{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_70579/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_70579","id":"gutenberg_70579","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/70579","summary":null,"tags":["American essays","Category: American Literature","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics"],"text":"AN AMERICAN RELIGION\n\n    Work\n    Play\n    Breathe\n    Bathe\n    Study\n    Laugh\n    Live\n    Love\n\n    \u00b6 I believe that no one can harm us but ourselves; that sin\n    is misdirected energy; that there is no devil but fear; and\n    that the Universe is planned for good \u2766 We know that work is a\n    blessing, that Winter is as necessary as Summer, that Night is\n    as useful as Day, that Death is a manifestation of Life, and\n    just as good. I believe in the Now and Here. I believe in you\n    and I believe in a power that is in ourselves that makes for\n    righteousness \u2766 \u2766 \u2766\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n                                   THE\n                                PHILOSOPHY\n                                    OF\n                              ELBERT HUBBARD\n\n                              [Illustration]\n\n                             THE ROYCROFTERS\n\n                           Copyright, 1916, by\n                             The Roycrofters\n\n    \u00b6 Of this edition of _The Philosophy of Elbert Hubbard_ there\n    have been printed 9983 copies on Roycroft watermarked paper,\n    made by hand, especially for The Roycrofters, at Fabriano,\n    Italy, and of the edition signed and numbered, this copy is\n    Number\n\n                             [Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n\u00b6 Why not make this a world of friends?\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n    The American Philosophy               11\n\n    Freedom and Responsibility            25\n\n    Corporal Punishment                   30\n\n    Purpled Ease                          39\n\n    Consecrated Lives                     57\n\n    Marriage and Divorce                  65\n\n    The Taxation of Church Property       79\n\n    Free Motherhood                       96\n\n    Why I Am a Philistine                104\n\n    Oral Righteousness                   122\n\n    The Health Habit                     128\n\n    The Elks\u2019 Creed                      134\n\n    Remember the Weekday                 143\n\n    Reciprocity                          148\n\n    Vaccination                          153\n\n    Equal Suffrage                       159\n\n    Just Boys                            163\n\n    The Sea                              168\n\n    Epigrams                             171\n\n\n\n\nCREDO\n\n_Elbert Hubbard_\n\n\n\u00b6 I believe in the Motherhood of God. I believe in the blessed Trinity\nof Father, Mother and Child. \u00b6 I believe that God is here, and that we\nare as near Him now as ever we shall be. I do not believe He started\nthis world a-going and went away and left it to run itself. I believe\nthat we are all sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall\nbe. I believe the only way we can reach the Kingdom of Heaven is to have\nthe Kingdom of Heaven in our hearts. \u00b6 I believe in freedom\u2014social,\neconomic, domestic, political, mental, spiritual \u2766 I believe in every man\nminding his own business. I believe in sunshine, fresh air, friendship,\ncalm sleep, beautiful thoughts. \u00b6 I believe in the purifying process of\nsorrow, and I believe that death is a manifestation of life. I believe\nthe Universe is planned for good \u2766\n\n\n\n\nTHE PHILOSOPHY OF ELBERT HUBBARD\n\n\n\n\nTHE RADIANT LIFE\n\n_Elbert Hubbard_\n\n\n\u00b6 I wish to be simple, honest, natural, frank, clean in mind and clean\nin body, unaffected\u2014ready to say \u201cI do not know,\u201d if so it be\u2014to meet\nall men on an absolute equality\u2014to face any obstacle and meet every\ndifficulty unafraid and unabashed \u2766 I wish to live without hate, whim,\njealousy, envy or fear. I wish others to live their lives, too\u2014up to\ntheir highest, fullest and best. To that end I pray that I may never\nmeddle, dictate, interfere, give advice that is not wanted, nor assist\nwhen my services are not needed. If I can help people, I will do it by\ngiving them a chance to help themselves; and if I can uplift or inspire,\nlet it be by example, inference and suggestion, rather than by injunction\nand dictation. I desire to Radiate Life \u2766 \u2766 \u2766\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nThe American Philosophy\n\n\nSo this, then, is an essay on the American Philosophy. The American\nPhilosophy is founded on the Science of Economics. \u00b6 Just here, in order\nthat we may speak a common language, a few definitions are in order.\nEconomics is the Science of the production, distribution and use of\nwealth. Science is accurate, organized knowledge founded on fact\u2014or, as\nHerbert Spencer expressed it, \u201cScience is the classified knowledge of the\ncommon people.\u201d All that which is simply assumed, believed, conjectured,\ntaken on dogmatic statement, or mayhap read out of printed books, is\nunscientific, no matter how plausible \u2766 All practical businessmen are\nscientists. \u00b6 Business is a vocation. Philosophy is\u2014or should be\u2014an\navocation. To make a business of philosophy is to institutionalize and\ndilute it, just as to institutionalize love and religion is to degrade\nand lose them. Religion is philosophy touched with emotion \u2766 Philosophy\nis your highest conception of life, its duties and its destiny. A\nreligious organization is a different thing from religion. A religious\norganization is built on a feeling made static, or fear frozen stiff.\nIt then becomes a superstition, and is employed as a police system, and\nis taxed all the traffic will bear. \u00b6 Science is definite, accurate,\norganized knowledge concerning the things that make up our environment.\nModern philosophy is the distilled essence of wisdom that eventually\nflows from science. Or, if you please, philosophy is the explanation\nof science\u2014a projection from science \u2766 Transportation, manufacturing,\ndistribution, advertising and salesmanship are all variants of\nbusiness. Each and all are scientific, that is, capable of analyzation\nand demonstration. Weight, size, color, number, qualities and time are\nall elements of science. \u00b6 Theology is antique and obsolete philosophy.\nIt never is nor ever was scientific, not being derived from knowledge.\nFaith is the first item in its formula. Theology comes to us from\ndogmatic statements gotten from books or the hearsay words of men long\ndead. Theology is voodooism; in matters of importance it is in the same\nclass as alchemy, astrology, palmistry, mantology and augury \u2766 Science\nis understood, while theology is believed. Psychology is the science\nof human minds and their relationship one to another \u2766 Superstition is\nscrambled science, or a religious omelet flavored with fear. \u00b6 Organized\nreligion being founded on superstition is, perforce, not scientific \u2766\nAnd all that is not scientific\u2014that is, truthful\u2014must be bolstered by\nforce, fear and falsehood. Thus we always find slavery and organized\nreligion going hand in hand. \u00b6 Business, to be successful, must be\nbased on science, for demand and supply are matters of mathematics,\nnot guesswork. Civilization turns on organization. And organization,\nin order to be of any value, must be scientific. \u00b6 Economics is a new\nscience. History does not show a single instance of its existence in\nthe days of Greece and Rome \u2766 They had simple mathematics, but not\ncomplex. Fractions, percentages, statistics, averages, were beyond\nthem. The blueprint, even for humorists, was unguessed \u2766 Philosophy was\nspeculation; business was barter. Since then, up to within a few years\nago, the problem of how man could save his soul has been uppermost.\nThis world has been neglected in the endeavor to gain another. When the\nScience of Economics is finally formulated it will be expressed first\nin America \u2766 In America all nations meet and blend. Here the factors,\nelements and categories of Economics are to be found. Here we have one\nlanguage, and no more, and this is necessary for the expression of a\nnew science \u2766 The first endeavor to found Economics as a science was\nthe work of Adam Smith. \u00b6 And when Thomas Henry Buckle said that Adam\nSmith\u2019s _Wealth of Nations_ had influenced the world for good more than\nany other book ever written, save none, he stated truth. \u00b6 Economics\nchanges man\u2019s activities. As you change a man\u2019s activities you change\nhis way of living, and as you change his environment you change his\nstate of mind. Precept and injunction do not perceptibly affect men; but\nfood, water, air, clothing, shelter, pictures, books, music, will and\ndo. Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx, all wrote on Economics,\nbut none was an Economist. Each based his logic largely on presumption,\nassumption and hypothesis. If this happens, then that will occur. They\nwere Political Economists\u2014they pursued Economics as a policy, not as\ntruth. They loved love, not the lady. They were students of Economics,\nand their work was not grounded in Science. Since the days of Smith, Mill\nand Marx we have had many students of Economics \u2766 But the world has not\nyet produced an Economist. To be an Economist, a man must be a Scientist.\nHe must be both a man of action, and one who knows why he acts. He must\nwork and he must contemplate his work. He must act and he must think. \u00b6 A\nScientist is the man who has done the thing\u2014who has seen and knows. Then\nfrom his positive knowledge springs his Philosophy. And the Philosophy\nof a businessman, analyzed, explained and formulated, would constitute\na Science of Economics. \u00b6 The American Philosophy will be formulated\nby Scientists\u2014by Businessmen who have succeeded. Thackeray\u2019s lawyer in\nthe Debtors\u2019 Prison, who was working out a new financial policy for the\nNation, was not a Scientist \u2766 His knowledge was academic and his scheme\nconjectural. Science was outside of his orbit. He lacked experience. He\nhad feelings, but not facts \u2766 He did not have enough cosmic mortar to\nconstruct an arch. Emotionalism, charity, altruism, optimism, are not\nscience, and they may be hysteria. \u00b6 When I speak of success I do not\nmean it in the sordid sense. A successful man is one who has tried, not\ncried; who has worked, not dodged; who has shouldered responsibility,\nnot evaded it; who has gotten under the burden, not merely stood off,\nlooking on, giving advice and philosophizing on the situation. In fact,\nthe result of a man\u2019s work is not the measure of success. To go down with\nthe ship in storm and tempest is better than to paddle away to Paradise\nin an Orthodox canoe. To have worked is to have succeeded\u2014we leave the\nresults to time. Life is too short to gather the Harvest\u2014we can only\nsow. \u00b6 Up to the year Eighteen Hundred Seventy-six the business world\nwas tainted by trickery in trade \u2766 The methods of booth and bazaar were\neverywhere practised. Business was barter, and he who could cheat and not\nget caught was accounted clever. On the customs of the time there was no\ncopyright. They were a take-over from monarchical days \u2766 But a new ethic\nhas arrived. Within ten years\u2019 time the thought has gone through the\nentire business fabric that to cheat and not get caught is really a worse\ncalamity than to get caught. To be caught means that some one has applied\nthe brake and you are given pause. Not to get caught means that you are\nheaded for the precipice on the high clutch and down grade. To cheat\nanother is to cheat yourself. Theology did not teach us this, for precept\nand preaching never touch our lives. We shed them. We are moved in only\none way, and that is by self-interest \u2766 Cut off our food-supply and we\nare no longer apathetic. And self-interest is a form of selfishness;\nit is the desire for life \u2766 It is the instinct of self-preservation in\naction. It was all a matter of mental growth, evolution. \u00b6 The discovery\nof truth as our most valuable business asset is the one great achievement\nof the age in which we live \u2766 For truth there is no substitute, and\nthis discovery was made by businessmen. Honesty as a working policy was\nfirst put forth by Benjamin Franklin; and his remark was regarded as a\nmere pleasantry until yesterday. The clergy have not yet adopted it;\nthe doctors are considering it, and the lawyers haven\u2019t heard of it.\nHowever, all these will finally adopt it, as a last resort, as a means of\nself-preservation. \u00b6 Economics based on falsehood leads to dissolution.\nFalsehood is a polite form of conquest. The lie is exploitation. The\npreacher has diverted us while the lawyer picked our pocket; the doctor\ngives you ether and accomplishes the same result \u2766 Egypt, Rome and\nGreece lived on their slaves and outlying colonies. \u00b6 Slave labor is\nthe most expensive kind. In time the land is exhausted, and the slaves\ndie. But before this happened to the capitals that were, the aristocrats\nwho wasted, destroyed and consumed had gotten nervous debility, and\nwere impotent, also impudent. Then they died and the barbarian overran\nthe land \u2766 A wise Economist\u2014and America has many\u2014could have figured out\nexactly how long Babylon and Nineveh would have lasted \u2766 None of these\nancient civilizations produced economists. They had soothsayers, priests,\nlawyers, poets, artists, clowns, dramatists, orators, rhetoricians,\nsingers, philosophers. And most of all they had guzzlers and gormands.\nBut they had no scientists, and their philosophy, being based on augury,\ndreams, theology and fear, was futile and fallacious. A philosophy that\nis not founded on science is false in theory and base in practise. \u00b6\nModern business betters human environment. \u00b6 It means gardens, flowers,\nfruits, vegetables; it means quick, safe and cheap transportation of\npeople, commodities and messages; it means books, maps, furniture,\npictures, playgrounds, pure water, perfect sewerage, fresh air,\nsunshine, health, happiness, hope, light and love\u2014because business gives\nopportunities for all to work, earn, grow and become. Business consists\nin the production, transportation and distribution of the things that are\nnecessary to human life. Through this exercise of our faculties we educe\nthe best that is in us; in other words, we get an education. \u00b6 Inasmuch\nas business supplies the necessities of life, it is impossible to have\na highly evolved and noble race except where there is a science of\nbusiness. Business is human service. Therefore, business is essentially\na divine calling. \u00b6 Once men believed religion to be the chief concern\nof mortals here below. Other men have thought that killing is the chief\nconcern of mortals here below. Gladstone once said, \u201cOnly two avenues of\nhonor are open to young men in England\u2014the army and the church.\u201d This\nhas been the prevailing opinion of the world for nearly two thousand\nyears, and is the one reason why the Dark Ages were dark. During those\nyears of night the fighting man was supreme. It was a long panic, and\nhuman evolution was blocked through fear \u2766 The race crawled, crept, hid,\ndodged, secreted, lied and nearly died. We now say that the Science of\nEconomics, or Business, is the chief concern of humanity \u2766 Business is\nintelligent, useful activity. The word \u201cbusy-ness\u201d was coined during the\ntime of Chaucer by certain soldier-aristocrats, men of the leisure class,\nwho prided themselves upon the fact that they did no useful thing \u2766 Men\nof power proved their prowess by holding slaves, and these slaves did\nall the work. To be idle showed that one was not a slave. But this word\n\u201cbusiness,\u201d first flung in contempt, like Puritan, Methodist and Quaker,\nhas now become a thing of which to be proud. Idleness is the disgrace,\nnot busy-ness. \u00b6 The world can be redeemed only through business; for\nbusiness means betterment, and no business can now succeed that does not\nadd to human happiness. \u00b6 We believe that only the busy person is happy,\nand that systematic, daily, useful work is man\u2019s greatest blessing. We\nare a nation of workers, builders, inventors, creators, producers. We\nare the richest country, per capita, in the world; and our wealth has\ncome from the farm, the forest, the factory, the mine, the sea. We have\ndug, plowed, pumped smelted, refined, transported and manufactured \u2766\nWe did not inherit our wealth, neither have we laid tribute on other\ncountries, as did those earlier civilizations. Any individual who uses\nthe word \u201ccommercial\u201d as an epithet, who regards business enterprise as\nsynonymous with graft and greed, who speaks of certain men as \u201cself-made\u201d\nand others as \u201ceducated,\u201d who gives more attention to war than to peace,\nwho seeks to destroy rather than to create and build up, is essentially\nun-American \u2766 The word \u201ceducation\u201d sometimes stands for idleness, but the\nAmerican Philosophy symbols work, effort, industry. It means intelligent,\nthoughtful, reasonable and wise busy-ness\u2014helping yourself by helping\nothers. \u00b6 The world\u2019s greatest prizes in the future will go to the\nbusinessman. The businessman is our only scientist, and to him we must\nlook for a Science of Economics that will eradicate poverty, disease,\nsuperstition\u2014all that dissipates and destroys. The day is dawning!\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nFreedom and Responsibility\n\n\nI am told that hospitals, jails, almshouses and insane-asylums are for\npeople who are unable to care for themselves properly. Therefore, they\nare sent to these places, where men and women, specially delegated, spend\ntheir lives looking after them. \u00b6 So it seems that the incompetent,\nin addition to not adding to the wealth of the world, actually take\ncompetent people from a world of usefulness to minister to them. After\na few years as a guard, the man is quite as incompetent as are the\nprisoners\u2014and more so\u2014because the prisoner works and the guard does\nnothing but guard. \u00b6 And for the man who works there is a chance; but\nthe man who doesn\u2019t is damned, body and soul. Hospitals, prisons and\npoorhouses are places where people live who can\u2019t or won\u2019t work. These\nplaces do not cure our bodily or social ills\u2014they are palliatives, all.\nThey do not prevent incompetence nor stop the production of the weak and\nincompetent. Every year we have to pull down our hospitals and build\ngreater. Ben Lindsey, Luther Burbank, John Davey, Horace Fletcher, all\nmen essentially of one type, are working to shut off the regular annual\ncrop of criminals \u2766 Preachers have preached their silly tales of where\nwe came from and where we are going to, directing the attention of men\nfrom this world to another, and with myth, miracle, mystery\u2014with dead\nlanguages, dead ideas and dead formulas\u2014have scared the world stiff.