{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_742/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_742","id":"gutenberg_742","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/742","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Journalism/Media/Writing","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Editorials","Essays"],"text":"Ver.04.29.93*END*\n\n\n\n\nEDITORIALS from the HEARST NEWSPAPERS  {Arthur Brisbane}\n\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\nWhy Are All Men Gamblers?\nNo Man Understands Iron\nWe Long for Immortal Imperfection--We Can't Have It.\nThree Water-Drops Converse\nDid We Once Live on the Moon?\nWilliam Henry Channing's Symphony\nThe Existence of God--Parable of the Blind Kittens\nHave the Animals Souls?\nJesus' Attitude Toward Children\nStudy of the Character of God\nThe Fascinating Problem of Immortality\nDiscontent the Motive Power of Progress\nThe Automobile Will Make Us More Human\nLet Us Be Thankful\nThe Harm That Is Done by Our Friends\nShall We Tame and Chain the Invisible Microbe As We Now Chain\nNiagara?\nThe Elephant That Will Not Move Has Better Excuses Than We Have\nfor Folly Displayed\nLet Us Be Thankful\nWhat Will 999 Years Mean to the Human Race?\nThe Azores--A Small Lost World in a Universe of Water\nNo Napoleonic Chess Player on an Air Cushion\nA Girl's Face in the Gaslight\nThe \"Criminal\" Class\nThe Wonderful Magnet\nWho Is Independent? Nobody\nWhen We Begin Using Land Under the Oceans\nWhere Your Body Came From\nHow Marriage Began\nMan's Willingness to Work\nThe Human Brain Beats the Coal Mines\nHow the Other Planets Will Talk to Us\nShall We Do Without Sleep Some Day?\nThe Three Best Things in the World\nThe Value of Solitude\nThere Should Be a Monument to Time\nA Mother's Work and Her Hopes\nYour Work Is Your Brain's Gymnasium\nThe Steeple, Moving Like the Hand of a Clock\nCultivate Thought-Teach Your Brain to Work Early\nThe Wind Does Not Rule Your Destiny\nOne of the Many Corpses in the Johnstown Mine\n\"Limiting the Amount of a Day's Work\"\nCatching a Red-Hot Bolt\nThe Trusts and the Union--How Do They Differ?\nFrance Has Learned Her Lesson\nUnion Men as Slave Owners\nAgain the Limited Day's Work\nTo the Merchants\nWhat About the Chinese, Kind Sir?\n150 against 150,000--We Favor the 150,000\nTo-day's World-Struggle\nWhite-Rabbit Millionaires and Other Things\nNo Happiness Save in Mental and Physical Activity\nThe Owner of a Golden Mountain\nThe Human Weeds in Prison\nCrime Is Dying Out\nThe Value of Poverty to the World\n600 Teachers Now, 600,000 Good Americans in the Future\nEducation--The First Duty of Government\nPoverty Is the Father of Vice, Crime and Failure\nThe Importance of Education Proved in Lincoln's Case\nKnowledge Is Growth\nA Whiskey Bottle\nThose Who Laugh at a Drunken Man\nLaw Cannot Stop Drunkenness--Education Can\nThe Drunkard's Side of It\nDrink a Slow Poison\nTo Those Who Drink Hard--You Have Slipped the Belt\nTry Whiskey on Your Friend's Eyeball\nWhat Are the Ten Best Books?\nThe Marvelous Balance of the Universe--A Lesson in the Texas Flood\nThe Earth Is Only a Front Yard\nLast Week's Baby Will Surely Talk Some Day\nThe Good That Is Done by the Trusts\nTrusts and the Senate\nThe Promising Toad's Head\nTrusts Will Drive Labor Unions Into Politics\nThe Trusts Are National School Teachers\nA Woman to Be Pitied\nWhen Will Woman's Mental Life Begin?\nThe Cow That Kicks Her Weaned Calf Is All Heart\nRespectable Women Who Listen to \"Faust\"\nWhy Women Should Vote\nAstronomy- Woman's Future Work\nWoman's Vanity Is Useful\nTo Editorial Writers--Adopt Ruskin's Main Idea\nImagination Without Dreaming the Secret of Material Success\nThe One Who Needs No Statue\nThe Vast Importance of Sleep\nWoman Sustains, Guides and Controls the World\nThe Story of the Complaining Diamond\nDon't Be in a Hurry, Young Gentlemen\nhen the Baby Changed Into a Fourteen-year-old\nThe Eye That Weighs a Ton\nWhat Animal Controls Your Spirit?\nFrom Mammoths to Mosquitoes--From Murder to  Hypocrisy\nThe Monkey and the Snake Fight\nToo Little and Too Much\nDo You Feel Discouraged?\nTwo Kinds of Discontent\nWhat the Bartender Sees\nWhat Should Be a Man's Object in Life?\nCruel Frightening of Children\nIt Is Natural for Children to Be Cruel\nTwo Thin Little Babies Are Left\nA Baby Can Educate a Man\n\n\nThe articles in this book were published originally in the\neditorial columns of the various Hearst newspapers throughout the\ncountry.\n\nThese articles may have some interest for the student of modern\nhappenings, because of the fact that the newspapers publishing\nthem have an aggregate daily circulation of two millions of\ncopies, and are read each day by no fewer than five millions of\nmen and women. Such wide circulation of identical opinions on\ncurrent events, in different parts of the country, is a new\nfeature of our national life. The character of such writings, and\ntheir probable influence upon the public mind, whatever their\nlack of intrinsic merit, may be of sufficient importance to\njustify the publication of this collection of ephemeral writings.\n\n\n\nWHY ARE ALL MEN GAMBLERS?\n\nThe annual report of the gambling house at Monte Carlo shows a\nprofit of about $5,000,000.\n\nA large collection of human beings travel from all parts of the\nworld to Monte Carlo for the sake of giving $5,000,000 to the\ngambling concern there.\n\nWherever you look on earth to-day or in the past you find human\nbeings gambling, and you will find the gambling instinct stronger\nthan any other--stronger than the love of drink, infinitely\nstronger than the love of normal, honest gain.\n\n * * *\n\nChristopher Columbus's sailors gambled on the way over, and the\nIndians on this side were gambling while waiting to be\ndiscovered.\n\nIn an office overlooking Trinity graveyard, in New York City, an\nold man, past eighty, with a fortune of at least $50,000,000,\ngambles every day with all the excitement of youth.  The\nfluctuations in his game bring to his sallow cheeks the color\nthat no other human emotion could bring there.\n\nOn his way home this old man passes crowds of children in the\nstreets and looks down, concerned and sorrowful, to find that\nthey, too, are gambling.\n\nThey are matching pennies or shaking dice.\n\n* * *\n\nClergymen are startled and amazed to find that women are gambling\nheavily.\n\nThey have gambled heavily ever since civilization has progressed\nfar enough to give them large sums to gamble with.\n\nMarie Antoinette staked thousands of louis at a time at\nVersailles.\n\nShe was so wrapped up in gambling she could not see that her neck\nwas in danger.\n\nWhen the lava came down from Vesuvius it buried Pompeiians who\nwere gambling.\n\nThe men who dig up the old monuments in Africa find gambling\ninstruments crumbling away side by side with appliances for\ntaking human life.\n\n* * *\n\nNowhere in the lower forms of animal life, so far as we know, is\nthere the slightest indication of the gambling instinct.\n\nThe monkey, the elephant, love whiskey, and easily become\ndrunkards.\n\nThe passion for alcohol seems innate in animal life; even the\nwise ant can be readily induced to disgrace himself if alcohol is\nput near him.\n\nFor all the human weaknesses and mainsprings--ambition,\naffection, vanity, drunkenness, ferocity, greediness, cunning--we\ncan find beginnings among the lower animals.\n\nBut man appears to have evolved from within himself the gambling\ninstinct for his own especial damnation.\n\nWhere did the instinct come from?  Why was it planted in us?\n\nLike every other instinct with which intelligent nature endows\nus, it must have its good purpose, and it must not be judged\nmerely in the corrupted form in which we study it at Monte Carlo\nor in Wall Street.\n\nPerhaps the spirit of gambling is really only an atrophied,\nperverted form of the spirit of adventure.\n\nColumbus staked his life and gambled, when he started across the\nwater.\n\nThe leaders of the American Revolution expressly staked their\nlives, their fortunes and their \"sacred honor\" in signing the\nDeclaration of Independence.  They were noble gamblers, working\nfor the welfare of their fellows.\n\nPerhaps gambling is only a perverted form of intelligent\nambition--we are all natural gamblers because we have within us\nthe quality which makes us willing to risk our own comfort,\nsecurity and present happiness for a result that seems better\nworth while.\n\nThe universality of the gambling instinct in human beings is\ncertainly worthy of our study.\n\n\n\nNO MAN UNDERSTANDS IRON\nHOW CAN WE HOPE TO UNDERSTAND GOD?\n\nIs there laughter in heaven--or can nothing move the eternal\nheavenly calm?\n\nIf mirth exists among the perpetually blissful, how must the\nangels laugh when in idle moments they listen to our speculations\nconcerning the Divinity?  They peer down at us as we look at ants\ndragging home a fragment of dead caterpillar. They hear us say\nthings like this:\n\nIf God exists, why does He not reveal himself to ME?\n\nHow could God exist before He created the world?  Force cannot\nexist or demonstrate its existence without matter.  How could a\ncreator exist except with creation around him?\n\nWhere did He live before He made heaven?\n\nIf He is all-powerful, could He in five seconds make a six\nmonths' old calf?  If He made it in five seconds it would not be\nsix months old.\n\nNonsense more subtle comes from the educated, from those who know\nenough to be preposterous in a pretentious way.\n\nHear the wise man:\n\nGod does not exist, because I cannot prove His existence:  I can\nprove everything else.  With my law of gravitation I point to a\nspeck in space and say:  \"You'll find a new planet there,\" and\nyou find it.  If a God existed could I not also point to Him?  If\nI can trace a comet in its flight, could I not trace the comet's\nmaker?\n\nHuxley says:  \"The cosmic process has no sort of relation to\nmoral ends.\"  That's a philosopher's way of saying something\nfoolish.  Lalande, the astronomer, remarked that he had swept the\nentire heavens with his telescope and found no God there.  That's\nfunnier than any ant who should say:  \"I've searched this whole\ndead caterpillar and found no God, so THERE IS NO GOD.\"  The\ncorner of space which our telescopes can \"sweep\" is smaller,\ncompared to the universe, than a dead caterpillar compared with\nthis earth.\n\nMoleschott, an able physiologist, believed that phosphorus was\nessential to mental activity.  Perhaps he did prove that.  But he\nsaid:  \"No thought without phosphorus,\" and thought he had wiped\nthe human soul out of existence.  Philosophers do not laugh at\nMoleschott.  But they would laugh at a savage who would say:\n\n\"I have discovered that there is a catgut in a fiddle.  No fiddle\nwithout catgut--no music without cats.  Don't talk to me about\nsoul or musical genius--it's all catgut.\"\n\nWe peek out at this universe from our half-developed corner of\nit.  We see faintly the millions of huge suns circling with their\nplanet families billions of miles away.  We see our own little\nsun rise and set; we ask ourselves a thousand foolish questions\nof cause and Ruler--and because we cannot answer, we decry faith.\n\nWise doubter, look at a small piece of iron.  It looks solid.\nYou suppose that its various parts touch.  But submit it to cold.\n\nYou make it smaller.  Then the particles did not touch.  Do they\ntouch now?  No; relatively they are farther apart than this\nplanet from its nearest neighbor.\n\nThat piece of iron, apparently solid, consists of clusters of\natoms wonderfully grouped, each cluster called a molecule.  The\nmolecular cluster is invisible, millions of clusters in the\nsmallest visible fragment.  The atom is accepted by science as\nthe final particle of matter.  Its name indicates that it is\nsupposed to be indivisible.  When science gets to the atom it\ncalmly gives up and says:  \"That is so small that it can no\nlonger be divided.\"  A reasonable enough conclusion on the\nsurface, considering that you might have millions of atoms of\niron in one corner of your eye and not know it.\n\nBut why should the atom be incapable of further division?  If it\nis any size at all it can be thought of as split.\n\nWhere does the divisibility of matter end, if anywhere?  What is\nthere SOLID about iron?  Nothing in reality, except that it seems\nto us solid.  Already, with the X-ray, we can look through it.\nForces such as heat and electricity pass through it more readily\nthan through free air.\n\nScience, which gradually finds things out, denying as it goes\nalong everything one step beyond, tells you truly that the\nclusters of atoms in iron float in a sea of ether, just as do our\nplanets going round the sun.  Heat the iron intensely.  What\nhappens?  You get what you call white heat.  The white heat and\nthe white light come from the increase of wave motion in this\nether, and this ether, absolutely imponderable, of a tenuity\ninconceivable, possesses elasticity greater and more powerful\nthan that of coiled steel.  ----\n\nSo much for one small piece of iron, such as you would kick to\none side in a junk heap.  If it interests you, read pages 159 to\n162 of John Fiske's admirable little book, \"Through Nature to\nGod.\" You will finish the book the day you get it.\n\nIf you are surprised to learn how much you did not know about\niron--after living near bits of iron all your life--is it not\njust possible that your mind may be too feeble to conceive of\nGod?\n\nFor the fly buzzing about the edge of Niagara Falls, the falls do\nnot exist.  The fly's brain cannot grasp their grandeur.  It can\nunderstand only the speck of spray that falls on its wing.\n\nYou live with God around you, hopelessly incapable of perceiving\nHis existence save through that faint spark of unconscious faith\nthat was mercifully planted in you.  Snuff that out with dull\nefforts at reason, and you have nothing.\n\n\n\nWE LONG FOR IMMORTAL IMPERFECTION-- WE CAN'T HAVE IT.\n\nAll our longings for immortality, all our plans for immortal life\nare based on the hope that Divine Providence will condescend to\nlet us live in another world as we live here.\n\nEach of us wants to be himself in the future life, and to see his\nfriends as he knew them.\n\nWe want to preserve individuality forever and ever, when the\nstars shall have faded away and the days of matter ended.\n\nBut what is individuality except imperfection?  You are different\nfrom Smith, Smith is different from Jones.  But it is simply a\ndifference of imperfect construction.  One is more foolish than\nanother, one is more irresponsibly moved to laughter or\nanger--that constitutes his personality.\n\nRemove our imperfections and we should all be alike--smooth off\nall agglomerations of matter on all sides and everything would be\nspherical.\n\nWhat would be the use of keeping so many of us if we were all\nperfect, and therefore all alike?  One talks through his nose,\none has a deep voice.  But shall kind Providence provide two sets\nof wings for nose talkers and chest talkers?  Why not make the\ntwo into one good talker and save one pair of wings?\n\nWhy not, in fact, keep just one perfect sample, and let all the\nrest placidly drift back to nothingness?  Or, better, why not\ntake all the goodness that there is in all the men and women that\never were and melt it all down into one cosmic human being?  ----\n\nThe rain drops, the mist and the sprays of Niagara all go back to\nthe ocean in time.  Possibly we all go back at the end to the sea\nof divine wisdom, whence we were sent forth to do, well or badly,\nour little work down here:\n\nFuture punishment?  We think not.\n\nOne drop of water revives the wounded hero--another helps to give\nwet feet and consumption to a little child.  It all depends on\ncircumstances.\n\nBoth drops go back to the ocean.  There is no rule that sends the\ngood drop to heaven and the other to boil forever and ever in a\nsulphur pit.  ----\n\nTroubles beset us when we think of a future state and our reason\nquarrels always with our longings.  We all want--in heaven--to\nmeet Voltaire with his very thin legs.  But we cannot believe\nthat those skinny shanks are to be immortal.  We shall miss the\nsnuff and the grease on Sam Johnson's collar.  If an angel comes\nup neat and smiling and says \"Permit me to introduce myself --I\nam the great lexicographer,\" we shall say \"Tell that to some\nother angel.  The great Samuel was dirty and wheezy, and I liked\nhim that way.\"\n\nAnd children.  The idea of children in heaven flying about with\ntheir little fluffy wings is fascinating.  But would eternal\nchildhood be fair to them?  If a babe dies while teething, shall\nit remain forever toothless?  How shall its mother know it if it\nis allowed to grow up?\n\nListen to Heine--that marvellous genius of the Jewish race:\n\n\"Yes, yes!  You talk of reunion in a transfigured shape.  What\nwould that be to me?  I knew him in his old brown surtout, and so\nI would see him again.  Thus he sat at table, the salt cellar and\npepper caster on either hand.  And if the pepper was on the right\nand the salt on the left hand he shifted them over.  I knew him\nin a brown surtout, and so I would see him again.\"\n\nThus he spoke of his dead father.  Thus many of us think and\nspeak of those that are gone.  How foolish to hope for the\npreservation of what is imperfect!\n\nHow important to have FAITH, and to feel that reality will\nsurpass anticipation, and that whatever IS will be the best thing\nfor us and satisfy us utterly.\n\n\n\nTHREE WATER DROPS CONVERSE\n\nThree drops of water, stranded in a crevice on the side of an\ninland mountain, talked in this way:\n\nFirst Drop--\"They say there is an ocean whence we came and to\nwhich we shall return.\"\n\nSecond Drop--\"They say we three drops are made in the image of\nthat ocean; that as far as we go, which is not far, we are\nminiature oceans.\"\n\nThird Drop--\"Bosh and nonsense.  There is no ocean.  It is all\nsuperstition.  Before we were born here, from the mist, what were\nwe?  When we evaporate in a few minutes what becomes of us?  You\ntwo drops make me feel sorry for you.  I know that when I cease\nreflecting that white cloud up there, that ends ME.  I have no\ndelusions about oceans or going back to anything.\" ----\n\nYou know what happened.  The cloud formed into rain and our three\ndrops were washed into a tiny trickling stream.  The thin stream\nof rain ran into a brook, the brook into a river.  Soon the three\ndrops were back in the ocean--possibly without knowing it.