe Roman Emperors gave shows to amuse the people, and we give them\ntalks on Botticelli and magic-lantern pictures of the Nile. There are,\nthen, real reasons why our people are slow to acknowledge the utility\nof militant political reform, and why they clutch at any handle against\nit.\n\nBut we have much more to learn from the philanthropists by a study of\nwhat they have done than by dwelling on their shortcomings. They have\nlabored while the political reformers have slept; and after many trials\nand many failures they have found certain working principles.\n\nIt was they who discovered that we cannot, as human nature is\nconstituted, give strength to any one except by helping the whole man\nto develop at once. We must give him a chance to grow. The workers\namong the poor have long ago seen the futility of any effort except\nthat of raising the general standards of living. They have established\nSettlements, where the relation between the settlers and the\nsurrounding population is as natural as family life and as perennial\nas Tammany Hall. After ten years of experiment this has been done in\nmany places. If you will go to one of these places and study exactly\nwhat has happened in the line of benefit to the people, you will see\nthat it has resulted _wholly_ from personal influence,--that is\nto say, from the effect of character upon character. \u201cTwo years ago we\nestablished a boys\u2019 club, and soon afterwards a kindergarten. The boys\nreturned one day, and out of jealousy smashed everything belonging to\nthe kindergarten, and piled the rubbish in the middle of the room.\nLast week a barrel of fruit was sent here for the sick and weakly, and\nwe left the barrel open with a card on the outside to that effect. You\ncould not get the boys to touch the fruit. Now, if you ask me what\nsystem or what part of the system has caused the change in these boys,\nI don\u2019t know.\u201d\n\nThis is reform politics, but unless you and I go there and make a place\nfor these boys in practical politics, they will find waiting for them\nnothing but the caucus and the job. They will relapse and forget. It is\nthrowing effort into the sea to train the young if you stop there. The\ntest comes when the scaffoldings of early life are taken down. Each man\nmeets the world alone. The tragedies of character occur at this period.\nWe must make a camp and standing ground for grown men. So far as the\nhope of political purity goes, there are acres of this city that are in\na worse condition than health was in before the era of hospitals. Fly\nover them as the crow flies, and you cannot find a centre of downright\nantagonism to evil. The population does not know that such a thing\nexists; and yet, if you propose to go there and set up a fight against\nboth parties,--that is to say, a fight against wickedness,--you are\ntold by patriots and doctors of divinity, \u201cDon\u2019t do it unless you can\nwin. You will disgust people with reform.\u201d\n\nIt is awful and at the same time ludicrous to hear an educated person\nmaintain this doctrine and in the same breath mourn over the corruption\nof the masses. The man throws his own dark shadow over them and bewails\ntheir want of light. He doubts the power of personal influence; and yet\nthere is absolutely no other force for good in the world, and never has\nbeen. Let us stick to facts. Take individual cases of improvement and\nsee what power has been at work. You will find that you disclose behind\nany personal improvement, not a ballot law or an organization, but a\nhuman being.\n\nThe movement for political reform goes into the Bowery in the wake of\nthe philanthropists. We go there knowing something about practical\npolitics. We know, for instance, that the Bowery is the geographical\nname for a district which is really governed by the same forces as\nFifth Avenue. To think that the politics of the Bowery are controlled\nby the Bowery is about as sensible as to believe that the politics of\nIrkutsk are controlled at Irkutsk. We have got, first, to disclose the\nmachinery of evil and then to fight it wherever we find it, even though\nit lead us into churches. Nothing is needed in any Tammany club on the\nBowery that is not needed ten times as much in the Union League Club on\nFifth Avenue--personal self-sacrifice for principle in a cause which is\napparently hopeless. Unless you go there displaying that, you are not\nneeded.\n\nOur intercourse with the laboring man is a great teacher to ourselves.\nThat is its main use. It brings out, as nothing else can, the magnitude\nand perfection of the system, whose visible top and little flag we\ncan always see, but whose dimensions and ramifications nothing but\nexperiment can reveal; philosophy could not guess it.\n\nHere is a laborer on the street railroad. In order to get work he must\nshow a ticket from the party boss. It is his passport from the Czar,\ncountersigned by the proper official; otherwise he gets no job. Here\nis a young notary whom you employ to carry about the certificate that\nputs an independent candidate in nomination. You try to get him to sign\nthe thing himself and join your club. It is no use asking. His brother\ndid it once and lost his place; so close is the scrutiny, so rapid\nthe punishment. Examine the retail grocer, or the tobacconist, or\nthe cobbler; go into particulars with him, and you will find that his\nunwillingness to join your movement does not spring so directly from\nhis inability to see the point of it, as from fear of the direct and\nimmediate consequences to himself.\n\nWe wanted to elevate the masses, but it turns out, as the\nphilanthropists discerned long ago, that there are no masses in\nAmerica, there are no masses in New York City. We can discover only\nindividuals, who are each controlled by individual interests, by\nvarious and subtle considerations. These men are in chains to other\nmen, who often live in other parts of the city.\n\nThe attorneys and merchants, the business world in fact, is found to\nbe in league with abuse. The man who signs the laborer\u2019s license to\nwork reports twice a day to a big contractor who is director in a bank\nwhose president owns the opera house and endowed the sailors\u2019 home.\nHe built the yacht club, is vestryman in the biggest church, and is\nrevered by all men. The title-deeds and registry books of all visible\nwealth, show the names of his intimate friends. All we can do in the\nway of weakening the chains is to expose them; this cruelty is largely\nignorance. The beneficiaries must be made to see the sources of their\nwealth. It is pre-occupation with business, not coldness of heart, that\nconceals the conditions. The American business man is a warm-hearted\nbeing. He does not even care for money, but for the game of business.\n\nAs matters now stand in America, we see this condition,--that it\nis for the immediate interest of the dominant class, namely, the\npolitico-financial class, to keep the people as selfish as possible. We\nhave examined the subtle strains of influence and prejudice by which\nthis commercial interest has been extended, until, as a practical\nmatter, it is almost impossible for a man to get word to the laboring\nclasses that there exists such a thing as political morality. Some\nprofessional philanthropist always stands ready to prevent the signal\nof honesty from being raised; some set of Sunday citizens interposes to\nstop the unwise, inexpedient, foolhardy attempt to be independent of\nrascality.\n\nAnd when you do succeed in reaching the mechanic, what can you do for\nhim? Tell him to be a man, and strike off the shackles that bind him.\n\nHere we are, as helpless before the poor as before the rich, facing\nboth of them with the same query, \u201cCan you not see that your own\nconcession, call it poverty, or call it poverty of will, is one element\nof this oppression?\u201d\n\nThe difference between the poor and the financial classes is one of\nspiritual complexity. The promoters are well-to-do because their minds\nhave been able to grasp and utilize the complex forces made up of the\nminds of their simpler fellow-beings. And this astuteness leaves them\nless open to unselfish emotions than the laboring man. His nature is\nmore intact. He is a more emotional and instinctive being. It is for\nthis reason that moral reforms have come from the lower strata of\nsociety. The people have as much to lose as the bankers, but they are\nmore ready to lose it.\n\nThe head of moral feeling in the community has got to grow strong\nenough to force the financier to take his clutch off the laboring\nman, before you can reach the laboring man. And yet labor itself will\ncontribute more than its share towards this head of moral feeling;\nand therefore you must go among the laboring classes with your ideas\nand your propaganda. But beware lest you give him a stone for bread.\nYou can do no more for a man because you call yourself a \u201cpolitician\u201d\nthan if you were a mere philanthropist. A man\u2019s standards of political\nthought are but a small fraction of his general standards, and unless\nyour sense of truth is as sharp as a sword you had better not come near\nthe laboring man.\n\nThe point here made is--and it is of great importance--that we candidly\nacknowledge at every instant the nature of our undertaking and the\nnature of our power, for in so far as we mistake them we weaken our\npractical utility.\n\nIt is not as the agent of any institution that you are here, but as\nthe agent of conscience at the dictation of personal feeling. Do you\nneed proof that you yourself draw all your power from sheer moral\ninfluence? Note what you do when you start your club. You go to the\nnearest well-to-do person and ask for money for rent. He gives it to\nyou out of his fund of general benevolence. To whom do you really\nwant to distribute this benevolence? To every one. You feel that by\npassing it on through a group and series of boys and young men you can\nbenefit the whole country. You use them as a mere vehicle. You know\nthat you can only help them by getting them to help others. Your appeal\nfor clients then goes out to the whole district. Your club puts you\nin communication with every man in it. In teaching your club or in\nexhorting any mortal to good behavior, what method, what stimulus, do\nyou use? Whether you know it or not, you are really drawing support\nfrom every one who is following the same principle, all over the city,\nall over the country, all over the world. Do you not ceaselessly appeal\nto the examples of Washington and Lincoln, to the books and conduct of\nmen whose aims were your aims? Or take your own case. Why do you occupy\nyourself with this thing? This activity satisfies your demands upon\nlife; nothing else does. You are the creature of a thousand influences,\nand if you begin to trace them you find that you are fulfilling the\nwill of Toynbee, of John Stuart Mill, of Kant. You are a disciple of\nTolstoi. You were inspired by William Lloyd Garrison. It is they, as\nmuch as you, who are doing this work. It is they who formulated the\nideas and impressed them upon you. Your great friends are the founders\nof religions. Examine the actual persons who give you practical help.\nYou will find Moses, you will find Christ behind them. What you are\nusing is the world\u2019s fund of unselfishness. It is necessary to employ\nthe whole of it in order to accomplish anything, however small. As a\npractical matter, every one does employ the whole of it every time he\neven thinks of reform.\n\nNow, just as we can trace the sources of our power in the great\ncurrents of human feeling that flow down to us out of the past; so we\ncan foresee the accomplishments of that power in enlarging the lives\nof men who come after us. We are sinking the foundations of a new\npolitics. You cannot always see every stone, but it has gone to its\nplace. It is impossible to take a stand for what you think is a true\ntheory without thereby becoming an integral factor for good in every\nman who hears of it. It is impossible to be that factor without taking\nthat stand.\n\nWhat is the nature of the good you can do to the laboring man? His\nmind analyzes you in a flash. If he is influenced by you, you may be\nsure that it is by something in you that you had not intended to give\nhim. After the man has seen you, he has been moved by you; but how?\nConsult your own remembrance. What incident of character impressed you\nmost when you were a child? Do you remember any act, any expression\nor gesture or anecdote or speech, that had a lasting influence upon\nyou? Now I ask you this: Was it done for you? Were you the designed\nbeneficiary of it? Was it not rather the silent part of some one\nelse\u2019s conduct, a thing you were perhaps not meant to see at all? And\nthis was no accident. This is the natural history of influence; it\npasses unconsciously from life to life.