\nThat\u2019s why we are sick. \u00b6 We have bred from the worst in the worst\npossible way, under the worst conditions \u2766 We have it thundered at us\nfrom a million pulpits that the indissoluble marriage-tie was a sacred\nscheme, devised by God Almighty, who also provided that women shall be\nincarcerated in a kitchen. The result has been the doormat wife, with\na liar for a husband\u2014for men lie only to inferiors and tyrants\u2014and a\nbrood of legitimate candidates for hospitals, poorhouses and prisons. \u00b6\nChristianity was absolutely supreme for a thousand years. Did she abolish\npoverty, disease and crime? Not exactly\u2014these things increased under\nChristian rule. And Religion is not yet willing to step aside and give\nScience a chance \u2766 Revivalists get a thousand children in a room and\nplay on their nervous sensibilities in the name of the Gentle Christ,\nand then the doctors vaccinate them with pus from diseased animals, and\nwe wonder why they die or go insane! The Clerics killed Ferrer because\nhe was working to make men free. \u00b6 Freedom means responsibility. And\nresponsibility means the making of decisions. By deciding for ourselves\nwe grow, and this exercise of the will in deciding what is best to do\nand doing it is the only method of attaining growth known in Nature. But\nwoman\u2019s decisions have been made for her by male man, and so low has she\nsunk that millions of women are willing that this should continue. The\npassion for freedom is Nature\u2019s cry for growth. \u00b6 A judge of the Supreme\nCourt of the State of New York once said to me: \u201cDivorce should be as\nfree as marriage, and if it were, there would be no more separations than\nthere are now. We give men and women the right to put their heads into a\nnoose, but decline to let them pull their heads out. Those whom God hath\njoined together no man can put asunder. Also, the word \u2018illegitimate\u2019\nshould be stricken from the judicial record, forever. An act may be\nillegitimate, but a child, never.\u201d \u00b6 \u201cWhy don\u2019t you talk like this in\npublic?\u201d I asked. And the answer was, \u201cIf I did, I\u2019d lose my job inside\nof twenty-four hours.\u201d \u201cWell,\u201d I said, \u201cI\u2019ll say it for you.\u201d \u201cIf you do\nand mention my name I\u2019ll\u2014but, say, you will not, you must not quote me.\nYou can agitate\u2014I can only conform \u2766 We are ruled by the archaic. You are\nworking to make men free, and only a free people can be a healthy, happy,\nvirtuous, self-reliant and competent people. Keep \u2019er going, but on your\nlife, don\u2019t quote me. Here\u2019s two dolodocci to renew my subscription to\n_The Fra_.\u201d\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nCorporal Punishment\n\n\nChildren\u2019s diseases are a logical result of children\u2019s beatings \u2766 To\nshock, pain, grieve, anger or violently suppress a human being is to run\na grave risk of lowering that individual\u2019s physical vitality to a point\nwhere the person is an easy prey for any disease that happens along. That\nwhich interferes with the vital functions, even in a transient way, is\nnot wise nor good. \u00b6 Extreme anger is apt to be followed by lassitude\nor some marked physical disturbance. In fact, it is well known that\nhate secretes a toxin which manifests itself in the breath, and in the\ntissues \u2766 What we call a disease is a symptom of vitality decreased\nto a point where the forces of dissolution are active. A shock which\nwill blanch the cheek disturbs the circulation, and interferes with the\ndigestion. \u00b6 Perhaps the whipping did not mutilate, but it angered and\nshocked until a fever followed. Dyspepsia is a matter of the nerves. Much\nof our bad theology, if we could trace it, would be found to have its\nrise in indigestion. And that it has caused pathological disturbances\nof countless varieties, from catarrh to acute mania, is known to every\nthinking physician. \u00b6 And of all causes of sickness, I know of none that\nhas borne a greater crop of cosmic cockleburs than the old-time plan of\nwhipping children. When Solomon put forth that unwise saying, \u201cSpare\nthe rod and spoil the child,\u201d an extent of harm was done the human race\nthat no pen can compute. That one statement should have convinced every\nintelligent person that the Bible was just like every other book\u2014good\nand bad in spots. If accepted literally, the Bible is an atrocious\nbook, false, obscene and misleading, tending to insanity, disease and\ndeath. Fortunately, we are now allowed to take the Bible as the garbled\nliterature of a barbaric and superstitious past, collected from many\nsources, and good and bad, wise and silly, sublime and vicious\u2014all as\nthe case may be. \u00b6 That millions of parents have bolstered their brutal\ntendency to punish and inflict pain by that remark about sparing the\nrod, every one knows. And always the tendency to beat the little thing,\ntoo weak to strike back, was more to ease the feelings of the parent\nthan to improve and benefit the child. Moreover, it was educating the\nchild, for the youngster grew up and inflicted upon its own children all\nthe horror that it had, itself, endured. It was heir to the brutality,\nheir to the Bible, heir to the strap, birch, rod, ferrule and hairbrush,\nso these were in daily use in all Christian homes. \u00b6 In my childhood,\nI remember a Baptist preacher who lived neighbor to us \u2766 This man was\nloud, lacrimose, brutal, a devout Christian, and a preacher of power,\nsnatching many souls from the burning. The way that gospel sharp used\nto pass out his tidings of great joy broke in on my childish fancies,\nso I became convinced that if God was really just, that pious, bawling\nbeast who fed fat on our chickens would go to hell, sure. But I kept\nmy suspicions to myself. This preacher had a strap cut from a side of\nsole-leather\u2014a strap three feet long, with tails, with which he used\nto beat up one of his nine or ten children every day \u2766 From the baby\nwearing diapers to a big boy of sixteen, and a girl full-grown, they\nall got it. I have heard their cries for mercy ring out on a winter\u2019s\nnight when they would run out into the yard to escape their pious parent\nintent on saving their souls. \u00b6 Once, one of his daughters, a girl of\nfifteen, spent ten cents for a blue ribbon, and appeared in church with\nthe ribbon in her hair. Her father saw her from his place in the pulpit.\nHe noted her mark of pride \u2766 He denounced her before the congregation,\nand expressed a hypocritical, pious pain that his own flesh and blood\nshould be guilty of such devilish frivolity. Then he ordered her out of\nthe church. When he got home after the service, he fell upon her with the\nstrap. It pained him, but he felt it was his duty to correct her. The\nmother was a sick and undone little creature, who twice had twins, and\nbore at least one baby a year, except the year when her lord and master\ncrossed the plains and got alkalied. And this woman really believed, too,\nthat the children should be punished, and so she had a way of reporting\nthem, thus, \u201cI\u2019ll tell your father on you when he comes home!\u201d She, too,\nbelieved in Solomon, and she believed also in her husband\u2019s religion.\nPoor thing, she was too busy bearing babies to really think anything\nout for herself \u2766 But that Sunday afternoon, when her husband felt it\nhis duty to whip the daughter, the girl ran to the mother and demanded\nprotection. The good man was laying on the strap, anywhere, over the\ngirl\u2019s head, shoulders, her arms and hands, although usually he picked\nout some choice portion of anatomy and did an artistic job. \u00b6 Yet this\ntime the girl fought back, and she was only a slim slip of a thing. But\nnow, the womanhood in her was aroused. She felt insulted. She struck,\nshe bit, she scratched, she screamed. And then she ran to her mother \u2766\nSomething in the little yellow mother was now aroused. Her child was\nbeing abused. Well, what of it! Hadn\u2019t she seen these whippings going on\ndaily for twenty years? But this was different \u2766 The adolescent girl had\nonly given way to her innocent and natural desire to put forth a little\ncolor and be beautiful. Now it was brute man against woman. The mother\nseized the strap. It was jerked through her clenched hands with such\nviolence that it took the skin with it. The preacher had backed the girl\ninto a corner, and with one hand clutching her hair was laying on the\nstrap with the other, in the name of the Lord. The mother was behind.\nSuddenly she seized a long-handled skillet that was on the kitchen-stove,\nshe swung it with both hands, and it landed square on the man\u2019s head \u2766\nHe was dazed, and turned half-around. Then he got another one. He was\ngetting a kitchen shower. One sharp edge of the skillet skinned one of\nhis ears and cut it half-off, as Peter touched up the servant of the\nHigh Priest. The blood ran in a stream. The woman seeing the gore, and\namazed at her own temerity, fell in a dead swoon. The girl escaped and\nran over to our house. My father and mother hurried over, and, kid-like,\nI followed. We found the preacher on his knees, praying over his wife,\nbegging God for her recovery \u2766 He told us he had stumbled and fallen\nagainst the cook-stove. My father took a stitch in the ecclesiastic\nsouse, and washed off the blood of the lamb \u2766 The woman soon recovered\nand was put to bed. The girl took care of herself. She told my mother\nthe truth of the incident, but was cautioned not to repeat it to others,\nand she didn\u2019t. \u00b6 The next Sunday the holy man preached as usual,\nunctuous and oily, smiling and smirking, thundering ponderously betimes,\nwarning us to flee the wrath to come. \u00b6 This daughter died at eighteen,\nof galloping consumption. One of the boys achieved considerable local\nfame as a horse-thief. I believe he was the only one of that big family\nwho reached maturity, and this was because he had a pachyderm hide and\na heart of gneiss \u2766 Several of the children died in babyhood, the rest\nran the gamut of about all the diseases in the books. And finally, the\nLord\u2019s will was done. A long row of little white headstones in the\nvillage graveyard marks where they sleep, freed from the strap, awaiting\na glorious resurrection at the Last Great Day. \u00b6 What killed them? The\nstrap, I should say, carried to its logical limit, with a plentiful lack\nof love. Spare the rod and save the child, for love is life, and hate is\ndeath. Love is better than a cat-o\u2019-nine-tails, and Solomon, the wisest\nman who ever lived, was a lobster\u2014at least part of the time.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nPurpled Ease\n\n\n    _No quarter! We want all that you possess. We will be content\n    with nothing less than all that you possess. We want in our\n    hands the reins of power and the destiny of mankind. Here are\n    our hands. They are strong hands. We are going to take your\n    governments, your palaces, and all your purpled ease away from\n    you, and in that day you shall work for your bread even as the\n    peasant in the field or the starved and runty clerk in your\n    metropolises. Here are our hands. They are strong hands._\u2014_Jack\n    London._\n\nThe above is taken from a postal card sent out by the publishers of\nJack London\u2019s books. Jack is a Marxian Socialist all day long, and he\nis much more frank than most of his party. All the other Socialists I\never met, alternately admit and deny that what they want is a division\nof property \u2766 Jack London stands by his guns and declares, \u201cWe want\nall you possess.\u201d And when he says \u201cyou\u201d he means the people who own\nproperty. He is talking to the owners and managers of the \u201ctools,\u201d by\nwhich he means the railroads, mills, shops, stores, factories, mines\nand steamships. That is to say, Jack is going to take things away from\nthe present owners and give these things to \u201cwe.\u201d Jack assumes that\nproperty in the hands of the Socialist would be much better managed than\nit is now in the hands of those who own it. \u00b6 This threat of Jack\u2019s\nwould be a tragic thing if Jack and his pals were really going to do\nall they say they are. But they are not going to do anything but talk.\nThat is their \u201chold.\u201d Folks who can, do; those who can\u2019t, chin. Jack is\na writing tramp who roams the world for thrills and copy. He is kindly,\nintelligent, amusing, indolent, and absolutely without the power to\nmanage anything\u2014even his own tongue. He is a good fellow; and he makes\nfolks think. In fact, he is the sparker to this paragraph. Jack made me\nthink, he made me mad, he made me laugh, and he made me write. Personally\nI like the rogue\u2014he is most companionable, especially if you have no work\nto do. \u00b6 The tendency of property of every sort is towards depreciation\nand dissolution. Only eternal vigilance and tireless industry keep a\nmanufacturing plant or a farm effective \u2766 Jack does not know this. Jack\nthinks that to own property is to be immune from work. The truth is,\nownership is a responsibility and a burden. Most of the Socialists I know\ndo not work\u2014they only talk about work. \u00b6 What they want is an orthodox\nheaven of ease, where the harps are always in tune and the robes are\nalways laundered. If Jack could take away the property from those who\nhave it and set them to work like peasants and \u201crunty clerks,\u201d then the\nSocialists would live in \u201cpurpled ease,\u201d as Jack and many other childish,\nsilly folks think that rich people do now. \u00b6 There is an \u201cidle rich\u201d\nclass, but it is a very small class, and it is not made up of the people\nwho manage things. It is made up of remittance-men\u2014and some of these are\nSocialists, who play at equality, badger the busy, and patronize the\npoor. Leave the idle rich to Nemesis. Disease and death are at their\nheels. \u00b6 The men who operate our great enterprises\u2014mills, factories,\nelevators, banks and department-stores\u2014know nothing of ease. Their\nworking-hours are not limited by the whistle \u2766 They sweat blood to meet\npayrolls and to keep the wheels of trade revolving. Modern business is a\nmost exacting taskmaster. It says, \u201cThou shalt have no other gods before\nme.\u201d It demands every ounce of energy its devotee has. The thought of a\n\u201cgood time\u201d is not for the businessman. He works, and works eternally.\nHe works because he can\u2019t stop \u2766 And this is the man the Socialists are\ngoing to send to the fields! Jack London\u2019s view of railroading is only\nfrom the bumpers. His philosophy can not deceive the section-hands, nor\nthe train-crews, nor the operators, nor the managers. They work, and they\nwork with care, precision, energy and economy. Each one does the thing\nhe can do best. That is what we all do. If Jack\u2019s hands were the strong\nhands he pretends, they would be grabbing plow-handles or a shovel,\ninstead of reaching for a hand-me-out \u2766 If the hands of Jack and his\nfriends were strong enough, they would own this property towards which\nthey now look with lustful eyes. \u00b6 The world will be redeemed; it is\nbeing redeemed. It is being redeemed not by those who shake the red rag\nof wordy warfare, who threaten and demand, but by its entrepreneurs\u2014its\nworkers, its inventors, its toilers\u2014the men and women who do the duty\nthat lies nearest them. \u00b6 The fallacy of the Jack philosophy lies in\nthe assumption that the industries of the world would be much better\nmanaged by Jack and his kith than by the men who are now at the helm \u2766\nIn other words, Jack\u2019s claim is that Socialists are a peculiar, separate\nand distinct class of able, unselfish, competent persons with hands\nespecially strong, who accidentally are out of the game, but who are\nsoon to take possession of things and run everything in such a way that\nSociety will be blessed and benefited as never before. \u00b6 The fact is,\nSocialists are not a separate and distinct class. We are all children of\nAdam and Eve, and the differences in us are more apparent than real \u2766 We\nall have our limitations\u2014read Carlyle! The weaknesses of humanity are\ninherent in Socialists\u2014only perhaps in greater degree. Their doctrine\nof reaching Utopia through firing the men who now manage things is the\ndoctrine of despair. Fabian Socialism is something else\u2014it is opportunism\n\u2766 It does what it can, now. It does not wait for a revolution\u2014rather\nit believes in evolution \u2766 We climb step by step. Fabian Socialism does\nnot preach class hatred. In fact, it does not recognize that either\nthe \u201cclass\u201d or the \u201cmass\u201d exists. People who belong to one so-called\nclass today are in another tomorrow. Most of our so-called predatory\nrich wiggled up out of the mass\u2014and they may be poor again \u2766 Many of\nthe poor will be rich. Watch the immigrants landing at Ellis Island.\nCan you prophesy to what \u201cclass\u201d these boys and girls\u2014curious, quaint,\nhalf-frightened\u2014will belong twenty years from now? Many of them will be\ncontractors, lawyers, bankers, scientists, doctors, teachers\u2014it is all\na matter of individual energy, intelligence and desire, modified by the\nantics of the gods of Chance. There is no conspiracy in America to hold\npeople down and under. Class hatred, represented by Marxian Socialism,\nsays there is. There is nothing so savage, cruel and blindly unjust\nas class hatred. \u00b6 I\u2019ve been accused of class hatred because I make\nstatements from time to time that seem to reveal a lack of appreciation\nfor the three learned professions. Granted that I do, it is not the man\nI criticize\u2014it is the office. Doctors, lawyers and preachers are men,\ncaught in a certain environment, trying to win the world\u2019s plaudits and\nplunder in a certain way \u2766 I may consider the way a mistaken one, but I\nsurely do not hate the man. And the fact that I have hundreds of close\nfriends among the professions proves that I am not entirely misunderstood\nin this matter \u2766 Doctors are men. Lawyers are men. Preachers are men.\nSo, also, are judges. Marxian Socialists are men, and all these are very\nmuch like the people with whom they mix and associate \u2766 Rogue clients\nevolve rogue lawyers to do their work; fool patients evolve fool doctors;\nand superstitious, silly people in the pew secrete a pretentious, punk\nparty in the pulpit. For the man, himself, I have only admiration,\nrespect and love\u2014and sometimes pity. I may despise his business and some\nof his acts, but how can I hate the man, when I realize that his life is\na part of the Great One from which mine is derived? This man may quit\nhis business and take up something else. \u00b6 The criminal is not wholly a\ncriminal\u2014he is only a criminal at times. Some of his impulses are good,\nand most of them may be excellent; but one mistaken act will brand him\nforever as a criminal in the world\u2019s assize. \u00b6 Under the same conditions,\nif I were of the same quality and temper, I would have done the same\n\u2766 If I criticize lawyers, doctors and preachers, it is simply because\nthere courses through my veins a quality and kind of corpuscle which\nfits me eminently for success either as a lawyer, doctor or preacher.