\n\nShall we some day go rolling back to the ocean of cosmic wisdom\nwhence we came?\n\nIs it possible that man is indeed made in the image of God, as\ndrops are made in the ocean's image--the individual men, like the\nindividual drops, being sent forth to do necessary cosmic work\nthrough the universe, going back to the ocean after each errand\nis done, and so going back and forth, forever and ever?\n\nThat would not be such a mean destiny, we should say.  It would\ncertainly be a very democratic form of cosmic government.  ----\n\nInferior men, inferior women, unworthy of comparison with\nperfect, cosmic wisdom?\n\nNot at all.  Not inferior men and women, but inferior mediums,\ninferior brains, bodies and planets through which to work.\n\nIs one drop of water inferior to another?  Is any inferior to the\npurest drop in the ocean?\n\nNo.  But one drop runs through the gutter of a stable, another\nrolls from a mountain spring, a third carries in solution the\ngerm of typhus.  But all three came pure from the ocean and all\nwill go back to the ocean pure.\n\n\n\nDID WE ONCE LIVE ON THE MOON?\nAND SHALL WE MOVE ON TO THE SUN SOME FINE DAY?\n\nThe most interesting questions are such as these:\n\nWhence did we come?\n\nWhither are we going?\n\nAnd, by the way, what are we?  Are we of any true importance?\nAre we a permanent part of the universal scheme, privileged to\nmove along through the ages and see the end as we have seen the\nbeginning?  Or are we, as advanced science says, merely like the\nweevil in the biscuit--no part of the Baker's plan?\n\nAre we indestructible specks of cosmic intelligence, lighting up\nand animating one material body after another--never\ndestroyed--or do we play on this earth the passing part of the\nmicrobe in the Brie cheese, which gives that cheese its flavor?\n----\n\nA great scientist, coldly analyzing the chemical processes\nessential to the creation of each new human being, scoffs at any\npossibility of immortality.  With the microscope at his eye, he\nmagnifies nature's mysteries; he sums up the investigations of\nthe Hertwig brothers; he discourses learnedly of the nucleolus of\nthe Cytula--or progeny cell.  He declares that science is able to\nwatch the creation of a human being, as it watches the progress\nof a chick in the egg.  He asserts that each new creature is\nmerely the result of a chemical process blending qualities of the\nmother and father.  Having a \"final beginning,\" man must have a\nfinal end.  Man--a mixture of two sets of qualities--has no more\nchance of immortality than has beer, which is a mixture of malt\nand hops.\n\nRead and think over this cold summing-up of our mean, limited\ndestiny as science farthest advanced now sees it:\n\n\"It must appear utterly senseless now to speak of the immortality\nof the human person, when we know how this person, with all its\nindividual qualities of body and mind, has arisen.  How can this\nperson possess an eternal life without end?  The human person,\nlike every other many-celled individual, IS BUT A PASSING\nPHENOMENON OF ORGANIC LIFE.  With its death, the series of its\nvital activities ceases entirely, just as it began.\"\n\nThat certainly is discouraging to a man who for fifty years has\nsung \"I want to be an angel.\"\n\nYet that is what Haeckel has to say about our chance of\nimmortality.  But the other side of the grave has the LAST say,\nand we think it will discredit Haeckel.  We should even undertake\nto do that now and here in two columns of a yellow journal.  But\nwe are DETERMINED before the column ends to ask you what you\nthink of our moon-earth-sun transmigration notion.\n\nThe sun is now a blazing mass, inconceivably huge, inconceivably\nfierce in our eyes.  Its flames leap hundreds of thousands of\nmiles into space.  If our earth fell to the sun, it would melt as\na snow-flake falling upon a blazing forest.  We certainly do not\nreadily look upon the sun as our future home, if we accept its\npresent condition as permanent.\n\nBut once upon a time, hundreds of millions of years back, this\nearth used to look TO THE MOON, on a smaller scale, as the sun\nnow looks to us.  If there were on the moon at that time inferior\nhuman beings, in a low state of cosmic evolution, they\nundoubtedly had to thank the earth for their life, as we thank\nthe sun.  To them the earth, then incandescent, blazing with the\nheat that now reveals itself through volcanoes, was simply a\nwhirling ball of fire, put in its place to warm them.\n\nThey could no more think that men would ever come to live here\nthan we can now think of moving on to the sun.  ----\n\nIn course of time this earth cooled off.  It cooled so thoroughly\nthat the moon died of cold.  Life could no longer continue there.\n\nThe dead satellite's destiny thenceforward was to show gratitude\nfor past heat by moving our tides and cheering our poets.  As\nlife died out on the cold moon which had given us temporary\nhospitality, life sprang into being on this planet, now fitted to\nsupport it.\n\nHere, on a larger sphere, with greater opportunities, mankind is\ngrowing, and will far outstrip all that it could have done on the\npoor little moon.\n\nMeanwhile, as we struggle on, improving slowly, the sun, as\nscience proves, is cooling off in its turn.  The flames become\nless fierce as the thousands of centuries roll by.  When we shall\nhave developed as much as possible on this limited planet, our\nhome will be cooled and ready on the sun, centre of our life in\nthis corner of space.\n\nWe shall move up a step--as boys do in the public schools.  We\nshall have been moon men, earth men, and shall graduate into sun\nmen.  Think of a home so vast! On that grand star we shall lead\nlives worth while, and justify Huxley's belief that men exist\nsomewhere compared to whom we should \"be as black beetles\ncompared to us.\"\n\nThe excitement of meeting our brothers from other planets as they\nmove up to the sun in batchcs will be great.\n\n\n\nWILLIAM HENRY CHANNING'S SYMPHONY\n\nTHE THOUGHT--\n\nTo live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than\nluxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy,\nnot respectable, and wealthy, not, rich; to listen to stars and\nbirds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to\nthink quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry\nnever; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious,\ngrow up through the common--this is my symphony.\n\n             WILLIAM HENRY CHANNING.\n\nTO LIVE CONTENT WITH SMALL MEANS.\n\nThis means to realize to the full the possibilities of life.\nContentment means ABSENCE OF WORRY.  It is only when free from\nworry that the brain can act normally, up to its highest\nstandard.  The man content with small means does his best work,\ndevotes his energies to that which is worth while, and not to\nacquiring that which has no value.\n\nTO SEEK ELEGANCE RATHER THAN LUXURY.\n\nThe difference between elegance and luxury is the difference\nbetween the thin, graceful deer, browsing on the scanty but\nsufficient forest pasture, and the fat swine revelling in\nplentiful garbage.\n\nREFINEMENT RATHER THAN FASHION.\n\nThe difference between refinement and fashion is the difference\nbetween brains and clothing, the difference between an Emerson or\na Huxley and a Beau Brummel or other worthless but elaborately\ndecked carcass.\n\nTO BE WORTHY, NOT RESPECTABLE.\n\nIn other words, to be like Henry George, and not like the owner\nof a trust.\n\nWEALTHY, NOT RICH.\n\nThe man who has a good wife and good children, enough to take\ncare of them, but not enough to spoil them, is WEALTHY.  He is\nhappier than the man who is RICH enough to be worried, rich\nenough to make it certain that his children will be ruined by\nextravagance, and perhaps live to be ashamed of him.\n\nTO LISTEN TO STARS AND BIRDS, BABES AND SAGES, WITH OPEN HEART.\n\nThis means to enjoy the noblest gifts that God has given to man.\nHe is happy who takes more pleasure in a beautiful sunset than in\nthe sight of a flunky with powdered hair, artificial calves and\nlofty manners, handing him something indigestible on a plate of\ngold.\n\nTO STUDY HARD; TO THINK QUIETLY, ACT FRANKLY, TALK GENTLY.\n\nTo exercise in this way the brain that is given to us is to lead\nthe life of a MAN, a life of self-control, a life that is worth\nwhile, that leads to something and helps forward the improvement\nof the race.\n\nIn the words which we have quoted at the top of  this column\nWilliam Henry Channing has given a recipe for wise living.  ----\n\nWHO WAS CHANNING?\n\nHe was a good man, and a wise man.  He was one of the most\neloquent clergymen ever born in this country, and as sincere a\nfriend of individual man and of the race in general as ever\nlived.\n\nHe was an enthusiast and an optimist--admirable combination.\n\nHe was born in 1810, and died in 1884.  His biography has been\nwritten by Octavius B. Frothingham.\n\nChanning saw the world through generous, charitable eyes.\n\nHe was an ardent admirer of Charles Fourier, and appreciated the\nphilosophy and social law-giving of that gigantic intellect.\n\nThe quotation we print above is an index to his whole character,\njust as one flower tells the story of the beautiful garden in\nwhich it grew.\n\nChanning, unlike many sayers of fine things, was personally as\nfine as the things he said.  He was worthy even of his own best\nthoughts, and that can be said for few fine thinkers.\n\nAdmire him.  Read some of his sermons and other writings if you\nhave the chance.\n\n\n\nTHE EXISTENCE OF GOD--PARABLE OF THE BLIND KITTENS\n\nThe notion that small things, the petty details of life, such as\nmoney getting, marriage questions, etc., are uppermost in the\nmodern human brain is entirely false.\n\nIf an editor asks:  \"Is marriage a failure?\" he receives just so\nmany answers, and then the interest dies out.\n\nIf he asks:  \"Should a wife have pin money?\" or \"What is the\neasiest way for a woman to earn a living?\" he ceases to receive\nanswers after a short time.\n\nBut to questions concerning the immortality of the soul, the\nexistence of God, and man's destiny here and hereafter, the\nanswers are endless.  Letters on such matters have been received\nhere by thousands.  Every day the mail brings new and intelligent\ncontributions to the questions that have kept men praying,\nthinking, fighting and hoping through the centuries:\n\n\"IS THERE A GOD, AND WILL MY SOUL LIVE FOREVER?\" ----\n\nVery interesting are the expressions of faith which fill a\nmajority of the letters.  Interesting also are the letters of\ndoubters atheists, agnostics and the many intoxicated with a very\nlittle knowledge, who have decided to substitute their own wisdom\nand doubt for the belief of the ages--the belief in God and in\npersonal immortality.\n\nMany think science has discovered that we could get on very well\nwithout a God.  But science has done just the contrary.  And\nhere, if you please, we shall build up a sort of parable:  ----\n\nA Man had a box full of motherless blind kittens.  He was very\nkind to them.  He put their box on wheels and moved it about to\nkeep it in the sun.  He gave them milk at regular intervals.\nWith loving kindness he drove away the dog which growled and\nscared the little kittens into spitting and back raising.\n\nThe kittens trusted the Man, loved him and felt that they needed\nhim.  That was the age of faith.\n\nOne day a dog got a kitten and tore it to pieces.\n\nThe kitten had disobeyed orders and laws.  It had crawled away\nfrom the box.\n\nAnother kitten, with one eye now partly open, got thoughtful and\nsaid:  \"There is no such thing as Man.  Or, if there is such a\nthing, he is a monster to let little Willie get torn up.  Don't\ntalk to me about Kitten Wiliie being a sufferer through his own\nfault.  I say there is no such thing as a Man.  We kittens are\nbosses of the universe and must do our own fighting.\"\n\nThat speaker was the Ingersoll kitten.\n\nA kitten of higher mental class opened both eyes just a little\nand actually made observations.\n\nSaid he:  \"I am a scientist.  I discover that we owe nothing to\nMan's kindness.  We are governed by laws.  This box is on wheels.\n\nIt rolls around in the sunlight of its own volition.  True, I do\nnot know who shoves it, but no Man could do it.  Further, I\ndiscover that there is such a thing as the law of 'milk-passing.'\nMilk comes this way just so often.  Its coming is nature's law.\nIt has always come.  It always will come.  Good-night, I am going\nto sleep.  But don't talk to me any more about a kind Man.  It's\nall law, and I am certainly great, for I saw the laws first.\"\n\nThat was the Newton kitten, but he lacked the Newton faith.\n\nWe have no time to tell what the Darwin kitten said.  He was very\nlong-winded.\n\nBut this happened.  The kittens grew up--such as did not perish\nthrough their own fault.  They got their eyes fully opened.  They\nsaw the Man, recognized him and asked only to be allowed to stay\nin his house.  \"Excuse us,\" they said, \"for being such foolish\nkittens.  But you know our eyes were not quite open.\"\n\n\"Don't mention it,\" said the kind Man.  \"Go down cellar and help\nyourselves to mice.\"\n\nThat's the end of the parable.  We are all blind kittens, and our\nfew attempts at explaining nature's wonders and kindness only get\nus into deeper and deeper mysteries.\n\nWe discover that the earth goes round the sun.  But the greatest\nscientist must admit his inability to tell or guess why it goes.\n\"Give me the initial impulse,\" he says, \"and all the rest is\neasy.\"\n\nThe blind kittens in their wagon say:  \"Give our wagon just one\nshove and we'll explain the rest.\"\n\nThe kitten gets hold of a law of \"milk-passing\" and substitutes\nthat for man's individual kindness.\n\nThe feeble-minded agnostic seizes the law of gravitation and\nthinks he can discard God with gravity's help.\n\nBut the great mind that defined gravity's law was a religious\nmind--too profound to see anything final in its own feeble power.\n\nNewton was no atheist.  None better than he knew the mysterious\ncharacter of his law.  That it has worked from all eternity\n\"directly as the mass and inversely as the square of the\ndistance\" he knew and told his fellow-creatures.  That is all he\nknew and all that any man knows about it.\n\nTo-day Lord Kelvin, a worthy follower in Newton's steps, is asked\nto explain WHY gravity acts.  He can only say:\n\n\"I accept no theory of gravitation.  Present science has no\nright to attempt to explain gravitation.  We know nothing about\nit.  We simply know NOTHING about it.\"\n\nDarwin asks, without answering his question:\n\n\"Who can explain what is the essence of the attraction of\ngravitation?\" ----\n\nTo our doubting friends we say:  Doubt if you must.  But doubt\nintelligently and doubt first of all your own blind kitten\nwisdom.  Remember that you at least know absolutely nothing.\nStudy and think.  Read.  But don't let the half-developed wisdom\nof others choke up your brain and leave you a mere clogged-up\ndoubting machine.\n\nWhatever you do, never interfere with the faith of others.\nSpread KNOWLEDGE, spread FACTS.  Keep to yourself the doubts that\nwould disturb others' happiness and do them no good.  Tell what\nyou KNOW.  Keep quiet about what you GUESS.\n\n\n\nHAVE THE ANIMALS SOULS?\n\n\"For that which befalleth the sons of men, befalleth beasts;\neven one thing befalleth them; as the one dieth, so dieth the\nother; YEA, THEY HAVE ALL ONE BREATH; SO THAT A MAN HATH NO\nPRE-EMINENCE ABOVE A BEAST:  for all is vanity.\n\n\"Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the\nSPIRIT of the beast that goeth downward to the earth.\"\n--Ecclesiastes iii., 19-21.\n\nThe surface of the earth, the air as high as we can study it, the\ndepths of the sea, swarm with animal life.\n\nThe earth rolls around the sun bathed in its warm light.\nMillions of creatures die with every revolution of the little\nplanet which is their home.  And man \"going to and fro in the\nearth, and walking up and down in it\" rules the little animals\nand the big ones and calls himself sole heir of immortality.  He\nsays:  \"For ME this earth was made and balanced in its wonderful\njourney; for ME alone the marvels of future life are reserved.\"\n\nHe digs up the strange creatures from the slimy depths of the\nocean, studies and labels them.\n\nHe dissects one animal to study his own diseases.  He skins\nanother to cover his feet with leather.  He eats one ox and\nhitches its brother to the plough.  He uses nature's explosive\nforces to bring down the bird on the wing.  He sweeps the rivers\nwith his nets.\n\nThe stomach of the well-fed man is the graveyard of the animal\nkingdom.\n\nWhen his dinner is finished, the man well fed strokes his stomach\ncontentedly and says to himself:\n\nAll is well.  For I have a soul and THEY have none.  They\nhave died to feed me.  I am happy and they should be satisfied.\n----\n\nWhat is the nature of the spirit that directs our humble animal\nbrothers and sisters?  They cover the earth as long as we let\nthem, give place to us as the human race increases, and, without\nany thought of organized resistance, die that we may live.\n\nHAVE THESE ANIMALS SOULS?\n\nYou have seen the bird grieving over the destruction of its nest.\n\nYou have studied the pathetic eyes of the lost dog, and the sad\nsubmission of the tired, beaten horse.\n\nIs there not soul in those stricken creatures, and spiritual\nfeeling deeper than that displayed by many men?\n\nFirst came all ANIMAL life, as we know it, and then came MAN.\n\nScience and religion agree on this point, at least.\n\nAll owe their being to the same eternal FORCE.  On this point\nagain religion and science agree.\n\nIs the life in animals merely a passing dream, or does it express\nin its humble way the promise of life eternal?\n\nIn Italy a scientific villain experimented on a dog to ascertain\nthe power of maternal affection.\n\nThe dog was most cruelly tortured.  Its newborn puppy was beside\nit.  Its nerves were racked, its spine injured, BUT WHENEVER\nPERMITTED TO DO SO, THE POOR TORTURED, ANIMAL MOTHER TURNED ITS\nHEAD TOWARD ITS WHINING CHILD AND LICKED IT AFFECTIONATELY.\n\nUntil it died there was nothing that could overcome maternal love\nin the heart of that poor dumb mother.\n\nIs there not soul in such love as that?\n\n\n\nJESUS' ATTITUDE TOWARD CHILDREN\nA SUNDAY SERMON\n\n\"Suffer the little children to come unto me; and forbid them not;\nfor of such is the Kingdom of God.\"--Mark X., 14.\n\nJesus gave to the child its place in the world's society.