\n\nWe must take the world as we find it. We must deal with human nature\naccording to the laws of human nature. Our politics are at present\nso artificial that the average man thinks that the name \u201cpolitics\u201d\nprevents the well established and familiar principles of human nature\nfrom being operative. But he is wrong. Man has never yet succeeded in\ninventing any system that could evade them or affect them in the least.\nAll the political organization of reform is already in existence, and\nneeds only strengthening and developing. It is all in use, and every\none understands its use and knows its headquarters and its agencies.\nIt is all individual character and courage, and with the growth of\ncharacter and courage it will become more defined and visible every\nday.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nLITERATURE\n\n\nThere are feelings and views about life, there are conviction and\ninsight, which come from thinking at a high rate of speed, and vanish\nwhen the machinery moves slowly and the blood ebbs. The world not only\naccepts the intensity of the writer, but demands it. Nevertheless,\nthe world has an imperfect knowledge as to where this intensity comes\nfrom, how it is produced, or what relation it bears to ugliness and\nfalsehood. \u201cWhat a pleasure it must be to you,\u201d said Rothschild to\nHeine, \u201cto be able to turn off those little songs!\u201d\n\nIn our ordinary moods we regard the conclusions of the poets as both\ntrue and untrue,--true to feeling, untrue to fact; true as intimations\nof the next world or of some lost world; untrue here, because detached\nfrom those portions of society that are perennially visible. Most men\nhave a duplicate philosophy which enables them to love the arts and\nthe wit of mankind, at the same time that they conveniently despise\nthem. Life is ugly and necessary; art is beautiful and impossible. \u201cThe\nfarther you go from the facts of life, the nearer you get to poetry.\nThe practical problem is to keep them in separate spheres, and to\nenjoy both.\u201d The hypothesis of a duplicity in the universe explains\neverything, and staves off all claims and questionings.\n\nSuch are the convictions of the average cultivated man. His back is\nbroken, but he lives in the two halves comfortably enough. He has to be\nprotected at his weak spot, of course, and that spot is the present;\nten years from now, to-morrow, yesterday, the day of judgment, the\nState of Pennsylvania,--all these you are welcome to. Every form of\nidealism appeals to him, so long as it does not ask him to budge out of\nhis armchair. \u201cAha,\u201d he says, \u201cI understand this. It takes its place in\nthe realm of the Imagination.\u201d\n\nThis man does not know, and has no means of knowing, that good books\nare only written by men whose backs are not broken, and whose vital\nenergy circulates through their entire system in one sweep. They have\na unitary and not a duplicate philosophy. The present is their strong\npoint. The actualities of life are their passion. They lay a bold hand\nupon everything within their reach, for they see it with new sight.\n\nThe glitter of the past makes us think of literature as embodied in\nbooks; but to understand literature we must fix our minds on authors,\nnot on books. The men who write--what makes them write well or ill?\nWhat are the conditions that breed poetry, or music, or architecture?\nThe current beliefs about art and letters are fatalistic. It is\nsupposed that poets and artists crop up now and then, and that nothing\ncan stop them; they need no aid, they conquer circumstances. I do not\nbelieve it. We see no analogy to it in nature. Among the plants and the\nfishes we see nothing but a wholesale and incredible destruction of\ngerms on all sides. It seems a miracle that any seed should fall upon\ngood ground, and be sheltered till it come to the flower. Why should\nthe percentage of germs that come to maturity be greater with genius\nthan it is with the eggs of the sturgeon? The enemies of each are\nnumerous. If it were not for the fecundity of nature, we should have\nnone of either of them. And how is it that the great man always happens\nto be young at the very moment when some events are going forward that\nripen his powers; so that he grows up with his time, and does something\nthat is comprehensible to all time?\n\nThe answer is, that all eras are sown thick with the seeds of genius,\nwhich for the most part die, but in a favoring age mature to greatness.\nMust we resort to a theory of special creation to explain the great\ntalents of the world? And even this would not explain our own welcome\nand our own comprehension of them when they come. If it were not for\nthe undeveloped powers, the seeds of genius, in ourselves, Plato and\nBach would be meaningless, and Christ would have died in vain.\n\nIt must be that thousands of good intellects perish annually. The men\ndo not die, but their powers wither, or rather never mature. Art, like\neverything else, represents an escape, a survival. In any age that\nlacks it, or is weak in it, we may look about for the enginery by which\nit is crushed. In looking into a past age we are put to inference and\nconjecture. We see the mark of fetters upon the Byzantine soul, and we\nbegin dredging the dark waters of history for a metaphysical cause. We\ncannot walk into a Byzantine shop and watch the apprentice at work.\nBut in our own time we can see the whole process in action. We can\nstudy our modern Inquisitions at leisure, and note every mark that is\nmade upon a soul that is passing through them.\n\nIt does not involve any indignity to the pretensions of literature if\nwe walk into that great bazaar, modern journalism, and see what is\ngoing on there behind the counters. Here is a factory of popular art.\nIt is not the whole of letters; but it has an influence on the whole\nof letters. The press fills the consciousness of the people. A modern\ncommunity breathes through its press. Journalism, to be sure, is a\nregion of letters, where all the factors for truth are at a special\nand peculiar discount. Its attention is given to near and ugly things,\nto mean quarrels, business interests, and special ends. Every country\nshows up badly here. The hypocrisy of the press is the worst thing in\nEngland. It is the worst exhibition of England\u2019s worst fault. The press\nof France gives you France at her weakest. The press of America gives\nyou America at her cheapest. Perhaps the study of journalism in any\ncountry would illustrate the peculiar vices of that country; and it is\nfair to remember this in examining our own press. But examine it we\nmust, for it is important.\n\nThe subject includes more than the daily newspapers. Those ephemeral\nsheets that flutter from the table into the waste-paper basket, which\nare something more than mere newspapers and less than magazines, and\nthe magazines themselves, which are more than budgets of gossip and\nless than books, make up a perpetual rain of paper and ink. Thousands\nof people are engaged in writing them, and millions in reading them.\nThis whole species of literature is typical of the age; let us see how\nit is conducted.\n\nA journal is a meeting-place between the forces of intellect and of\ncommerce. The men who become editors always bear some relation to the\nintellectual interests of the country. They make money, but they make\nit by understanding the minds of people who are not taking money, but\nthought, from the exchanges that the editors set up. A magazine or a\nnewspaper is a shop. Each is an experiment and represents a new focus,\na new ratio between commerce and intellect. Even trade journals have\ncolumns devoted to general information and jokes. The one thing a\njournal must have in order to be a journal is circulation. It must be\ncarried into people\u2019s houses, and this is brought about by an impulse\nin the buyer. The buyer has many opinions and modes of thought that\nhe does not draw from the journal, and he is always ready to drop a\njournal that offends him. An editor is thus constantly forced to choose\nbetween affronting his public and placating his public. Now, whatever\narguments may be given for his taking one course or the other, it\nremains clear that in so far as an editor is not publishing what he\nhimself thinks of interest for its own sake, he is encouraging in the\npublic something else besides intellect. He is subserving financial,\npolitical, or religious bias, or, it may be, popular whim. He is, to\nthis extent at least, the custodian and protector of prejudice.\n\nThe thrift of an editor-owner, who is building up the circulation of\na paper, tends to keep him conservative. Repetition is safer than\ninnovation. An especially strong temptation is spread before the\nAmerican editor in the shape of an enormous reading public, made up\nof people who have a common-school education, and who resemble each\nother very closely in their traits of mind. There is money to be made\nby any one who discerns a new way of reinforcing any prejudice of the\nAmerican people.\n\nIt has come about very naturally during the last thirty years, that\njournalism has been developed in America as one of the branches in the\nscience of catering to the masses on a gigantic scale. The different\nkinds of conservatism have been banked, consolidated, and, as it were,\nmarshalled under the banners of as many journals. Money and energy\nhave been expended in collecting these vast audiences, and sleepless\nvigilance is needed to keep them together.\n\nThe great investments in the good will of millions are nursed by\neditors who live by their talents, and who in another age would have\nbeen intellectual men. The highest type of editor now extant in America\nwill as frankly regret his own obligation to cater to mediocrity, as\nthe business man will regret his obligation to pay blackmail, or as\nthe citizen will regret his obligation to vote for one of the parties.\n\u201cThere is nothing else to do. I am dealing with the money of others.\nThere are not enough intelligent people to count.\u201d He serves the times.\nThe influence thus exerted by the public (through the editor) upon the\nwriter tends to modify the writer and make him resemble the public. It\nis a spiritual pressure exerted by the majority in favor of conformity.\nThis exists in all countries, but is peculiarly severe in countries and\nages where the majority is made up of individuals very similar to each\nother. The tyranny of a uniform population always makes itself felt.\n\nIf any man doubt the hide-bound character of our journals to-day, let\nhim try this experiment. Let him write down what he thinks upon any\nmatter, write a story of any length, a poem, a prayer, a speech. Let\nhim assume, as he writes it, that it cannot be published, and let him\nsatisfy his individual taste in the subject, size, mood, and tenor of\nthe whole composition. Then let him begin his peregrinations to find in\nwhich one of the ten thousand journals of America there is a place for\nhis ideas as they stand. We have more journals than any other country.\nThe whole field of ideas has been covered; every vehicle of opinion has\nits policy, its methods, its precedents. A hundred will receive him if\nhe shaves this, pads that, cuts it in half; but not one of them will\ntrust him as he stands, \u201cGood, but eccentric,\u201d \u201cGood, but too long,\u201d\n\u201cGood, but new.\u201d\n\nLet us follow the steps of this withering influence. A young\nillustrator does an etching that he likes. He is told to reduce it to\nthe conventional standard. This is easy, but what is happening in the\nprocess? He blurs the fine edges of vision, not only on the plate,\nbut in his own mind. The real injury to intellect is not done in the\neditorial sanctum. It is done in the mind of the writer who himself\nattempts to cater to the prejudice of others. A man rewrites a scene\nin a story to please a public. In order to do this he is obliged to\nforget what his story was about. He is talking by rote; he is making\nan imitation. Does this seem a small thing? Let any one do it once and\nsee where it leads him. The attitude of the whole human being towards\nhis whole life is changed by the experience. Do it twice, and you can\nhardly shake off the practice. Write and publish six editorials for the\n\u201cUniversalist,\u201d and then sit down to write one not in the style of the\n\u201cUniversalist.\u201d You will find it, practically, an impossibility.\n\nThe notable lack in our literature is this: the prickles and\nirregularities of personal feeling have been pumice-stoned away. It is\ntoo smooth. There is an absence of individuality, of private opinion.\nThis is the same lack that curses our politics,--the absence of\nprivate opinion.\n\nThe sacrifice in political life is honesty, in literary life is\nintellect; but the closer you examine honesty and intellect the more\nclearly they appear to be the same thing. Suppose that a judge, in\norder to please a boss, awards Parson Jones\u2019 cow to Deacon Brown;\ndoes he boldly admit this even to himself? Never. He writes an able\nopinion in which he befogs his intelligence, and convinces himself\nthat he has arrived at his award by logical steps. In like manner,\nthe revising editor who reads with the eyes of the farmer\u2019s daughter\nbegins to lose his own. He is extinguishing some sparks of instructive\nreality which would offend--and benefit--the farmer\u2019s daughter; and he\nis obliterating a part of his own mind with every stroke of his blue\npencil. He is devitalizing literature by erasing personality. He does\nthis in the money interests of a syndicate; but the debasing effect\nupon character is the same as if it were done at the dictate of the\nGerman Emperor. The harm done in either case is intellectual.