\n\u201cA hair, perhaps, divides the false and true,\u201d says old Omar. \u00b6 Yes,\nand I missed becoming a practising physician by a hair. Had I gone into\nMedicine I would have had a team of bays, a coon driver, and a whisker\nthat would have put all the other doctors in my town to the bad. I have\nthe fingers of a diagnostician, a voice that soothes, a presence that\nheals. If you didn\u2019t have it, I could convince both myself and you\nthat you had. Then I would have cut into your cosmos to find out who\nwas right\u2014and I would have charged you five hundred dollars for the\noperation. If I were wrong in my diagnosis, you would never have known\nthe difference, for on occasion I can be discreet. \u00b6 The law is a game\nthat lures: it isn\u2019t a matter of securing justice\u2014not that. Truth has\na secondary place in the practise of law, and only very ignorant folks\nimagine otherwise. The law is a game, and you play to win. The whole\nthing is fascinating. It is a clash of wits\u2014mind matching mind. As a\nlawyer, I would have quibbled you six nights and days together; and I\nwould have been a legal lallapaloosa. \u00b6 Bill Reedy writes, \u201cWe are all\ntouched with the essence of the thing against which we strive.\u201d And Bill\nis sometimes right. That is all we can expect, even from the wisest and\nbest of men, and Bill is both \u2766 Yes, I would take kindly to the law, for\nguff, bluff and stuff come easily within my grasp. I can cross-buttock\na fact; side-step an equity; befuddle a judge\u2014some judges; kerflumix a\njury; juggle with justice; put reason astride of a barb-wire fence; and\nprevent a witness from keeping his oath to tell the truth, the whole\ntruth and nothing but the truth. And a fat fee would always reanimate\nany flagging zeal I might have as to the justice of my client\u2019s cause. \u00b6\nAs for the pulpit, I would take it now, were it not so securely fastened\ndown\u2014hypocrisy, gush, glibness, Chicago Tongue,\u2014yes, let Billy Sunday\nlook to his laurels! I, too, could tear a passion to tatters and make\nthe judicious grieve. I could hypnotize myself into a belief that souls\nwere \u201clost,\u201d like collar-buttons under a bureau, and I was the one man\nto rescue them \u2766 Sure! Especially am I qualified for making Pastoral\nCalls\u2014or I was once. Also, I have great capacity for chicken-pie,\npretense, cheap social honors, and the applause of the unthinking. As a\nChurchman, reversed haberdashery would have done me proud; breeks would\nbecome me, for my shanks have individuality; and a dinky hat would set\noff my sky-piece in a way not only to arouse curiosity but mirth. Let\nDean Hart beware\u2014his job is not so secure as he thinks! \u00b6 Doctor Samuel\nJohnson was for a time a member of Parliament in the capacity of cub\nreporter. One certain speech he reported, and when the gentleman who had\nmade the speech read the report he didn\u2019t exactly recognize it. So he\nwent to Johnson and said, \u201cLook \u2019ere, young feller, I didn\u2019t say that.\u201d\n\u201cCertainly not,\u201d said Johnson, \u201ccertainly not; but that is what you\nshould have said!\u201d \u2766 In recounting his reportorial experiences, Johnson\nwas once asked this question: \u201cWhat kind of men are there in the House\nof Commons?\u201d And Johnson replied, \u201cTake the first fifty men you find\nwalking up Fleet Street.\u201d Johnson knew that all men, regardless of their\ncondition in life, are, at heart, very much alike. \u00b6 And when Fate has\nflung a man into a certain situation, the man will, if it is a place\nof some honor, give himself all the credit for having attained it. If\nit is a position that perhaps carries no honor, the party will always\nblame some one else for putting him there. We credit ourselves for our\nsuccesses; we blame others for our faults. Also, we justify ourselves in\neverything we do \u2766 And wise men see plainly that this self-justification\nis a part of Nature\u2019s great law of self-preservation. The exaggerated Ego\nis a primal necessity. Good men all and everywhere multiply the value\nof their work by ten. \u00b6 Success in life consists in convincing yourself\nthat you are the whole cheese, and then getting the world to accept your\nview. Rostand\u2019s rooster was fully assured in his own mind that the sun\nwould not come up if he did not crow. The hens being told this by the\nrooster cackled it back to him, and it became a crystallized part of the\northodox Zeitgeist \u2766 And it would have so remained for all time, but for\nan accident\u2014an accident of love, when a guinea-hen became enamored of the\nboss of the barnyard. So Life is a paradox\u2014and love is not only illusion,\nbut it is also the great enlightener. \u00b6 Now, I know Jack London; I know\nthe proletariat; I know the \u201cpredatory rich.\u201d And this I know, that so\nfar as happiness is concerned each and all of them have an equal portion\n\u2766 The struggle in getting out of the mass has given Jack\u2019s predatory\nparty a certain power, but he has paid for it with his peace of mind, and\nhas to struggle to hold it. \u201cPurpled ease\u201d is a thing that exists only\nin Jack\u2019s mental vacuum \u2766 That is where the tramp has the start of the\nmillionaire. The tramp can dream it; the other fellow has no time even\nto think it. \u00b6 When John Wesley saw the condemned criminal being taken to\nTyburn Tree, he turned to his friend and exclaimed, \u201cBut for the grace of\nGod, there goes John Wesley!\u201d When Walt Whitman looked upon the wounded\nand dying soldier, he said, \u201cI am that man!\u201d Emerson wrote in his _Essay\non Justice_, \u201cI have in me the capacity for every crime.\u201d \u00b6 And here is\nwhat I say to Jack London: If you and your pals were in possession of\nthe tools of trade, you would commit all the so-called crimes of which\nyou accuse the industrial leaders, and more. The fact that your heart is\nfull of hate proves your unfitness to govern. \u00b6 These men now in power\nhave climbed step by step to their present position, and at every step\nhad to prove their worth, before they were allowed to go on. These tools\nof which you speak are sharp, and men like you, unskilled in their use,\nwould cut others with them, and they in turn would take the tools and\ncut your head off. \u00b6 Your hands are not as strong as you imagine. The\nstrength of the hands of men is not proven by assertion\u2014it is proven by\nuse. How far can you put the shot? Power unrestrained is always tragic.\nThe world is held in place by the opposition of forces. The men in\npower are ballasted by responsibility, as never before in history. You\nhave your use as an agitator; so go it, Jack, and say your say. \u00b6 That\nfly on the wheel of the chariot of Achilles said, \u201cOh, just see what\na dust we do kick up!\u201d \u00b6 And this remark of the fly has added to the\ngaiety of nations. But get enough flies on the chariot of Achilles and\nnot a wheel revolves. The Egyptians in Moses\u2019 time battled with swarms\nof flies, when the flies scored home-runs and base-hits. Self-interest\nand the tug of inertia have hypnotized you, Jack, until you, being down\nin the gutter\u2014through choice\u2014see only your side. Yet, your barbaric\nyawp is being heard, and I am your antipodal organ, passing it along.\n\u00b6 Meanwhile you ride on the bumpers provided by the Trusts, and these\nbumpers carry you forward to your destination. The pie you eat is made\nby the Pie Trust, yet you find it palatable and ask for more. If the Pie\nTrust didn\u2019t make good pies and sell them at a fair valuation, housewives\nwould make their own pies. Or they might find pie-timber too expensive,\nand then you would go pieless \u2766 The great consolidated industries serve\nsociety, and their very existence turns on their ability to minister and\nto help. That which does not serve, dies. If the Trusts overcharge they\ninvite competition and dissolution. \u00b6 Success lies in co-operation and\nreciprocity, and the hope of the future is in the fact that the world\nknows it. We can\u2019t go back to chaos, and start over. We must go on. Light\nlies ahead, not behind. We are not going to take off the train-crews,\nand put the tramps in possession. There are accidents occasionally now,\nbut there would be more then. Safety lies in getting rid of the tramps.\nOne wide-awake, vigilant man at the switch is worth more to society than\nall the tramps who ride the brakebeams. Get to work, Jack, and if you\ncan\u2019t find the job you want, then take the one you can get! To prove\nyourself able to rastle a big job, get busy and take care of a little\none. Power does not reveal itself in scolding. And with all your getting,\nget busy! \u00b6 Yours for the Evolution!\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nConsecrated Lives\n\n\nHere\u2019s a thought, Dearie, that I give to you because I haven\u2019t a very\nfirm grasp upon it myself. In order to clarify my mind I explain to you.\nAnd thus, probably, do I give you something which is already yours.\nGrateful? Of course you are\u2014there! \u00b6 The thought is this\u2014but before I\nexplain it let me tell of what a man saw in a certain cottage in Denmark.\nAnd it was such a little whitewashed cottage, too, with a single,\nsolitary rosebush clambering over the door! An Artist, his Wife and their\nLittle Girl lived there. There were four rooms, only, in this cottage\u2014a\nkitchen, a bedroom, a workroom and the Other Room \u2766 The kitchen was for\ncooking, the bedroom for sleeping, the workroom for work, and the Other\nRoom was where the occupants of the cottage received their few visitors.\nWhen the visitors remained for tea or lunch, the table was spread in the\nOther Room, but usually the Artist, his Wife and their Little Girl ate\ntheir meals in the kitchen, or in Summer on the porch at the back of the\nhouse. \u00b6 Now the Artist painted pictures, and his Wife carved beautiful\nshapes in wood; but they didn\u2019t make much money\u2014in fact, no one seemed\nto know them at all. They didn\u2019t have funds to accumulate a library, and\nperhaps would not if they had. But still they owned all the books written\nby Georg Brandes. These books were kept in a curious little case, which\nthe Artist and his Wife, themselves, had made \u2766 And before the case of\nbooks was an ancient Roman lamp, suspended from the ceiling by a chain.\nAnd the lamp was kept always lighted, night and day. Each morning\nbefore they tasted food, the man and his Wife read from Georg Brandes,\nand then they silently refilled, trimmed and made the lamp all clean and\ntidy \u2766 Oho! why, your eyes are filling with tears\u2014how absurd!\u2014and you\nwant to hear more about the Artist and his Wife and the Little Girl!\nBut, bless me! that is all I know about them. \u00b6 However, I do know that\nGeorg Brandes is one of the Apostles of the Better Day. His message is\na plea for beauty\u2014that is to say, harmony. He would have us live lives\nof simplicity, truth, honesty and gentleness \u2766 He would have us work for\nharmony and love, instead of for place and power. Georg Brandes is an\nindividualist and a symbolist. He thinks all of our belongings should\nmean much to us, and that great care should be exercised in selection. We\nneed only a few things, but each of these things should suggest utility,\nstrength, harmony and truth. All of our actions must be suggestive of\npeace and right \u2766 Not only must we speak truth, but we must live it. Our\nlives should be consecrated to the good: lives consecrated to Truth and\nBeauty. Consecrated Lives! And so this Artist and his Wife I told you of\nwere priests of Beauty, and their Little Girl was a neophyte; and the\nroom where the Roman lamp burned was filled with the holiness of beauty,\nand no unkind thought or wrong intent could exist there. Consecrated\nLives! that is the subject. There is a brotherhood of such, and you\ncan reach out and touch finger-tips with the members the round world\nover. \u00b6 Beauty is an Unseen Reality\u2014an attempt to reveal a spiritual\ncondition. Members of this Brotherhood of Consecrated Lives do not take\nmuch interest in Political Policies; and all the blatant blowing of\nbrass horns that are used on \u2019Change, in pulpits, or by Fourth of July\nspeakers are to them trivial and childish. They distinguish at once the\nnote of affectation, hypocrisy and pretense in it all. They know its\nshallowness, its selfishness and its extremely transient quality. \u00b6 Yet\nyour man of the Consecrated Life may mix with the world, and do the\nworld\u2019s business, but for him it is not the true world, for hidden away\nin his heart he keeps burning a lamp before a shrine dedicated to Love\nand Beauty \u2766 The Adept only converses at his best with an Adept, and\nhe does this through self-protection. To hear the world\u2019s coarse laugh\nin his Holy of Holies\u2014no! and so around him is a sacred circle, and\nwithin it only the Elect are allowed to enter. To join this brotherhood\nof Consecrated Lives requires no particular rites of initiation\u2014no\nceremonial\u2014no recommendations \u2766 You belong when you are worthy. But do\nnot for a moment imagine you have solved the difficulty when you have\nonce entered. To pride yourself on your entrance is to run the danger of\nfinding yourself outside the pale with password hopelessly forgotten.\nWithin the esoteric lines are circles and inner circles, and no man yet\nhas entered the inmost circle where the Ark of the Covenant is secreted.\nAll is relative. \u00b6 But you know you belong to the Brotherhood when\nyou feel the absolute nothingness of this world of society, churches,\nfashion, politics and business; and realize strongly the consciousness of\nthe Unseen World of Truth, Love and Beauty \u2766 The first emotion on coming\ninto the Brotherhood is one of loneliness and isolation. You pray for\ncomradeship, and empty arms reach out into the darkness. But gradually\nyou awaken to the thought that you are one of many who hope and pray\nalike; and that slowly this oneness of thought and feeling is making its\nimpress felt. Then occasionally you meet one of your own. This one may\nbe socially high or low, rich or poor, young or old, man or woman\u2014but\nyou recognize each other on sight and hold sweet converse \u2766 Then you\npart, mayhap, never to meet again, but you are each better, stronger,\nnobler for the meeting. \u00b6 Consecrated Lives! You meet and you part,\nbut you each feel a firmer impulse to keep the light burning\u2014the altar\nlight to Truth, Simplicity and Beauty. No other bond is required than\nthat of devotion to Truth, the passion of listening in the Silence, the\nprayer for Wholeness and Harmony, the earnest desire to have your life\nreflect the Good. All man-made organization would be fatal to the sweet,\nsubtle and spiritual qualities of the Brotherhood \u2766 For organization\nmeans officers, judicial robes, livery, arbitrary differentiation, and\nall the vile and foolish claptrap of place and power. It means the wish\nto dictate, select and exclude, and this means jealousy, prejudice and\nbitterness\u2014fifteen candidates for a vacant bishopric with heartaches\nto match! \u2766 No organization ever contained within its ranks the best.\nOrganization is arbitrary and artificial; it is born of selfishness;\nand at the best is a mere matter of expediency. The Brotherhood of\nConsecrated Lives admits all who are worthy, and all who are excluded,\nexclude themselves. \u00b6 If your Life is to be a genuine consecration, you\nmust be free. Only the free man is truthful; only the heart that is free\nis pure. How many compose this Brotherhood\u2014who shall say? There are no\nbraggart statisticians, no paid proselytes with their noisy boastings.\nTwo constitute a congregation, and where they commune is a temple. Many\nbelong who do not know it; others there be who think they belong, and are\nso sure of it that they do not. \u00b6 But the Brotherhood is extending its\nlines; and what think you the earth will be like when the majority of men\nand women in it learn that to be simple and honest and true is the part\nof wisdom, and that to work for Love and Beauty is the highest good? \u2766\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nMarriage and Divorce\n\n\nMy old co-ed college chum, Winifred Black, has recently propounded this\nquestion, \u201cWhy are husbands lobsters?\u201d So I\u2019ll explain to Winifred the\ncause of this sad state which devolutes a lover into a lobster. It\u2019s like\nthis: the rule is that the male of the genus homo is never any better\nthan he has to be. Having said this much, let me further add that this\ntruth also applies to the female of the genus homo. \u00b6 A marriage that\nis practically indissoluble gives the man security in his position. He\nis not obliged to win favors\u2014he merely exercises his rights. As for the\nwoman, she has him, and when she reminds him of the fact, hell is to\npay. The man who stands on his rights, thinks about his rights, talks\nof his rights, belongs to the Lobsteria. He has ceased to be either\nloving or lovable. The only right any man should have is the right\nto be decent\u2014that is, to be agreeable and useful \u2766 One of Nature\u2019s\nchief intents in sex is to bring about beauty, grace and harmony. The\nflowing mane and proud step of the horse, the flamboyant tail of the\npeacock, the song of the bird, the perfume and color of the flowers, are\nall sex manifestations, put forth with intent to attract, please and\nfascinate. Charm of manner is a sex attribute which has become a habit.\nThe creative principle in all art is a secondary sex manifestation.\nThe average married man feels that he is immune from the necessity of\nwinning, pleasing, charming\u2014he owns property. He\u2019s a Turk! And from\nthe Turk and the Comet, good Lord, deliver us! \u00b6 Public Opinion is the\ngreat natural restraining force. We are ruled by Public Opinion, not by\nstatute law. If statute law expresses the Zeitgeist it is well, but often\nlaw hampers and restrains Public Opinion \u2766 Divorce laws are obsolete\nin their character, and should die the death. A marriage that can not\nbe dissolved tends to tyranny. There is a rudimentary something in man\nthat makes him a tyrant\u2014that divides humanity into master and slave\u2014and\nto these barbaric instincts we are heir. The business of civilization\nis to make men free. And freedom means responsibility. \u00b6 The curse of\nmarriage is that it makes the parties immune from very much of that\ngentle consideration which freedom bestows. Freedom in divorce is the one\nthing that will transform the marital boor into a gentleman. \u00b6 Freedom\nin divorce is the one thing that will abolish the domestic steam-roller.\nFreedom in divorce is the one thing that will correct the propensity to\nnag, in both male and female. We gain freedom by giving it. We hold love\nby giving it away. To enslave another is to enslave yourself. Constancy,\nunswerving and eternal, is only possible where men and women are free.\n\u00b6 Marriage was first a property-right. The woman was owned by the man.