\n\nWith all the power of divine authority He built around the\nfeeblest among us a wall that has protected them through the\nages.\n\nBefore His day the child existed only by sufferance.  It had no\nrights.\n\nIt was but a counter, an infinitesimal atom.  It was considered\nsimply the property of the parent.  Its father had power of life\nand death over it.  The homeless dog that roams the streets\nto-day is more effectively shielded from cruelty than was the\nfriendless child before Jesus came to live and to die for the\nweak and poor.\n\nThe law had said:\n\n\"The parent is ruler of the child, and may dispose of it as he\nsees fit.\"\n\nBut Jesus said--and these are the most beautiful and affecting\nwords in all the moral law of the world:\n\n\"Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I\nsay unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the\nface of my Father which is in heaven.\"--Matthew xviii., 10.\n\nNo threats so terrifying as those aimed at men who should harm\nlittle children:\n\n\"It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about\nhis neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the\nsea.\"--Matthew xviii., 6.\n\nIt is impossible now to conceive the horrid indifference to\nchildhood's rights which preceded the birth of Christianity.\n\nInfanticide was not the exception, but a settled custom.  So much\nso, that in Rome the \"exposure\" of children in desert places was\nalmost a virtue, since it gave the child some slight chance of\nsurviving.\n\nNot a few, but thousands and tens of thousands of children were\nthus \"exposed.\"  They fell a prey to wild beasts, or to the human\nbeasts, still more ferocious, who took the children to make\nslaves or criminals of them.\n\nJesus came, and a miracle was worked--a miracle that no man will\ndeny.\n\nThis was the miracle:\n\nJesus said:\n\n\"For I say unto you, their angels behold the face of my Father\nwhich is in heaven.\"\n\nJesus spoke, and thousands of millions of men, through nineteen\ncenturies, have believed, and obeyed the command.\n\nEvery man was warned that the child dying goes straightway into\nthe presence of God, and there, looking upon His face, bears\nwitness to the treatment meted out to him here.\n\nWell might it be said of the man who mistreated such a child:\n\n\"It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about\nhis neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.\"\n\nEvery man should study with awe and reverence the sad, lonely\nmisunderstood life of Jesus, the friend of children.  He had no\nhome, and for companions only a few humble fishermen, to whom He\nspoke in simple parables, as to children.\n\n\"The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests\nbut the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head.\"--Matthew\nviii., 20.\n\nIt was this childless, homeless Man that ever used His marvellous\npower to protect children.\n\nIt was He who gave to children their definite share in the\nkingdom of God.\n\nBefore His coming the wisdom of the world was devoted to telling\nthe child ITS duty.\n\nBut Jesus explained to grown men THEIR duty toward children.\n\nThe family life was His ideal.\n\nAll men were His brothers, and, with Him, sons of God.\n\nThe loving kindness shown by God toward helpless men and women\nTHEY should show to helpless children.\n\nNeither the rights nor the WISDOM of children must be despised:\n\n\"I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou\nhast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast\nrevealed them unto babes; even so, Father; for so it seemed\ngood in thy sight.\"--Luke x., 21.\n\nWherever Jesus went, children followed Him, and the tiniest\nlittle soul, in its mother's arms or tottering along in wide-eyed\ncuriosity, could arrest His loving attention.\n\nHow beautiful is the picture that the Bible story presents to the\nmind!\n\nJesus is at Capernaum, on the sunny shore of the Sea of Galilee.\n\nThe Disciples--simple, honest men, often excited as to precedence\nand filled with deep longing to stand first in the Master's\nesteem--ask Him:\n\n\"Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?\"--Matthew\nxviii., 1.\n\nAround them is gathered the typical Oriental group, and many\nolive-skinned women, with their children:\n\n\"And Jesus called a little child unto Him, and set him in the\nmidst of them and said:  'Verily I say unto you, except ye be\nconverted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into\nthe kingdom of heaven.\n\n\"'Whosoever, therefore, shall humble himself as this little\nchild, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.\n\n\"'And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name\nreceiveth me.'\"\n\nTeach your children to think of and to love the divine Soul that\npleaded their cause.  Teach them that in all the words He uttered\nthere can be found only love for them.  No threats, no warnings--\nonly love.\n\n\n\nSTUDY OF THE CHARACTER OF GOD\n\n\"Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said . . . .\nWhere wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?\nDeclare, if thou hast understanding.\"--Job xxxviii. 1, 4.\n\nSince men have lived on earth their feeble intellects have\nstruggled to realize the majesty of God.\n\nSucceeding nations and civilizations have expressed through laws\nor religions their puny conceptions of the power that controls\nthe universe.\n\nAs mental and moral standards have improved, there has been\nconstant improvement in the conception of God.\n\nThe Greeks and Romans imagined a variety of gods, and attributed\nto these the vices and weaknesses of men.\n\nThe Fijians worshipped a god who devoured the souls of the dead,\ninflicting torture in the eating, but mercifully releasing souls\nfrom pain when the meal was ended.\n\nThe ancient Mexicans went to war \"because their gods demanded\nsomething to eat.\" Their armies fought \"only endeavoring to take\nprisoners, that they might have men to feed those gods.\" ----\n\nEven with the birth of the one great idea--THE UNITY OF GOD--the\npersonality of the universal Creator was but a reflection of His\nworshippers.\n\nHe was a \"jealous\" God, a \"man of war.\"  \"God Himself is with us\nfor our captain.\"-- Chron. xiii., 12.\n\nGod dwelt in a city made of nothing cheaper than gold and\nprecious stones.  For His own glory, He maintained a court\nOriental in form, with strange beasts to sing His praises, and He\ntortured forever and ever creatures that He had made.\n\nThe present conception of an omnipotent God has changed greatly\nsince the old days, when cruelty was the rule and was admired.\nThere is to-day insistence on God's LOVE, on His JUSTICE, on His\nMERCY that \"endureth forever\"--there is practically no teaching\nof the old belief that a creature, born of circumstances, and\ngood or bad as circumstances may determine, is to suffer endless\ntorment under never-changing conditions of horror.  ----\n\nThe writing of this editorial is based upon frequent reading of\nthe book of Job.  In that ancient and wonderful book, as in no\nother writing, the Jewish forces of poetry and of prophecy are\nexhausted in the effort to portray God's majesty.\n\nAll of the old prophet's knowledge of the world, all of his\nmystic notions of sidereal government, are used in the effort to\nglorify his Creator.\n\n\"Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days?\n\n\"Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go and say unto\nthee, Here we are?\n\n\"Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow?\n\n\"Gavest thou the goodly wings unto the peacocks?\n\n\"Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook?\n\n\"Will he make many supplications unto thee?  Will he speak\nsoft words unto thee?\n\n\"Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow?  or hast\nthou seen the treasures of the hail?\"\n\nThus through chapters of greatest beauty the primitive mind seeks\nto portray for the benefit of other primitive minds the\nomnipotence of the world's Ruler.  ----\n\nWhat hope has man of conceiving, even approximately, the great\nlaw-giving Force that rules the universe?  Shall we ever do more\nthan attribute to Him those qualities which our own pygmy minds\nadmire?  Shall we forever conceive Him as a glorified\n\"individual\"?\n\nWe believe that in the Book of Job there is suggested the method\nof studying God that alone can aid us to a better, higher\nconception.\n\nThe study of God must be prosecuted through the study of\nastronomy, and this the old prophet foreshadows clearly:\n\n\"Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose\nthe bands of Orion?\n\n\"Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season?  or canst\nthou guide Arcturus with his sons?\"\n\nLong years ago children were taught to admire a god who created a\nleviathan, a unicorn, and \"Behemoth.\"\n\nChildren of the future will be told:\n\nYou live on a globe twenty-five thousand miles round.  It travels\nceaselessly through space at a speed of eighteen miles a second.\nCompared to the huge sun that lights and gives us life, our earth\nis but a pinhead, and the sun itself is but one tiny dot in the\nocean of space.  Through that space the sun rushes on an errand\nunknown, carrying us with it.\n\nEverything moves, revolves, rushes ceaselessly, yet a balance\nregistering the one-thousandth part of a grain is not adjusted as\nnicely as these huge behemoths of limitless space.  Laplace shows\npositive proof that the earth, travelling eighteen miles per\nsecond, has not changed the period of its rotation by the\nhundredth part of a second in two thousand years.\n\nThe mind of the future, imbued with respect for the Force that\ncontrols, conducts and makes the laws for the universe, will\nattain more nearly to a conception of God.  But a study of God\nwill remain man's chief and constant effort while he lives here.\nThat study is never-ending.\n\n\n\nTHE FASCINATING PROBLEM OF IMMORTALITY\n\n(If you read this you will probably feel that you have wasted\ntime.)\n\nIf you travel back far enough you can see in your mind's eye a\nprimitive man with long, red hair, shivering in some icy pool.\nHe has taken refuge there from a pursuing bear or other foe.  He\nsees that he must die of cold or of the bear's teeth.  His dark\nmind--product of a brain primitive and poor in\nconvolutions--contemplates vaguely the prospect ahead of him.  He\nhopes that after death he may through some mysterious kindness be\npermitted to meet again the red-haired women and the wolfish cave\nchildren left behind.\n\nThere, in the cave man's mind, is the first craving for\nimmortality.  Born in that poor brain long centuries ago, it has\nsteadily grown stronger with man's mental development.  ----\n\nNo man looks at death without looking beyond it.  None but has a\ncraving for a future life, with consciousness of his personality\nAND WITH RECOLLECTION OF FRIENDS, FACES AND DEEDS HERE.\n\nSay to a man, \"You shall be immortal, but you shall not know that\nyou are you.\"  He will not give you thanks for such immortality.\n\nSo strong is man's craving for personal, individual immortality\nthat hell with its fires would be preferred by many to\nannihilation.  The strongest argument against immortality--weak\nand ignorant at best--is but a frantic attempt of the mind to\nprove negatively the existence of what it covets.\n\nFortunately for human happiness in general, FAITH, covers the\nrequirements of millions.  They live and die contented, the\ninstinct within them fortified by the teachings of a faith not to\nbe questioned.  ----\n\nBut what of the men and women who ask for evidence, or at least\nfor plausible argument, proving the reasonableness of\nimmortality?  What can be said to please them?\n\nNot much, alas! Probably because we are still so undeveloped\nthat it would be, for many reasons, unsafe to let us know how\ngreat a future is before us.  Strongest in hope is the\nargument of Charles Fourier, based on what he declared to be\na natural law.\n\n\"Attractions are proportionate to destinies.\"\n\nBy this Fourier meant that a universal longing among human\nbeings was certain proof that their ultimate destiny involved\nthe fulfilment of the longing.  The little girl fondling a doll\nforetells maternity.  The hectoring boy foretells the soldier's\ncareer.  No universal attraction, save with a destiny\nproportionate.  ----\n\nThe human race since it began to think and believe has thought of\nand believed in immortality.  The half wise declare that belief\nin immortality and a spirit world came to savage peoples through\ndreams, that it has been kept alive through superstition and the\npower of religion.  Trivial, certainly, is such an explanation of\na phenomenon as wide as mankind's existence.  ----\n\nA very consoling fact for the doubter is this.  The strongest\nminds born on the earth have almost invariably, at some stage\nof development, rejected belief in immortality--only to return\nto the belief, or at least to the HOPE, with fuller age and riper\nwisdom.  That no great mind has seen any positive argument\nagainst the hope of immortality is certainly comforting to all\nof us.  Intelligence can always refute improbability and\nfalsehood.\n----\n\nWhat about the nature of immortality?  The Indian hopes for dogs\nand hunting, the Turk for a life of which the least said the\nbetter.  The Christian, borrowing his ideas from the writings of\nthe old Hebrews, looks forward to what may be called a solid gold\nexistence--everything made of gold or of something more\nexpensive.\n\nWe do not think that religious docility demands implicit belief\nin any of the published details of our future existence.  Gold is\nnot comfortable; jasper would not well replace the green turf.\n\nIs it not more reasonable to assume, since immortality is to be\nours, that it is ours now and always has been?  We cannot imagine\ncreation of the indestructible.  Is it not sensible to take\nliterally that most beautiful invocation:  \"Thy kingdom come ON\nEARTH as it is in heaven\"?\n\nWe know that heaven cannot be above us or hell below; because as\nwe whirl round in each twenty-four hour period those abodes would\nhave to whirl also--quite unreasonable.  ----\n\nThis earth would make a very good heaven--properly improved and\nmanaged.  Wipe out human selfishness, and the Sahara and other\ndeserts.  Establish universal philanthropy, regulate the climate,\nconfine human manual labor to the pushing of an electric\nbutton--all quite possible--and you have the sort of heaven that\nman would select if left to choose.\n\nWhy should we not come back here again and again, taking varying\nhuman forms, doing our duty well or badly each time\naccording to our start in life, and finally enjoying perfect\nterrestrial happiness here as a finished race of immortal\nbeings--immortal in the sense of being indestructible and of\npossessing the gift of perpetual reincarnation?  ----\n\nNow, this earthly reincarnation idea is what we have been driving\nat since the beginning of this particular article.  What is the\nargument against prior and subsequent existence here?  It is\nthis:\n\n\"If I am to live here again, I must have lived here before.  If I\nhave lived here before I do not know it, and I do not look\nforward with pleasure to future existence here in which I shall\nnot know myself.\"\n\nThis is a reasonable objection, certainly.  Reincarnation without\nconsciousness of former existences would miss half the fun.  ----\n\nBut it is possible to be in too much of a hurry.  Let us suppose\nthat as yet we are not sufficiently developed to carry from\none existence to another the memory of former existence.  Suppose\nthe time is to come when we shall suddenly advance as far beyond\nthis intellectual stage as this stage of intellect is beyond that\nof the Bushman.  Is it not conceivable that we may suddenly be\nenabled to recall all former existences and to remember all the\nvarious happenings of our former lives?  May we not say, \"There\nis Mrs. Jones.  I was married to her six million years ago, and\nwe quarrelled\"?  It seems quite hopeable.\n\nYou cannot deny that it is possible.  For instance:  You now\nlead a continuous existence.  You know that you were alive three\ndays ago and you remember what you did then.  But a baby four\nweeks old does NOT know that he was alive three days ago and he\ndoes not know what he did then.  He has not reached a stage where\nhis mind can grasp even the fact of continuous existence.  We may\nnot have reached a stage enabling us to grasp continuous\nreincarnation.\n\nThink of this, and see if you cannot get some comfort, or at\nleast some amusing speculation out of it.  ----\n\nScience admits and thinks it proves that the inorganic atom of\nmatter is indestructible--that it persists forever.  Why should\nwe not admit--and ultimately prove--that the atom of organic\nforce called a soul is indestructible and exists forever?\n\nEvery atom of matter, every particle of force, existing in the\nvisible universe will continue to exist billions of centuries\nafter the universe shall have melted and lost its present shape.\nThe nail on your finger will exist as separate atoms when the\nMilky Way shall have faded from the heavens.  How does that\nstrike you for immortality?\n\nWe predict that the mysterious force-atom called your soul will\nexist AND KNOW ITSELF AND ITS FRIENDS ten thousand billions of\ncenturies from now and be as young as ever.\n\n\n\nDISCONTENT THE MOTIVE POWER OF PROGRESS\n\nAt first the baby lies fiat on his back, eyes staring up at the\nceiling.\n\nBy and by he gets tired of lying on his back.  DISCONTENT with\nhis condition makes him wriggle and wriggle.  At last he succeeds\nin turning over.\n\nIf he were contented then, there would be no men on earth--only\nhuge babies.  But DISCONTENT again seizes him, and through\ndiscontent he learns to crawl.\n\nCrawling--travelling on hands and knees--satisfied lower forms of\nanimal life.  It used to satisfy us, in the old days of early\nevolutionary stages.\n\nBut the human infant--thanks to inborn cravings--is DISCONTENTED\nwith crawling.  With much trouble and risk and many feeble\ntotterings, he learns to walk erect.  He gets up into a position\nthat takes his eyes off the ground.  He is able to look at the\nsun and stars and takes the position of a man.  DISCONTENT is his\nmainspring at every stage.  ----\n\nWhat discontent does in the limited life of a child, it does on a\nmuch larger scale in the life of a man--and on a scale still\nlarger in the life of a race.\n\nYou can always tell when a man has reached the limit of his\npossible development.  