\n\nTake another example. A reporter writes up a public meeting, but colors\nit with the creed of his journal. Can he do this acceptably without\nabjuring his own senses? He is competing with men whose every energy is\nbent on seeing the occasion as the newspaper wishes it seen. Consider\nthe immense difficulty of telling the truth on the witness stand, and\njudge whether good reporting is easy. The newspaper trade, as now\nconducted, is prostitution. It mows down the boys as they come from the\ncolleges. It defaces the very desire for truth, and leaves them without\na principle to set a clock by. They grow to disbelieve in the reality\nof ideas. But these are our future literati, our poets and essayists,\nour historians and publicists.\n\nThe experts who sit in the offices of the journals of the country\nhave so long used their minds as commercial instruments, that it\nnever occurs to them to publish or not publish anything, according to\ntheir personal views. They do not know that every time they subserve\nprejudice they are ruining intellect. If there were an editor who had\nany suspicion of the way the world is put together, he would respect\ntalent as he respects honor. It would be impossible for him to make his\nliving by this traffic. If he knew what he was doing, he would prefer\npenury.\n\nThese men, then, have not the least idea of the function they fulfil.\nNo more has the agent of the Insurance Company who corrupts a\nlegislature. The difference in degree between the two iniquities is\nenormous, because one belongs to that region in the scale of morality\nwhich is completely understood, and the other does not. We do not\nexcuse the insurance agent; we will not allow him to plead ignorance.\nHe commits a penal offence. We will not allow selfishness to trade upon\nselfishness and steal from the public in this form. But what law can\nprotect the public interest in the higher faculties? What statute can\nenforce artistic truth?\n\nWe actually forbid a man by statute to sell his vote, because a vote is\nunderstood to be an opinion, a thing dependent on rational and moral\nconsiderations. You cannot buy and sell it without turning it into\nsomething else. The exercise of that infinitesimal fraction of public\npower represented by one man\u2019s vote is hedged about with penalties;\nbecause the logic of practical government has forced us to see its\nimportance. But the harm done to a community by the sale of a vote\ndoes not follow by virtue of the statute, but by virtue of a law of\ninfluence of which the statute is the recognition. The same law governs\nthe sale of any opinion, whether it be conveyed in a book review or in\na political speech, in a picture of life and manners, a poem, a novel,\nor an etching. There is no department of life in which you can lie\nfor private gain without doing harm. The grosser forms of it give us\nthe key to the subtler ones, and the jail becomes the symbol of that\ncondition into which the violation of truth will shut any mind.\n\nSo far as any man comes directly in contact with the agencies of\norganized literature, let him remember that his mind is at stake.\nThey can change you, but you cannot change them, except by changing\nthe public they reflect. The faculties of man are as strong as steel\nif properly used, but they are like the down on a peach if improperly\nused. What shall a man take in exchange for his soul? No man has the\nprivilege upon this earth of being more than one person. In this matter\nof expression, it is the last ten per cent of accuracy that saves or\nsells you. Talent evaporates as easily as a delegate holds his tongue\nor a lawyer smiles to a rich man; and the injury is irremediable. Let\na man not alter a line or cut a paragraph at the suggestion of an\neditor. Those are the very words that are valuable. \u201cAh,\u201d you say, \u201cbut\nI need criticism.\u201d Then go to a critic. Consult the man who is farthest\naway from this influence, some one who cannot read the magazines, some\none who does not have to read them. Your public, when you get one,\nwill qualify the general public; but you must reach it as a whole man.\nThe writer\u2019s course is easy compared to that of the reform politician,\nbecause printing is cheap. He will get heard immediately. He covers\nthe whole of the United States while the other is canvassing a ward.\nLiterary self-assertion is as much needed as any of the virtue we pray\nfor in politics. A resonant and unvexed independence makes a man\u2019s\nwords stir the fibres in other men; and it matters little whether you\nlabel his words literature or politics.\n\nThe difficulty in any revolt against custom, the struggle a man\nhas in getting his mind free from the cobwebs of restraint, always\nturns out to involve financial distress; and this holds true of the\nwriter\u2019s attempt to override the senseless restrictions of the press.\nThe magazines pay handsomely, and pay at once. A writer must earn\nhis bread; a man must support his family. We accept this necessity\nwith such a hearty concurrence, and the necessity itself becomes so\nsacred, that it seems to imply an answer to all ethical and artistic\nquestions. We almost think that nature will connive at malpractice\ndone in so good a cause as the support of a family. The subject must\nbe looked at more narrowly. The spur of poverty is popularly regarded\nnot only as an excuse for all bad work, but as a prerequisite to all\ngood work. There is a misconception in this wholesale appropriation of\na partial truth. The economic laws are valuable and suggestive, but\nthey are founded on the belief that a man will pursue his own business\ninterests exclusively. This is never entirely true even in trade, and\nthe doctrines of the economists become more and more misleading when\napplied to fields of life where the money motive becomes incidental.\nThe law of supply and demand does not govern the production of sonnets.\n\nLet us lay aside theory and observe the effects of want upon the artist\nand his work. As a stimulus to the whole man, a prod to get him into\naction and keep him active, the spur of poverty is a blessing. But if\nit enter into the detail of his attention, while he is at work, it is\ndamnation.\n\nA man at work is like a string that is vibrating. Touch it with a\nfeather and it is numb. A singer will sing flat if he sees a friend\nin the audience. Even a trained and cold-blooded lawyer who is trying\na case, will not be at his best if he is watched by some one whom he\nwants to impress.\n\nThe artist is the easiest of all men to upset. He is dealing with\nsubtle and fluid things,--memories, allusions, associations. It is all\ngossamer and sunlight when he begins. It is to be gossamer and sunlight\nwhen he is finished. But in the interim it is bricks and mortar, rubble\nand white lead. And the writer--I do not say that he must be more free\nfrom cares than the next man--but he must not let into the mint and\nforge of his thought some immaterial and petty fact about himself,\nfor this will make him self-conscious. Consider how ingenuous, how\nunexpected, how natural is good conversation. At one moment you have\nnothing to say, at the next a vista of ideas has opened. They come\ncrowding in, and the telling of them reveals new vistas. It is the same\nwith the writer. In the process of writing the story is made. There is\nreally nothing to say or do in the world until you make your start, and\nthen the significance begins to steam out of the materials. And here,\nin the act and heat of creation, to have the cold fear thrust in, \u201cI\ncannot use that phrase because the editor will think it too strong,\u201d is\nenough to chill the brain of Rabelais. Human nature cannot stand such\nhandling. Do this to a man and you break his spirit. He becomes tame,\ncalculating, and ingenious. His powers are frozen.\n\nIt is impossible not to see in contemporary journalism a\nslaughter-house for mind. Here we have a great whale that browses on\nthe young and eats them by thousands. This is the seamy side of popular\neducation. The low level of the class at the dame\u2019s school keeps the\nbright boys back and makes dunces of them.\n\nWe have been dealing in all this matter with one of the deepest facts\nof life, to wit, the influence that society at large has in cutting\ndown and narrowing the development of the individual. The newspaper\nbusiness displays the whole operation very vividly; but we may see the\nsame thing happening in the other walks of life. There arrives a time\nin the career of most men when their powers become fixed. Men seem\nto expand to definite shapes, like those Japanese cuttings that open\nout into flowers and plants when you drop them into warm water. After\nreaching his saturation point each man fills his niche in society and\nchanges little. He goes on doing whatever he was engaged upon at the\ntime he touched his limit.\n\nWe almost believe that every man has his predestinate size and shape,\nand that some obscure law of growth arrests one man at thirty and\nthe next at forty years of age. This is partly true; but the law is\nnot obscure. It is not because the men stop growing that they repeat\nthemselves, but they stop growing because they repeat themselves. They\ncease to experiment; they cease to search. The lawyer adopts routine\nmethods; the painter follows up his success with an imitation of his\nsuccess; the writer finds a recipe for style or plot. Every one saves\nhimself the trouble of re-examining the contents of his own mind.\nHe has the best possible reason for doing this. The public will not\npay for his experiments as well as it will for his routine work. But\nthe laws of nature are deaf to his reasons. Research is the price of\nintellectual growth. If you face the problems of life freshly and\nsquarely each morning, you march. If you accept any solution as good\nenough, you drop.\n\nFor there is no finality and ending place to intellect. Examine any\nbit of politics, any law-case, or domestic complication, until you\nunderstand your own reasons for feeling as you do about it. Then\nwrite the matter down carefully and conclusively, and you will find\nthat you have done no more than restate the problem in a new form.\nThe more complete your exposition, the more loudly it calls for new\nsolution. The masterly analysis of Tolstoi, his accurate explanations,\nhis diagnosis and dissection of human life, leave us with a picture of\nsociety that for unsolved mystery competes with the original. But the\npoint lies here. You must lay bare your whole soul in the statement you\nmake. You must resolutely set down everything that touches the matter.\nUntil you do this, the question refuses to assume its next shape. You\ncannot flinch and qualify in your first book, and speak plainly in your\nsecond.\n\nIt is the act of utterance that draws out the powers in a man and makes\nhim a master of his own mind. Without the actual experience of writing\nLohengrin, Wagner could not have discovered Parsifal. The works of\nmen who are great enough to get their whole thought uttered at each\ndeliverance, form a progression like the deductions of a mathematician.\nThese men are never satisfied with a past accomplishment. Their eyes\nare on questions that beckon to them from the horizon. Their faculties\nare replenished with new energy because they seek. They are driving\ntheir ploughs through a sea of thought, intent, unresting, resourceful,\ncreative. They are discoverers, and just to the extent that lesser men\nare worth anything they are discoverers too.\n\nBeauty and elevation flash from the currents set up by intense\nspeculation. Beauty is not the aim of the writer. His aim must be\ntruth. But beauty and elevation shine out of him while he is on the\nquest. His mind is on the problem; and as he unravels it and displays\nit, he communicates his own spirit, as it were incidentally, as it were\nunwittingly, and this is the part that goes out from him and does his\nwork in the world.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nPRINCIPLES\n\n\nSpeech is a very small part of human intercourse. Indeed speech is\noften not connected with the real currents of intercourse. A comic\nactor has made you happy before he has uttered a word. This is by the\nresponsive vibration of your apparatus to his. The external speech\nand gesture help the transfer of power, and that is all they do. The\ncommunion, upon whatever plane of being it takes place, is a contagion,\nand goes forward by leaps and darts, like the action of frost on a\nwindow-pane. An angry friend comes into my room, and before he has\nuttered a word I am in a blaze of anger. A baby too young to speak does\nsome naughty thing. I remonstrate with him in a rational way. Perhaps\nI repeat to him Kant\u2019s maxim from the Critique of Practical Reason.