\nShe was a chattel. He had the right of taking her life if she attempted\nto escape, or was otherwise unruly \u2766 Then the priests came in and\ndeclared marriage a sacred rite. They brazenly declared that the marriage\nwhere they did not officiate was no marriage at all\u2014that it was a base\nand unholy alliance, and that the children were illegitimate. \u00b6 The\nrelationship of man and woman was to them a sin and a shame, but by their\napproval it was redeemed and made proper and right. To grant a divorce\nwas to admit that the rite did not \u201ctake.\u201d Hence, divorce was tabu. The\nChurch isn\u2019t interested in divorce\u2014all the church is fighting for is\nto hold its position. Then comes civil marriage, which is a contract\nbetween the man and the woman from which neither party can withdraw\nwithout laying the whole matter before the courts\u2014and the newspapers.\nAnd the sacredness of contract takes the place of the sacredness of the\nrite. \u201cI would hold my friend by no stronger tie than the virtue that is\nin my soul,\u201d said the gentle Emerson. \u00b6 Easy divorce would make divorce\nunnecessary in a vast number of cases, because it would put men and women\non their good behavior, and thus do away with incompatibility. That which\ntends to increase charm of manner can not be bad; that which tends to\nconform a lover into a lobster is not wholly good. \u00b6 All over the United\nStates there is a general demand for a uniform divorce law. This is right\nand well. And the way to bring about this uniformity is to do away with\nall divorce laws. \u00b6 If divorce were free, it would probably be no more\nfrequent than it is now. Marriage should be difficult, and divorce easy.\nAs it is now, any preacher will marry anything to anybody for fifty\ncents \u2766 Nightly, clergymen are aroused from sleep to marry couples out\nof the second-story window. Marriages occur in circus-rings, balloons,\nshow-windows, and yesterday I heard of a wedding in an automobile going\non the high clutch at speed-limit, with Papa\u2019s car opening up the cut-off\nclose behind in hot pursuit \u2766 Bum, lum, de-dum! Marriage is so serious\na matter that it should not be entered upon lightly. The old plan of\npublishing the bans was founded on commonsense. The couple about to\nembark should be compelled to take a full month to think about it, and\npersons absolutely unfit should be debarred. But once entered upon,\njust two people know whether the venture is a success\u2014and they are the\nman and the woman. In the name of freedom, let the only parties who are\nvitally interested decide the issue. \u00b6 Divorce is a heroic remedy for an\nawful condition. It is the culmination of a fearful tragedy \u2766 I know of\nnothing worse than incompatibility. There is no hell equal to the hell\nof having to live with a person who is not your own. Either party who\nwants a divorce should have it. And the proof that it is desired should\nbe reason sufficient for granting it \u2766 Make way for liberty! It isn\u2019t the\nlaw that brings a man and a woman together, and no law should be invoked\nto hold them together. \u00b6 The police should keep their heavy hands off.\nWhat can an outside party know of this most subtle and delicate of all\nhuman relations! The love of man for woman and of woman for man is the\nmost powerful and persistent force in the universe. And man in his greed\nhas seized upon it and attempted to regulate it from Harrisburg, Hartford\nand Helena. Now there are many folks who think it should be looked after\nfrom the District of Columbia. God help us all\u2014just lift off the roofs\nand take a look at Social Washington some night at four A. M.! \u00b6 The\nlawyer here steps in and becomes as insistent and as dogmatic as the\npriest. Once you could marry only through the ministrations of a priest;\nnow you can secure a divorce only through the services of a lawyer\u2014often\na dozen are employed, counting both sides. \u00b6 \u201cWhy make life difficult,\ncomplex and heavy?\u201d cries Emerson. And well does he ask the question\n\u2766 This supreme thing in life, our love, can not be regulated by man\u2019s\nlaw \u2766 The Supreme Power that made, fashioned and gave it to us provided\nfor its automatic regulation. \u00b6 When love, honor and respect die, it is\ntime in the name of purity to part. No priest can consecrate the holy\nrelationship of a man and a woman, but God can and does. Love is the\nonly consecration\u2014and love is enough \u2766 To imagine that God should endow\nus with this mighty passion, and then leave its regulation to those who\ngovern us for a consideration, is an insult to the Divine Intelligence\nof which we are a part \u2766 The mating of a man and a woman is the one\nsacred thing in life. And left alone it is lovely and true in all its\nattributes. In law, they will tell you that \u201cthe plaintiff has all the\nrights his contract gives him and no more.\u201d In Nature, a man should have\nall the rights which love bestows, and no more. And when I speak of man\nI mean woman, too, for there is the male man and the female man \u2766 I\nbelieve in equality\u2014the equality of Nature, or, if you please, of God. I\ndo not believe in the law interposing and giving a man rights and a woman\nprivileges. Neither do I understand why the money a woman earns should\nbelong to a man, unless we first grant the righteousness of master and\nslave, and frankly admit that the man owning the woman, also owns _per\nse_ all that she produces, including her children \u2766 God has decided who\nthe children belong to\u2014they belong to the woman who bore them and whose\nbody nourished them. But man steps in and makes laws about a mother\u2019s\ninstincts. \u00b6 Men and women mate, and being mated cleave together until\ndeath do them part\u2014and longer. They whom God has joined together no man\ncan put asunder. The mischievous meddling of man leads to a condition\nwhere the parties think they own each other. This is slavery. Many\nmarried men treat any other woman with more respect than they treat their\nwives. \u00b6 The gallantry that holds through gentle treatment and just is\ngone when the man thinks he holds a warranty-deed for the property. To be\nfree you must be on your good behavior. And do not for a moment imagine\nthat a man would leave his mate if law did not manacle him to her. He is\nheld by an unseen silken cord as strong as Fate, as constant as Life,\nas persistent as Death. \u201cWhither thou goest, I will go: and thy people\nshall be my people.\u201d \u00b6 The divine attraction which brings the right man\nand the right woman together must be trusted as strong and sufficient\nenough to hold them. When you treat them as rats baited into a trap,\nfrom which escape is impossible, you dissolve the main idea and interpose\nthe thought of escape. \u00b6 And this is what makes so many married men and\nwomen stray in their sleep and tread the border-land of folly. I would\nhold my mate by the supreme integrity of my love for her, and by no other\nbond. And this once fixed in the minds of men and women would make for\nconstancy. \u00b6 Nothing is more terrible in life than to break and sunder\nhuman relations \u2766 To be true to your own is the natural thing, because\nit is the right thing. It is the only policy that pays. Happiness lies\nin loyalty. This applies to any field of human endeavor. The race knows\nit now for the first time in history. Truth is the new virtue, and Truth\nis a virtue because it reduces the perplexities of life and brings\ngood results. \u00b6 The love of man for woman and of woman for man, and of\nboth for their children, is a divine instinct \u2766 When you bolster and\nbrace it by political blacksmiths and shuddering shysters, you doubt\nits constancy, and, what is worse, you suggest the doubt to the very\npeople you seek to fetter \u2766 The greatest line ever written by Humboldt\nwas this: \u201cThe Universe is governed by Law.\u201d But he did not refer to the\nlaws of man \u2766 He referred to the laws of Nature, or, if you please, the\nlaws of God, although Humboldt in his latter years never used the word\n\u201cGod.\u201d I believe in the blessed trinity of Man, Woman and Child. These\nto me express Divinity. Left alone the woman would be the companion,\nfriend and helpmeet of the man, not his slave, pet, plaything, drudge,\ndoormat and scullion. \u00b6 Happiness lies in equality. The effort you put\nforth to win the woman, you should be compelled to exercise through life\nin order to hold her. And you will hold her by so long as Love kisses\nthe lips of Death, and the dimpled hands of the babe encircle the neck\nof its father \u2766 The house of the harlot exists because love is gyved,\nfettered, blindfolded and sold in the marketplaces. There is nothing\nso pulls on the heartstrings of the normal, healthy man as the love\nfor wife and child \u2766 Always and forever he wears them in his heart of\nhearts. To imagine that he would forsake them for the husks of license,\nunless looked after by Jaggers and Jaggers, is to doubt the Wisdom of\nthe Creator. In our hearts Divine Wisdom implanted the seeds of loyalty\nand right. These are a part of the great plan of self-preservation. We\ndo not walk off the cliff, because we realize that to do so would mean\ndeath. \u00b6 Make men and women free, and they will travel by the Eternal\nGuiding Stars. That which makes for self-respect in men and women,\nputting each on his good behavior, increasing the sum of good-will and\nlessening hate, will have a most potent influence on future generations.\nI can not imagine a worse handicap than to be tumbled into life by\nincompatible parents and be brought up in an atmosphere of strife. \u201cWe\nhave bred from the worst in the worst possible way, and the result is a\nrace of scrubs,\u201d says Alfred Russel Wallace. \u00b6 All that tends to tyranny\nin parents manifests itself in slavish traits in the children. Freedom is\na condition of mind, and the best way to secure it is to breed it. So I\nsay, make marriage difficult by demanding notification and a pause; then\nmake divorce free on application of either party \u2766 Do you remember the\nwoman who wanted a divorce if she couldn\u2019t get it, and if she could, did\nnot want it? No one wants a divorce from his own \u2766 This would be the one\nhorrible and appalling thing in life. Let life be automatic. Make room\nfor the Divine. And in this article I have only stated what all thinking\nmen and women know and believe, but which they\u2014wisely\u2014decline to say or\neven admit. Therefore, I have said it for them. We will now listen to the\nAnvil Chorus.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nThe Taxation of Church Property\n\n\nI am in receipt of a very interesting letter from the Reverend A. B.\nTaylor, Lakeside, New York, in which he says that he reads _The Fra_ with\nmuch pleasure and profit, and often receives valuable help therefrom\nin compiling his sermons. Doctor Taylor is an orthodox Methodist, and\nthe fact that I am able to express for him, in degree, many of the\nthings he holds as truth is one of the encouraging signs of the times.\nIt is frank, friendly and beautiful in Doctor Taylor to write me his\nacknowledgments. But after writing the letter he adds a postscript. I\nmight say that I have a suspicion he wrote the beautiful letter in order\nto add the postscript, but I will not. Here is the P.S.: \u201cOne thing I do\nnot like, and can not comprehend, is why you so wrongfully advocate the\ntaxing of church property.\u201d \u00b6 Then he encloses a column clipping from\n_The Christian Work and Evangelist_, wherein the reasons for exemption\nof church property from taxation are fully set forth. Very seldom does\none get the entire argument at first hand, but here it all is, skilfully\npresented \u2766 I give it in its entirety: \u201cThe worst enemy New York has, or\nany city has, is the perennial critic who would tax the churches. Some\ninteresting correspondence has recently been going on in one of the New\nYork papers over this matter. Some one by the name of Hubbard discovered\nthat there were several million dollars\u2019 worth of property in churches\nwhich was untaxed. The critic supported his arguments by statements\nthat the churches are not direct public servants, as are schools and\nhospitals; that they exist to teach certain doctrines of their own,\ndiffering among themselves, and which have no direct relation to the\npublic good\u2014some of the doctrines, indeed, being pernicious, according\nto this critic. The short-sightedness of all this is apparent to the\nmost superficial mind. The policy of taxing the churches would be almost\nsuicidal to any town or city. The churches save New York fifty times\nwhat the city loses in taxes from them. Here are a few facts which when\nperceived stop all such talk at once: The Church is the greatest police\nforce in the community. The Roman Catholic Church alone\u2014we mention that\nChurch because it practises the negative doctrine of restraint more\nthan do the Protestant churches\u2014restrains hundreds of thousands of men\nand women from petty crimes that would cost New York more than all her\ncourts and police and jails and prisons have cost her for years. Take\nthe churches out of New York for ten years and it would be an unsafe\ncity to live in, and the expense of administering its criminal courts\nand prisons would bankrupt it. As a matter of fact, the teaching of any\nparticular theological doctrine is the smallest part of any work the\nchurches do \u2766 Go into any church in New York and you will find that fully\nthree-fourths of all the efforts are being directly expended in making\ngood citizens. In Sunday school the children are being taught honesty,\npurity, brotherhood, ambition and the unselfish life. Fully two-thirds\nof the sermons of the average preacher are direct inspirations to the\nmoral life or instructions in ethics. We venture to say that had our\nfriend collected fifty of the sermons preached in New York last Sunday\nhe would have found forty-nine which dealt with practical religious life\nto one on the doctrine, say, of the future life. \u00b6 Of course, there\nare millions of people who have found in their experience that the\n\u2018peculiar doctrines,\u2019 as our friends call them, produce the highest type\nof citizenship. As a matter of fact, the main efforts of the churches of\nNew York are put on producing honest and altruistic men \u2766 Heaven only\nknows what would become of the city if its one thousand four hundred\nchurches were crippled by great taxes. It is bad enough now. The police\nservice the churches render New York saves the city millions every year.\nThe service of furnishing her with honest and unselfish men can not be\nput in numbers. There are none large enough.\u201d \u00b6 It will please be noticed\nthat the editor of _The Christian Work and Evangelist_ starts his article\nby informing us who the worst enemy of New York or any city actually is.\nThis worst enemy, according to my Christian colleague, is the critic who\nwould tax the churches. Thus, before he attempts to reply to the critic,\nhe denounces the critic as not only an enemy of the State, but its\nworst enemy. Grafters, thieves, dealers in dope, procurers, sweat-shop\nfiends, murderers, all take second place: the worst enemy of a city\u2014any\ncity\u2014is the man who advocates the taxation of church property. The editor\nhimself is a Christian, a church-member and a clergyman. Does he stand\nas a sample of the head, hand and heart of the modern church-member? \u2766 I\nthink so. He is a man of education, of position, honored and respected\nin his denomination. And he tells us that people who disagree with him\nin a matter of finance are not only the enemies of the State, but its\nworst enemies. \u201cA traitor to God is a traitor to his country.\u201d Thus did\nreligious fanaticism once link the heretic and the traitor as one \u2766 To\ndisagree with the prevailing religion was to be regarded as the foe of\nsociety. How hard the tyrants die! \u00b6 Yet many clergymen believe that it\nwould be better to put church property on an absolute parity with all\nother property. In fact, many churches now voluntarily pay taxes. The\ngreat and influential congregation presided over by Rabbi Leonard Levy\nof Pittsburgh requested the assessors to tax their synagogue at its cost\nvaluation of three hundred thousand dollars \u2766 In Toronto is a Baptist\nchurch\u2014the Jarvis Street Baptist Church, I believe\u2014that has paid taxes\non its property for more than twenty years, because the congregation\nvoting on the question decided that an evasion of taxes on the part of a\nchurch because it did \u201cgood\u201d was really no better than the exemption of\nan individual for the same reason. \u00b6 The enemy of the State, forsooth,\nis the man who asks some one to pay a few paltry dollars for police\nand fire protection! \u2766 Naturally, one might say the enemy of the State\nis the man who refuses to pay his quota of expense for the maintenance\nof the Government machinery. \u00b6 The editor of _The Christian Work and\nEvangelist_ is a clergyman \u2766 He is paid by the religious denomination\nhe serves. This denomination has large holdings of real estate, upon\nwhich it pays no taxes. If it paid taxes it would not have so much money\nto pay clergymen; therefore, one of its leading clergymen, acting as\nspokesman for the rest, defines for us the worst enemy of New York\u2014\u201cor\nany city.\u201d Thus we get the quality of logic that rules in our churches.\nIt would be laughable were it not pitiable in its weakness. The church\nisn\u2019t dead\u2014it can still call vile names \u2766 How nimbly it yet flings the\ntheologic stink-pot! The fires of the auto da fe are not extinguished.\nThey are only banked, banked in the editorial office of _The Christian\nWork and Evangelist_. \u201cThe worst enemy of New York or any city!\u201d It\nis the old, old cry of \u201cAway with him!\u201d \u2766 It is the cry of entrenched\ntyranny, that he who disagrees with you in religious matters is the\nenemy of the State. Socrates spoke disrespectfully of the gods, and for\nthis they brewed for him the hemlock. The crime of Jesus was that he\nundermined the State \u2766 Savonarola, Bruno, Latimer, Wyclif, enemies of\nsociety\u2014all! \u00b6 The editor of _The Christian Work and Evangelist_ thinks\nthat the State and Religion are one. And he is right. For just as long as\nthe State grants immunity from taxation to church property, the divorce\nis not complete. We haven\u2019t yet caught up with Thomas Jefferson. Well,\nyou know what the State in the past has done to those who are considered\nits enemies? Yes, and that is just what the meek and lowly editor of\n_The Christian Work and Evangelist_ would do to you if he had the power.