He ceases to be discontented--or at least\nto show discontent actively.\n\nContentment, apathy, are signs of decadence and of a career ended\nin either a man or a nation.\n\nIf a baby lies still, no longer wiggling or trying to swallow his\ntoe, you may be sure that he is seriously ill.  The nation that\nno longer wiggles is in a condition as serious as that of the\nmotionless infant.  ----\n\nThe man or newspaper which imparts dissatisfaction--wise\ndiscontent to a nation or to individuals, gives them the motive\npower that brings improvement.\n\nRuskin as a young man declared that his one hope in life was to\narouse \"some dissatisfaction.\"\n\nThe constant aim of men in talking to each other, in writing for\nnewspapers, even in writing novels, should be to arouse\ndiscontent.\n\nIn this column, as our readers will have noticed, the constant\naim is to make the great crowd dissatisfied.\n\nOnly through discontent can changes come and are there not causes\nenough for discontent and need enough for changes?\n\nA majority of the people half educated, and tens of thousands\nhalf fed.\n\nChildren run over daily because they have no playground but the\ngutter.\n\nMen of noble aspirations kept down by hard work and poverty.\n\nChildren left locked up alone all day while their mothers work\nfor a pittance.\n\nMen, uncertain of their future and of their children's future,\nengage in a constant struggle for wealth that is not needed--a\nstruggle that develops in the end a passion as useless as it is\ndegrading.\n\nUnless you believe that the world is perfect because YOU happen\nto have enough to eat and to wear, you should be discontented.\n\nYou should remember that the world's achievements and great\nchanges have all come from discontent, and you should be, in as\nmany ways as possible, a breeder of discontent among the human\nbeings around you.\n\n\n\nTHE AUTOMOBILE WILL MAKE US MORE HUMAN\n\nOne of the commonest and most disagreeable sights in a big city\nis that of a strong, brutal human being beating a weak and\noverworked horse because it refuses to do what it cannot do.\n\nBrutality inflicted upon horses is atrocious.  But the bad effect\nof such unkind treatment of animals on HUMAN CHARACTER is far\nmore serious than the actual physical suffering inflicted.  ----\n\nThe perfection of the automobile will do much to improve human\nbeings by taking away from their control and from brutal coercion\nsubmissive animals.\n\nEverybody knows that the moral standard is raised immediately in\na country when slavery is abolished.\n\nIn America we have abolished the slavery of human beings, but we\nstill adhere to horse slavery, accompanied by all the worst forms\nof the old negro slavery.  The faithful slave may be beaten and\ndriven to death.  The driver MUST BE BRUTALIZED.\n\nEvery day, on every street, you may see stupid, muscular boys and\nmen jerking with all their might on the tender mouths of poor\nhorses, only too willing to do their best.\n\nThis brutal indifference to the sufferings of animals makes us\nbrutal and indifferent in other directions.\n\nWith the advent of the automobile and the disappearance of horses\nfrom our cities, horse slavery will be abolished and men,\ncompelled to use their brains in dealing with machinery, will\nsoon become more nearly human than they are at present.  The\npractical abolition of the street-car horse is one great step in\nadvance.\n\nThe abolition of the truck horse, carriage horse, cab horse, soon\nto come, will complete the dream of those modern and highly\ndeserving abolitionists, the automobile inventors and\nmanufacturers.\n\n\n\nLET US BE THANKFUL\n\nThanksgiving Day, November 27, 1902.\n\nLet us be thankful first of all for one great right:\n\nThe right, when dissatisfied, to SAY that we are dissatisfied,\nand to try to make things better.\n\nLet us be thankful that every man--with few exceptions--has a\nholiday to-day.\n\nHowever bad our national affairs may seem, let us be thankful\nthey are no worse.  And above all let us be thankful that we have\nthe power and the constitutional right to change things, just as\nsoon as we become wise enough to use our ballots.  ----\n\nLet us be devoutly thankful for the PUBLIC SCHOOLS, for the fact\nthat every child is taught to read and encouraged to think.  The\nnation now declares that a child has a right to food for the\nmind, as long as the child behaves properly.  We are not so far\nfrom the day when human decency will declare that every child and\nevery human being has a right to food for the BODY also, as long\nas they behave, and are ready for honest work.  Let us be\nthankful for the constantly growing recognition of human rights.\n\n\nThe workingmen of America are better paid than they have ever\nbeen before.  More of them than ever are at work, and the unions\nwhich protect them are more powerful than ever--let us be\nthankful for these facts.  The whole nation prospers when the\nworkers of the nation are busy and well paid.\n\nScience has been, and is, making wonderful progress, explaining\nfor us daily the problems of the universe.  Every man must be\nthankful that highly specialized brains are constantly at work\npiling up knowledge for him.\n\nAs a nation we are too big to fear successful attack, and we are,\nit is to be hoped, too sensible to seek trouble with others.  Let\nus be thankful that all things point to continued national,\nmental development on peaceful lines, free from the horrible\nwholesale murders, called war, that have bled and weakened all\npeople through the ages.  ----\n\nEach of us individually has reason for thankfulness.\n\nIf you can feel that you are honestly trying to do your duty,\nthat is much to be thankful for.\n\nIf you are dissatisfied with yourself, you should be thankful for\nthe power of self-condemnation-- and thankful especially that you\nhave long and blessed TIME ahead of you to make up for your\nmistakes and improve your record.\n\nWe live in a wonderful age--wonderful in the  fact that life and\nliberty are fairly secure; wonderful in freedom of conscience.\n\nYou can believe in Heaven, Hades, Christian Science, or in\nnothing at all--and as long as you do not interfere with others,\nno one can imprison you, or question, or burn you at the stake.\n----\n\nWe should all be especially thankful for the steady awakening of\nthe national mind.  We all pursue wealth--and doubtless\ncircumstances compel us to pay too much attention to that line of\neffort.  But we are all THINKING also.  There are a thousand\ntimes more thinking, reading men and women to-day in America\nalone than lived on earth half a century ago.  Love of knowledge\nis spreading, and with love of knowledge, love of justice and a\nsense of fairness will always be found.\n\nOur material prosperity is great.  But it is out- balanced by our\nmental prosperity.  We are becoming a nation of THINKING men and\nwomen, and since that means real development, we have all reason\nto be thankful.\n\n\n\nTHE HARM THAT IS DONE BY OUR FRIENDS\n\nThought lives through the ages, flies about over the earth, and\ngoes on visiting fresh minds, after the mind that gave it birth\nhas gone back to dust and nothingness.\n\nAn Italian wrote words to this effect:\n\n\"Man is commanded to forgive his enemies.  Nowhere is imposed on\nhim the far more difficult task of forgiving his friends.\"\n\nFrancis Bacon, the philosopher, read in England the words of the\nItalian and quoted them.\n\nVincent W. Byars, a very able thinking man of St. Louis, read\nBacon's quotation out there, and now, coming to New York, he says\nto this writer:\n\n\"Why don't you make an editorial on that old Italian saying\nquoted by Bacon?\"\n\nItaly--England--St. Louis--New York--thus the idea has hopped\nabout, until to-day you get it in this column.  A million of you\nread it, or at least glance at it; and so, if the idea has any\nvalue, it will go hopping on all over the earth's surface long\nafter the steel press that prints this paper shall have crumbled\naway.  ----\n\nHow little your ENEMIES can hurt you! How little harm they do,\neven when they try!  You are warned against them and on your\nguard.  The world knows they are your enemies, and discredits\nwhat they say.\n\nIt is quite easy to forgive our enemies, for they do us\ncomparatively little harm.\n\nBut to forgive our friends would be hard indeed if we could\nrealize how much harm they do us.  ----\n\nTHE DRUNKARD'S FRIENDS\n\nWho makes the drunkard?  His enemies?  No.  The drunkard is made\nby his friends.\n\nWhen it is known that he is inclined to drink no enemy is so\nvicious as to lead him on.  No enemy slaps him on the back and\nbegs him to take \"just another drink.\"  No enemy laughs down his\npoor, feeble attempts at reform.  No enemy tells him that it will\nnot hurt him \"just this time,\" and that he really must not refuse\nto be a good fellow \"just for once.\"\n\nThe drunkard is MADE a drunkard, is pushed into the last depths\nof drunkenness, by his friends.\n\nAnd it is his friends who kick him and leave him and despise him\nwhen he has sunk into the mire.\n\nDid ever the drunkard's enemy hurt him as much as the friend has\nhurt him?  ----\n\nAMBITION KILLED BY FRIENDS\n\nA young man starts out to succeed in life.  His enemy may lie\nabout him, may call him worthless.  He may think he is hurting\nhim.  If there is anything in the young man, the enemy's lies and\ndiscouraging words only spur him on to greater effort.  They do\nhim good.\n\nIt is the friend that ruins the young man by false, injudicious,\nunearned praise.\n\nAs artist, poet, writer, clerk, or in any other effort, the young\nman begins his work.\n\nIt is his friends who tell him that he is a splendid success,\nwhen he needs to be told that, at best, he has some slight chance\nof success, and that everything depends on desperate effort.\n\nLook at the young, conceited fool who, instead of struggling on,\nrails at the world, feels that he is not appreciated.  He is a\nfailure--a sad, foolish failure.  He has been made a failure, not\nby the attacks of his enemies, but by the more dangerous praise\nof his friends.  ----\n\nThe lonely and friendless often succeed amazingly.  \"Multum\nincola fuit anima mea\" (\"My spirit hath been much alone\") said\nthe great Bacon.  His mind fed on loneliness, on failure, and\neven on disgrace.\n\nHow much success is due to freedom from that harm which\nfriendship does?\n\nThe reader can finish this editorial for himself with hundreds of\nother arguments.  This is enough for a sample.\n\n\n\nSHALL WE TAME AND CHAIN THE INVISIBLE MICROBE AS WE NOW CHAIN\nNIAGARA?\n\nWhen Solomon was gathering his materials to build the Temple,\nhis, large cedar trunks from Lebanon and his costly materials\nfrom everywhere, he used oxen, mules, camels.\n\nWith all his wisdom, he little dreamed that the day would come\nwhen his descendants, instead of using mules and huge beasts of\nburden, would heat water and with steam develop a force\nsufficient to tear his Temple from its foundation.\n\nStill less did he dream that steam would eventually be\nsuperseded, as clumsy and primitive, by the invisible force of\nelectricity.\n\nWhen the thunder roared, the lightning flashed and his conscience\ntroubled him, Solomon, turning away from his thousand wives and\nhis numerous other doubtful associates, put his head under the\nrichly embroidered pillow, worked, perhaps, by Sheba's own fair\nhands--it did not enter his mind that that lightning could be\ntamed and put to work.\n\nMan has been gradually controlling and employing the various\nanimals on the earth's surface.  He taught the elephant to haul\nwood and water and to fight his battles.  He trained the horse,\nthe dog.  He even taught falcons to bring him back birds from\nbeyond the clouds, and otters to catch fish in the bottom of\nlakes and rivers.\n\nGradually he has made himself independent of his animal partners.\n\nThe rifle made the falcon useless; steam destroyed the importance\nof the horse and the ox.\n\nBut apparently we have only begun using animal life.  We must run\nthe whole gamut of the marvels of creation before conquering\nconditions on this earth.  ----\n\nWe used to train the biggest dogs to kill wolves.  The Government\nof the United States is now breeding darning-needles to kill\nmosquitoes.\n\nA certain kind of wasp, with a black and white striped body,\nspends his time killing house-flies, and this creature could be\nbred and used to destroy the disease-spreading pests.\n\nEven the invisible insect life can be made most useful to man and\nto his health.\n\nThe latest plan for disposing of city sewage involves the\ncultivation of microbes, to be employed as disinfectors.\n\nSeveral towns in Illinois and in Wisconsin have established\nplants for the purification of sewage by means of microbe life.\nThe collections of organisms invisible to the naked eye are to be\nkept in great antiseptic tanks, and employed in the purification\nof the city 's refuse.\n\nMosquitoes will ultimately be destroyed, undoubtedly, by breeding\namong them smaller creatures fatal to their existence.\n\nMan, in his conquest and use of animal life, will run the gamut,\nfrom the biggest elephant, employed as a public executioner in\nIndia, to the invisible microbe, doing a work ten thousand times\nmore important all over the globe.\n\nThese infinitesimal microbes, bred and controlled by science,\nwill do regularly and methodically the work which buzzards and\nvultures have done on land, which sharks and dogfish have done at\nsea, throughout endless centuries.\n\nTo the marvellous workings of nature we cannot possibly give too\nmuch thought or too great admiration.  Gardens are filled with\nbeautiful flowers, and fields are fertile to-day because hundreds\nof years ago sea birds were devouring the carcasses of dead fish,\nacting as nature's scavengers, and building up the great guano\nfields of South America.\n\nThere is a Peruvian millionaire in his big yacht, and there is a\nrose in full bloom--the millionaire's money, the beauty of the\nrose, come from those birds that picked up the dead fish five\nhundred years ago.\n\nIt's an interesting world.\n\n\n\nTHE ELEPHANT THAT WILL NOT MOVE HAS BETTER EXCUSES THAN WE HAVE\nFOR FOLLY DISPLAYED\n\nThis is an editorial which we shall merely suggest, and which\neach reader will write out for himself.\n\nIn the Zoological Garden of New York a poor elephant has stood in\nchains for years.  The animal was thought to be vicious, and was\nkept fastened tightly to one spot, that it might have no leeway\nto do damage.\n\nA short time ago its keeper became convinced that the elephant\nwould do no harm and might safely be unchained.  The chains were\ntaken off, and the keeper thought with satisfaction that the poor\nbeast would now enjoy freedom and be made happy by the\npossibility of moving freely about its large inclosure.\n\nThe elephant did not move.  The chains were gone, it was no\nlonger tied, but it stood, and it still stands, in just the same\nspot.\n\nThe habit of slavery, of monotony, had become too strong.  The\nelephant, though free, stands still,  sadly swaying its heavy\nhead, ignorant of the freedom that has come to it.\n\nMen and women and children who see the elephant, and other men\nwho write paragraphs for the newspapers, dilate on the poor\nanimal's \"stupidity.\"\n\n\"The elephant has been called the most intelligent of animals,\"\nsays one writer, \"but this elephant, that doesn't know when the\nchains are off, seems to prove that the elephant can be a good\ndeal of a fool.\"\n\nHow easy it is for us human beings to see the faults in others,\nour fellows, and the animals below us.\n\nBut which one of us can truly say that he is not in exactly the\nsame position as that poor elephant, fixed to one spot by the\nchains of long ago?\n\nAre we not still standing as a race just as we stood years and\ncenturies ago, ignorant of the freedom that has come to us?\n\nThousands of splendid men have worked, lived and died to free us\nfrom superstition, from credulity, from ignorance, yet still we\nstand in the same place, and fail to appreciate the freedom that\nis ours.  ----\n\nMillions of us, tied down by foolish superstition, are like that\nelephant--the chains are off, but we stand still.\n\nThe road to peace, happiness and universal progress has been\nshown us in the teachings of great leaders, but we still stand in\nthe same old place, fighting, hating, cheating, suspecting,\nharming one another.\n\nHere and there there is a little progress; gradually we begin to\nappreciate and enjoy the freedom that has been given to us with\nthe striking away of old mental chains.  The process is slow.\n\nLook into your own mind.  Do you take advantage of all the\npossibilities that are before you?  Do you use your brain to\ncontrol your existence, acts and habits for your own benefit and\nthe benefit of others?\n\nIf not, you ought to sympathize with this poor elephant, and\nrealize that as your brain exceeds his in bulk proportionately,\nso do you exceed him in the folly that misses opportunity.\n\n\n\nLET US BE THANKFUL\n\nYou get tired of reading editorials in which one man, spouting\nfrom his editorial pulpit, lays down the law for you--without\ngiving you a chance to reply or contradict.\n\nSo let us write this editorial together.\n\nThere you sit--the reader--in your street car, or perhaps\nclinging to a strap, and here we sit, impersonal editorial\ncreature, thinking over thankfulness,\nThanksgiving Day, and what reasons we have for feeling thankful.\n\nLet us talk as few platitudes as possible, and try to get at a\nfew of the inside workings of human life.  ----\n\nYou look across the car and hate the fat man who lounges and\nspreads his feet around so boorishly.\n\nLET US BE THANKFUL THAT WE SO READILY PERCEIVE THE SHORTCOMINGS\nOF OTHERS.\n\nMuch comfort is derived from others' failings.  In the quiet\nevenings we talk of our neighbors' weaknesses and we enjoy them.\nBy contrast we admire ourselves.\n\nLET US BE THANKFUL THAT WE NEVER APPRECIATE OUR OWN LIMITATIONS.\n\nEach man's children are beautiful and promising in his view.\n\nHe cannot see the hopeless construction of their foreheads, nor\ncan he read in their eyes the sad absence of \"speculation.\"\n\nLet us be thankful for that.  The future depends on the good care\nawarded to almost worthless specimens now.  ----\n\nFOR THE UNIVERSAL INSTINCT OF THANKFULNESS, LET BE DEEPLY\nTHANKFUL.\n\nThe thick-lipped negro on the Congo finds a dead hippopotamus,\nhalf eaten by wild beasts, and in his woolly brain a dim, misty\nfeeling of THANKFULNESS is born.