\nThe child understands at once and is grateful for the treatment. Now,\nobserve this, that if I said the same thing to a grown man in the same\ntone, it would be to the tone and not to the argument that he would\nrespond.\n\nThe exchange of energy between man and man is so rapid that language\nbecomes a bystander. It is like the passage of the electrical\ncurrent,--we receive an impression or a message, or twenty messages at\nonce. All this is the result of suggestion and inference. No strange\nphenomenon is here alluded to. The situation is the normal and constant\nsituation whenever two human beings meet. The only mystery about it is\nthat our senses should be so much more acute than we knew. Ask a man\nto dinner and talk to him about the Suez Canal, and the next morning\nyour wife will be apt to give a truer account of him than you can give.\nShe has been knitting in the corner and thinking about the best place\nto buy children\u2019s shoes, but she knows which coils in her brain have\nbeen played upon by the brain of the stranger. The reason your wife\nknows that your Suez friend is no saint, is that she feels that certain\nstrings of the benevolent harp that is sounding in herself are not\nbeing reinforced. There are dead notes in him.\n\nThe sensitiveness of children is so common a thing that we forget its\nexplanation. It is just because the child cannot follow the argument,\nthat he is free from the illusion that the argument is the main point.\nThe lobes of his brain get a shock and respond to it ingenuously.\n\nThese facts have been neglected by philosophers, because the facts defy\nformulation. You cannot get them into a statement. They are life. But\nin the practical, workaday world, they have always been understood.\nMen of action owe their success to the habit of using their minds and\nbodies in a direct way. Men in every profession rely upon the accuracy\nof direct impressions. The great doctor, or the great general, or the\ngreat business man uses the whole of his sensibilities in each act of\nreading a man. There is no other way to read him correctly. People\nwhose brains are preoccupied with formulated knowledge are not apt to\nbe as good judges of character as spontaneous persons. Their thoughts\nare on logic. They follow what is said. A very small fraction of them\nis alive. They are like chess-players who are not listening to the\nopera.\n\nThe answer to any question in psychology always lies under our hand. We\nhave only to ask what the normal man does. It will be found that he\nuses his faculties according to their nature, though it may be, he is\nembryonic and inarticulate. We speak of great men as \u201csimple,\u201d because\nthey retain a sensitiveness to immediate impressions very common\nin uneducated persons and in children. Their thought subserves the\ndirect currents of suggestion. Their instincts rule them. Their minds\nserve them. They are great because of this power to read the thoughts\nof others through the pores of their skin, and answer blindfold to\nunuttered appeals, whether of weakness or of strength. To do this means\nintellect, whether in Napoleon or Gladstone. Every pianist and public\nspeaker, every actor and singer knows that his whole art consists in\ngetting his intellectual apparatus into focus, so that the vibrations\nof his formulated thought shall correspond and fall in with the direct\nand spontaneous vibrations of his audience. This is truth, this is the\ndiscovery of law, this is art.\n\nMen are profound and complicated creatures, and when any one of them\nexpresses the laws of his construction and reveals his own natural\nhistory, he is called a genius. But he is a genius solely because\nhe is comprehensible, and others say of him, \u201cI am like that.\u201d His\nsuggestions carry. Their extreme subtlety baffles analysis, just as\nthe suggestions of real life baffle analysis. The miracle of reality\nin art is due to refinement of suggestion. We cannot follow its steps\nor say how it is done. We see only the idea. Shakespeare gives you all\nthe meaning, and none of the means. This is first-class artificial\ncommunication. It almost competes with the every-day, commonplace,\nfamiliar transfer of the incommunicable essence of life from man to man.\n\nOur present problem is, how to influence people for their good. It is\nclear that when you and another man meet, the personal equation is the\ncontrolling thing. If you are more high-minded than he, the way to\ninfluence him is to stick to your own beliefs; for they alone can keep\nyou high-minded. They alone can make you vibrate. It is they and not\nyou that will do the work. There you stand, and there he stands; and\nyou can only qualify him by the ideas that control you. It makes no\ndifference whether you are an emperor and he a peasant, or you a Good\nGovernment Club man and he a merchant, the same forces are at work.\nShift your ground, and he feels the shift; you are encouraging him to\nbe shifty, like yourself. What can you do for him except to follow\nyour conscience? But this is equally true of every meeting of all men\neverywhere. You address a labor meeting and talk about the Philippines.\nYou meet the Turkish Ambassador and talk about Kipling\u2019s poems.\nYou talk to your son about kite-flying. To each of these contacts\nwith another\u2019s mind you bring the same power. If you start with the\npsychical value of 6, no matter what you do, a cross-section of your\nwhole activity in the world will at any instant of time read 6. It may\nbe that a page of ciphering cannot express the formula, but it will\nmean 6.\n\nThe immense amount of thought that man has given, during the last few\nthousand years, to his social arrangements and his destiny, has filled\nour minds with tangled formulas, and has attached our affection to\nparticular matters. The pomp of preambles and the stress of language\nstun us. There is so much of organized society. There are so many good\nends. If there were only one man in the world, we know that it would\nbe impossible to do good to him by suggesting evil. We know that if we\ngave him a hint that contained both good and evil, the good would do\nhim good, and the evil, evil. If we were bent on nothing but benefit,\nwe should have to confine ourselves to suggestions of unalloyed\nvirtue. But the world is such a tangle of personalities, that we do not\nhesitate to mix a little evil in the good we do, hoping that the evil\nwill not be operative. We half believe that there may, somewhere in the\ncommunity, be a hitch in the multiplication table that brings out good\nfor evil. Liberty and democracy are thought to be such worthy ends,\nthat we must obtain them by any means and all means, even by hiring\nmercenaries. Can we wonder that in the past, men\u2019s minds were staggered\nby the importance of a papacy or of some dynastic succession? To-day\neverybody jumps to shield vice because it is called republicanism or\ndemocracy. The irony of history could go no further.\n\nLet us consider our local reforms by the light of these views. Civil\nservice laws, ballot-reform, elections, taxation,--dissolve all these\ninto acts and impulses, and see whether the laws of human influence do\nnot make a short cut through them all, like X-rays. No matter what I\ntalk about to the Emperor, I am really conveying to him by suggestion\na tendency to become as good or as bad a man as I myself. Chinese\nGordon turned a dynamo of personal force upon the Orientals, and\nthey understood him. He was talking religion, and he gave it to them\nstraight. Now all religion, as everybody knows, is purely a matter of\nsuggestion. But so is all other intercourse. We want honesty. Well,\nwhat makes people honest? Honesty. Does anything else spread the\ninfluence of honesty, except honesty? Are we here facing a scientific\nfact? Is this a law of the transference of human energy, or is it not?\nIf it is, you cannot beat it. You cannot imagine any situation where\nyour own total force, in favor of honesty, will consist of anything\nelse than honesty. Of course you may put a case where honesty will\nresult in somebody\u2019s death. If in that case, you want his life, why,\nlie. But what you will get will be his life, not the spread of honesty.\nIf the event is chronicled, you will find it used as a means of\njustifying dishonesty forever afterwards.\n\nWe do not want any of these reforms except as a means of stimulating\ncharacter, and it is a law of nature that character can only be\nstimulated directly. Sincerity is the only need, courage the\nall-sufficing virtue. We can dump them into every occasion, and\nsleep sound at night. What interest can any rational man have in our\nmunicipal issues except as a grindstone on which to whet the people\u2019s\nmoral sense? How is it possible to deceive ourselves into looking at\nour own political activity from any other standpoint than this? You are\nto make a speech at Cooper Union on ballot reform. Somebody says, \u201cDo\nnot mention the liquor question or you will lose votes.\u201d But some phase\nof that question seems to you pertinent and important. Shall you omit\nand submit? That would be an odd way of stimulating character. The need\nof the times is not ballot laws but sincerity. The maximum that any man\ncan do toward the spread of sincerity is to display it himself.\n\nAll the virtues spread themselves by direct propagation; and the vices\nlikewise. Our people are deficient in righteous indignation. When you\nsee a man righteously indignant, rejoice; this is the seed, this the\nforce. Nothing else will arouse courage but courage, faith but faith.\nYou see, for instance, a knot of men who are really indignant at the\ninjustice of the times. But their indignation seems to you a danger;\nbecause it is likely to defeat some candidate, some pet measure of\nyours. You wish to allay it. You wish yourself well rid of this\nsacred indignation; it is inconvenient. Open your eyes to the light of\nscience. Here is a spark of that fire with which everybody ought to\nbe filled. All your scheming was only for the purpose of getting this\nfire. Then foment it.\n\nVirtue then, is a mode of motion, or it is an attitude of mind in a\nhuman organism, which enables that organism to transmit virtue to\nothers. But vice is also a mere attitude of mind by which vice is\ntransmitted. We know less about the natural history of vice than we do\nof dipsomania and consumption; but we know this much, that the vices\nare co-related, and breed one another _in transitu_; the tendency\nbeing towards lighter forms in the later catchers. Avoid another\u2019s\nguilty side, and you reinforce it; sympathize with it, and you catch\nhis disease, or some disease. I have held hands with my friend (who\nis in the wrong) over his family troubles, and it has given me the\ndistemper for a week. The German actor, Devrient, went mad while\nstudying the inmates of asylums, as a preparation to playing King\nLear. It was not the living in asylums that drove him mad, but his\nsympathetic attitude toward the disease. This exposed him. Why is it\nwe commend the man whose antagonism to crooked work is so great that\nhe shows a tempter the door before he has finished his proposition?\nParleying is not only a danger; it is the beginning of the trouble\nitself.\n\nIt is very difficult and very odious offending people, by forcing them\nto see in which direction our wheels really go round; and yet the\nalternative is to have our machinery forced back to a standstill. We\nare interlocked with other people and cannot break free. We are held in\nplace by fate, and played upon against our will. When you see cruelty\ngoing on before you, you are put to the alternative of interposing\nto stop it, or of losing your sensibility. There is a law of growth\nhere involved. It is inexorable. You are at the mercy of it. You wish\nyourself elsewhere, but you are here; you are a mere illustration of\npitiless and undying force. The part you take, may run through a fit of\nbad temper or malice. It may turn to covetousness or conceit, who can\ntell? Some poison has entered your eye because you looked negligently\nupon corruption. It will cost you some part of your sense of smell.\n\u201cUse or lose,\u201d says Nature when she gives us capacities. What you\ncondone, you support; what you neglect, you confirm.\n\nIt is true that your confirmation and support are managed through the\nmechanism of blindness. All the evil in the world receives its chief\nsupport from the people whose only connection with it is that they do\nnot fight it, nor see it. Where politics is involved scarcely a man in\nAmerica knows the difference between right and wrong. Our mayoralty\ncontest five years ago would have left Lot searching for a man who\ncould tell black from white. It was a clear moral issue. But it arose\nin politics: we could not see it. That we have intellectual cataract is\nentirely due to the habit of condoning embezzlement. It is a secondary\nform of the endemic theft, caught by the by-standers. The best people\nin town had it. If they had been lifting their hands against theft\nduring the preceding years, they never would have caught it.