\n\u00b6 Carefully read, analyzed and digested, we find that the sole excuses\nchurches have for not paying taxes are: First, the churches form a police\nsystem which prevents certain people from committing crime. Second, the\nchurches supply us a great number of honest and unselfish citizens, who\notherwise would be rogues \u2766 For these two things they claim a cash\nreward from the community. My answer is that both propositions are\nassumptions, quite gratuitous, but that, even if they were true, it\nwould not justify the State in remitting their quota of taxes. \u00b6 I have\nhad a large and varied experience with clergymen and church-members,\nand that they are better morally and stand higher intellectually are\npropositions which they admit, but which no one besides themselves\nputs forward. The names of clergymen, Sunday-school teachers and pious\ndeacons who go wrong would fill a five-foot shelf of books. In fact,\nit is an axiom that the bankers\u2019 colony in every penitentiary is made\nup mostly of church-members \u2766 When the University of Copenhagen says\nthat church-members are better citizens than non-church-members, I may\nbelieve it. Until then, the verdict must be, \u201cNot Proved\u201d\u2014and especially\nso, in view of the fact that when Christianity was absolutely supreme\nthe headsman worked overtime, and crime, grime, blood, poverty, disease\nand woe were the rule, not the exception. The doctrine that some folks\nare so much better than others that they deserve eternal bliss is the\nmost selfish idea ever put forth by mortal man. Folks who think they\nare better than others, usually aren\u2019t. That the idea of endless joy\nfor believers, and endless hell for doubters, is not being preached\nnow so much as it was a few years ago, is nothing to the credit of\nchurch-members. \u00b6 All separations of society into sacred and secular,\ngood and bad, saved and lost, learned and illiterate, rich and poor,\nare illusions which mark certain periods in the evolution of society \u2766\nThe offer of endless life and the threat of endless hell are frightful\nrudimentary errors of the savage mind, born of fear and frenzy, and then\nperpetuated as a police system by a Divine Collection Agency. For not\nonly does a religion of fear keep people \u201cgood,\u201d but it also makes them\npay for being kept good. The offer of immunity from the penalties of sin,\nthrough belief in the blood of Jesus, is merely the immunity that human\nsacrifice once provided, slightly refined and modified. The \u201cbelief\u201d in\na blood sacrifice has taken the place of the sacrifice itself. \u00b6 The\northodox Christian Church still teaches immunity from penalties on the\nacceptance of its creed. From exemption from the natural penalty of a\nmisdeed to exemption from taxation is but a step. The man who can accept\nthe one takes kindly to the other. \u201cJesus died and paid it all\u2014yes, all\nthe debt I owe.\u201d \u201cSaved by the blood of the Lamb.\u201d That is, throw it off\non some one else. Who cares! Any way to go scot-free! And this evasion\nof a penalty for wrong committed is called \u201cthe glad tidings of great\njoy.\u201d To escape the payment of taxes is a variation of the same idea \u2766\nMany of these \u201csaved\u201d people do not pay their debts until compelled to.\nIf they work for you they loaf and visit on \u201ccompany time.\u201d They cheat\nyou in a hundred ways, and often spend as much time trying to evade the\nresponsibility of shouldering the burden as, rightly used, would have\ncarried the message to Garcia. \u00b6 The entire Christian doctrine of rewards\nand punishments, of a vicarious atonement, and the substitution of a pure\nand holy man for the culprit, is a vicious and misleading philosophy \u2766\nThat fear in some instances has deterred men from crime, there is no\ndoubt. But the error of religion as a police system lies in the fact\nthat it makes superstition perpetual. Untruth that good may follow is\nnot a nice philosophy. \u00b6 It will be noted that the learned editor of\n_The Christian Work and Evangelist_ pleads, as a reason why churches\nshould not pay taxes, the assertion that three-fourths of all sermons now\npreached deal with present-day problems, and the effort is not merely\nto save souls but to make better citizens. This is doubtless true \u2766\nThe church is saving herself from dissolution by becoming secularized.\nGradually the world is being educated into the belief that one world at\na time is enough. Also, a vast number of men and women see the fact that\nimmunity and exemption are not desirable, that nothing can ever be given\naway, and that something for nothing is very dear \u2766 To make a man exempt\nis to take from him just so much manhood; and to make a church exempt\nis to weaken the fabric and place the institution on a mendicant basis\n\u2766 To accept salvation for yourself, with the consciousness that there\nis still one soul in hell, would turn your paradise into purgatory, if\nyour soul were worth a damn. \u201cOne man is no man,\u201d said Aristotle four\nhundred years before Christ. We are all parts and particles of each\nother. \u00b6 This matter of exemption from taxation of certain edifices\nand certain men, transportation at half-rates, and the ten-per-cent\ndiscount to clergymen and teachers, all hinges on a lack of the Ethical\nMonistic Concept \u2766 It assumes that certain work is sacred and other work\nsecular; that certain places are holy and others profane. My esteemed\ncolleague, the editor of _The Christian Work and Evangelist_, admits\nthat this world is no longer \u201cbut a desert drear, heaven is my home.\u201d\nHe admits that we are here, and that this is our home now, at least.\nWhen he goes a step further and admits that this is God\u2019s world, not\nthe Devil\u2019s; that every man is doing the best he can with the light and\npower he possesses; that all human service is sacred; that there is no\nhigh nor low; that there are no \u201csaved\u201d so long as men are in bonds to\nfear, superstition and incompetence; that a smokestack is as sacred as a\nsteeple\u2014then he will agree with me that churches should pay their just\nquota of taxes. Good people no longer ask immunity from payment of bills\nbecause they are \u201cgood.\u201d Businessmen are just as \u201cgood\u201d as preachers.\nBusiness today is founded on the thought of reciprocity and mutuality \u2766\nWe help ourselves only as we help others. And all transactions in life\nshould be co-operative and reciprocal. \u00b6 Granting for argument\u2019s sake\nthat the Church does do all the good claimed by my Christian brother,\nstill that is no reason for its exemption. \u201cSo far as this Court knows,\nall men who live in houses are good men, making the world of men better\nby their lives; but this is no reason why their residences should be\nexempt from taxation.\u201d So said a wise and learned judge in deciding the\nquestion of taxation of parsonages in Illinois. Here we get the growing\nconcept of the world of thinking men and women, the concept of Ethical\nMonism. All is One, and the sacred is that which serves. Pay the price,\nand provided you pay the price, the thing you buy is worth the money.\n\u00b6 The churches will never do the good they are capable of doing until\nthey throw off mendicancy. \u00b6 And the beggar is a robber who has lost his\nnerve, a bandit with a streak of yellow in his ego. The churches must\ntake their stand, firmly and frankly, as human institutions, asking no\nexemption, demanding no immunity. Then they will be free. For her own\ngood the Church must meet her responsibilities, and not shift her burden\nof taxes upon the people who do not believe her creed. If you believe in\na \u201cpeculiar\u201d doctrine, that is your affair, and you are the man to pay\nfor its support. To say that I must pay for the support of your creed or\nelse be branded as a foe of society is bad logic, worse ethics, and very\nindelicate, not to say discourteous \u2766 Only that is fair and beautiful\nwhich neither threatens, bribes, evades, demands nor supplicates.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nFree Motherhood\n\n\nThe most important question that confronts the future is not New Thought,\nthe Juvenile Court, the Tariff, the Single Tax, nor Fletcherism. It is\nFree Motherhood. The perpetuity of the race depends upon Motherhood. I\ntrust there will be no argument on that \u2766 The quality of our race turns\non the quality of the parents; and especially does the quality of the\nchild turn on the peace, happiness and well-being of the mother. You\ncan not make the mother a disgraced and taunted thing and expect the\nprogeny to prosper. When you strike a mother, you strike the race. There\nis no hint in Nature that Motherhood is ever shameful or disgraceful.\nOnly a social and legal fiction ever makes it so. It is vain to look\nto the Church for reform in this direction. In fact, the Church is the\nchief sinner. \u00b6 The necessity for orphan asylums came in with the vows\nof celibacy and chastity \u2766 Wherever these two things exist\u2014celibacy\nand chastity\u2014orphan asylums flourish \u2766 Less than five per cent of the\nchildren in orphan asylums are orphans. The rest are waifs and outcasts.\nIf the State did not make the mother a criminal; if Society did not\nlook upon her as disgraced; and if the Church did not refer to her as\n\u201cruined,\u201d most of the mothers of these \u201corphans\u201d would cling to them \u2766\nFor every thousand orphans, nine hundred mothers reach empty arms out\ninto the darkness. The desire of the mother to protect and care for her\nchild is the most persistent instinct that is implanted in the human\nheart. If there is anything sacred in the world it is mother-love. If\nthere is anything divine in the universe, it is the love of the mother\nfor her baby \u2766 We give pensions to the men who fought to save the State.\nWhy not give a pension to every woman who goes down into the valley of\ndeath and kisses the white lips of pain? \u2766 Isn\u2019t the mother just as\nnecessary to the perpetuity of the State as the soldier? I rather think\nso. The necessity of the one is absolute, the other is conjectural \u2766\nEvery mother should be recognized by the State \u201cfor heroic services.\u201d\nIf she is not married, her pension should be double that which her\nmarried sister receives. We must conserve mother-love, not dissipate\nit. And let us remember this: We can not successfully legislate against\nthe biologic imperative. To trample mother-love ruthlessly into the\nmire of conventionality, and tear the child from the mother\u2019s arms, and\nplace it in an orphan asylum, is the work of a false and hypocritical\n\u201cChristianity.\u201d \u00b6 Now that the whole world is trying to get back on a\ntruthful basis as a move in the line of self-preservation, is it not\ntime that we look this issue squarely in the face and express ourselves\nconcerning it? Before this babe is born it runs the hazard of murder from\nits conception \u2766 That it survives reveals its hold on eternal life. When\nborn, it is greeted with tears, fears, secrecy, untruth, hypocrisy, and\nits divine heritage of mother-love is traded for a mess of institutional\npotash. That most orphan asylums are now managed by skilled and able\npeople is only a mitigation of the wrong. A substitute is thus offered\nfor mother-love\u2014something just as good \u2766 But the eternal fact remains:\nThere is no substitute for mother-love. God is that jealous of it that\nHe supplies nothing to equal it. \u00b6 We can never have a noble race of\nmen until we have a noble race of mothers. And in order to be a noble\nwoman, this woman must be economically free \u2766 Wonderful changes have\ncome to the world within a few years. For a woman not to wed, no longer\ncarries a penalty. The term \u201cold maid\u201d has now no terrors. Spinsterhood\nis an achievement, not a disgrace. \u00b6 The unmarried woman between forty\nand fifty is probably a self-supporting woman. And this responsibility\nmakes her the mental superior of her married sister who looks to a\nmale man for food, clothing and protection from the storm. Yet because\na woman has not seen fit to marry is no reason for assuming that the\ncosmic urge is dead. And just remember this, that no woman ever lived\nwho couldn\u2019t marry some man if she wanted to. She will not marry because\nshe is not content to accept any old thing. \u00b6 It is always a question of\nwhat man. And as women more and more are able to care for themselves\u2014and\nthis is the one sure economic tendency of the times\u2014they will more\nand more cease being willing to swear to honor, love and obey one man\nfor ninety-nine years. Yet the mother instinct will not die on that\naccount. The race will not perish \u2766 The independence of women will make\nthem better mothers. Their children will be stronger in brain and body,\ncleaner, abler, firmer in the ability to discover and decide for the\nright. But Free Motherhood must be respected. \u00b6 The word \u201cillegitimate\u201d\nis now pretty nearly banished, since we have discovered that God smiles\nupon the freeborn child as upon none other. William the Conqueror,\nTheodoric the First, Erasmus, Jean Dunois, Leonardo da Vinci, the Empress\nJosephine, Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln, and scores of other\nintellectual kings that might be named, have redeemed the \u201csmall and\nselect class\u201d from the unmanicured finger of shame \u2766 We no longer look\naskance upon the offspring; as for the father we smile away his \u201cpast\u201d\nas a mere peccadillo, and he becomes a deacon in the church\u2014a pillar of\nsociety. The mother, however, Society still spits upon as one polluted.\n\u00b6 This will not always be so. The very fact that I am now writing on\nthe subject, and that several hundred thousand gentle men and women\u2014the\nvery intellectual pick of the world\u2014will read my words, argues progress.\nOthers, too, are writing. The world is changing\u2014all things are being\nmade new \u2766 The crime of orthodoxy is its lack of faith. It believes too\nlittle. What we want is not a belief in one \u201cimmaculate conception,\u201d but\na fixed and firm faith in the fact that whenever and wherever a mother\nholds in her arms a babe, hugging it to her heart, crooning to it a\nlullaby, there is God. \u00b6 When this time comes the State will provide a\npension for every mother who cares for her babe. \u00b6 As an economic move,\nthis will be cheaper than maintaining orphan asylums. The child will be\nloved, not institutionalized. It will be a better citizen. But best of\nall, we will wipe away the tears of the mother. We will rejoice with\nher that a man is born into the world \u2766 We will extend gladness and\ncongratulation, not hypocritical sighs, snarling sneers and sour faces.\n\u00b6 Froebel spoke of the \u201clittle souls fresh from God\u201d \u2766 And so, too, must\nwe; and when we do we will cease regarding the mother, the vehicle of\ntransport, as a being to be shunned and maligned \u2766 Rather, the miracle of\nMotherhood will be reverenced; and this will be a great moral uplift to\nall fathers as well as to mothers. Thus will the whole race be purified,\nbenefited, strengthened and carried forward toward the Divine Ultimate \u2766\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nWhy I Am a Philistine\n\n\nA long and very carefully written letter from an unknown gentleman who\nsigns himself \u201cRetired Professor\u201d has recently reached me. \u00b6 The Great\nObscure favor me quite often with anonymous epistles, but life being\nshort and the wastebasket wide, I seldom reply. Yet now an exception must\nbe made, and I answer \u201cRetired Professor\u201d for the sole and simple reason\nthat he has \u201cretired,\u201d and in retiring has made the world his debtor.\nProbably no one act of this man\u2019s entire life has been so potent for\ngood as this. He has set all Professors without humor a most precious\nprecedent. \u00b6 In gratitude, hoping that his example will bear fruit, I\nreply. \u00b6 Did space permit I should be glad to print my correspondent\u2019s\nletter entire, but the gist of his scholarly argument is that the Society\nof the Philistines is endeavoring to make free-thought universal and\npaganism popular. He stoutly avers that the ancient Philistines were\nthe enemies of Jehovah, that they worshiped strange gods, and that\nthey were the sworn foes of the Chosen People. \u00b6 Now this is the sad\npart: he proves his case. The gentleman explains that he would not have\nseen _The Philistine_ Magazine had not his daughter, \u201can unmarried\nlady of thirty-two,\u201d purchased several copies; but from this on, with\nhis permission, no more numbers of this \u201cinfidelic infernal machine\u201d\nshall enter his house \u2766 My heart goes out to all unmarried ladies of\nthirty-two. Especially so when they have fathers who are irascible;\nonly one worse fate can befall a woman of thirty-two than to have an\nirascible father, and that is to have a lover who is irate. Still I\ndoubt me not that the daughter of \u201cRetired Professor\u201d will find a way\nto read _The Philistine_, for booklets laugh at locksmiths! \u00b6 Yet,\nignorance prevails, for is not \u201cRetired Professor\u201d living proof? And so\nI will say: There lived in the Far East about three thousand years ago\na tribe of people known as Philistines \u2766 It is a hotly mooted question\namong the theologians whether they were so called because they lived in\nPhilistia or whether Philistia took its name on account of being peopled\nby Philistines. I will not take sides on this issue, but hedge closely\nand simply stand firm on the fact that a tribe called the Philistines\nexisted \u2766 Near them lived the Hivites, the Moabites, the Canaanites, the\nHittites, the Jebusites, the Perizzites, the Ammonites and the Gothamites\n\u2766 Now, among these tribes none was so strong, none so intelligent, none\nso handsome, none so virtuous as the Philistines. And it came to pass\nthat the superior quality of moral fiber in the Philistines caused\nthe entire country to be known as Philistia; it was the general name\ngiven to the whole valley of the Jordan. And the name endures even unto\nthis day. \u00b6 Palestine means the land of the Philistines. And it seems\nthat among them there was a rude sense of right and wrong. For if a man\nowned a piece of ground and planted a vine on it, and then watered and\ntended the vine, the grapes that grew on this vine were his, and all of\nthe people agreed to this, and the man and his neighbors knew all this\nwithout a Dispensation \u2766 These people planted vineyards, and had gardens,\nand fields of wheat and barley. They had barns with threshing-floors;\nand they had carts, plows and other implements. They builded houses and\nowned their homes; and the men loved their wives and their children; and\nthe women were the comrades of the men\u2014all taking part in the sports as\nwell as in the work, for they were a merry, happy people \u2766 Now, about\nthirteen centuries before the Christian Era, while they were living in\npeace and prosperity, there swooped down upon them a horde of escaped\nslaves, called Israelites \u2766 These slaves had broken away from their\nmasters in Egypt. The country to which they traveled was only about\nthree hundred miles from Egypt; but as their average speed was less than\na mile a week, it took them forty years to make the journey. \u00b6 The man\nwho led these slaves in their flight was one Moses, who in a righteous\ncause had killed a man in Egypt and fled. After many years of exile,\nduring which time he had been in Philistia and liked it, he returned and\nled the exodus. When the Israelites left, they took all the gold and\nsilver ornaments and utensils they could \u201cborrow,\u201d and melted them up.