\n\nThe Tartar bandit surprises mild Chinese conducting a tea caravan\nacross the stony desert.  He murders the mild Celestials and\nfeels THANKFUL as he contemplates the booty.\n\nA great Trust manager finds ways to add some millions to those\nwhich he already has and does not need.  In THANKFUL mood he\ngives two millions or three to education.\n\nAs inborn, as instinctive as the beating of the heart in the\nhuman being is THANKFULNESS.\n\nThankfulness is the unconscious acknowledgment of a Higher Power.\n\nIt is the indestructible evidence of man's permanent belief in\njust government of the universe.\n\nIt is the most hopeful, the most promising feature of man's\ncharacter.\n\nFor THANKFULNESS itself we should be thankful.  ----\n\nIf you want to succeed, cultivate a feeling of hopeful\nthankfulness.\n\nHopefulness, thankfulness and success are as near akin as light,\nheat and motion--the same force underlies, makes up the first\ntrio, as it does the second.\n\nIf you find it hard to be thankful, read a little of history, and\nthankfulness will come.  Thousands of millions of men have lived\nand suffered to make your existence here at least bearable.  You\nmay not be satisfied, but you have comforts that were not dreamed\nof by the luckiest a few centuries back.  You think the\nprosperous have too many privileges.\n\nPerhaps they have.  But when your great-grandfather was a young\nman a nobleman could order his lackeys to seize Voltaire the\ngreatest mind in Europe--and beat him almost to death.  Voltaire\nwas locked up in the Bastile for complaining.\n\nThanks to the eternal row that Voltaire kicked up, you can never\nbe treated as he was.  So be thankful to Voltaire.\n\nBe thankful to the long line of plucky men and fighters--not\nforgetting Christopher Columbus--who have gone before you.\n\nBe thankful that you are alive in an interesting age with\ninteresting events happening.\n\nBe thankful also that with thankfulness you combine the feeling\nof dissatisfaction, of unrest that will push you ahead and give\nyou cause for fresh thankfulness next year.  ----\n\nWe are thankful to have you for a reader.\n\nWe are thankful for the criticisms and friendly comments that you\noccasionally send.\n\nWe hope that you will enjoy your dinner to-day and not regret it\nto-morrow.\n\n\n\nWHAT WILL 999 YEARS MEAN TO THE HUMAN RACE\n\nThe street railroad company in the Borough of Brooklyn has just\nexecuted some leases to endure 999 years.  Leases of property\nhave also been made for the same period, though, of course, a\nlease of 999 years will be about as binding 999 years from now as\nwould a lease of the great pyramid executed the day after it was\nfinished, if such a lease should be presented at present to the\nEgyptian Government.\n\nThese preposterous leases are interesting because they bring\nvividly before the human mind the certainty of wonderful and\nsplendid changes in human affairs.\n\nThe street railroad leases are especially fascinating to the\nimaginative mind.\n\nThey deal with present conditions and will seem inconceivably\nprimitive hundreds of years before the leases will have ended.\n\nThese leases deal with miserable little electric cars crawling\nslowly over the face of the earth, at either end an underpaid,\noverworked man, and in the middle a crowd of poor, dissatisfied,\nill-housed human beings.\n\nNine hundred and ninety-nine years from now the human race will\nnot by any means have accomplished its destiny.  It will still be\nstruggling on toward the goal of real civilization.\n\nBut it will have grown far beyond the savage condition of life\nthat marks the execution of these long leases.\n\nBefore these street railroad leases expire Brooklyn and all other\ncities as they now exist will have disappeared from the earth.\n\nPerfect transportation, underground, overground and through the\nair, will enable human beings, if they choose, to live as far\nfrom their work as does the seagull or the eagle.\n\nIt will no longer be necessary to crowd together in miserable\ntenements, and homes will be scattered.  Human beings undoubtedly\nwill dwell in huge, splendidly managed structures, each in the\ncentre of its own park, far from the noise and the brutality of\nmodern city life.\n\nBefore the leases expire the combined cities of New York and\nBrooklyn and Yonkers and Coney Island and Montauk Point will have\ngrown into an enormous, hideous human aggregation of fifty\nmillion or more human beings.\n\nEven the city of a hundred millions may be seen.\n\nBut as that huge, monstrous city will have grown, so it will have\ndied, as the monsters of former geological epochs grew and died\nin their turn.\n\nThe site of the vanished great city will be covered with gardens,\nand children in schools will be taught that human beings who once\nlived in the cliffs in the Far West afterward gathered together\nin horrible municipal ant-hills in the East, called cities,\nbefore they learned how to live comfortably.  ----\n\nBefore those street railroad leases expire the present temporary\nmania for money will have run its course.\n\nOnce every important man felt that a certain number of slaves\nmust be murdered at his funeral.  Sometimes his favorite horse\nwas shot.  In scores of millions of cases his wife was burned\nalive with his corpse.  We have outgrown that.  Nowadays the\ngreat man who dies must leave behind him an accumulation of\nmillions, which means that thousands of men have worked to give\nhim what he did not need.  Before these leases shall have expired\nthat form of financial barbarism will have ceased to exist.\n\nIt is reasonable to hope that the coming thousand years will have\nseen the end of industrial feudalism, which has had its birth in\nour day, and which will run its course as did the military\nfeudalism of the Middle Ages.\n\nWhat a marvellous picture the world will present one thousand\nyears from now!\n\nThe earth will be adequately populated.\n\nScience will have conquered disease almost entirely.  Each woman\nwill be the mother of two children.  She will not bring five or\nsix into the world in order that two or three may live.\n\nCompetition will be replaced by emulation.  The intelligent\nservant of government will work as loyally and enthusiastically\nfor his government and for the people as the boy at college now\nworks for his college football team.\n\nThe human mind will have wandered on many leagues in its search\nfor a satisfying religion, getting always nearer to a clear\nconception of the grandeur of the universe, and further away from\nthe superstition necessary to the moral control of a brutal\nsemi-civilization.\n\nHuman beings will have learned that the noblest thing one man can\ndo is to work for others.\n\nEach will gladly contribute all his talent and strength to the\nwelfare of all.\n\nAll will gladly recognize, applaud and richly reward the special\nability of the individual.\n\nThere will be no poverty.  Willingness to work will insure a\ncomfortable livelihood.  Education will have developed the\naverage human intellect far beyond our conception.  Nine-tenths\nof the human race have been able to read only within the past few\nyears.  What will a thousand years of universal education do?\n----\n\nThe end of the leases of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company will\nfind many of our problems solved.\n\nIt will find, however, the real work of man just beginning.  The\nabstract work of the intellect, the proper organization of\nsociety as expressed in human passions, the study of the\nwonderful and beautiful universe outside of our own little\nplanet, will then begin with the conquest of our material\nconditions.\n\n\n\nTHE AZORES--A SMALL LOST WORLD IN A UNIVERSE OF WATER\n\nAs you cross the Atlantic by the Southern route the \"sighting of\nthe Azores\" is one incident of your voyage.  Just before daybreak\nthe ship is shaking and the passengers roused by the deep tones\nof the big steam whistle.\n\nOne by one shivering forms straggle up from below, like reluctant\nspirits answering a premature last call.  Bare feet in slippers,\nand shivering forms with overcoats over nightgowns, gradually\nline the rails.\n\nOn the left there appears, apparently, a heavy, dark bank of\nclouds:\n\n\"The Azores!\" shouts down from the bridge your yellow-whiskered\ncaptain, looking as cheerful and warm as though it were noon.\n\nYou watch, shiver and blink as the light grows stronger behind\nthe pinkish clouds in the east.  The dark cloud settles into\nsolid land.  You see it clearly.  Sharply outlined against the\nsky stands, forty miles long, a mammoth saw with huge teeth,\nirregular, sharp.  The power of old-time volcanoes made all of\nthat land, and those sharp saw-teeth,  pointing toward the sky,\nare the destroyers of long ago, cold and dead now, but telling\nominously of the power that lies hidden below.\n\nBetween you and the brightening sunrise, suspended in the \"crow's\nnest,\" half way up the mast, stands the sailor who watches the\nsea for you through the night.  He calls out, and ahead to the\nleft you see a small boat filled with human beings that seem\nscarcely as big as your finger.  Your ship could plough through\nmiles of such small boats-- but out there in the ocean, just as\nwell as inside the biggest court-house, LAW rules, and the big\nship must turn out for the small fishing boat.\n\nYou realize the power and beauty of law, as our governor and\nsustainer.  You see that laws of little men reach out two\nthousand miles into the sea.  You think of the laws of the\nuniverse that stretch across the immeasurable distances of time\nand space, protecting ALL, and insuring ultimate fulfilment\nof the destinies of all the worlds.\n\nAs those fishermen of the Azores work safely, under full\nprotection, in their little lost corner of the great ocean, so\nwe, in our little world, our little insignificant corner of\nspace, work out our tiny problems safely under the splendid\nprotection of Divine Law and wisdom sent to us from some far- off\npoint of which we know nothing.\n\nThe light of the rising sun brings out from shore many other\nsmall boats, each with its load of men who wave their arms to the\nsteamship and cheer against the sound of the waves and wind.  To\nthem that ship is like the fast express that passes the country\nrailroad station, or the comet that whirls round our sun and off\nagain.\n\nThose fishermen feel that THEY are the REAL world; the steamship\nand outside creation are only half imagined, interesting\nphenomena.  You look down from the deck and the fishermen seem\nunreal little ornaments of your European excursion.  And so the\ntwo sets of human beings go their ways--to each nothing is\nimportant, save that which each is doing.\n\nThere are great planets and suns that roll past us across this\ncosmic ocean of ether.  Our pathetic little round earth looks to\nthem as that fishing-boat of the Azores looks to you.  And WE\nthink of those great interstellar travellers as the fisherman in\nhis little boat thinks of the ocean liner--the great star to us\nis merely an interesting feature of OUR sky.  And we actually\nwonder whether there is any thought on that big, distant sun; any\nintelligence on the vast ship that ploughs the ocean of limitless\nspace.  ----\n\nThe high ridge of volcanic peaks and the others near it are made\nfertile and green by soil gradually developed through the\ncenturies by seeds brought across the ocean by winds and birds.\n\nThe tops of the mountains are black lava.  Lakes of black water\nfill some of the quiet craters.  Only, here and there, the rising\nsulphur smoke from rocky fissures tells of heat and power\nsmouldering.\n\nThe last great eruption of the volcanoes occurred a little more\nthan two hundred years ago--so the inhabitants laugh if you speak\nof danger.  They forget that two hundred years in the earth's\nlife is as two minutes in the life of a man--and that what a man\ndid two minutes since he may do again.\n\nFences are built across the fields of thin soil that cover the\nlava.  Each inch of that land thrown up by fire \"belongs\" to some\nman.  White houses stand at the edges of deep lava canyons\nrunning from the mountain tops to the sea's edge canyons made by\npouring lava or by the splitting of the mountains under fearful\npressure.\n\nChildren play about the blocks of lava--and all their lives, no\nmatter where they may go, those children will think of that\nfar-off island as the only real home, and of black lava blocks as\nthe only REAL kind of stone.\n\nFrom your passing boat you cannot see these children.  Their\nlittle lives, lost in the far-off sea, seem as unimportant as the\nlives of the fish that swim below you.\n\nBut some child playing there to-day may be like that other island\nchild, Napoleon, and live to make the rest of the world talk\nabout the island that bred him.  Or, better still, some one of\nthose children, with a brain made powerful by solitude and noble\nthought, may have the idea that shall help us all, teach us more\nand more to think kindly of each other and help each other,\ninstead of passing each other coldly and indifferently as the big\nship passes the little, far-off island.\n\n\n\nNO NAPOLEONIC CHESS PLAYER ON AN AIR CUSHION\nZANGWILL'S IDEA IS FALSE--WHY CHESS PLAYING STUNTS GENIUS\n\nMr. Zangwill's keen intellect, straining hard for striking\npictures and word effects, sees falsely the great general of the\nfuture.  He says:\n\n\"The Napoleon of the future will be an epileptic chess player,\ncarried about the field of battle on an air cushion.\"\n\nIn this condensed, picturesque fashion Mr. Zangwill expresses\nsententiously a number of mistaken ideas.  He thinks that the\ngame of war is like the game of chess, and that the future world\nconqueror will be a great chess player, using men as pawns and\nthe world as his chess-board.\n\nHe observes the curious and interesting historical fact that of\nthe world's great conquerors many, including the two greatest,\nNapoleon and Alexander, were afflicted with that mysterious\ndisease, epilepsy.  He concludes that the great general of the\nfuture will probably be a confirmed epileptic.\n\nThe ability of a fighting man to-day resides largely, of course,\nin the brain.  The general's MUSCLES no longer count as a\nfighting factor.  His battles are won or lost inside of his\nSKULL.  Mr. Zangwill concludes that the future great general will\nhave a mind developed to an abnormal extent at the expense of the\nbody--he sees in the future world conqueror an abnormal creature,\na giant brain perched on a miserable, wasted body, so feeble and\ndelicate that it must be carried about the field of battle on an\nair cushion to prevent shocks.  ----\n\nThe quotation from Zangwill which we print above contains only\ntwenty-one words.  Rarely have so many errors, so many\nfundamental yet plausible errors, been crowded into so little\nspace.\n\nThe Napoleon of the future, the great conqueror, will NOT be a\nchess player.  The real Napoleon whom we know had no love for\nchess or any other waste of time, or any other form of self-\nindulgence.\n\nChess is no game for a Napoleon, or for any other man who wants\nto embody real accomplishment in the story of his life.\n\nCHESS IS A WEAK GAME, FOR IT ADMITS ALL KINDS OF RULES AND ALL\nKINDS OF FOREORDAINED IMPOSSIBILITIES.\n\nThe man who makes the world's great success will not be bound by\nrules.  The great men of the world are great because they refuse\nto ADMIT impossibilities.\n\nThe man who plays chess has two knights, and these knights he can\nonly send two squares in one direction and one square in another,\nor one square in one direction and two squares in the other.  His\ntwo bishops can only move diagonally across the board, one on the\nwhite and one on the black.  His castles lumber along on straight\nlines.  His king cannot be touched or taken, and the game ends\nwhen the king is in fatal danger.  The queen, in the dull game we\ncall chess, can do almost anything.\n\nBut Napoleon was really a great man, and the game of life that he\nplayed was very different from the chess game.\n\nWhen the king was in hopeless danger, Napoleon's game had just\nbegun.  Others before him had looked upon kings on the board of\nlife as the chess player looks upon the wooden or ivory king\nbefore him.\n\nBut to Napoleon kings were pawns, to be moved around and made\nridiculous.  When he felt like it, he made pawns into kings--the\ndescendant of one of his pawn-kings reigns to-day in Sweden.\n\nNapoleon's game deprived the queen of all power--she was less\nthan a pawn.  HIS game sent the bishops hopping back and forth,\ndiagonally or at right angles, as he saw fit.  He created knights\nto his heart's content, and he taught them to move as he wanted.\n\nNapoleon was great because there was nothing of the chess player\nabout him.  He did not admit of regular, foreordained moves on\nthe chess-board or on the board of life.  HE REFUSED TO CONSIDER\nANYTHING IMPOSSIBLE UNTIL HE HAD TRIED IT.  He tells us himself\nthat he deserved credit for crossing the Alps, not that he\naccomplished a difficult feat, but because he refused to believe\nthose who declared the feat impossible.\n\nIf anybody said \"Check\" to Napoleon, he kicked over the\nchess-board and began a new game of his own--that was what\nsurprised the poor, dull old Austrian generals in Italy.\n\nNo; the real great man is no chess player, he has no chess\nplayer's mind.  And do you, Mr. Reader, waste no time at chess,\nif you have any idea of being WORTH WHILE in a big or a little\nway.  ----\n\nThe Napoleon of the future will be no epileptic.  That terrible\ndisease has afflicted many of the noblest intellects, and it is\nundoubtedly a disease brought on, or at least intensified, by\ngreat intellectual activity and a lack of co-ordination between\nthe mental and physical operations of the body.  But some great\nmen have been great, not because of that terrible disease, but in\nspite of it.  Science will conquer that trouble, as it has\nconquered others, and the scientist to do this work will be,\nhimself, one of the world's great men.  ----\n\nThe Napoleon of the future will be no huge-brained dwarf, with\nfeeble body, carried on an air cushion.\n\nIt is true that many great men of to-day are relatively small in\nbody.  The gigantic muscle, thick legs, broad shoulders and hairy\nchests of the  successful Viking have nothing to do with modern\nachievement.\n\nBut it is also true that to-day, as always, the healthy mind\nlives in a healthy body, and lives ON a healthy body.