\n\nOf course we support all the good in the world, as well as all the\nevil; and the ratio in which we do both changes at every moment. It\nradiates forth from us, and is read correctly by every baby as he\npasses in his perambulator. Close thinking, and fresh observation of\nthings too familiar to be noticed, bring us to this point.\n\nNow, just as no complexity of institutions affects the transfer of\nvirtue, so none affects the transfer and propagation of vice. Yesterday\nyou were all for virtue. You were for leading a revolution against\nthe bosses, and were ready to work and subscribe and vote. You were\na man with the heart of a man. But to-day you are chop-fallen. \u201cThe\nthing cannot be done. It is not the year.\u201d The degradation of your\ncharacter is seen in your low spirits, and in the jaded and sophistical\ncommonplaces you pour forth. I know the academical reasons for this\nchange in you. I can express it in terms of ballot-law and civil\nservice. But what is it that really has happened?\n\nThe power that has struck you was focalized the day before yesterday in\nthe office of some law-broking politicians; and the direct rays of base\npassion have struck straight through stone walls and constitutions,\nand, falling upon you, have stopped your wheels. In them it was avarice\nand ambition. In you it is doubt. A drowsy inertia overcomes you, a\nblindness of the will. That is what has really happened. The rest is\nillusion and metaphysical talk. See, now, the real curse of injustice;\nit takes away the sight from the eyes, and that in a night.\n\nIs it not perfectly natural that Tammany Hall should be everywhere, at\nall tables, in all churches, in all consciences, when these electrical\ncurrents run between man and man and connect them so easily?\n\nI read in the newspaper that a well-known man is at Albany in the\ninterests of a gas deal. He cannot get his way in the city, and\nis putting up a job with the legislature. I see the thing going\nthrough,--a thing utterly cynical, utterly corrupt. No paper will\nexplain it because it cannot be explained without names; besides, the\nnames own the papers. Everybody understands it; nobody minds it. Is any\nstatute here at fault? Will any legislation cure this? If the moral\nsensibility of our people should become tensified by twenty per cent\nin twenty-four hours, twenty per cent of all our iniquities in every\ndepartment would cease in forty-eight hours. Government is carried\non by the lightning of personal suggestion which flashes through the\ncommunity from day to day and from moment to moment. Those things are\ndone which are demanded or are tolerated at the instant they are done.\n\nI read in a newspaper that a syndicate has been formed to light the\ncity. It is backed by the men who control the city administration,\nand they are now blackmailing the existing company to its ruin. Can I\nescape the knowledge of this thing? Alas, too easily: I own stock in it.\n\nAt first we think the legislature makes the laws, then we see it is\ndone by a cabal, then by people behind the cabal, finally by the\nmillion bonds of popular prejudice which tie each man up with the times.\n\nLook closely, take some particular man, and consider why it is that\nhe does not spend his whole time in fighting for virtue. It will\nturn out, that in some form or other, he is a beneficiary of these\nevils, and has not the energy to fight them. One man depends upon the\n_status quo_ for his living, the next is held by affection for his\nfriends, by the ties of old prejudice, by inertia, by hopelessness.\nWhich of them is the more deeply injured victim of tyranny,--the active\nself-seeker or the listless man, the Tammany boy or the American\ngentleman?\n\nEvery man bears a direct and discoverable share in the responsibility.\nA janitor keeps his place through Tammany influence, a young lawyer\ngets business by keeping his mouth shut. Follow out the lines leading\nfrom any man, no matter how obscure he is, and they will lead you to\nthe ante-chamber where gigantic business has its offices, where the\nhighest functionaries of commerce and politics meet. The business world\nis all one organization. It is a sort of secret society, a great web.\nNo matter where you touch it, the same spiders come out.\n\nThe boss system, then, appears as the visible part of all the private\nselfishness in America. It is a great religion of self-interest, with\nits hierarchy, its chapels, its propaganda, and its confessors in\nevery home. You yourself support it. I saw last week, at your table,\na magnate whose business conduct you deplore, and to-day I heard a\nyoung man make the comment, that there was no use fighting the current\nso long as social influence could be bought. Do not accuse Tammany\nHall; you yourself have corrupted that young man. So long as you think\nyou can circumvent the laws of force, you will remain a pillar in the\ntemple of iniquity.\n\nBut look closer still at each of those individuals, and see just what\nit is he is giving as the purchase money. One man gives $25,000 to\npay a president\u2019s private debts, and goes as minister to England;\nanother gives merely his name to indorse a doubtful candidate for the\nassembly, and receives prospective good will from the organization.\nWhat is this great market overt where every one can get what he wants?\nThe syndicate can get the franchises, and the aldermen the cash. No\none is too small to be served, or so great as to require nothing.\nUpon what principle is this monstrous bazaar, this clearing-house for\nself-interest, conducted? It is as large as the United States--the\ntranscontinental railroads use it--and so well managed that I can get\nmy friend a job as the secretary of a reform movement. What is it\nthat makes this universal shop run so smoothly? It is hooked together\nsimply on business principles. The price you pay is always the rubbing\nof somebody the right way; the thing you get is advancement or\npersonal comfort of some sort. It has happened, that by the operation\nof commercial forces, the whole of America\u2019s seventy million people\nhave been polarized into self-seekers; and our total condition is\nvisibly Vanity Fair. You can actually follow the rays of power from\nthe individual to the boss. All the evil in the world is seen to be\nin league. Embezzlement and laziness, selfish ambition and prejudice,\ncruelty and timidity here openly play into each other\u2019s hands, support\nand console each other. Nay, every atom of vice, every impulse of\nmalice or cupidity, can be shown up as a tendon or a sinew of the great\norganization of selfish forces. It is as if a magic glass had been\nsuperposed upon the continent, and, looking down through it, upon the\nmotives of men, all complexity vanished, and we saw all the evil forces\npulling one way.\n\nThe same thing has always been true in every society; but the names,\npowers, superstitions have been so extremely complicated that no one\ncould follow the laws of interlocking motive, except by inference and\nprophetic insight. Take the case of a very selfish man fighting his\nway up through society in the reign of Louis XVIII. He meets a Bourbon\ninfluence, an ecclesiastical influence, a Napoleonic influence, a\nrepublican influence. He grapples with every man he meets, using the\nhooks of self-interest in that man. The forces at work under Louis\nXVIII. were as simple as with us. Only the nomenclature is different,\nand more complex. It is easy in America to see the working of one man\u2019s\nselfishness upon another\u2019s. Let alone the market overt, it is easy to\ntrace the subtle social relations, when they are for the bad. It was\neasy to follow the effect of your conduct in asking the dishonest\nbusiness magnate to dinner, because the young man spoke of it. He was\nshocked and injured. But we also found out by the episode that before\nyou did the thing, you were really a factor for good in his life,\nholding up his conscience and his ideals.\n\nThe inexpressible subtlety in the mechanism of man makes the\ntransmission of the force for good as easy as that of the force for\nevil. They are of the same character, and very often flow through the\nsame channels. There is no more mystery in the one case than in the\nother.\n\nConsider what is done in the course of any practical movement for\nreform. A bad bill is pending at Albany. In order to beat it, a party\nof men whose characters are trusted, get on a train, and the whole\nState watches them proceed to Albany. This is often enough to defeat\na measure. The good their pilgrimage does, is done then and there\ninstantly, by example, by suggestion. If, when they get to Albany,\nthey sell out their cause, the harm they do is done then and there\nby example, by suggestion. They make some concession which lessens\nfriction but suggests Tammany Hall. This is the only part of the\ntransaction that reaches the great public. Ask the laboring man\nand he will give you a digest of the whole episode in a shrug. If a\nreform candidate is running on the platform \u201cThou shalt not steal,\u201d\nand the boss desires to corrupt him, the boss asks him to drop in for\na chat. If he goes, every one hears of it the next day, and every one\nis a little corrupted himself. A thousand well-meaning men say he did\nright. Had he resisted, these same men would have cried \u201cBravo!\u201d and\nthereafter taken a higher view of human nature. It is by a succession\nof such minute shocks of good or bad example that communities are\naffected. The truth seems to be that our lives are ruled by laws of\ninfluence which are in themselves exceedingly direct. But the operation\nof them is concealed from us by our preoccupation over details.\n\nIt is impossible to regard these matters in too simple a light. Nothing\nis ever involved except the contagious impulse that makes one man yawn\nwhen he sees another man yawn. Both the good and the evil in the world\nrun upon the winds. Moses\u2019 habit of falling upon his face before the\ncongregation, and calling God to witness that he could lead them no\nlonger, was not a political trick done to frighten the people into\nsubmission by the threat of abandoning them. It was a sincere act of\ndevotion; but it was also the most powerful form of appeal. He did\nthe act; they followed in it, and thus made him absolute. Lincoln\u2019s\nanecdotes and fables consisted of nothing but suggestion. They were\none source of his power. The first thing a tyrant does is to suppress\ncartoons. Here we have something that is often sheer pantomime, and yet\nit is one of the most effective vehicles in the world. It was the only\nthing Platt could not stand. Within two years he has tried to stop it\nby legislation.\n\nIf you are to reach masses of people in this world, you must do it\nby a sign language. Whether your vehicle be commerce, literature, or\npolitics, you can do nothing but raise signals, and make motions to\nthe people. In literature this is obvious. The more far-reaching any\ntruth is, the shorter grow its hieroglyphics. The great truths can\nonly be given in hints, phrases, and parables. They lie in universal\nexperience, and any comment belittles them. They are like the magnetic\npoles that can only be pointed out with a needle. Take any profound\nsaying about life, and see if it does not imply short-hand, a sort of\ntelegraphy as the ordinary means of communication between men. \u201cHe\nthat loseth his life shall save it.\u201d Here we have a poem, a system of\nethics and a psychology. Or take any bit of worldly wisdom, \u201cMoney\ntalks.\u201d Here we have the whole philosophy of materialism. Does any one\nimagine that political bargains are reduced to writing? It would be\ninjurious to the conscience. They are made by the merest hints on all\nsides. Every one is left free.\n\nThe extreme case of the power of suggestion is seen in the\nstock-market, where a rumor that Banker A has dined with Railroad\nPresident B drives values up or down. Cleveland\u2019s Venezuela message\nmakes a panic. The different parts of the financial world live, from\nday to day, in instantaneous and throbbing communication. This is one\nside of the popular life. Its thermometer is sensitive, and records one\nthousandth of a degree as readily as the political thermometer records\na single degree. But the principle is the same. All the people run the\nstock-market, and all the people run politics. There has never been any\ndifficulty in reaching the whole people with ideas. Even a private man\ncan do it. But he must act them out.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nPRINCIPLES (_continued_).\n\n\nSuppose a small child steals jam in the pantry. So long as he pretends\nthat he did not do it, or did not know it was wrong, he suffers a\ncertain oppression.