\nAnd they were not ashamed of this act, for they have written it down\nin the third chapter of a book called Exodus. \u00b6 The ancient Israelites\nnever had any clear ideas as to the rights of property. When they found\ngrapes growing on a vine, they helped themselves and swore that the fruit\nwas theirs by Divine right. In order to impress this ignorant, barbaric\nhorde with the sense of authority, Moses, who was diplomatic as well\nas good, told the people that God directed him and that Deity told him\nwhat to do and say. Moses used to go up on a mountain, clear above the\nclouds, beyond where the mists hover, and when he came down the people\nasked him what he had been up there for, and he told them he went up\nthere to see God. \u00b6 In no other way could Moses control this restless mob\nexcept by saying, God says so and so. And the fact that their leader was\non such good terms with Elohim or Yahveh inflated these people so that\nthey always spoke of themselves as \u201cthe Chosen People of God.\u201d In fact,\nthey took it all in and were so vain and boastful that Moses was often\nashamed of them \u2766 The Jebusites, the Hittites and the Moabites never\nreferred to the Israelites as the Chosen People of God. No one called\nthem the Chosen People of God\u2014only they themselves. And I wish to say\nright here that the individual who does a great and magnificent work is\non close and friendly terms with God. He is the Son of God, and it is\nnecessary that he should feel this kinship in order to do his work. From\nMoses, the called of God, on up to Socrates, who listened to the Demon,\nto George Fox, who harkened to the Voice, to the prophets of our own\ntime, all lie low in the Lord\u2019s hand and listen closely ere they act. A\nman is strong only when he feels that he is backed by a Power, not his\nown, that makes for Righteousness. So Moses was not guilty of falsehood;\nbut the people who took him literally put him in a wrong light. \u00b6 When\nI think of those brave souls, the Saviors of the World, who have sought\nto lead men out of the captivity of evil\u2014feeling and knowing that they\nwere the Sons of God\u2014I stand uncovered \u2766 But a mass of people\u2014a crowd, a\nmob\u2014that claims to be a \u201cChosen People\u201d is a sight to make angels weep.\n\u201cYou can not indict a class,\u201d said Macaulay; corporations have no souls,\nand a horde that claims to be inspired is only a howling, cowardly Thing\n\u2766 Great men are ever lonely and live apart, but birds of a feather flock\ntogether because they are afraid to flock alone. They want warmth and\nprotection\u2014they are afraid. A mob is the quintessence of cowardice\u2014a\ndirty, mad, hydra-headed monster, that one good valiant Saint George can\nthrust to the heart. When a mob speaks I say, Vox populi, vox devil! \u00b6\nAt the time the Israelites tumbled pellmell upon the Philistines, Moses\nhad long been dead. The mob was without a leader, and quarrel was rife\namid its broken ranks. In a mad rush they stampeded the herds of the\nPhilistines, scattered their flocks, destroyed their gardens, and as\nexcuse they shouted, We are the Chosen People of God! And one of their\nPoets sang a song, which runs thus: \u201cMoab is my washpot; over Philistia\nwill I cast my shoe.\u201d This only made the Philistines laugh, and although\nthe Israelites outnumbered them, they went at it and scattered them.\nFinally, after long years of warfare, the fight was called a draw, and\nthe Jews settled down and following the good example of the Philistines\nmade themselves homes. \u00b6 Of course, as sane men and women, we of today\ndo not suppose that the great Universal Intelligence that holds the\nworld in the hollow of His hand had much interest in the fight. If this\nintelligence were a Being, I can imagine Him looking over the battlement\nof Heaven and turning with a weary smile to Gabriel, saying: \u201cLet \u2019em\nfight\u2014what boots it! They will all be dead tomorrow, anyway.\u201d \u00b6 It is\na noteworthy fact that in the first chapter of the Gospel of Saint\nMatthew the Inspired Writer traces the genealogy of Jesus direct to the\nPhilistines. In the sixth verse we find \u201cDavid begat Solomon of her who\nhad been the wife of Uriah.\u201d Back of this is Ruth the Moabitess, who was\nthe grandmother of David. There is no such thing as tracing a pure Jewish\nlineage back to the time of Moses \u2766 The Jews went a-courting as soon as\nthey arrived on the borders of Canaan; and the heathen quite fancied the\nIsraelitish women from the first. \u00b6 In the Book of Ruth, first chapter\nand fourth verse, I see, \u201cAnd they took them wives out of the country of\nMoab.\u201d The houses of Capulet and Montague have ever intermarried\u2014it seems\na quiet way Nature has of playing a little joke. And after a painstaking\nstudy of the matter I am fully convinced that the many sterling qualities\nin the Jew are derived from his Philistine ancestry. No one doubts that\nSolomon was the wisest man that ever lived. His mother was a Philistine.\nNow, no man is ever greater than his mother, and it is very plain that\nthe great wisdom of Solomon was derived from this pagan woman whose body\nand spirit nourished him, in whose loving arms he was cradled, and whose\nintellect first fired his aspiration. \u00b6 This is all made plainer yet when\nwe remember that David had many sons by Jewish women, and that all of\nthese sons were positively no good\u2014and some of them very, very bad \u2766 The\nfacts are found in the Second Book of Samuel\u2014a book, by the way, which\nno respectable girl should allow her mother to read. But if any captious\ncritic arises and denies the Law of Heredity, for argument\u2019s sake I\u2019ll\nwaive this matter of maternal transmission of excellence and rest my case\nas to Solomon\u2019s wisdom on the fact that he married over four hundred\nPhilistine women \u2766 And, as stated by Sir Walter Besant in a recent story,\n\u201ca newly married woman always tells her husband everything she knows,\u201d I\nfeel safe in saying that Solomon\u2019s transcendent wisdom was derived from\nPhilistinic sources. \u00b6 Only one incident in the history of this people do\nI wish to set straight before the world at this writing\u2014that is the story\nof Goliath \u2766 According to recently discovered cuneiform inscriptions, it\nis found that the giant lived long enough to attend the funeral of David,\nso it is hardly likely that David slew him. That David threw pebbles at\nthe warrior is doubtless true, but the giant of course paid no attention\nto the boys that followed him\u2014going along about his business just as any\nother dignified giant would have done \u2766 But David went home and told\nthat he had killed the man\u2014and the Israelites wishing to leave a proud\nrecord wrote the tale down as history \u2766 We have reason to believe that\nthis story was interpolated into the Bible during the first of the Third\nCentury. In David\u2019s case, summer and autumn quite fulfilled the promise\nof spring \u2766 That eleventh chapter of Second Samuel, showing how he stole\nBathsheba and then killed Uriah, her husband, reveals the quality of\nthe man. But it was left for his dying act to crown a craven career \u2766\nWith his last lingering breath\u2014with the rattle of death in his throat\u2014he\ngasped to his son, referring to a man who had never wronged him, \u201cLet\nnot his hoar head go down to Sheol in peace!\u201d With the utterance of\nthese frightful words his soul passed out into the Unknown \u2766 In all that\nDavid wrote, not a word can I find that hints at his belief in a future\nlife\u2014he simply never thought of it\u2014and dying as a dog dies, he gnashed\nat Shimei, whose offense was that thirty-five years before he had told\nDavid a little wholesome truth \u2766 Shimei was a brave fellow and David\ndare not fight him, so he made a truce with him and swore an oath that\nhe would never molest him, but dying he charged Solomon to search him\nout with a sword \u2766 This is recorded by the Inspired Writer in the ninth\nverse of the second chapter of First Kings. With forty-one distinct\ncrimes to David\u2019s charge, the killing of nine hundred thousand men and\ntwo hundred thousand women and children, the houghing of thousands of\nhorses, all of which is set down in infallible Holy Writ, his record is\nvery bluggy. In fact, his whole life\u2019s pathway is streaked with infamy \u2766\nDavid being a literary man of acknowledged merit, I have given him more\nattention than I would a plain, every-day king. And I now brand him as an\nall-round rogue. I do this calmly, holding myself personally responsible,\nand fully prepared to plead justification and prove my case should the\nheirs or next-of-kin consider my language libelous. \u00b6 And while I do not\nknow anything about it for certain, it is my opinion that at the Last\nGreat Day the folks who stayed around home and pruned their vines and\ntended their flocks and loved their wives and babies will fare a deal\nbetter than those other men who made war on an innocent people and tried\nto render them homeless \u2766 Of course, I may be wrong about this, but I\ncan not help having an opinion. Altogether, my sympathies are with the\nPhilistines\u2014who were so strong in personality that they gave their name\nto the Holy Land\u2014Pelishton, Pelesheth, Philistia, Palestina, Palestine.\n\u00b6 Long years ago Professor Jowett called attention to the fact that the\nword Philistia literally meant Land of Friendship; the term having the\nsame root as the Greek word _Philos_\u2014Love. Max Muller has said, \u201cThe\ndwellers in the Valley of the Jordan, in the fifteenth century before\nChrist, recognizing the idea of Oneness or Fraternity, gave a name that\nsignified Love-Land to their country: thus embodying the modern thought\nof the Brotherhood of Man.\u201d \u2766 In view of these things it was rather a\nstrange move\u2014a man so scholarly as Matthew Arnold applying the word\n\u201cPhilistine\u201d as a term of reproach toward those who did not think as\nhe did! I can see, though, that he shaped his language to fit the ears\nof his clientele. He sought to make clever copy\u2014and he did. The opinion\nbeing abroad that the Philistines were the enemies of Light\u2014how very\nfunny to throw the word like a mud ball at any and all who chanced to\nsmile at his theories! Having small wit of their own, the scribbling\nrabble took it up. \u00b6 On reading certain books by a Late Critic, who now\nwears prison garb and is doing the first honest work that ever his hands\nfound to do, I see that he is very fond of calling people who are outside\nof his particular cult, \u201cPhilistines.\u201d But look you! Brave Taurus at the\nbullfight is a deal more worthy of respect than the picadores who for a\nprice harrow him without ruth to his death \u2766 And as his virtue surpasses\nthat of any in the silken, belaced and perfumed throng, who sit safe and\nwith lily fingers applaud, so do we accept your banderilla, recognizing\nfrom whence it comes, and wear it jauntily as a badge of honor. \u00b6 As\nthe Cross for eighteen hundred years has been a sacred emblem, and the\ngallows since John Brown glorious; and as the word Quaker, flung in\nimpudent and impotent wrath, now stands for gentleness, peace and truth,\nso has the word Philistine become a synonym for manly independence. \u00b6 In\nLiterature he is a Philistine who seeks to express his personality in his\nown way \u2766 A true Philistine is one who brooks no let or hindrance from\nthe tipstaffs of letters, who are only intent on crystallizing a life\nand language that are as yet very imperfect \u2766 These men strive hard to\nreduce all life to a geometrical theorem and its manifestations to an\nalgebraic formula. But Fate is greater than a college professor, and so\nfar its mysteries, having given the slip to all the creeds, are still\nat large. My individual hazard at truth is as legitimate as yours. The\nself-appointed beadles of letters demand that we shall neither smile nor\nsleep while their Presiding Elders drone, but we plead in the World\u2019s\nAssize for the privilege of doing both. So in Art we ask for the widest,\nfreest and fullest liberty for Individuality\u2014that\u2019s all! \u2766\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nOral Righteousness\n\n\nIn days agone, if things tasted good we called them \u201ctoothsome.\u201d We\ndid not work the subject out according to the Herbert Spencer Law of\nSynthesis, but we dimly felt that teeth and taste were closely akin.\nAnd therein were we quite correct \u2766 The widow who declined to marry the\nman, and on being discreetly pressed for a reason, abruptly declared\nwith a Marie Corelli defiance that it was because he did not have the\nDental-Floss Habit, was right in her instincts. She would rid her of the\nreek before she took it on as a life lease. For it is just such little\nthings that make or mar, when we have sworn to love, honor and humor,\nand face the party over the coffee-urn every morning for ninety-nine\nyears. The gentleman was not personally pleasant, and although he may\nhave had a college degree, social position and spondulex, yet a breath\nthat would stop a watch put him to the bad, and rightly so. \u00b6 To such\na one she could never murmur soft and low the word \u201cMizpah!\u201d Nor could\nhe salvo his kismet magnum and get it back again according to the\nAristotelian laws of action and reaction. For gentlemen who are not\ntoothsome are never socially gladsome. If my years were not as those\nof the pterodactyl, and I wanted to win the love of a woman, I would\nlook well to my molars. \u00b6 Brain, brawn, and the graceful two-step are\nas naught when toothsomeness is actively absent. Shakespeare had these\ntwo things in mind when he referred to a \u201cbarber\u2019s breath,\u201d and \u201cthe\nbreath of an unfee\u2019d attorney,\u201d which items do not come to us as the\nbreath of Spring. Abjure the weed and rice-paper, eliminate the elevated\nspheroid, and look you to your teeth, Cecil, to your teeth, I say. And\nthe rest follows. We all have our opinions in matters of medicine, but\nno one knocks on the dentist. Is love then a matter of toothsomeness? \u2766\nI do not speak by the card, for my knowledge along this line is merely\nacademic, yet a woman I know says, \u201cYes.\u201d \u00b6 But seemingly, decayed teeth\nwould give Cupid a pain in his wee tummy small. Decayed politics are\nbad; decayed literature is worse; and to love a person with decayed\nmolars would be like loving a mummy with tainted morals. The increase\nin divorce, and the much marital woe of which we hear, are doubtless\ndue to lack of toothsomeness \u2766 The parties grin and bear it as long as\nthey can\u2014some declining to grin\u2014and then strike for freedom, fresh air\nand the open road. \u00b6 Aside from the esthetics of bad teeth, there is\nthe esoterics, and worse than that, is the hypersthenia which leads to\nlanguage non-ethical, offensive, irrelevant and uncalled for. \u00b6 A very\nslight irritation in the teeth throws the soul on the horn of the saddle.\nTo be sane and serene you have to be sound and salient. We do business on\na mighty small spiritual bank-balance. To carry no reserve is like firing\na boiler in which the gauges show no water. In fact, it means a very\ngreat danger of an explosion\u2014and the grave necessity of being sent to the\nhospital and having the stub-end of your self-respect removed. An aching\ntooth or a tooth of which you are conscious draws mightily on your mental\nreserve. Morphine, or a dab of cotton soaked in chloroform, will help you\nforget it, but these things are drafts on the bank of futurity and the\nloan must be met with usurious interest. \u00b6 I once knew a playwright who\nstarted in to write a great historical drama; but he got a toothache,\nand decided to make it a farce-comedy; but all he produced was a fizzle\n\u2766 Seldom does a man with the toothache make good; and to have cavities\nin your teeth and not know it is worse than to have the toothache, since\npain is Nature\u2019s beneficent warning \u2766 So, to have decayed teeth and never\nhave a toothache would mean lack of sensibility, which is lack of life.\nSuch a one hasn\u2019t enough nerves to make him irritable, much less to give\nhim artistic grouch \u2766 And grouch is unused or misused energy\u2014and have\nI not said that all energy is divine? You write your poem, your essay,\nyour play\u2014just as you paint your picture, carve your statue, or give your\noration\u2014out of your surplus, and never out of your capital \u2766 Should you\nbegin to draw on your capital you get nerv. pros. or fatty degeneration\nof the cerebrum, and are a candidate for Billy Muldoon\u2019s. \u00b6 Is oratory\na matter of toothsomeness? Most certainly, yes \u2766 The greatest orator\nthat New York ever produced was thrown from his artistic hobbyhorse\nonce and forever, when his store-teeth, in an impassioned moment, shot\nover the footlights and fell with a sickening thud into the orchestra.\n\u201cSay, mister, are these your teeth?\u201d asked a man in a front seat, as he\nsolemnly arose and handed up the grinders. And that broke up the meeting\n\u2766 I once saw a man, singing the part of Tannhauser, do a similar stunt.\nAnd we all declared that he could go down to Venusburg and stay there,\nfor all of us\u2014he ceased to be interesting. \u00b6 Get this down as an axiom:\nTo speak well, or sing well, you must have good teeth \u2766 The teeth are\norgans of speech\u2014auxiliary organs at least. When your voice whistles\nthrough your teeth, and the tones come wheezy and with a sort of sad\nsurprise, there are soon bubbles in your think-tank, and you travel home\non your rim. It is then time to sing Tosti\u2019s _Good-by_, and retire from\nthe stage, thereafter warbling only to the gallery of your psychic self \u2766\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nThe Health Habit\n\n\nThere are three serious objections to my health prescriptions \u2766 First,\nI make no charge for them. Second, they are written in plain English,\nwithout myth, miracle or mystery, and can be understood even by the\nmediocre mind. Third, you have to fill the prescription yourself, and\nthis costs effort. Sickness is a selfish thing. If you are well you are\nexpected to work, and give your time and talent to helping other people.\nIf you are sick you are supposed to be immune from many unpleasant\ntasks and duties. Mark Twain said he was never really happy except on\ntwo occasions. One was when he was given that Oxford degree and wore a\nmarvelous red cloak and a mortar-board hat; and the other was when he\nhad the measles and expected to die. The joy of holding the center of\nthe stage and having the whole family in tears, just on his own account,\nwas worth all the pangs \u2766 But, indeed, there were no pangs. Mark was a\nhumorist, and a humorist is a man who has the sense of values, and to\nhave the sense of values is wisdom. Mark was a great philosopher as well\nas a humorist \u2766 Not only did he testify that pangs and pains are the\nattributes of life, not death, and that there is no pain in death, but\nhe also gave testimony that sickness is an acute form of selfishness.