\n\nAs well expect to find the most perfect fruit on a withered,\nhalf-dead tree, as to find the most able brain in a withered,\nhalf-dead body.  The blood is the life of the brain, and unless a\nHEALTHY body supplies HEALTHY blood the brain's chance is small.\n\nNapoleon, it's true, was at one time a physical wreck--BUT DON'T\nFORGET THAT HIS GREATNESS WAS ALSO A WRECK AT THAT TIME.\n\nThe GREAT Napoleon operated in a body tireless and powerful\nenough to remain thirty consecutive hours on horseback.  It was a\nbody so powerful that criminal neglect and stupid ignorance of\nthe laws of health were powerless against it for many years.\n\nThe Napoleon that went to St. Helena dwelt in a worn-out body, a\nfat, degenerate perversion of the Napoleon that conquered the\nworld.\n\nThe great conqueror of the future, ladies and gentlemen, will be\na splendidly original brain, working through a perfectly\ndeveloped body, AND WORKING FOR THE MASS OF THE PEOPLE, FOR THEIR\nFARE, NOT FOR THEIR CONQUEST AND OPPRESSION.\n\nAll of which is respectfully submitted to our readers for\ndiscussion and criticism.\n\n\n\nA GIRL'S FACE IN THE GASLIGHT AND AN IMPORTANT PART OF THE\nWORLD'S WORK\n\nOn a corner of Rector street, down near the river, a loud drum\nwas beating.  A guitar and a tambourine competed shrilly with the\ndrum's dull booming.  Slowly a careless crowd gathered round the\nSalvation Army workers.\n\nThere were bare-headed women, little girls holding little babies\nin their arms, sailors drunk, and one or two sober, 'longshoremen\npleased with the sound of the drum, and a few of the thin, hungry\nfaces that disturb our well-fed happiness.\n\nThe man beat his drum, standing erect and proud in his army\nuniform.\n\nThe two thin, nervous young women played on guitar and tambourine\nwith all their force, striving to gather the crowd whom they\nhoped to make better men and women.\n\nThirty or forty people gathered--glad to accept any noise and\nexcitement in their dull lives.\n\nThe music stopped, and a young girl stepped to the centre of the\ncircle.\n\nShe was frightened.  Her voice was weak at first.  Gradually her\nthin, pale face grew animated.\n\nHer blue eyes dilated.  In dull, routine way, doing her best,\nearning respectful silence from the night crowd, she told her\nstory:\n\n\"I was bad.  I tried to be good.  But I couldn't do it with my\nown strength.  I asked God to save me.  He did save me.  He will\nsave you, if you will ask Him.\"\n\nShe spoke with a strong German accent.  With all her deep,\nearnest soul, with all her poor, limited mental force, she longed\nto help the men and women around.  As she spoke she bent her head\nfarther and farther back, until her eyes looked up to the sky.\nThere, with perfect faith, she saw the God whose work she was\nhumbly doing in the muddy streets and flickering gaslight of the\nriverside.\n\nWhile she could control her voice and her deep emotion she talked\non her one theme--the power of God to help the helpless.  But she\nBELIEVED, and she FELT what she said.  Soon the tears ran over\nfrom her upturned eyes, and she could speak no more.\n\nThen a man began--thickset, earnest, with a strong Scotch accent.\n\nHe talked to the men about him in a rough way that appealed to\nthem.  ----\n\nAs the crowd stood listening many passed.  A few were\ncontemptuous; the majority were indifferent.\n\nIf you see these workers you ask perhaps:\n\n\"What good do they do?\"\n\nThat is the question that may be asked of every man that ever\nlived, and only One can answer it.\n\nThe thin, white-faced girl, playing, singing and PREACHING in the\ndirty street, does this:\n\nShe touches the heart of a half-drunken man.  Turning from the\nsaloon door he goes home, and takes to his wife and children as\nmuch of his wages as is left, a feeling of repentance, good\nresolutions.\n\nHer tears are answered by the tears of miserable girls and women\nwho sink back into the shadow as they watch her pure face.\nThrough them she helps to undo the horrible, soul-destroying work\nof brutal civilization.  ----\n\nMysteriously, diversely, the work of the world is done.\n\nThe storm, endless in its power, washes down the mountain-tops to\nfertilize the valley.\n\nThe tiny earthworm works in darkness, crumbling up its little\npatch of earth to make it fit food for plants.\n\nEach does its work.\n\nThe mighty intellect with cyclonic force gives to mankind grand,\ngeneral views of cosmic grandeur, and introduces to minds\nprepared the \"eternal silences,\" and the vast serene fields of\ndivine law.\n\n\n\nTHE \"CRIMINAL\" CLASS\nDID THIS VIEW OF IT EVER OCCUR TO YOU?\n\nMuch interest just now in CRIMINALS.\n\nMuch horror aroused by depravity.\n\nMany plans more or less appropriate for making the air pure.\n\nMany good men, politicians, women and bishops, who spent the\nSummer at the seaside willing now to spend a few days wiping\n\"CRIME\" off the earth.  ----\n\nWhat is CRIME?  Who are the criminals?  Who makes the criminals?\n\nDo criminals viciously and voluntarily arise among us, eager to\nlead hunted lives, eager to be jailed at intervals, eager to\ncrawl in the dark, dodge policemen, work in stripes and die in\nshame?  Hardly.\n\nWill you kindly and patiently follow the lives, quickly sketched,\nof a boy and a girl?\n\nTHE GIRL\n\nBorn poor, born in hard luck, her father, or mother, or both,\nvictims of long hours, poor fare, bad air and little leisure.\n\nAs a baby she struggles against fate and manages to live while\nthree or four little brothers and sisters die and go back to kind\nearth.\n\nShe crawls around the halls of a tenement, a good deal in the\nway.  She is hunted here and chased there.\n\nShe is cold in Winter, ill-fed in Summer, never well cared for.\n\nShe gets a little so-called education.  Ill-dressed and ashamed\nbeside the other children, she is glad to escape the education.\nNo one at home can help her on.  No one away from home cares\nabout her.\n\nShe grows up white, sickly, like a potato sprouting in a cellar.\nAt the corner of a fine street she sees the carriages passing\nwith other girls in warm furs, or in fine, cool Summer dresses.\n\nWith a poor shawl around her and with heels run down she peers in\nat the restaurant window, to see other women leading lives very\ndifferent from hers.\n\nSteadily she has impressed upon her the fact, absolutely\nundeniable, that as the world is organized there is no especial\nplace for her--certainly no comfort for her.\n\nShe finds work, perhaps.  Hours as long as the daylight.\n\nTen minutes late--half a day's fine.\n\nAt the end of the day aching feet, aching back, system ill-fed,\nnot enough earned to live upon honestly--and that prospect\nstretches ahead farther than her poor eyes can see.\n\n\"What's the charge, officer?\"\n\n\"Disorderly conduct, Your Honor.\"\n\nThere's the criminal, good men, politicians, women and bishops,\nthat you are hunting so ardently.\n\nTHE BOY\n\nSame story, practically.\n\nHe plays on the tenement staircase--cuffed off the staircase.\n\nHe plays ball in the street--cuffed, if caught by the policeman.\n\nHe swings on the area railing, trying to exercise his stunted\nmuscles--cuffed again.\n\nIn burning July, with shirt and trousers on, he goes swimming in\nthe park fountain--caught and cuffed and handed over to \"the\nsociety.\"\n\nA few months in a sort of semi-decent imprisonment, treated in a\nfashion about equivalent to that endured by the sea turtle turned\nover on its back in the market.\n\nHe escapes to begin the same life once more.\n\nHe tries for work.\n\n\"What do you know?\"\n\n\"I don't know anything; nobody ever taught me.\"\n\nHe cannot even endure the discipline of ten hours' daily\nshovelling--it takes education to instil discipline, if only the\neducation of the early pick and shovel.\n\nHe has not been taught anything.  He has been turned loose in a\ncity full of temptation.  He had no real start to begin with, and\nno effort was ever made to repair his evil beginning.  ----\n\n\"What's the charge, officer?\"\n\n\"Attempted burglary; pleads guilty.\"\n\n\"Three years in prison, since it is his first offence.\"\n\nIn prison he gets an education.  They teach him how to be a good\nburglar and not get caught.  Patiently the State boards him, and\neducates him to be a first-rate criminal.\n\nThere's your first-rate criminal, Messrs. Bishops, good men,\npoliticians and benevolent women.  ----\n\nDear bishops, noble women, good men and scheming politicians,\nlisten to this story:\n\nIn the South Sea Islands they have for contagious diseases a\nhorror as great as your horror of crime.\n\nA man or woman stricken with a loathsome disease, such as\nsmallpox, is seized, isolated, and the individual sores of the\nsmallpox patient are earnestly scraped with sea shells--until the\npatient dies.  It hurts the patient a good deal--without ever\ncuring, of course--but it relieves the feelings of the outraged\ngood ones who wield the sea shells.\n\nYou kind-hearted creatures, hunting \"crime\" in great cities, are\nlike the South Sea Islanders in their treatment of smallpox.\n\nYou ardently wield your reforming sea shells and you scrape very\nearnestly at the sores so well developed.  ----\n\nNo desire here to decry your earnest efforts.\n\nBut if you ever get tired of scraping with sea shells, try\nvaccination, or, better still, try to take such care of youth, to\ngive such chances and education to the young, as will save them\nfrom the least profitable of all careers--CRIME.  ----\n\nRich good men, nice bishops, comfortable, benevolent\nladies--every man and woman on Blackwell's Island, every wretched\ncreature living near a \"red light,\" would gladly change places\nwith any of you.\n\nScrape away with your sea shells, but try also to give a few more\nand a few better chances in youth to those whom you now hunt as\ncriminals in their mature years.\n\nGod creates boys and girls, anxious to live decently.\n\nYOUR SOCIAL SYSTEM makes criminals and fills jails.\n\n\n\nTHE WONDERFUL MAGNET\nHOW WILD SUPERSTITION SETTLES DOWN INTO SCIENTIFIC REALITY\n\nEverybody knows something of the peculiarities of the magnet.  As\na boy you led tiny painted ducks around the water basin, holding\na magnet in your hand, or you owned a horseshoe magnet that would\npick up nails and needles.\n\nYou know now in a general kind of way that the magnet is a very\nuseful as well as a somewhat mysterious thing.\n\nThe old Greeks and Romans simply knew that some remarkable iron\nore found in Lydia, near the town of Magnesia, and hence called\nmagnet, was capable of drawing and holding pieces of metal.\n\nThe ancients had the wildest theories concerning the magnet, just\nas we have wild theories about things that are new and strange to\nus to-day.\n\nThey thought that the magnet could be used in cases of sickness,\nthat it could attract wood and flesh, that it influenced the\nhuman brain, causing melancholy.  They believed that the power of\na magnet could be destroyed by rubbing garlic on it, and that\npower brought back again by dipping the magnet in goat's blood.\nThey believed that a magnet could be used to detect bad conduct\nin a woman; they believed that it would not attract iron in the\npresence of a diamond.  They believed much other nonsense quite\nas ridiculous as the nonsense that we believe to-day.  ----\n\nIt must have seemed a great waste of time in wise men in the old\ndays to discuss the magnet or think about it at all.  Please\nobserve how the apparent nonsense of early speculation finally\nripens into actual utility, and learn to respect those who deal\nas best they can with questions that seem beyond our\ncomprehension.\n\nFirst the magnet was made actually and wonderfully useful in the\ncompass.  Who discovered the compass nobody knows.  It was\nprobably invented by the Chinese and brought to Europe through\nthe Arabs.  Anyhow, some genius found out that a small needle\nbrought in contact with the so-called lodestone, or magnetic ore,\nabsorbs the qualities of the lodestone, and when placed on a\npivot will always point to the north.\n\nIn the magnet there were and there still are many mysteries.  A\nform of perpetual motion seems to be embodied in the principle of\nmagnetism.  One strange fact is this, that the weight of the\nmetal is exactly the same before it is magnetized and after it is\nmagnetized.\n\nEarly students thought that the magnet pointed toward some\nparticular spot in the sky, perhaps  some magnetic star.  One\ngenius felt sure that there must be huge mountains of lodestone\nnear the North Pole.  This suggestion was followed by ingenious\nyarns to the effect that in the extreme North ships had to be\nbuilt with wooden nails, instead of iron nails, as the magnetic\nmountains would draw the iron nails out of the ship.\n\nAfter this came the more rational conception that our own earth\nis a great magnet, and that the little magnet in the compass\nsimply obeys in pointing, the greater force of the earth magnet.\n----\n\nThis editorial generalizing on the magnet is brought about by an\nincident telegraphed from Vallejo, California.  John Gettegg,\napprentice in the Navy Yard, had imbedded in his cheek a flying\npiece of steel.  To get it out would apparently have demanded a\npainful and difficult surgical operation, as the piece of steel\nhad entered the bone.  But the head electrician, Petrio, simply\nplaced near the wounded boy's face an electro-magnet capable of\nlifting five hundred pounds, and the sharp piece of steel\ninstantly flew out of the cheek and attached itself to the\nmagnet.\n\nSo much for one proof of the value of developing what may seem at\nfirst to be a foolish set of experiments.\n\nIn thousands of ways to-day this magnetic power is utilized.\n\nYou can buy strawberries in baskets very cheap, partly because\nthe baskets cost very little for labor.  The man who tacks them\ntogether uses a magnetized tack hammer.  This magnetic tack\nhammer picks up the tacks of its own accord, and the man drives\nthem in the basket as fast as he can touch the magnet to the\nheads of the tacks and strike the basket.\n\nIn the great steel works where armor plate is made powerful\nmagnets are used to carry the hot plates from one place to\nanother.  The magnet lifts up the hot, soft metal without denting\nit or damaging it and drops it down where it is wanted.  The\npower which moves trolley cars through the streets is nothing in\nreality but an application of the force of the magnetic\nprinciple.  ----\n\nThat the earth itself is a great magnet cannot be questioned.\nAnd there is no doubt that each of us human beings is a compound\nmagnet on his own account, depending for his welfare on magnetic\nforce.\n\nThe millions of red corpuscles in the blood, each with its\ninfinitesimal particles of iron, absorb in the lungs and\ndistribute throughout the body the electric forces on which we\ndepend, and with which we do our work.\n\nWhen you read of men and women dealing in a blundering kind of a\nway with abstract, abstruse speculations and problems, do not\nlaugh at them too heartily.  They are no more ridiculous than the\nold Greeks who thought that a magnet could be regulated by garlic\nor goat's blood.  And their wild theories of to-day may settle\ndown into great utility centuries from now.  This applies to\nChristian Science, faith cures, telepathy, and the many other\nspeculations of the present day.  There is unquestionably much\nfuture fruit and value in many or all of them.\n\n\n\nWHO IS INDEPENDENT?  NOBODY\n\nWe all have our moments of imagining ourselves INDEPENDENT\ncharacters.  We take pride in our independence and are never as\nfoolish as when trying to prove how independent we are.\n\nEvery man, to begin with, is born absolutely at the mercy of his\nancestry.  You have not a thing in you, and you never will have a\nthing in you, that you did not inherit from some one of the\nthousands and thousands of ancestors, all of whom are dimly\nstored away in your complex make-up.\n\nYou may develop marvellously the faculties which they gave you.\n\nBut you ARE DEPENDENT on those who brought you into the world,\nand upon those back of them.\n\nThe Kaffir, sober, industrious, honest, with all the virtues\nrolled up within him, has not a fragment of one chance in ten\nthousand billions of equalling the achievements of a tenth-rate\nwhite man whose ancestral start was better.  ----\n\nAfter birth you start with dependence on your ancestors, and\nafter youth you are dependent on your education.\n\nFacts are your tools, and you can't work without them.\n\nIf your mind has the right formation, if your brain is provided\nwith the deep convolutions, and good luck has supplied you with a\ngood education in youth, the whole thing is dependent on your\nhealth--on your liver, your stomach, or some other part of your\ninternal machinery.\n\nVery often your success is dependent on your temper and tact.\nThese depend on your digestion.  Digestion, of course, depends on\nyour cook, and the cook's attention to business may depend on the\npoliteness of the policeman in front of the house.\n\nYou may FEEL absolutely independent and THINK you are\nindependent, when as a matter of fact you are miserably dependent\non the mood of the policeman who has snubbed the lady who cooks\nyour food.\n\n\n\nWHEN WE BEGIN USING LAND UNDER THE OCEANS\nBIG WORK AHEAD FOR MAN, KIND FRIENDS\n\nThere is a great deal of water on this earth of ours and a great\ndeal of land underneath it.\n\nAll the treasures of these hidden plains are simply put away for\nour future use by bountiful nature, as prudent parents put money\nin the savings bank for their young ones.  ----\n\nAlready in Chili they are mining coal under the bed of the\nPacific Ocean, and the traveler may ride on electric cars through\nsolid tunnels of coal beneath the waters of the greatest ocean.\n\nThe tin mines in Wales extend far out beneath the sea.\n\nWorkers in the Calumet and Hecla mines work beneath the waters of\nLake Superior.\n\nOil wells are worked out beyond the edge of the Pacific Ocean.\nYou may see the oil derricks just off Santa Barbara's surf.\n\nIn the bay of San Francisco artesian wells, going through the\npreliminary depths of salt water, bring the water of fresh\nsubmarine springs to the surface.\n\nBut these little enterprises are but faint beginnings of the\ngreat work that man has to do in exploiting the wealth beneath\nthe waters covering two-thirds of the earth's surface.\n\nThis earth will be quite a romantic abode when sub-oceanic\nexploitation reaches full development, when the great gold mines\nbeneath the waters are indicated simply by latitude and\nlongitude.