\n\nYou can explain to an intelligent child that if he tells the whole\ntruth about the thing, the telling will cost him pain and leave him\nhappy. But you cannot save him the pain. So long as he persists in\nlying, some of his faculties lie under an inhibition; the vital\nenergies flow past them instead of through them. The first shock of a\nthrough passage gives a spasm of pain, and then the child is happy. It\nis one of the facts of the world that moral awakening is accompanied by\npain.\n\nThe quarrel that the world has with its agitators is that they do\nreally agitate. People express this by saying that the men are\ndangerous or have bad taste. The epithets vary with the age. They are\nintended to excite public contempt, and they embody the aversions of\nsociety. In a martial age the reformer is called a molly-coddle; in a\ncommercial age an incompetent, a disturber of values; in a fanatical\nage, a heretic. If an agitator is not reviled, he is a quack.\n\nThese epithets are mere figures of speech. What they really express\nis suffering caused by the workings of conscience. And so in any\neducational movement that runs across the country, there is always a\ntrack of pain turning to happiness. When we get in the path of one of\nthese things, we find that the division between contending ideas passes\nthrough the individual man. It does not fall between men. The struggle\nis always the struggle of forces within an individual. A is trying to\nconvince B. The struggle in A\u2019s mind is to make the matter clear, in\nB\u2019s mind to make the opposite clear. In the course of time one view\nprevails; but the struggle continues, for B occupies A\u2019s position and\nis now struggling to convince C. It is in this way that a movement\nruns through a community. The firing line passes through a series of\nindividuals, and as they succumb, through them to the next.\n\nIf you take any particular case of conflict, you will find that the\nman is divided between two courses, one of which is disagreeable\nbecause it involves effort and sacrifice and offence. The other is\nagreeable because it involves personal ease or personal advancement.\nThe two motives in man result from the structure of his brain, whose\noperations we are obliged to accept: we cannot amend them; they are the\nfacts of psychology.\n\nIt would seem as if the brain of man were so constituted that at\nthe moment of its full operation the man himself disappears. His\nconsciousness becomes wholly occupied with impersonal interests.\nThus, in the process of thought, a man begins to see his own personal\ninterests threatened. If he continues to think, they must vanish.\nThis is the struggle between right and wrong. It is really a struggle\nbetween two attitudes of mind. It is the experience we suffer when\nthe mind is passing from the self-regardant to the non-self-regardant\nattitude.\n\nPerhaps the discomfort of doing one\u2019s duty is an inseparable incident\nof the storage of energy, and the pleasure of neglecting one\u2019s duty,\nan incident of the leakage of energy. When I get up and poke the\nfire, because I see it will go out if I don\u2019t, I return to my chair\na more energetic being than I was the moment before. At any rate, our\noscillation between two states of consciousness has preoccupied mankind\nfrom the earliest times, and has given rise to all the dualistic\nphilosophies. The great fact as to the reality of the struggle is\nproved to us, not merely by our own consciousness, but because we can\nsee the logical results of it everywhere in society.\n\nA community is a collection of palpitating animals. Each of us is one\nof them, and each of us receives and transmits millions of impressions\nhourly. We get heard. We have our exact weight and force. There is no\ndifficulty about our power of intercourse. Indeed it is the thing we\ncannot get away from. No man walks by himself. Between his feet and\nthe ground are invisible pedals that play upon, and are played upon by\nother men. You cannot live or move except by transmitting influence.\nThe whole of practical life is made up of contact with the passions of\nothers. A lawyer or a broker is like an engineer who sits behind his\nmachine, managing its levers and its stopcocks. A trader, a writer, or\na philanthropist, a laborer or a clergyman, does nothing but open and\nshut valves in other people. There is no other way of serving your\nfellows; there is no other way of earning your living or of wasting\nyour substance.\n\nWe saw that in politics it was impossible to draw a dividing line\nanywhere in that series of men whose joint activity and inactivity held\nup what we call the evils of politics. Money interest shaded off into\nprejudice, and that into mistaken loyalty, and that into indifference.\nThe striking truth about the whole series was that it showed different\nshades of selfishness, lack of energy, and inability to use the mind\naccurately. So also any unselfish or accurate use of his mind by the\nlaborer or by the journalist was, as we saw, apt to throw him out of\nemployment.\n\nIn politics and in morals, all that we condemn, turns out on inspection\nto be mere selfishness. But anything in the world that we dislike,\nturns out, on inspection, to be self-regardant effort or avoidance\nof effort. Bad art may show the gross selfishness of the pot-boiler,\nor the refined laziness of prejudice, or the mere weakness that was\nunable to see the world for itself, and has been forced to see it\nwith some one else\u2019s eyes. It is a makeshift. So of bad carpentry or\nbad cooking. There is no such special province in life as morality.\nEach man regards that thing as immoral which he sees to be selfish. A\nproofreader will show the same indignation over a careless job, that a\nmusician shows over a weak phrasing.\n\nThe unimaginable subtlety of our comprehension enables us to detect\nselfishness in arts of whose methods we know nothing; we read it like\nlarge print. To speak accurately, all we get from any communication\nis a transcript, an image, a picture of the author\u2019s thought, the jar\nof intellect and character. Is it supposed that communication between\nmen goes forward by ratiocination, or that education is a thing taken\nin by linear measurement? Thought cannot creep, but only fly. It\nproceeds by the magic of stimulation. A good judge can read a good\nbrief almost as fast as he can turn the pages. If a thing is well put,\nit is almost our own before it is said. Ideas pass into us so quickly\nthat Plato thought we knew them in a former existence. This is due to\nthe subtlety of our apprehension. We are not satisfied except by an\nappeal so refined that our only sensation is one of being made more\nalive. \u201cRien ne me choque\u201d was Chopin\u2019s highest praise. What wonder,\nthen, that we resent the self-sufficiency of any inferior mind? The\nwhole of life is no more than a series of pulsations, and all the books\nand Bibles, sign-boards, music-boxes, and telegraph wires are the\nmachinery by which in one way or another the mind of man touches the\nmind of man. The world has been going on for so long that we have many\nsuch devices, and out of the millions that have been made, all but the\nvery best get discarded as old lumber. These things are the language of\nthe unselfish force upon the globe. It is much nearer truth to think\nof them as a single influence than as multifarious. Their origin and\ntendency, their practical utility, the veneration in which they are\nheld, bind them together and make them one. For the world values the\nseer above all men, and has always done so. Nay, it values all men\nin proportion as they partake of the character of seers. The Elgin\nMarbles and a decision of John Marshall are valued for the same reason.\nWhat we feel in them is a painstaking submission to facts beyond the\nauthor\u2019s control, and to ideas imposed upon him by his vision. So with\nBeethoven\u2019s Symphonies, with Adam Smith\u2019s \u201cWealth of Nations,\u201d--with\nany conceivable output of the human mind of which you approve. You love\nthem because you say, \u201cThese things were not made, they were seen.\u201d\n\nThus the forces of an unselfish sort upon the globe are cumulative.\nThe dead heroes fight on forever, and the dead mathematicians expound\nforever. It is true that the organization of the selfish forces is\noverwhelmingly visible, and that of the unselfish ones invisible.\nNapoleon is seen by his contemporaries; Spinoza is not seen. The reason\nis simple. The man who wants something must have an office address.\nBut the man who wants nothing for himself, but spends his whole time\nin so using his mind that he himself disappears, lives only as an\ninfluence in the minds of others. He is a song, a theory, a proposition\nin algebra. These two conflicting forms of force are then flashed up\nand down, forward and back ceaselessly, through and across every social\nmeeting, through and across society. The novelists and playwrights\ndeal with this instantaneous interplay of motive; and the time-honored\nanalysis of self for self on the villain\u2019s side, and sacrifice for\nprinciple on the hero\u2019s side is a true thing. It is a fair abstract of\nthe world.\n\nYou can illustrate in an instant the immediacy of these two hierarchies\nof power under which we live and from which we cannot escape. The\nselfish ones need not be named; they oppress us. But the unselfish\nones are equally near. If you take any bit of poetry or speech or\nwriting that you consider great, and examine it, you will find that it\nillustrates the logical coherence of all the ideas and feelings that\nmake you happy; it is a digest of a law of influence. Or conversely,\nif you set about to illustrate some experience, and if you can get it\nprofoundly and accurately stated as what you believe to be the bottom\ntruth, it will turn under your hands into something familiar. If you\nare successful, it will be a kind of poetry.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nCONCLUSION\n\n\nThere is force enough in ordinary sunshine to turn all the mills in the\nworld; and there is beneficent energy enough in any community to make\nthe people perfectly happy. But it is cramped and deflected, poisoned\nby misuse, and turned to hateful ends. The question is how to liberate\nenergy.\n\nPeople are fond of thinking the millennium is impossible; but so long\nas happiness is dependent on a right use of the faculties, there is\nno reason why the millennium should not be reached, and that soon or\nunexpectedly. We all know individuals so harmoniously framed that we\nsay, \u201cIf theirs were the common temper of mankind, we should be happy.\u201d\nNone of the externals of life, about which there is so much buffeting,\ncontrol the question. Happiness is in a nutshell. Anybody can have it.\nYou are happy if you get out of bed on the right side. I can never stop\nwondering at the awful simplicity of the principle on which mankind\nis constructed. Little Alice in the Looking-Glass could not reach the\nporch till she turned her back on it and walked straight into the door.\nRenounce the search for happiness and you find the substance. There is\nnothing else in the law and the prophets.\n\nWe see most men like tee-totums spinning to the left and leading a\ndismal life. How shall we get their motive power to spin them to the\nright, and make them happy? The practical question is: how to use the\npower of sunlight to turn our mills. How can we hold up a prism to\nthe times that shall disintegrate these rays of complex force, and\nthen adjust a lens that shall focus the powers of good and make them\nturn the wheels of society? The elements are before us, ceaselessly in\nmotion. \u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1 \u1fe5\u03b5\u1fd6. The most adamantine institutions are cloud palaces.\nThere is no stability anywhere; and if you have a steady eye you will\nsee that the whole fabric is in a flux. Nor are the changes arbitrary.\nThe formations and re-formations are governed by laws as certain as\nthose of astronomy. Study the changes and you will find the laws.\nSubserve the laws and you can affect the formations. Julius C\u00e6sar did\nno more.\n\nThe strands of prejudice and passion that bind people together pulsate\nwith life. All these fellow-citizens are human beings, and there is no\none of them whom we cannot understand, reach, influence. The ordinary\nmodes of intercourse are at hand. Chief among them you find the great\nmachinery of government. It dwarfs every other agency, whether for good\nor ill. In America this machinery was designed to be at the service of\nanybody. It is an advertising agency for ideas, and it is very much\nmore than this; since the fact that a man is to vote forces him to\nthink. You may preach to a congregation by the year and not affect its\nthought because it is not called upon for definite action. But throw\nyour subject into a campaign and it becomes a challenge. You can get\nassent to almost any proposition so long as you are not going to do\nanything about it. And on the other hand, no amount of verbal proof\nwill justify a new thought until it has been put in practice.