\nThe sick man disarranges the entire scheme of house-keeping wherever he\nis, unless he be in a hospital. To have his meals served to him in bed\nhe regards as natural and right \u2766 For once he holds the center of the\nstage\u2014all dance attendance. Doctors come, nurses run for this and that,\nneighbors call and inquire. He is It. \u00b6 The paranoiac is a person who\ncraves attention, and rather than go unnoticed, commits crime. Just\nobserve how most sick people obtrude their maladies upon their friends,\nand then tell me whether sickness is not usually a form of paranoia!\nDoctor Johnson said the sick man is a rascal \u2766 Not only is the remark\ntrue, but Doctor Johnson might have gone further and stated that a long\nperiod of rascality is required to produce most cases of sickness.\nHate, prejudice, revenge, jealousy, wrath, are all disturbers of the\ncirculation, and producers of toxins. These toxins poison the entire\nsystem, and continued, may produce rheumatism, dyspepsia, Bright\u2019s\ndisease, or various other pleasant things for which we look to the doctor\nfor relief. \u00b6 Most people go through life on a short allowance of ozone,\nand a surfeit of food. We eat too much and breathe too little \u2766 Life is\ncombustion\u2014the digestive tract is a boiler. And as oxygen is necessary\nto fire, so it is to life. The value of exercise in the open air lies\nin the fact that it is getting a goodly draft of oxygen through your\nsystem, and this forced draft is both eliminating refuse and burning up\nslag \u2766 These things are all so trite and true that it seems silly to\nwrite this for cultured people, and yet cultured and educated people are\nsick quite as much as the other kind. In fact, more so, since necessity\nis often removed and the person has the privilege of going to bed in the\nmorning, getting up when he pleases, eating a multiplicity of dishes that\nset up an internecine war, giving the saw-buck absent treatment, and\nforcing or bribing other folks to wait on him. \u00b6 It is a curious comment\non our civilization to find our great sanitariums and health-resorts\nfull of college graduates. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, Vassar\nand Wellesley are all represented constantly at Battle Creek, Dansville,\nMount Clemens, Hot Springs, Richfield and Alma \u2766 Imagine an LL. D.\nbeing given vicarious exercise by a healthy colored man who can neither\nread nor write; a Ph. D. looked after by a saucy slip of a nurse, in\nbecoming cap and apron, fresh from the farm or paper-box factory; an\nM. D. vigorously Muldooned by a man who knows nothing of medicine, but\nsomething of health! \u00b6 A great surgeon tells me that he has never yet\nseen a case of appendicitis where the patient has not been addicted\nto the Beecham Habit. That is to say, this disease is the result of\nmedicine, just as are many others. \u00b6 So here is the prescription: Get\nthe Health Habit\u2014by throwing physic to the dogs, because it will not\nhurt the dogs, since they know better than to swallow it; drink plenty\nof pure water; eat what you like, but do not overeat; have a regular\ndaily occupation; breathe much and deeply in the open air; have a veranda\nbedroom, open if possible on two sides, or at least sleep in a room with\nwindows run up wide, even if the water-pitcher freezes; think well of\neverybody, especially doctors, for good doctors everywhere are practising\na Science of Prevention, and will corroborate these suggestions \u2766 They\nare doing the best they can, considering the ignorance, superstition and\ninertia which they have to combat\u2014often in their own minds, and those of\nothers.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nThe Elks\u2019 Creed\n\n\nHere is a story told me the other day by a drummer traveling for the\nSolvay Process Company. We were on the New York Central, riding from\nSyracuse to Albany \u2766 The incident has a fromage flavor that makes it look\nlike lallapaloosala persiflage. However, it may be true, for no one is\nin such danger of the Ananias Club as he who has the courage to give the\nplain, unvarnished facts \u2766 I am unable to recall his exact words, and\nso I use my own language. \u00b6 So say we, tell we the tale: My friend, the\ndrummer, took the Owl, a midnight train from Chicago to Des Moines \u2766 The\nsection just across from his berth was occupied by a Vision in Gray.\n\u00b6 The chromatic ensemble was that known at Wanamaker\u2019s as \u201celephant\u2019s\nbreath.\u201d From the tip of her toe to the proudly defiant Henry of Navarre\nostrich-plume, she was an ecstacy in silvery gray. The Chiaroscuro was\nas lissome, billowy, willowy, pearly, evasive and impressionistic as the\nfog that hangs low on the October corn, when the rising sun is a great,\nround, red ball on the rim of the dreamy and effete East \u2766 From Land\u2019s\nEnd to John O\u2019Groat\u2019s the symphony was satisfying and complete. Her hat\nwas a milliner\u2019s creation; her dress an architect\u2019s dream, devised by\nKirk Cutter in an artistic seizure; her hair was done up as provided by\nthe Interstate Commerce Commission. Yet the woman was modest, refined,\nlady-like. Her high-sign only referred to the duds and haberdashery \u2766 She\nwas neither fly nor flip\u2014merely bouffant, that\u2019s all. She was as tall as\nthe Solvay Process man, for he had observed it, being from Syracuse.\n\u00b6 The Pullman-car conductor came through and took up the tickets. The\nVision in Gray had the whole section\u2014she said so\u2014she needed the upper\nberth for her clothes, and cautioned the porter that the space was hers.\n\u201cYassum! Comin\u2019 up!\u201d said George in reassuring tones that cost a quarter.\nHe had no tissue envelope big enough for the hat, so it was covered with\ntwo copies of the Chicago _News_. \u00b6 The train started. Soon the curtains\nwere drawn and the lights turned low; nothing was heard save the rumble\nand roar of the onward rush of the train, and the snores of an obese\nattorney, traveling for pleasure. Morning came. It often does. It came\ndim and foggy. Lights blinked, six o\u2019clock whistles blew, calling workmen\nfrom their beds to toil \u2766 The man from Syracuse was awakened by words\nof tumult and sounds of entreaty. The porter was swearing an alibi in a\ntearful Scipio Africanus voice: \u201cAh nevah saw dem close, Missus! Ah hope\nto die\u2014Fo\u2019 Gawd, I hope to die! I\u2019se a Baptis\u2019 an\u2019 nevah done nothin\u2019 bad\nin my life!\u201d And from out the berth filled by the Vision came subdued\nfeminine threats, which died away in half-sobs of anguish that shook\nthe soul of the Solvay Process party, strong man though he was. \u00b6 The\nPullman Conductor came. The train conductor was summoned \u2766 The flagman\nwho guards the rear end forgot his duties, as he stood in the aisle with\nhis red flag, and attached to it two cartridges and a red light, ready to\nfire on a second\u2019s notice of danger. The train conductor was trying to\nmake a list of the things lost \u2766 The upper berth was absolutely empty.\nThe hat was gone; the dress, a tailor-made fabric, which the unseen said\nbetween sobs was worth two hundred dollars, was swallowed by oblivion.\nAll the fluffy ruffles had disappeared. \u201cHaven\u2019t you a kimono?\u201d asked\nthe Pullman Conductor, not so much for information as to reveal his\nknowledge of technique. \u00b6 \u201cI did have, but that has gone too,\u201d was the\nanguish-laden response \u2766 Alas! All she had was the suit of pajamas\nthat she wore which clung close in this time of need. Even the gray\nchamois-shoes were gone. Two women had left the train at four o\u2019clock in\nthe morning at the Junction, but they carried nothing save hand-bags.\n\u201cThey could have put my clothes on over theirs,\u201d murmured the lady from\nout the dismal depths of Lower Number Nine \u2766 The train-hands retired to\nthe smoking-room to consult. It was no joke to them\u2014they were all under\nsuspicion. \u00b6 Suddenly, the man from Syracuse had an Idea. He had with\nhim an extra pair of trousers, and of course the regular business-suit\nhe wore. Hastily he groped beneath his berth for his suitcase. With\ntrembling hands he pulled forth the pants. He reached over and pushed\nthem into the berth, saying: \u201cHere, Miss, I am an Elk \u2766 Don\u2019t be afraid,\nI\u2019m an Elk, and the first prong of my creed is to do good \u2766 I am a\nrespectable married man from Syracuse. I\u2019ll help you out of this fix\u2014put\non these.\u201d And then, his generosity increasing as the Good Samaritan\ninstincts in his cosmos began to find expression, he handed over his coat\nand vest. \u201cThen here is my raincoat, which will come to your feet!\u201d \u201cOh,\nthanks, kind sir,\u201d she said; \u201cbut I can not take your clothes\u2014for what\nwill you do?\u201d The voice was flute-like, and modulated like an aeolian.\n\u201cOh, I don\u2019t need any clothes,\u201d said the liar from Onondaga County;\n\u201cbesides, I have another suit.\u201d \u00b6 \u201cBut my hat! my hat!\u201d moaned the lady.\n\u201cTake this,\u201d said the disciple of Chancellor Day. \u201cTake this. I have my\ntraveling-cap,\u201d and he pushed the hat into the unseen depths \u2766 It was\na big, light-colored Roycroft Stetson. \u201cDo your hair up on top of your\nhead, and pull the hat well down\u2014it will be all right\u2014don\u2019t cry!\u201d \u00b6 \u201cBut\nI have no shoes!\u201d \u201cWear mine\u2014I have a pair of slippers.\u201d \u2766 And he pushed\nhis shoes through the curtain, and looked the other way. Only the onward\nroar of the train was heard as the conductors came back. \u201cYou are sure\nyou had the clothes on when you boarded the train?\u201d asked one conductor\nin a voice ill-concealing his resentment. \u201cNever mind\u2014I\u2019ll get along\u2014go\naway\u2014I will make my claim on the road direct. Go away, please!\u201d They were\nglad enough to get away. \u00b6 As the gloaming began to gloam, the porter\nturned up the lights. Now and then the electric bell buzzed. The obese\nparty was calling for his shoes. A man had lost an umbrella. He got it.\nA lady in an upper berth wanted a stepladder. The porter was working\nlike mad making up berths so as to brush his passengers and receive the\noffertory before they got to Des Moines. A party wearing a long raincoat\nand a big, light-colored Roycroft Stetson emerged cautiously from a\nberth, and hurried toward the ladies\u2019 dressing-room \u2766 \u201cHi, Kuhnel,\nt\u2019other end of the kyar, if you don\u2019 min\u2019, please,\u201d called the porter \u2766\nThe berths were all made up. The porter had brushed everybody except the\nparty wearing the big Stetson, drawn low, who occupied Number Nine. The\nporter had now concluded that the unpleasantness of the early morning was\nthe result of a hoodoo\u2014the failure to carry his rabbit\u2019s foot. It was all\na bad dream! \u201cBrush!\u201d he said, with a flourish, approaching the party\nin the long raincoat. The Stetson shook, and two sad, gray eyes looked\nstraight at the colored brother \u2766 He fled in dismay. George was out a\nquarter that he had counted on. The drummer from Syracuse, wearing his\nulster buttoned to the chin, helped the soft-hatted party out of the car,\nthrough the station into the Hotel Savery bus. \u201cI\u2019ll send your clothes\nback as soon as I can buy more,\u201d said the lady in her low, musical voice\n\u2766 \u201cOh, don\u2019t bother!\u201d said Dionysius of Syracuse, blushing brick-dust. \u00b6\nThe drummer forgot to give her his address, and to take hers. He felt\nsort of guilty, being a respectable married man, and from Syracuse, as\nbefore stated. He did not go to the Hotel Savery, as usual. \u00b6 He bought a\npair of shoes, a smart Stein-Bloch Company suit, saw his trade, and left\nfor Omaha on the Two-ten.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nRemember the Weekday\n\n\nDid it ever strike you that it is a most absurd and semi-barbaric thing\nto set one day apart as holy? If you are a writer and a beautiful thought\ncomes to you, you never hesitate to write it down because it is Sunday\n\u2766 If you are a painter, and the picture appears before you, vivid and\nclear, you make haste to materialize it before the vision fades. If you\nare a musician, you sing a song or play it on the piano, that it may\nbe etched upon your memory\u2014and for the joy of it. \u00b6 But if you are a\ncabinetmaker you may make a design, but you will have to halt before\nyou make the table, if the day happens to be the \u201cLord\u2019s Day\u201d; and if\nyou are a blacksmith, you will not dare to lift a hammer for fear of\nconscience or the police. All of which is an admission that we regard\nmanual labor as a sort of necessary evil, which must be done only at\ncertain times and places. \u00b6 The orthodox reason for abstinence from all\nmanual labor on Sunday is that \u201cGod made the heavens and the earth in\nsix days and rested the seventh day\u201d; therefore, man, created in the\nimage of his Maker, should hold this day sacred. How it can be possible\nfor a supreme, omnipotent and all-powerful being, without \u201cbody, parts\nor passions,\u201d to become wearied through physical exertion, is a question\nthat is yet unanswered. \u00b6 The idea of serving God on Sunday and then\nforgetting Him all the rest of the week is a fallacy. Sunday with its\nimmunity from work was devised for slaves who got out of all the work\nthey could during the week. No man can violate the Sabbath; he can,\nhowever, violate his own nature, and this he is more apt to do through\nenforced idleness than through either work or play. Only running water\nis pure; stagnant nature of any sort is dangerous, and a breeding-place\nfor disease. \u00b6 Change of occupation is necessary to mental and physical\nhealth. As it is, most people get too much of one kind of work. All the\nweek they are chained to one task, a repugnant task because the dose is\ntoo big. They have to do this particular job or starve. This is slavery,\nquite as much as when man was bought and sold as a chattel. \u00b6 Will there\nnot come a time when all men and women will work because it is a blessed\ngift\u2014a privilege? Then, if all worked, wasteful consuming as a business\nwould cease \u2766 As it is, there are many people who do not work at all, and\nthese pride themselves upon it and uphold the Sunday laws. If the idler\nwould work, no one would be over-worked. If this time ever comes, shall\nwe not cease to regard it as wicked to work at certain times, just as\nmuch as we should count it absurd to pass a law making it illegal for us\nto be happy on Wednesday? Isn\u2019t good work an effort to produce a useful,\nnecessary or beautiful thing? If so, good work is a prayer, prompted by\na loving heart\u2014a prayer to benefit and bless. If prayer is not a desire,\nbacked up by a right human effort to bring about its efficacy, then\nwhat is it? \u00b6 Work is a service performed for ourselves and others. If\nI love you I will surely work for you\u2014in this way I reveal my love. And\nto manifest my love in this manner is a joy and a gratification to me.\nThus, work is for the worker alone, and labor is its own reward. These\nthings being so, if it is wrong to work on Sunday, then it is wrong to\nlove on Sunday; every smile is a sin, every caress is a curse, and all\ntenderness a crime. \u00b6 Must there not come a time when we shall cease to\ndifferentiate and quit calling some work secular and some sacred? Isn\u2019t\nit as necessary for me to hoe corn and feed my loved ones (and also the\npriest) as for the priest to preach and pray? \u00b6 Would any priest ever\npreach and pray if somebody did not hoe? If life is from God, then all\nuseful effort is divine; and to work is the highest form of religion \u2766\nIf God made us, surely He is pleased to see that His work is a success.\nIf we are miserable, willing to liberate life with a bare bodkin, we\ncertainly do not compliment our Maker in thus proclaiming His work a\nfailure. But if our lives are full of gladness and we are grateful for\nfeeling that we are one with Deity\u2014helping God do His work\u2014then, and only\nthen, do we truly serve Him. \u00b6 Isn\u2019t it strange that men should have made\nlaws declaring that it is wicked for us to work?\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nReciprocity\n\n\nThe first requisite in life is that we shall be able to earn a living.\nFor our own good we must be able to produce as much or more than we\nconsume, and to make two grins grow where there was only a grouch before.\nAnd we can help ourselves only by helping others. A transaction where\nonly one side makes money is immoral. \u00b6 Reciprocity, Co-operation,\nMutuality, are the three big words. To be of genuine advantage, all\nhuman effort must be reciprocal. The worker who works merely with his\nown benefit in mind doesn\u2019t get much benefit \u2766 Personal good comes\nincidentally, and to go after a gain direct is to have it elude you.\nThe very effort you put forth to secure the thing sets in motion an\nopposition that makes it slip away beyond your reach. The man who seizes\nculture by the cosmic scruff will never secure her tender confidences.\n\u00b6 If you want to study the birds you do not go in wild search for them;\nyou simply seat yourself on a log in the woods and, lo! soon the branches\nare vibrant with song. To clutch for love and demand it makes you both\nunlovely and unlovable. If you would have friends, be one. \u00b6 This\ngreat spiritual law which provides that we lose the thing for which we\nselfishly strive has seemingly been overlooked in our universities and\ninstitutions that foster the so-called Higher Culture. Fond parents send\ntheir sons to college for but one reason\u2014not to earn a living, not to\nrender the world a service, not to perform some necessary task\u2014they send\nthem to college in order to absorb and appropriate a certain imaginary\ngood. The idea of reciprocity in a college is a barren ideality. The\n\u201cwork\u201d is non-productive, futile, fictive, fallacious and imaginary. In\nall Nature there is no analogy to this thing of making an animal as big\nas his father exempt from securing his own living \u2766 The birds in the nest\nare fed, and the young are suckled; but a weaning-time that does not\ntake place until long after adolescence is fraught with danger. The plan\nis medieval and dates to a time when conspicuous waste and conspicuous\nleisure were the badge of respectability. The college is really a\nmendicant institution: its teachers and students belong to the parasitic\nclass. \u00b6 The fact that a thing has to be endowed proves there is\nsomething wrong with it. It is not self-sufficient and in itself supplies\nno excuse for being. It requires an explanation. No explanation ever\nexplains the necessity of making one. \u00b6 Our system of teaching will never\napproximate the perfect until we devise an Industrial College where the\nstudents will produce as well as consume. The school then will not be an\nimitation of life\u2014it will be life \u2766 The fact that many college graduates\nare highly successful men does not answer the argument\u2014that very many\ncollege graduates are wholly incompetent is the thing that forms the\ndamning count. The man who gets his education out of his work, at his\nwork, is the type that has always ruled and yet rules the world. We are\nsafe only as we move with Nature; and any system of teaching that seeks\nto improve on Nature is founded on fallacy. \u00b6 There is only one valid\nreason for sending a boy to college, and that is, so he can discover for\nhimself that there is nothing in it. A college degree, as matters now\nstand, is like a certificate of character\u2014useful only to those who need\nit. However, there must surely come a time when degrees will be given\nonly to those who can earn a living\u2014and this degree will be signed by the\nyoung man\u2019s employer. \u00b6 All this for the simple reason that no man is a\nsafe person whose time is not employed in some useful daily occupation\nwhere others as well as himself are the gainers. Time and energy not\nused, or misused, form a dangerous dynamite; while time and human effort\nfused with reciprocity produce radium. Can you earn a living? Also, do\nyou? \u2766\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nVaccination\n\n\nA short time ago I spent a week in Saint Louis \u2766 During that week there\nwere three deaths of children from tetanus (lock-jaw), all the direct\nresult of vaccination. The Board of Health had been very busy, and all\nchildren that could not show a scar were vaccinated, this without consent\nof the parents or of the child. For each vaccination the city paid the\nkind doctors delegated to do the work, the sum of fifty cents. That is to\nsay, these physicians operated on healthy children, introducing a poison\ninto their systems, thus giving them a disease, in order to prevent them\nfrom having one\u2014all for half a dollar per child \u2766 The three children\nthat died netted the doctors a dollar and a half. \u00b6 As before stated,\nthese children died, and scores of others were made seriously ill. How\nmany were poisoned for life no one knows. Children know all that the\nparents know, and the report that vaccination had killed several struck\npanic to the hearts of those not yet vaccinated \u2766 Many children refused\nto go to school for fear of the doctors. And such was the alarm through\nnon-attendance that the School Board called a meeting and passed a\nresolution asking the Board of Health to desist from these fifty-cent\noperations until the question of the quality of the virus used could be\npassed upon. \u00b6 Now, there is no such thing as a \u201cpure virus.