\n\nMars, with his huge canals distributing a planet's waters\nscientifically, will be matched perhaps by our network of tunnels\nunder the water from here to Asia, and by our boring, with the\naid of cooling mediums, toward the earth's centre and bringing up\nmetals in a molten state.\n\nBefore he finishes with her, man will make old earth know that he\nis at work \"in her midst.\"  He will make the harnessing of a tiny\nNiagara or the boring of a poor little isthmus seem feeble\nefforts.\n\n\n\nWHERE YOUR BODY CAME FROM\nLET IT BE SCATTERED AS IT WAS GATHERED\n\nDid you ever think about the construction of the body which you\ninhabit?  Did it ever occur to you that your shoulders and hands\nand chest and legs and lungs are made of contributions from\nwidely different parts of the earth?\n\nYour brain, a wonderfully complex machine, the seat of thought\nand of the will, is packed away in darkness in the bony skull.\n\nThe heart, working ceaselessly, pumps the blood that feeds the\nbrain and makes possible its work.\n\nThe eyes, with the aid of the nerves that perceive light, guide\nyou.  The ears, with the nerves that interpret sound waves, tell\ntheir story.\n\nLike a central operator with a million wires leading to him, your\nINDIVIDUALITY, a wonderful mystery without form, matter or name,\nsits in your brain guiding the body.  ----\n\nWhere did the body come from?\n\nPart of it came from potatoes grown on Long Island, and part of\nit from spices grown in Ceylon.\n\nIn your nerves there is the extract of tea leaves gathered by a\nChinese girl on the other side of the world.  Your blood is\npurified and made red by the wind that blew across the Rocky\nMountains only a few hours ago.  That current of oxygen has\nhelped build up your strength.\n\nA month ago an ox was eating grass in Texas.\n\nMany millions of years ago the pollen of huge fern trees was\nfalling to the earth in the carboniferous era and making coal.\n\nTo-day, part of the backbone of the ox from Texas with the meat\nattached is laid on the fire of coal made by those fern trees,\nand the Texas ox and the fern pollen combined help to build up\nyour body.\n\nThat same body is three-quarters water, and of that water part\nwas once the Pacific Ocean; part, perhaps, was drunk up by a\nwhale before it reached you; and part floated in clouds over the\nSouthern Sea.  ----\n\nYour imagination can carry the picture as far as it will--to the\nfisherman catching your sardines in the North, and the dark man\ngathering your oranges in the South or your dates in some oasis.\n\nWe want to suggest this idea to you.\n\nSince the body is gathered from all parts of the world, from all\ncorners of our little speck of the material universe, should it\nnot be scattered, at death, as it was gathered during life?\n\nIs not the destruction of the body by fire far better than\nhideous burial in the earth?\n\nThe body that fire destroys goes back to nature, instantly\nreduced to its original elements.  Is not such disposition of the\nbody more in accord with nature's laws and with respect for the\ndead than our present custom?\n\nWould it not be pleasanter to think that one we cared for had\ngone back to the air, with only a handful of ashes remaining,\nthan to think of the dark, close, lonesome grave far below the\nsunlight, clogging and uselessly occupying part of the earth,\nwhich should be devoted to growth and cheerfulness?\n\n\n\nHOW MARRIAGE BEGAN\nHAPHAZARD REFLECTIONS ON GRAVE TOPICS.\n\nAt stated times we mortals have stated visitations.\n\nOne day it is the grippe, next day the financial problem.\n\nJust now it is the marriage and divorce question, with much\nlearned expounding by the good and the pure, such as bishops and\nmembers of Sorosis.  ----\n\nWhat is marriage?  How did it begin?  Whence does it come?\n\nWhy is it a feature of human life wherever that life is found.\n\nYou must begin with such questions.  Always study beginnings.\nNothing can be learned by taking hold of a thing in the middle\nand examining its imperfections.\n\nThe first priest to join man and woman together was no benign\nbeing with lawn sleeves and soul-stirring words.\n\nMarriage was brought about on this earth by the will and wisdom\nof God Almighty working through primitive babyhood.\n\nIn the old days, when the world was cruder, men and women ran\nwild through forests and swamps.  They fought nature, fought each\nother, as savage as other beasts around them.  There was no love;\nthere was no marriage.  The instincts of self-preservation and\nof reproduction worked alone to keep the race here through its\nhard childhood.  ----\n\nBut in cold stone caves or in rough nests under fallen tree\ntrunks savage children were born and nursed by their savage\nmothers with savage affection.\n\nThrough those infants of the stone age, or of ages much earlier,\nmarriage and pure affection came into the world.\n\nIt is not hard to reproduce in our minds the picture of the first\nmarriage.\n\nA savage woman, half human, half ape, with rough, matted locks\nhanging round her face, sits holding her new-born baby,\nprotecting it from wind and cold.\n\nIt is a queer baby, covered perhaps with reddish hair, its brow\nno higher than a rat's.  Its jaw protrudes; its tiny, grimy hands\nclutch with monkey power all things within reach.\n\nAlong comes the father, full of plans to kill a mammoth or a cave\nbear; interested in his stone-tipped club, but caring nothing for\nthe mother, who has been for some time only a whining nuisance.\n\nHe stops for a second to look at the small creature which he has\nadded to earth's animal life.\n\nIts misshapen skull, ferret eyes, miniature shoulders--something\nabout it reminds him of his royal self, as studied in the pool.\nHe stoops to look closer.  His bristly hairs are grabbed, and a\nweird, insane, toothless grin lights up the little monkey face.\n\nThen the savage takes a new view of life; there the marriage\ninstitution and the marriage problem are born simultaneously.\n\nSays the mammoth hunter, with whistling words and hoarse throat\nsounds half articulated:\n\n\"I like this baby.  He's like me.  Let me hold him.  Don't you go\nout with him looking for food, and don't leave him alone while\nI'm gone.  I've got a bear located.  No one can beat me killing\nbears.  I'll bring the bear's heart to you this evening.  You can\ngive this baby some of the blood.  It will do him good.  Don't\nhave anything to say to that mammoth hunter in the next swamp.  I\nwant you to stick to me.  I'll look after you.  I have taken a\nfancy to that baby.  He looks very much like me.\"\n\nOff goes the father, and that savage mother, in a primitive way,\nis a wife.  Hereafter she is to be cared for.  Bears will be\nkilled for her, even while she has children to keep her busy and\nunattractive.  Society takes a new turn and the red-haired baby\nhas done it.\n\nTo childhood, helpless and beautiful, we owe marriage and all\nthat growth of morality which is gradually making us really\ncivilized.\n\nThe basis of all real growth is altruism; and altruism, the\ninclination to think more of others than of yourself, came into\nthe world through the cradle.\n\nWe owe such civilization as we have acquired to children.\n\n\"A softened pressure of an uncouth hand, a human gleam in an\nalmost animal eye, an endearment in an inarticulate voice--feeble\nthings enough.  Yet in these faint awakenings lay the hope of the\nhuman race.\" ----\n\nThe influence of childhood has transformed mere animal attraction\ninto unselfish affection.  It has substituted family life for\nsavage life.  The interests of childhood demand that marriage and\nits responsibilities be held sacred.\n\nDuty to future generations demands that divorce be made difficult\nand considered a misfortune.\n\nMarriage, brought into the world through the influence of\nchildren, should be dissolved only with due regard for the\ninterests of children.  ----\n\nAn unhappy marriage is earth's worst affliction.  Quite true.\nBut it is not affliction wasted.\n\nExamples are needed to warn the young against the matrimonial\nrecklessness which underlies most unhappy marriages.\n\nUnhappy wives and husbands are human light-houses--lonely, but\nuseful.\n\nIf a gentle little Alderney calf should marry a sleek young zebra\nand afterward get kicked to death for her pains, we should all\nsympathize with her.  But we should expect other mild-eyed\nAlderneys after that to beware of zebras.\n\nAs a matter of fact, this present divorce talk, which sets the\ngood to fluttering, really interests a very unimportant class.\n\nThe man who spends his life spending what he didn't earn, feeding\nhis physical senses, who goes from rum to the races, from the\nraces to the opera, and from the opera to roulette, wears out his\nnervous sensations.\n\nHe then thinks that he is unhappily married.  He has possibly\ndriven his wife to being seven kinds of a fool.\n\nBut that is not her fault.\n\nA man who marries a woman undertakes to make her happy and keep\nher busy.  If he keeps his contract, she will keep hers.\n\nIf he fails, he has no right to experiment on another\nunfortunate.  The divorce class is a self-indulgent, malformed\nclass, not worth notice.  ----\n\nProfessor Cope, an earnest man and serious thinker, believed that\nmarriages should be contracted on probation--say for five years,\nwith the right on both sides to refuse a renewal.\n\nTheoretically, this would be beautiful.  It would make courtship\npermanent, abolish curl-papered wives in the morning, and tipsy,\nbragging husbands at night.\n\nBut it wouldn't work.  It would be all right for women.  They are\nonly too willing to be faithful and permanent.\n\nBut men cannot be trusted.  The animal in them, so essential long\nago, when the race was struggling for a foothold, has not been\nobliterated.  They have got to be MADE responsible and HELD\nresponsible.  ----\n\nAs a matter of fact, there really is no marriage or divorce\nproblem which sensible beings need consider.\n\nAt present men are not good enough to be trusted with liberal\nmarriage or divorce laws.  When they are good enough the laws\nwill not be wanted.  For the man fully developed and fully moral\nwill know what he is doing when he goes into a marriage contract.\n\nHis stability of character will insure permanency.  There will be\nno need of laws.\n\nAt one time the English laws regulated the conditions under which\na man might beat his wife.  \"The stick,\" said the law, \"must not\nbe thicker than the husband's thumb.\"\n\nSome Englishmen have very thick thumbs, and the law was doubtless\nhard on some thin, worn-out women.\n\nBut that law is no longer needed.\n\nMen have outgrown the need of regulations in wife-beating.  In\ntime they will outgrow the need of laws regarding infidelity and\nlack of self-respect.\n\n\n\nMAN'S WILLINGNESS TO WORK\n\nWhat a fortunate thing it is that men want to work and like to\nlive!  Suppose for a moment that the out-of-work, hungry, unlucky\ncreatures, numbering one hundred thousand in New York City,\nshould suddenly change their character.\n\nIt is a harmless supposition, as it implies that a great body of\ngood, though unlucky, men should be suddenly metamorphosed.  But\nsuppose, for instance, that one hundred thousand men should have\na meeting and say:\n\n\"The State provides food, lodging and good care for every thief.\nIt does not provide anything for us.  Let us therefore accept the\nsituation like philosophers and become thieves.\"\n\nSuppose the hundred thousand men thereupon, very quietly, without\nany show of violence, should each proceed to steal something and\nthen announce the intention to accept the consequence by pleading\nguilty.  It would embarrass the State and the reigning powers,\nwould it not?\n\nWhat could society do with a hundred thousand self-confessed\nthieves to take care of?  It could not lock them up.  It could\nnot let them go.  It could not nominally sentence them and have\nthe Governor pardon them, because the hundred thousand would then\nproceed to steal something else.\n\nWhat could be done?  Nothing.  There is no punishment save\nimprisonment for theft, and the wholesale thieves would ask for\nand demand imprisonment with the usual rations.\n\nWe think society is well balanced and that everything is\ningeniously provided for.\n\nSo it is; but everything hinges on the extraordinary fact that\nthe hungry, thin, common, shiftless, luckless man at the very\nbottom is still a MAN.  He will not be a thief, and he will die\nof hunger and cold, as poor fellows do almost every winter day,\nrather than take the food that society guarantees to the thief.\n\nWe attribute much to our own wisdom and the wisdom of our laws.\nBut we owe almost everything to the instinct of self-preservation\nand to that second, very peculiar, instinct called pride.\n\n\n\nTHE HUMAN BRAIN BEATS THE COAL MINES\n\nFor six million years, during the carboniferous period, the tree\nferns dropped their pollen dust to the earth forming coal beds\nwhich now cook our dinners and incidentally make J. Pierpont\nMorgan so prosperous.\n\nA good deal of useless anxiety has been devoted to the questions:\n\nWhat will the human race do when the coal gives out?  Shall we\nfreeze, or begin planting huge forests of wood, or what?\n\nIn the first place, coal will not give out for a long, long time.\n\nIn the second place, its disappearance will not make the\nslightest difference, for in the few cubic inches of the human\nbrain nature has stored up treasures greater than all those\nhidden in the depths of the earth.  The creation of the human\nbrain took more years than the creation of the coal fields, but\nthe brain's resources are inexhaustible.\n\nA German workman now comes along who has discovered a chemical\nsubstitute for coal, better than coal in many ways, and before\nthis German shall have been dead many years some other will find\na further substitute far better and cheaper than his.\n\nThere is endless heat power in the action of the tides, in the\nrush of Niagara, in the winds, and in endless chemical\ncombinations.  Heat is motion, and the Universe is motion.  Men\nwill soon cease lighting tiny bonfires to obtain crude heat in a\ncrude way.  Electricity or the sun's own rays, concentrated for\nheating purposes, will do the work without any digging in mines\nby men, or delving in ashes and clinkers by women.\n\nThe story of antiquity, more or less fictitious, of the burning\nof a fleet with the aid of a glass and the sunbeams, will be\nmatter-of-fact reality long before the coal shall have been\nexhausted.\n\n\n\nHOW THE OTHER PLANETS WILL TALK TO US\n\nWe talk of civilization as though it necessarily implied\nimprovement.\n\nCivilization means the school and the library, but it also means\nthe prison and the poorhouse.\n\nTwo short stories illustrate different views of what we call\ncivilization:\n\nAristippus was a young Greek gentleman of large means, genuine\nintellectual power, a sense of humor and a reputation as a\nphilosopher.\n\nHe was on his way to Corinth with a young lady named Lais, or\npossibly he was coming from Corinth with her.  Anyhow, he was\nwrecked on the voyage.  If you know anything about the reputation\nof Lais, you know that the philosopher was badly employed, and\nthat the Greek gods doubtless wrecked his vessel to impress upon\nhis mind the importance of morality.\n\nThrown ashore on a barren stretch of sand, the philosopher was\nvery sad at first.  He observed on the sand the remains of\ncertain geometrical drawings, and instantly exclaimed:  \"There is\nhelp near.  Here I see signs of thinking men, of civilization.\"\n----\n\nVoltaire tells of wrecked individuals thrown on a lonely coast,\nand also much distressed and frightened.\n\nThey saw no geometrical tracings in the sand.  But on a bleak\nmoor in the twilight they saw the black beams of a gibbet, and\nbelow the cross-piece, swinging in the wind, they saw a human\nskeleton with bony wrists and ankles chained together.\n\nPrayerfully the wanderers dropped on their knees and exclaimed\nwith upturned eyes:\n\n\"Thank God, we have got back to civilization.\" ----\n\nThus, you see, there are varying signs of civilization.  There is\na great gulf between the signs perceived by Aristippus--signs of\nthe mental activity which engages in geometrical\ndemonstrations--and Voltaire's sign of civilization--the brutal\nexecution of a brutal criminal.  ----\n\nThose accustomed to waste time in speculations that cannot bring\na financial return may be interested in the following application\nof the sign of civilization which Aristippus immediately\nrecognized back in the days of two thousand years ago.\n\nWe know that some day the inhabitants on Mars or some other\nplanet will want to talk to us.  They have doubtless been\nstudying us and consider us still too barbarous and primitive to\nbe worth talking to.\n\nBut when we become semi-civilized, in the cosmic sense of the\nword, the older and wiser planets will get ready to open\ncommunication with us.\n\nHow will they go about it?  They are perhaps absolutely different\nfrom us, in shape, in manner of thought, in every conceivable\nway, including language, customs, and so on.\n\nBUT GEOMETRICAL, MATHEMATICAL FACTS ARE THE SAME THROUGHOUT THE\nUNIVERSE.\n\nWill not the wise Martian who wants to speak to us and decides to\nflash some message down here on our clouds, or on the surface of\nthe water, utilize the universality of geometrical truths in\norder to make us understand that thinking beings are trying to\ntalk to us?\n\nThe sum of the angles of any triangle is equal to two right\nangles.\n\nThat is true of every triangle, no matter what its shape, no\nmatter whether it be drawn on this earth or on the most distant\nsun.\n\nTherefore, when the Martian gentleman gets ready to talk to us he\nneed only repeatedly place before us two right angles followed by\na triangle, or a triangle followed by two right angles.\nInstantly, like Aristippus, we can say there is civilization in\nMars, or wherever that sign comes from, or at least there is\norganized thought.  The mind that is flashing that sign knows\nsomething about geometry.\n\nOf course, we should also recognize \"signs of civilization\" if\nthe Martians should project upon our atmosphere a skeleton\nhanging in chains.  But it is to be hoped that the Martians have\ngot beyond that particular evidence of civilization.\n\n\n\nSHALL WE DO WITHOUT SLEEP SOME DAY?