\n\nAlas for ink and paper! There is in all speech and writing a\nconventional presumption that human beings shall be logical, or fixed\nquantities, or at least coherent creatures. For the purposes of an\nessay or a speech, you prove your case, and carry weight accordingly.\nIf you are very cogent and conclusive, why, you win. Hurrah! the world\nis saved. But in real life there are no fixed quantities; all the terms\nare variables.\n\nFor example, everybody understands what is meant by the \u201cMoral Law.\u201d\nPeople differ only as to the application of that law. Not long ago I\nheard a sermon on this law, in which great stress was laid on the fact\nthat it was a discovered law whereby the truth prevailed. Any truce\nwith evil meant defeat for the cause of righteousness. This was the law\nof God, tested by experience, and in constant operation like the law\nof gravity, a thing you could not escape. The preacher pictured the\nsolitary struggle of the great man seeking truth, his proclamation of\nthe truth, the refusal of the world to receive it, and the prophet\u2019s\nisolation and apparent failure. Nevertheless what the prophet said had\nalways the same content. It was an appeal to the instincts of man upon\nthe question of right and wrong, and in the end it was accepted.\n\nNow the man who made this exposition, and it was admirable, is in\nregard to politics a believer in compromise. I think I have never known\nhim support the idealist cause in a campaign; and upon most occasions\nof crisis he is found heartily throwing stones at the crusaders.\n\nWhat words in any language can make this man understand that his\nlaw--which he really does profoundly understand as a law--applies\nto reform movements? Why, no words will do it, only example. New\nstatements about morality, however eloquent, add nothing to our\nknowledge. Everything is known about the moral law, except how you\nyourself will act under given circumstances. You have nothing but\nexample to contribute.\n\nPeople interrogate force. They are unconvinced, and are carried,\nstill protesting, through the air and deposited in a new place. And\nthen, thereafter, they agree with you about the whole matter. Mere\nintellectual assent to your proposition is, even when you can get it,\nworth nothing. Your object is not to confute, but to stimulate. What\nyou really want is that every man you meet shall drop his business\nand devote his entire life and energy to your cause. You will accept\nnothing less than this. Is it not clear that people are not moved by\nlogic? Your conduct must ultimately square with reason and be justified\nby the laws of the universe and the constitution of other people\u2019s\nminds; but you must value only that approval which comes from the\ndeeper fibres in men. You need not be concerned about the bickerings of\ncontemporary misunderstanding. Leave these for the historical society.\nAct first--explain afterwards. That is the way to get heard. Must you\nshow your passport and certificate of birth and legitimacy to every\neditor and every lackey? They\u2019ll find out who you are by and by. It\nis easier to knock a man down than to say why you do it. The act is\nsometimes needed, and wisdom then approves it after the event. People\nwho love soft methods and hate iniquity forget this,--that reform\nconsists in taking a bone from a dog. Philosophy will not do it.\n\nSuch are the practical dictates of agitation. Their justification lies\nalways with events. It may be that you must wait seven centuries for an\naudience, or it may be that in two years your voice will be heeded. If\nyou are really a forerunner of better times, the times will appear and\nexplain you. It will then turn out that your movement was the keynote\nof the national life. You really differed from your neighbors only in\nthis,--that your mind had gone faster than theirs along the road all\nwere travelling.\n\nWe are all slaves of the age; we can only see such principles as\nsociety reveals. The philosophy of other ages does us little good.\nWe repeat the old formulas and cry up the prophets; but we see\nno connection between the truth we know so well in print and its\ncounterpart in real life. The moral commonplaces, as, for instance,\n\u201cHonesty is the best policy,\u201d \u201cA single just man can influence an\nentire community,\u201d \u201cNever compromise a principle,\u201d are social truths.\nThey are always true, but they are only obviously true in very virtuous\ncommunities. In a vile community the influence of a just man is potent\nbut not visible. In a perfectly virtuous era it is clear that a cheat\ncould not drive a fraudulent trade.\n\nA seer is a man with such sharp eyes for cause and effect that he sees\nsocial truth, even under unfavorable conditions. And yet even the\nseers generally had auspicious weather,--that is to say, storms of\nmoral passion. The whole race of Jews lived in fervent exaltation for\ngenerations, and revealed to their sharp-sighted prophets deep glimpses\nof social truth. Hence the Bible. \u201cA prophet is not without honor save\nin his own country.\u201d What happy precision! What sound generalization!\nBut every township in Israel had its prophet, and the truth was a\ncommonplace.\n\nAll the world\u2019s moral wisdom would turn into literal truth upon the\nregeneration of society. It tends to become obvious in regenerative\neras. In dark ages it becomes paradox. Standards are multiplied, and\nmakeshift theories come in,--one rule for social conduct, another for\nbusiness, another for politics. Expedient supplants principle. Indeed\nyou may gauge the degradation of an age by the multiplicity of its\nstandards. It is the same with the fine arts. To the men that made\nthe statues and the pictures, these things were the shortest symbols\nof truth, and required no explanation. In the dark ages that followed\nthey became a mystery and a paradox. But the traditions and objects\nsurvived and had to be accounted for. An age that cannot produce them\nrequires a philosophy of \u00e6sthetics. Thus a thousand reasons are given\nto explain their existence, and finally it is agreed that they are\nsomething superfluous and fictitious,--conventional lies, like poetry,\nlike loving your neighbor.\n\nNothing but a general increase of interest in the aspect of common\nthings would explain to us the great masters. A revival of interest in\nthe way the world looks is the precursor of painting: the perceptions\nof every one are quickening. And so we may be sure that we are upon the\nedge of a better era when the old moral commonplaces begin to glow like\njewels and the stones to testify.\n\nYou cannot expect any one but a scientist to be startled at the\nmovement of a glacier. But if you distribute a few micrometric\ninstruments upon that gloomy ice-field, the American civic\nconsciousness, and if you take observations not oftener than once\nin three years, you will be startled. The direction of the general\nmovement is absolutely right. But it all moves together. Special signs\nof progress imply general progress, and hence comes the extraordinary\nand scientific interest in the awakening of this community. It is like\na man lapsed into the deepest coma who is beginning to stir. Watch\nhim, take his pulse, surround him with every apparatus of experimental\nphysiology, and you will find the laws of health, the norm of progress.\n\nArt and literature, and that moral atmosphere which makes a society\nworth moving in, lie on the other side of the great reaction, the\nspiritual revival which we see now faintly beginning; and it is\nbecause these things can be got at only by stimulating American\ncharacter that these reform movements are of value. Here at least the\ncirculation throbs. Political reform--that is to say, a political life\nin which men who are personally honest predominate, a politics run\nby ideas--will come in as fast as the public develops ideas, and not\nbefore. But an idea is something very different from what you who read\nthis think it is. An idea is a thing that governs your conduct all\nthe time. For instance, you assent to the notion of independence in\npolitics; you understand the lost-cause theory, but you won\u2019t vote the\nticket. Why? You don\u2019t want to get out of your class. The relations\nbetween thought and action in you are not normal. Half of your brain\nhas never functioned, and the paralysis shows in your politics. You\nhave no idea. It is not this sort of idea that expels rascals or makes\nbooks or music. What passes for political thought in your vocabulary\nis like the phantasma in the brain of the Indian priest who is buried\nwith the corn growing above him. The average educated man in America\nhas about as much knowledge of what a political idea is as he has of\nthe principles of counterpoint. Each is a thing used in politics or\nmusic which those fellows who practise politics or music manipulate\nsomehow. Show him one and he will deny that it is politics at all. It\nmust be corrupt or he will not recognize it. He has only seen dried\nfigs. He has only thought dried thoughts. A live thought or a real idea\nis against the rules of his mind.\n\nImagine a tea-party of pre-Raphaelites discussing Dante; they dote on\nhis style, his passion, his force, his quality. In walks Dante, grim,\nremorseless, harsh, powerful. The man represents everything they hate.\nHe is a horror and an outrage. The whole region of literature that\nthese men live in is not more fictitious than the region of political\nthought in which the effete American--I mean your banker, your college\npresident, your writer of editorial leaders--lives. Exclude for the\nmoment those who are financially corrupt and consider only the men of\nintellect, and in all that concerns politics they are as removed from\nreal ideas as Rossetti was removed from the real Dante.\n\nImagine a company of people on a voyage. They play whist with one\nanother for dimes, and they spend all their money on the steward and\ncontinue to play with counters, and the ship goes to wreck, and they\nsit on the beach and continue to play with pebbles. That is American\npolitics. The whole thing is one gigantic sham, one transcendent fraud.\n\nIt makes no difference which man is made president; it makes no\ndifference which is governor. There is no choice between McKinley and\nBryan, between Republicanism and Democracy. There is no difference\nbetween them. They are one thing. They both and all of them are part\nof the machinery by which the government of a most dishonest nation\nis carried on, for the financial benefit of certain parties,--certain\nthousands of men who have bank accounts and eat and drink and bring up\ntheir families on the proceeds of this complicated swindle.\n\nThere is no reality in a single phrase uttered in politics, no meaning\nin one single word of any of it. There is no man in public life who\nstands for anything. They are shadows; they are phantasmagoria. At\nbest they cater to the better elements; at worst they frankly subserve\nthe worst. There is no one who stands for his own ideas himself, by\nhimself, a man. If American politics does not look to you like a joke,\na tragic dance; if you have enough blindness left in you, on any plea,\non any excuse, to vote for the Democratic party or the Republican\nparty (for at present machine and party are one), or for any candidate\nwho does not stand for a new era,--then you yourself pass into the\nslide of the magic-lantern; you are an exhibit, a quaint product, a\ncuriosity of the American soil. You are part of the problem, and you\nmust be educated and drawn forward towards real life. This process is\ngoing on. As the community returns to life, it sees the natural world\nfor a moment and then forgets it. The blood flushes the brain and then\nrecedes. You yourself voted once against both parties, when you thought\nyou could win, and when you were excited. You quoted Isaiah and I know\nnot what poetry, and were out and out committed to principle; but\nto-day you are cold and hopeless. At present, hope is a mystery to you.\nNevertheless the utility of those early reform movements survives. They\nheated the imagination of the people till the people had a momentary\nvision of truths which not all of them forgot; and so each year the\ntemperature has been higher, the mind of the community clearer.\n\nWe must not regard those broken reeds, the renegade leaders of reform\nmovements, as villains; though the mere record of their words and\nconduct might prove them such. They have been men emerging from a mist.\nThey see clearly for a moment, and then clouds sweep before them.\nVanity, selfishness, ambition, tradition, habit, intervene like a fog.\nThey have been betrayed, too, by the fickle public, that would not\nstand by them when in trouble. In the recapture of any institution by\nthe forces of honesty there are trenches that get filled by slaughtered\nhonor.