\u201d Vaccine\nvirus is a poison in itself. And vaccination, if it \u201ctakes,\u201d always\nreduces the resiliency or resisting-power of the patient, laying him\nopen to any germ that may be flying around that way. \u00b6 The President\nof the Board of Health took refuge behind the law, which required him\nto vaccinate the school-children \u2766 But personally he said he thought\nthe whole system was founded on a superstition, and on a very barren\nassumption. Said the physician: \u201cMany people who are vaccinated never\nhave smallpox. A few who are vaccinated have smallpox. To assume that\nthose who are vaccinated would have smallpox if they were not vaccinated\nis childish reasoning, fit only for those who are willing to accept a\ntainted plea, because they are already convinced \u2766 I must admit that\nthe logic of vaccination is no reason at all, and could only appeal to\nprejudiced, ignorant and unthinking people \u2766 I wish we were rid of the\nwhole thing, but I am not strong enough to stem the tide. Doctors get\npaid for vaccination, the books and colleges uphold it, and this thing\nwill go on until the people revolt, which I hope they will do soon.\u201d \u00b6\nHere we get the expression of an honest man\u2014an Allopath physician\u2014caught\nin the toils of Custom \u2766 Physicians are instructed from books, in\ncolleges, and by professors who were taught from books in colleges. This\nis not knowledge: it is the memorizing of things evolved many years ago\nby men who knew much less than we do \u2766 Very few physicians know how to\nlive. Everywhere you find doctors who are soaked in tobacco, booze and\ndope, breathing foul air, thinking vile thoughts, resorting to stimulants\nas a pick-me-up \u2766 These are the men that uphold vaccination\u2014these are\nthe men who assaulted the school-children of Saint Louis, and forced a\npoison into their healthy bodies for fifty cents a body. Oh, the shame\nof it! \u00b6 Immunity from disease comes from fresh air, pure water, clean\nsurroundings, an active, useful life, and kind thoughts \u2766 The fear\nwrought in a school by one of these bewhiskered rogues, with his outfit\nof scalpels, scarifiers and poison, is a cause of disease in itself.\nThe plan of vaccinating the mind with the virus of fear is in itself a\ncrime, and a most common cause of disease. \u00b6 Doctor J. H. Tilden says\nthat the fear of disease spread abroad by doctors is the cause of more\ndeaths than the White Plague \u2766 People who live rightly are well. It is\nright living and sanitary surroundings that have banished smallpox.\nJust good sanitation has banished the \u201cplague,\u201d that mysterious disease\nwhich swept Europe again and again, and which killed one-third of the\ninhabitants of London in Sixteen Hundred Sixty-five \u2766 I believe, with\nTilden, that the so-called Science of Medicine has been a positive curse\nto mankind, just as Christianity has, with its bogus \u201cPlan of Salvation.\u201d\n\u00b6 Salvation lies in work, play, study, right living and right thinking,\nand not in belief in the death of a good man in Asia two thousand years\nago. As a cure for our physical pains we have looked to a poison doctor,\ninstead of studying the case ourselves and ascertaining why we suffered\n\u2766 We must learn to rely on ourselves, and not put either our souls or our\nbodies in jeopardy by turning them over to a \u201ccure of souls\u201d with collar\nbuttoned behind, or to a hirsute gent who will give you a disease for\nfifty cents, in the interest of happiness, health and long life.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nEqual Suffrage\n\n\nMany good women do not care to vote, and they give this as a reason why\nequal suffrage should not be allowed. The logic is so faulty that it\nreally serves as a reason for the antis. A woman\u2019s reason is often the\nwork of the genus male \u2766 An Englishman, recently arrived in New York\nCity, stopped at the Hotel Majestic. After two days he notified the\nproprietor that no more circulars which came by mail should be sent to\nhis room. \u201cBecause,\u201d said this son of \u2019Appy Halbion, \u201cI find it a task\ntoo great for my strength to acknowledge receipt of all of them, and\nhave, therefore, decided not to accept any more.\u201d When asked, \u201cWhat\u2019s\nthe matter with the wastebasket?\u201d he carefully examined that useful\narticle and said that, so far as he could see, it was all right. \u201cGive\ndecisions, but never reasons,\u201d said the wise old judge to the young\njudge \u2766 \u201cYour decisions will usually be right, but your reasons seldom.\u201d\nWomen who do not want to vote should not stand in the way of women who\ndo. Voting is not compulsory, upon either male or female \u2766 Voting is a\nprivilege. Voting is simply the expression of your political preferences.\nEvery one should have preferences, because they have opinions. We grow\nthrough the expression of opinions and through making decisions. Voting\nis deciding between this candidate and that, this policy or the other \u2766\nHence, it tends to definite, logical thinking. One of the old arguments\nmade against Woman Suffrage was that, if women were allowed to vote, they\nwould be compelled to do jury duty, because the jurors are selected from\nthe poll-list. This is one of the piffling reasons\u2014\u201cwoman\u2019s reasons.\u201d\nEverything in Nature tends to adjust itself \u2766 It is quite natural for\nwomen to express themselves. In fact, they always have, if history and\nexperience are worth anything. But why they should be forbidden this\nparticular form of political expression, only the male knows, and, in\nfact, to use a Hibernicism, he doesn\u2019t. \u00b6 In the State of Washington, a\nwoman can accept the subpoena to do jury duty, or she can decline it. The\nlaw, which is only crystallized custom, defers to her wishes \u2766 If she\nsimply tells the deputy sheriff, \u201cNothing doing!\u201d he marks her name off\nthe list. She is not obliged to give any reason why she does not wish to\nserve as a juror, any more than she is obliged to give a reason why she\ndoes not vote \u2766 This seems eminently consistent, right, proper, and well\nwithin human rights. Suffrage simply is a recognition by the State that\nwoman is a human being. Where women have served on juries, they have\nbeen found to be eminently attentive and anxious to view the question\ninvolved from every standpoint, and to reach a sane and just conclusion.\n\u00b6 Judge W. W. Black, of Everett, Washington, has recently said from the\nbench: \u201cMy experience with the ladies in the jury-box has been that the\ntrial of the case has been expedited, and the whole proceedings marked\nwith a dignity and decency which did not before exist \u2766 And the verdicts,\nfor the most part, were well within the legal limits, eminently just and\nproper \u2766 I do not find that woman\u2019s mental ability to grasp a point in\nlaw is inferior to that of man\u2019s.\u201d\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nJust Boys\n\n\nBe patient with the boys. You are dealing with soul-stuff. Destiny awaits\njust around the corner. Boys evolve into men, and men sometimes change\nthe boundary-lines of States. They make political parties; they crown\nkings, and they put them to flight. They bring contention or they make\npeace. They may build or they may destroy. But boys misused, abused,\nbetrayed, never forget and seldom forgive. It is a terrible thing to\nplant the germs of suspicion and hate in the mind of a child \u2766 Tyranny\nvisited on a boy may implant in his heart dragons\u2019 teeth that spring up\nand grow into armed men. The breath of hate consumes, and its voice\naffrights. Gluttony and greed sometimes leave the boy out of the equation\n\u2766 Gluttony and greed fatten and forsake. They invite and they alienate.\nThey welcome and they repel. Grasping greed sometimes forgets. It is the\nthing that brings mental and moral diseases and disorders of the state\nthat can not be cured. \u00b6 Boys can not be deceived. Naturally, they are\ntruthful. They are elemental. They do not know how they judge or why.\nThe words of your lips count for little. They know the things that are\nhidden in your heart. To arrest boys and fasten upon them the strong\nhand of the law is a tragic thing. A slight, a boy will forgive; but\ninjustice, never. Boys can be led: they can\u2019t be driven. They respond to\nlove, but tyranny may set their hearts aflame. My heart goes out to the\nboys. \u00b6 In Kansas City I know one newsboy who supports a widowed mother\nand several brothers and sisters younger than he. I know two newsboys,\nbrothers, whose scanty savings are sending an elder sister to the State\nNormal School, that she may be fitted to become a teacher. \u00b6 Thomas A.\nEdison was a newsboy. He sold papers on the streets of Detroit, and on\nthe Grand Trunk trains. While selling papers on the rail-road platform\nat Mount Clemens, he saw a little youngster toddle out on the track, in\nfront of an approaching train. At the risk of his own life, Tom Edison,\nthe newsboy, grabbed the youngster, sprang upon the footboard of the\nengine and saved the life of the baby. For this deed the station-agent\nrewarded Edison by teaching him the telegraph-key. We know the rest. \u00b6\nPaginini was a street musician when a boy, playing his violin and holding\nup his hat for pennies \u2766 Martin Luther was an outcast and a street singer\nwhen a youngster \u2766 Occasionally the proud and the strong would push him\nout of the way into the gutter. Such treatment made scars on his soul\nthat time did not efface. It is a terrible thing to kill animation and\njoy and enthusiasm in the heart of a child. Boys should be encouraged,\nand not ground down to a starvation-point in all of their worthy and\nuseful little industries. \u00b6 Give the boys a chance to grow, to enjoy, to\nwork, to save their pennies and become men \u2766 I used to know a newsboy who\ncried his wares up and down in front of the hotel where I stopped. The\nyears went by, as the years do. Twenty-five years passed, and I stood\nin a court of appeal to present a motion which was of vital importance\nto me. The judge who sat on the bench looked to me strangely familiar.\nAll at once it came over me with a flash that this judge was once the\nnewsboy from whom I had bought newspapers in front of the hotel. He now\nheld for me the ability to wither or to bless, to destroy or to protect.\nFortunately, for me, his heart and brain were right. \u00b6 Be patient with\nthe boys. Bad boys are good boys who misdirect their energies. The hope\nof the race lies with the boys. In a year or two we will be going to hear\nthem preach from pulpits; we may go to them to borrow money; they may\noperate on us for appendicitis\u2014aye, they may preach our funeral sermons.\nNobody can prophesy the success to which a boy will attain. Difficulty,\ntrial, hardship, work\u2014these are the things that evolve boys into men.\nBoys can be led. They can not be driven. \u00b6 Be patient with the boys \u2766 You\nare dealing with soul-stuff. Destiny awaits around the corner.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nThe Sea\n\n\nThe Sea knows all things, for at night when the winds are asleep the\nstars confide to him their secrets. In his breast are stored away all\nthe elements that go to make up the round world. Beneath his depths lie\nburied the sunken kingdoms of fable and legend, whose monarchs have\nlong been lost in oblivion \u2766 He appropriates and makes his own all\nthat is\u2014dissolving the rocks that seek to stop his passage\u2014forming,\ntransforming, rearranging, never ceasing, tireless. Tireless ever, for\nhe gets his rest in motion. With acute ear he listens along every coast\nand lies in wait for the spirit of the offshore wind \u2766 All rivers run to\nmeet him, carrying tidings from afar, and ever the phosphorescent dust\nfrom other spheres glimmers on his surface. \u00b6 It is not to be wondered\nthat men have worshiped the ocean, for in his depths they have seen\nmirrored the image of Eternity\u2014of Infinity \u2766 Here they have seen the\nsymbol of God\u2019s great plan of oneness with His creatures, for the sea\nis the union of all infinite particles, and it takes the whole to make\nthe one. \u00b6 Men have fallen on their faces to worship the sea. Women have\nthrown him their children to appease his wrath. Savagely yet tenderly has\nhe received the priceless treasure and hidden it away where none could\nrecall \u2766 He has heard the dying groans of untold thousands, and drowned\ntheir cries for help with his own ceaseless roar; but still his ear has\nnot failed to catch the whispers of confession that have come from souls\nabout to appear before their Maker. And yet how beautiful and kind is\nhe in his apparent relentless cruelty, for he keeps only the transient\npart, and gently separates the immortal and wafts the spirit back to God\nwho gave it. \u00b6 And what does the sea do with all these secrets, mysteries\nand treasures? Go shrive thyself, and with soul all in tune to the\nharmonies of the Universe listen to the waves and they shall tell thee\nthe secrets of life!\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nEpigrams\n\n\nHow much finer it is to go out into the woods and lift up your voice in\nsong, and be a child again, than to fight inclination and waste good\nGod-given energy endeavoring to be proper!\n\nI am not sure what the unpardonable sin is, but I believe it is a\ndisposition to evade the payment of small bills \u2766\n\nLabor is the only prayer that is ever answered \u2766 \u2766\n\nIf men could only know each other, they would never either idolize or\nhate.\n\nI would rather be able to appreciate things I can not have than to have\nthings I am not able to appreciate \u2766\n\nVivisection is blood-lust, screened behind the sacred name of Science \u2766\n\nIf pleasures are greatest in anticipation, just remember that this is\nalso true of trouble \u2766 \u2766\n\nFriends and credit pursue the man who does not need them.\n\nHell is a separation, and Heaven is only a going home to our friends.\n\nSuccess is the realization of the estimate which you place upon yourself.\n\nWe are all children in the kindergarten of God \u2766 \u2766\n\nMissionaries are sincere, self-deceived persons suffering from meddler\u2019s\nitch.\n\nGive us this day our daily work.\n\nA criminal: One who does by illegal means what all the rest of us do\nlegally.\n\nHow beautiful that most of our troubles never happen!\n\nWe are not punished for our sins, but by them \u2766 \u2766\n\nOne great, strong, unselfish soul in every community would actually\nredeem the world \u2766 \u2766\n\nDo not take life too seriously\u2014you will never get out of it alive.\n\nYou are what you think, and not what you think you are.\n\nWho is my brother? I\u2019ll tell you\u2014he is the one who recognizes the good in\nme.\n\nDo your work with a whole heart and you will succeed\u2014there is so little\ncompetition!\n\nWhen a woman works, she gets a woman\u2019s wage; but when she sins, she gets\na man\u2019s pay\u2014and then some \u2766\n\nLife without absorbing occupation is hell\u2014joy consists in forgetting\nlife \u2766\n\nRespectability is the dickey on the bosom of civilization.\n\nA man is as good as he has to be, and a woman as bad as she dares.\n\nIf you want work well done, select a busy man\u2014the other kind has no time.\n\nMind your own business, and thus give other folks an opportunity to mind\ntheirs \u2766 \u2766\n\nThe outcome of the battle is of no importance\u2014but, how did you fight? \u2766\n\nDo not keep your kindness in water-tight compartments. If it runs over a\nbit \u2019twill do no harm.\n\nGenius is fine, but if it comes to a show-down, gumption is better.\n\nIn a world where death is, there is no time for hate.\n\nAn ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness.\n\nA failure is a man who has blundered, but is not able to cash in the\nexperience.\n\nIf we are ever damned it will not be because we have loved too much, but\nbecause we have loved too little \u2766\n\nMan\u2019s greatest blunder has been in trying to make peace with the skies\ninstead of making peace with his neighbor.\n\n\n\n\nSo here, then, endeth that goodly book\n\n                            THE PHILOSOPHY OF\n                              ELBERT HUBBARD\n\nBeing the gospel of the union of head, heart and hand as preached and\nlived by that good man and great, who has, and truly, said, \u201cThe mintage\nof wisdom is to know that rest is rust, and that real life is in love,\nlaughter and work.\u201d\n\n[Illustration]\n\nGathered together by John T. Hoyle and made into a book by Charles J.\nRosen and Charles Youngers, craftsmen at the Roycroft Shops, which are in\nEast Aurora, Erie County, New York State, Month of November, MCMXVI.\n\n    \u00b6 I will not pray that each day be a perfect day, but I will\n    pray to lapse not into indifference. I will not pray that each\n    time I shall build both strong and true; but imperfect, I will\n    pray for impulse that I may build anew.","title":"The philosophy of Elbert Hubbard","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":26502}