\n\nThis whole revolution means the invasion of politics by new men. At\nfirst they are tyros, unstable, untried, well-meaning fellows. Half of\nthem crack in the baking. But there are more coming, and the fibre is\ngrowing tougher and the eyes clearer; soon we shall have men. A great\npassion is soon to replace the feeble conscientious motive that has\nhitherto brought the new men forward: ambition,--the ambition to stand\nfor ideas, for ideas only, and to get heard. We have almost forgotten\nthat public life is the natural ambition of every young man. Conditions\nhave made it contemptible. But these struggles signify that a change in\nthose conditions has already begun. Your work and mine may be summed up\nin one word. Make it possible for a young man to go into public life\nuntarnished, and as an enemy to every extant evil. You must have men\nwho will not go except on these terms. The times herald such men. They\nwill appear. We must prepare for them.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe reason for the slow progress of the world seems to lie in a\nsingle fact. Every man is born under the yoke, and grows up beneath\nthe oppressions of his age. He can only get a vision of the unselfish\nforces in the world by appealing to them, and every appeal is a call\nto arms. If he fights he must fight, not one man, but a conspiracy.\nHe is always at war with a civilization. On his side is proverbial\nphilosophy, a galaxy of invisible saints and sages, and the\nhalf-developed consciousness and professions of everybody. Against him\nis the world, and every selfish passion in his own heart. The instant\nhe declares war, every inducement is offered to make him stop. \u201cToil,\nenvy, want, the patron, and the jail\u201d intervene. The instant he stops\nfighting he is allied with the enemy: he is bought up by prejudice or\nby fatigue. He begins to realize the importance of particular visible\ninstitutions, as if their sole value did not come from the fraction\nof unselfishness they represent. He rushes headlong into trade, and\nthenceforth can see his country only as a series of trade interests.\nHe gets into some church and begins to value its organization, or\ninto some party and begins to value its past, or into some club and\nbegins to value his friends\u2019 feelings. The consequence is that you\nmay search Christendom and hardly find a man who is free. The advance\nof the world, like the improvement of our local politics, has always\nbeen the work of young men. It is done by men before their minds\nhave been worn into ruts by particular businesses, or their sight\nshortened by the study of near things. What we love in the young is\nnot their youth, but their force. The energy that runs through them\nmakes them sensitive. They feel the importance of remote things, and\ninfer the relations of the present to the future more truly than their\nelders. They are touched by hints. The direct language of humanity is\nplain and native to them. The invisible waves of force which do as a\nmatter of fact rule the world, using its fictions and its phrases as\nmere transmitting-plates, strike keenly upon the heart of the youth,\nand the vibrations of instinctive passion that shake his frame are\nthe response of a strong creature to the laws of its universe. This\nunlearned knowledge of good and evil is like the response of the\neyes to light or of the tongue to the taste of a fruit. It was not\nindoctrinated; it is a reaction to a stimulus.\n\nSo long as the world shall last, men will be writing books in order to\nexplain and justify the instincts; inventing theologies and ethical\ncodes, and projecting political programs to advance and confirm them.\n\nIf you take up some particular matter and begin to trace out its\nconsequences upon mankind, you find yourself forced boldly to embrace\nthe sum of all human destiny. We cannot follow out this course in\ndetail. We see only tendency; we see only influence. Enlarge our\nhorizon as we will, we cannot live out the lives of all future\ngenerations, and thus furnish an answer to the first caviller who\ninterrupts our argument with a \u201ccui bono.\u201d The generous impulses of\nyouth represent a vision of consequences. They take in more of the\nfuture at one glance than a philosopher can state in a year.\n\nCertainly, so far as we can follow out the threads of influence, the\nlines seem to converge. They make a figure and point to a conclusion\nexactly upon that spot in the firmament where instinct would place\nit. If philosophy gives us a diagram, the rest of life fills it up,\nand embellishes it with infinite illustration. The proofs multiply,\nand are hurled in upon us from all quarters of life and all provinces\nof endeavor. The anecdotes and fables of the world, its drama, its\npoetry and fiction, its religion and piety, its domestic teaching and\nits monuments support this instinct, and describe the same figure.\nFurther still, there is not a man who does not reveal it in his soul\u2019s\nanatomy: so much so that upon every occasion except where his interests\nare touched, he is for virtue, and even where they are touched, it is\nonly a question of a few degrees more heat to dissolve the habits and\nprejudices of a lifetime, and make him take off his coat and go into a\nwar or a political campaign.\n\nA single man, as we see him in one of the great modern civilizations,\nlooks like a bit of machinery, a cog or a crank or an air-brake. The\nbusiness man is especially mechanical, his functions are so accurate,\nso delimited and specialized. And yet any theory that dwells upon\nthese limitations is put to shame in five minutes, for the creature\neats and sheds tears before your eyes. All of the reasons for not\ndoing some particular act that you think wise to be done, turn out to\nbe founded on the idea that this man is a driving-wheel, and nothing\nbut a driving-wheel. You cannot change him, they say, you must take\nhim as he is. I have never heard any argument given against the wisdom\nof righteousness, except the existence of evil. \u201cIt exists, therefore\nsubserve it.\u201d Is it not clear that evil exists only because people\nsubserve it? It has no fixity. Withdraw your support and it begins\nto perish. One man says, \u201cOh, let the world go. All the wickedness\nand unhappiness in it are inevitable.\u201d Another says, \u201cSome little\nconcession to present conditions must be made.\u201d Nothing can be said to\njustify the second man that is not moral support to the first. Your\nconcession is always the acknowledgment of somebody\u2019s weakness. Now\nyou may make allowances for a man who has not come up to the mark; but\nif you make allowances for him beforehand, and assume that he is not\ngoing to do right, you corrupt him. If these things are true, then we\nare absolved from all complicity with vice. We need never take a course\nthat requires to be explained. We thus get rid of a great oppression\nand can breathe freely. In the language of the old piety, Christian\u2019s\npack falls from his back. That pack has, in all ages, been a perversion\nof the conscience, a mistake as to the size of the universe.\n\nWe have seen all these ranks and armies of humanity pass in review\nbefore us, each man with his eyes fixed in mesmeric intensity upon\nsome set of opinions, until he grew to be the thing he looked on.\nThese opinions of his are all we know of him. They are not our own\nopinions. They often appear to us misguided and illusory; yet there\nis always to be found in them the light of some benevolence. They are\nlike broken mirrors and give back fractions of a larger idea. The hope\nand courage in each of these men bless and advance the world; but not\nin the way that the men themselves expect. They seem all to be bent\nover a game of chess, where every move has its real significance upon\nanother board which they do not see. Each man seems to be following\nsome will-o\u2019-the-wisp across a landscape at night. No cannon can waken\nthese insensate sleepers. And yet they are tracing out patterns and\ngeometrical diagrams upon the sward; they are weaving a magical dance\nthat, for all its intricacy, has a planetary rhythm, and the sober\nmotion of a pendulum. Each individual in this unthinkable host gives\nan instance of the same fatality; first, that he becomes the thing he\nlooks on, and second, that he accomplishes something that he does not\nunderstand.\n\nAnd both parts of this fatality must hold true of ourselves. Certainly,\nour subjection to the thing we look on is almost pitiable. We cannot\neven remember a righteous hatred without beginning to take color from\nthe thing we hate. Our goodness comes solely from thinking on goodness;\nour wickedness from thinking on wickedness. We too are the victims of\nour own contemplation.\n\nAs for the last half of that fatality, that keeps us forever ignorant\nof the true meaning of our lives, it is not an absolute ignorance, like\nour ignorance of how we came to exist. It is a qualified ignorance,\nlike our ignorance that we have hurt some one\u2019s feelings. The elements\nof understanding are within us: to-morrow the whole matter may become\nclear. The borders of our understanding extend, as we push outward\nour frontier of inquiry. This is both a frontier of scepticism, and\nof faith. It is a bulwark of doubt as to the value of our last new\nformula, and of faith as to the reality behind that formula. As we go\nforward, bringing our lives down to date, holding our experience at\narm\u2019s length and examining it with a merciless endeavor to wring the\ntruth out of it, we do, from day to day, get a clearer notion of the\nactual world, a truer idea of our own place in it. This qualified and\nmodest understanding of life, that comes from putting things together\nthat seem to go together, is within the power of any one.\n\nAnd we find this: the more unselfish men become, the more sensitive do\nthey become in understanding human relations. The gambler cannot see\nthat he is giving pain to his family; his self-indulgence has blunted\nhis sensibilities. The faith healer knows that he is curing a man in a\nneighboring State; his love for mankind has refined his sensibilities.\nMost of us stand somewhere between these two extremes in the scale of\nunderstanding, and are moving towards one or the other. Education,\nthen, is the process by which we gradually discover both the real\nnature of the human life about us, and our own relation to the whole of\nit. The process is never complete. Even poets and great men are in the\ndark about their own function; but they are less in the dark than the\nrest of us. They speak from a knowledge that is greater than ours. They\nhave a wonderful power over us; for they help us in our struggle to see\nthe world as it is.\n\n\n\n\nOTHER BOOKS BY JOHN JAY CHAPMAN\n\n_EMERSON_ AND OTHER ESSAYS\n\n12mo. $1.25.\n\n  Emerson. Walt Whitman. A Study of Romeo.\n  Michael Angelo\u2019s Sonnets. Robert Browning.\n  R. L. Stevenson. The Fourth Canto of the Inferno.\n\nMr. Chapman brings to bear on his task a rare store of critical\nperception and literary knowledge, while in his own style there is\nnothing to be found of the obscure or the inflated. The interesting\npart of Mr. Chapman\u2019s work is that he has something new to say about\neverything he touches.--_The Spectator._\n\n     \u2766 \u2766 \u2766\n\nThis Essay (Emerson) is the most effective critical attempt made in the\nUnited States, or I should suppose anywhere, to get near the sage of\nConcord.--HENRY JAMES.\n\n     \u2766 \u2766 \u2766\n\nWe shall hope to come across Mr. Chapman again. Few living critics go\nso straight to the heart of their problem, or waste so little time in\nwriting \u201cabout it and about.\u201d--_The Academy._\n\n\n_CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES_\n\n12mo. $1.25.\n\n  Politics. Society. Education.\n  Democracy. Government.\n\nNo one can read Mr. Chapman\u2019s book without finding in it something\ninstructive and suggestive. The author is an enthusiast for humanity\nconverted by stress of circumstances into a preacher against\ncorruption. His book is a manly appeal to the rising generation,\nfor whom it has a message of courage and hope sadly wanting\nnowadays.--_The Nation._\n\n     \u2766 \u2766 \u2766\n\nThis is a brilliant little book. Mr. Chapman wields a razor edge of\nforcible statement, and he is inspired by a moral passion that makes\nhis utterance a breathing, vital thing.--_The Academy._\n\n     \u2766 \u2766 \u2766\n\nThe author is essentially a critic, clear and incisive, at times rather\nsweeping in his generalities, yet always fresh and stimulating. His\nattack on the corruption of American politics is as vigorous a piece of\nwriting as one could desire.--_The Outlook._\n\n\n  CHARLES SCRIBNER\u2019S SONS, Publishers\n  153-157 Fifth Ave., New York\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber\u2019s Notes:\n\nVariations in hyphenation have been retained as published in the\noriginal book. Punctuation has been standardised.\n\nThe following change has been made:\n\n  Page 17\n    surge up and are scatttered _changed to_\n    surge up and are scattered","title":"Practical Agitation","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":33554}