\n\nA half-developed being like man, hanging midway between primitive\nbarbarism and ultimate perfection, should study the insect tribes\nwhich appear to have realized the possibilities of development in\ntheir line.\n\nThe study of the ant and the bee, the spider and the scorpion\nshould fill us with hope.  We should say to ourselves:\n\n\"If these tiny fragments of life can develop so highly, what may\nnot WE hope for in the way of ultimate possibilities?  Our\nbeginning is so much more full of promise than the beginnings of\nour tiny insect brothers.\" ----\n\nThis writer, taking his own advice, which is most unusual, has\nbeen trying to get acquainted with some insects in the hope of\ncheering himself and getting new ideas.\n\nFrom the female scorpion we acquire fresh veneration for the\npossibilities of maternal devotion.\n\nThe mother of the Gracchi has been well advertised because she\npreferred her sons to jewelry.  The Russian mother who feeds\nherself to the wolves, instead of throwing her boy over the back\nof the sleigh in the usual way, is also highly praised.  But\ntheir devotion shrinks to nothing when compared with that of any\npoor mother scorpion of Mexico's sandy tracts.\n\nAs soon as her young scorpions arrive, they climb to her back,\nhalf a hundred of them or more.  She moves about with them,\nprotecting them, avoiding danger, giving them the sunlight.\nMeanwhile they are feeding on her body.  Her movements get\ngradually slower and slower; finally they cease.  The young\nscorpions depart leaving the mother scorpion simply an empty\nshell.  We should dislike to see any such exhibition of\ntenderness among human beings, but we can't help admiring the\nscorpion.\n\nMr. Scorpion, placed as was Captain Dreyfus, would sting himself\nto death.  They are a determined race.  ----\n\nSpiders who construct tiny balloons with little cars all complete\nare wonderful creatures.  They cross chasms in their balloons,\nthrowing out bits of trailing web which seem to act as rudders.\nIn their little way and in a perfectly adequate fashion they have\nsolved aerial navigation, which still puzzles us.  We admire\nspiders and kill only those with yellow stomachs, which are\n\"poison.\" ----\n\nBut up to the present we have found the ant the most\ninterestingly suggestive creature.  He has developed and\nunderstands stirpiculture--the improvement of the race by careful\nbreeding--which with us is as yet mere theory, and as we look\ndown at the ant, we look up to him because the strangely active\ncreature manages to do without sleep.\n\nWe human beings drowse through thirty years of our threescore and\nten, but the ant is awake and working all the time.\n\nIf the ant has managed to live without sleep, if he has acquired\nthe faculty of lifelong wakefulness, why should we not do as much\nin time?  We take it for granted that sleep is essential, as we\ntake everything else for granted.  We used to take it for granted\nthat the earth was flat, but we have stopped that.  Sleep was at\none time forced upon man and other animals.\n\nThe earth in its rollings turned away from the sun once in every\ntwenty-four hours.  In the darkness of the beginning man said to\nhimself:  \"If I go walking around, I shall fall into a hole, so I\nshall lie down and wait until the sun comes again.\"\n\nHe did as all the animals did before him for millions of years.\nSince that time, man has conquered darkness.  Why should he not\nultimately conquer sleep?\n\nWe know that thin men, nervous, highly organized, do with far\nless sleep than others.  We know that old age requires less sleep\nthan youth.\n\nCan we not cultivate and develop the characteristics which make\nsleep less necessary?  Higher races of apes have abolished tails.\n\nCan't we abolish sleep?  ----\n\nAs old age needs less sleep than babyhood, so in our maturity as\na human race we shall probably demand less sleep than now in our\nracial babyhood.  Perhaps none at all will be needed.\n\nIf that happens our lives will be doubled in value, they will be\ncomplete.  The hours of sunlight will be devoted to examination\nand admiration of nature's beauties on this earth.\n\nThe hours of darkness, given up to sleep no longer, will be\ndevoted to the study of space, to investigation among other\nworlds.\n\nThat kind of life will be worth while.  Bear in mind that we\nshall only really begin to live on this earth when we shall have\nsettled all the little social and material questions here and\nshall have begun in earnest the study of the universe in which we\nare a speck.\n\nThe days of the future will be given up to artistic enjoyment of\nthe beautiful.  The nights will be devoted to intellectual\ndevelopment and research.\n\nMan will LIVE.\n\n\n\nTHE THREE BEST THINGS IN THE WORLD\n\nIf you had choice of all qualities which man can possess, which\nthree would you declare most important?\n\nThis question is submitted as interesting every man.  We give our\nanswer; if yours is different, send it here.  ----\n\nSELF-CONTROL.\n\nJUSTICE.\n\nIMAGINATION.\n\nThose we think the most important elements in the human\ncharacter.  A man fully and evenly equipped with all three would\nbe greater than any the world has known.  ----\n\nSELF-CONTROL you must start with.\n\nIt makes life worth while.  It frees you from the danger of\nremorse, the wasted time of self- reproach.  It sees\nopportunities as they come; saves you from damaging temptation.\nIt is as important to a brain as is physical equilibrium to a\nwork of masonry.\n\nA man without self-control, a building out of plumb, cannot\nendure.\n\nJUSTICE.\n\nIt is the foundation of all reputation worth the having.  It is\nto man as necessary as the compass to a ship.  It is the compass.\n\nJustice will give reputation for greatness though you create\nnothing great.  It will win affectionate reverence in life and a\ngratifying gravestone at life's end.  ----\n\nIMAGINATION.\n\nGreatest gift to man.  It finds him grovelling here a pithecoid\nlittleness.\n\nThe rough hair is gone from his body.  His thumb has lost its\nmonkey smallness; he walks flat on his feet.\n\nBut beyond that he has naught else to thank material nature for.\n\nAll the rest comes to him from imagination.  Marvellous work she\nperforms.  She takes naked man with his low forehead, with his\ngruntings and whistlings through his teeth, and makes of him what\nman was meant to be.\n\nVery slowly she works, but ceaselessly.  Her task is not nearly\nended.  At her first glimmerings man's real life begins.  He\nlearns from her to add wood to a fire.  No monkey ever did it.\nThat stamps him a man.\n\nSoon, with her help, he leaves the earth and travels off ten\nthousand million miles into space.  He counts the suns in the\nMilky Way; travels in the air, under the water; harnesses\nlightning, controls nature.  By IMAGINATION he is made\nCAPTAIN of this earthen ship on which he travels through space.\n\nIMAGINATION separates Archimedes, working at his problems in the\nsunlight, from the vile soldier that slaughtered him.\n\nShakespeare rattling his ale pot and Johanna, the ape, shaking\nher bars at the Zoo are alike, save for difference of\nimagination.\n\nSELF-CONTROL to balance you.\n\nJUSTICE to guide you.\n\nIMAGINATION to lend creative power.\n\n\"Equilibrium, Direction, Creation.\"\n\nThe TRINITY ardently to be desired.  ----\n\nLong ago Plato announced that apparent differences are deceptive;\nthat all things existing come from one casting--the mind of\nGod--which he names \"idea.\"\n\nSimilarly to-day the solemn-thinking German tells you that matter\nand force are identical, that the interchangeable character of\nforces--heat light, magnetism, etc.--is part of the a, b, c of\nproved phenomena.\n\nHaeckel stops digging up old bones and classifying sea\nmicroscopic organisms long enough to write \"Monism,\" expressing\nhis belief that God is anything and everything from Orion to a\ntumble- bug.\n\nIt is quite easy to show that the selected three--self-control,\njustice and imagination--are in reality one.  Each exists as part\nof the others.  Each is made up of the other two.\n\nBut this column is not devoted to any save simple things.\n\nThe question is this, once more:\n\nWhat are man's three most useful qualities--which three would\nyou possess?\n\nDo not call this question idle or believe that we cannot change\nourselves.  We CAN.\n\nNapoleon said:  \"Never believe that a man ever changed his\ntemperament.\"\n\nBut Napoleon often said what was foolish.\n\nIt ought to delight you to know that you can change yourself if\nyou want to, as you can change the arrangement of your back\nparlor.\n\nTry it.  It is hard work, but good exercise.\n\n\n\nTHE VALUE OF SOLITUDE\n\nWe inflict a piece of advice upon our readers.  It is intended\nespecially for the young, who have still to get their growth,\nwhose characters and possibilities are forming.\n\nGET AWAY FROM THE CROWD WHEN YOU CAN.  KEEP YOURSELF TO YOURSELF,\nIF ONLY FOR A FEW HOURS DAILY.  ----\n\nFull individual growth, special development, rounded mental\noperations--all these demand room, separation from others,\nsolitude, self-examination and the self-reliance which solitude\ngives.\n\nThe finest tree stands off by itself in the open plain.  Its\nbranches spread wide.  It is a complete tree, better than the\ncramped tree in the crowded forest.\n\nThe animal to be admired is not that which runs in herds, the\ngentle browsing deer or foolish sheep thinking only as a fraction\nof the flock, incapable of personal independent direction.  It's\nthe lonely prowling lion or the big black leopard with the whole\nworld for his private field that is worth looking at.\n\nThe man who grows up in a herd, deer-like, thinking with the\nherd, acting with the herd, rarely amounts to anything.  ----\n\nDo you want to succeed?  Grow in solitude, work, develop in\nsolitude, with books and thoughts and nature for friends.  Then,\nif you want the crowd to see how fine you are, come back to it\nand boss it if it will let you.\n\nConstant craving for indiscriminate company is a sure sign of\nmental weakness.\n\nSchopenhauer--a sour genius, BUT a genius--speaks contemptuously\nof the negroes herded in small rooms unable to get \"enough of one\nanother's snub-nose company.\" ----\n\nIf you enter a village or small town and want to find the man or\nyouth of ability, do you look for him leaning over the village\npool table, sitting on the grocery store boxes, lounging in the\nsmelly tavern with other vacant minds?\n\nCertainly not.  You find him at work, and you find him by\nhimself.\n\nThink how public institutions dwarf the brains and souls of\nunhappy children condemned to live in them.  No chance there for\nindividual, separate development.  Millions of children have\ngrown up in such places millions of sad nonentities.  ----\n\nHere is what Goethe says:\n\n\"Es bildet ein Talent sich in der Stille, doch ein Charakter in\ndem Strome der Welt.\" (Talent is developed in solitude, character\nin the rush of the world.)\n\nYou wonder why so much ability comes from the country--why a\nLincoln comes from the backwoods while you, flourishing in a\ngreat city, can barely keep your place as a typewriter.\n\nThe countryman has GOT to be by himself much of the time whether\nhe wishes to or not.  If he has anything in him it comes out.\n\nAstronomy, man's grandest study, grew up among the shepherds.\nYou of the cities never even see the stars, much less study them.\n\n----\n\nDon't be a sheep or a deer.  Don't devote your hours to the\ncompany and conversation of those who know as little as you do.\nDon't think hard only when you are trying to remember a popular\nsong or to decide on the color of your Winter overcoat or\nnecktie.\n\nRemember that you are an individual, not a grain of dust or a\nblade of grass.  Don't be a sheep; be a man.  It has taken nature\na hundred million years to produce you.  Don't make her sorry she\ntook the time.\n\nGet out in the park and walk and think.  Get up in your hall\nbedroom, read, study, write what you think.  Talk more to\nyourself and less to others.  Avoid magazines, avoid excessive\nnewspaper reading.\n\nThere is not a man of average ability but could make a striking\ncareer if he could but WILL to do the best that is in him.\n\nProofs of growth due to solitude are endless.  Milton's greatest\nwork was done when blindness, old age and the death of the\nPuritan government forced him into completest seclusion.\nBeethoven did his best work in the solitude of deafness.\n\nBacon would never have been the great leader of scientific\nthought had not his trial and disgrace forced him from the\ncompany of a grand retinue and stupid court to the solitude of\nhis own brain.\n\n\"Multum insola fuit anima mea.\" (My spirit hath been much alone.)\nThis he said often, and lucky it was for him.  Loneliness of\nspirit made him.\n\nGet a little of it for yourself.\n\nDrop your club, your street corner, your gossipy boarding-house\ntable.  Drop your sheep life and try being a man.\n\nIt may improve you.\n\n\n\nTHERE SHOULD BE A MONUMENT TO TIME\n\nTime has no real existence.  Yet time is man's most precious\npossession.\n\nTime is defined as a \"succession of events.\"  What we call an\nhour means certain movements in the machinery of a watch.  What\nwe call a day means one revolution of the earth upon its axis,\nthe turning of its surface toward the light of the sun.  Time is\nthe most mysterious factor in our lives and thoughts.  It never\nhad a beginning, it cannot possibly have an end.\n\nTime only exists for us in the actual moment in which we live.\nYet our thoughts are in the time of past and future, and hardly\never on the actual reality of the moment.\n\nWith the ceasing of our own consciousness, time ceases, so far as\nwe are concerned.  If you go to sleep and sleep soundly, you\ncannot tell when you awake whether you have slept a minute or an\nhour.  Time stops when YOU cease to observe the succession of\nevents.  In dying, we duplicate on a big and prolonged scale our\nlittle daily sleeps in life.\n\nIf a man were told that after death his soul would not regain\nconsciousness for a thousand millions of years, he would worry,\nand complain of the \"long time.\"  But it would make no difference\nto him whether the time were a thousand millions of years or\nforty seconds--time would not exist for him; he would not know\nthe difference.\n\nThere is little doubt that to the ephemeridae, creatures that\nlive but for a day, that day must seem as long as our century,\nfor in their life of incessant activity and agitation every\nsecond is a long space.  And there is no doubt that to the giant\nturtles of the Galapagos Islands, heavy monsters that live ten\ncenturies or longer, a week is a fraction of time far less\nimportant than an hour to us.  ----\n\nA mysterious thing is time and its divisions.  Man manufactures a\nwatch capable of registering a fraction of a second.  And in the\nforce called light we have a power that can go seven times around\nthe world in one second.\n\nWe estimate our time by years.  It takes one year for our little\nearth to spin round the sun.  And during that year it turns three\nhundred and sixty-five times on its own axis.  While the entire\nbody of our earth flies through space, accompanying the sun on\nits journey, the northern extremity of our planet has a separate\ncircular motion of its own.  This circular motion takes\ntwenty-seven thousand years to complete one circle, and as it\nmoves in this inconceivably slow journey our pole selects for us\nand points out the various suns which in turn we call the North\nStar.\n\nWe have written thus much to fix the attention of readers on the\nquestion of time.  Now, how does it affect you?  Time represents\nyour only chance, your only wealth, your only possibility for\nachieving anything.\n\nThe man who lasts fifty years lives about four hundred and\nthirty-eight thousand hours.  Sleep takes at least one-third, or\none hundred and forty-six thousand hours.  The processes of\neating, washing, dressing, getting up and going to bed take up at\nleast three hours per day, or fifty-four thousand seven hundred\nand fifty hours.\n\nIn addition to all this TIME cut out of our lives there is the\ntime devoted to amusement, the time devoted to idle dreaming--and\nyet millions of people are wondering how they can \"PASS THE\nTIME.\"\n\nIn every great city and in every small town there should be a\nmonument to time.  Young children should be taken to see it,\nclergymen should preach at the foot of it on the sacred\nimportance of the few hours of activity given to us here.  As the\nsand runs through an hour glass, so you run your short race on\nthis earth.  That passing sand means the passing of your chances\nfor making your life worth while.  Instead of thinking how you\nWILL pass the time, cross-examine yourself and ask yourself how\nyou HAVE passed the time thus far.\n\nWhat did you do last year--what use did you make of the time as\nit went by?  What did you do yesterday?  What are you going to do\nto-day?  You possess a mind organized for practically unlimited\nthinking and studying.  How many of your hours do you live as a\nthinking, studying man?  How many do you live on a par with an ox\nchewing his cud in the field?\n\nThe ox does not waste HIS time.  It is his business to grow fat\nand produce beef.  He uses every hour.  It is your business to\nuse your time in the development of your mind, in dealing with\nthe duties and problems that are put before you.\n\nEvery young man can make a success if he will really look upon\neach hour as an OPPORTUNITY, and cease to look upon the hours as\nuseless things, to be thrown away.\n\nOne hour will give you a knowledge of some good book, or wisely\nspent, with a purpose of improving your health, it will make your\nbrain more efficient and add to the value of all future hours.\n\nIf you have a horse, a bicycle, a gun, you feel that because you\nHAVE it you ought to USE it.\n\nHow much more should you feel that you ought to use your TIME, in\nusing which you use your own brain!  Surely, your brain is more\nimportant and more worthy of conscientious use than a bicycle or\na gun.\n\nTalk to children on this question of time.  Teach them that\nrespect for time means respect for their own lives and success in\nlife.\n\n\n\nA MOTHER'S WORK AND HER HOPES\n\nThis editorial is not written for women.  It is written for MEN,\nand for boys; for the millions who fail to appreciate the work\nthat mothers do, for the millions that ignore the self-sacrifice\nand devotion upon which society is based.\n\nOn a hot night, in the dusty streets of a dirty city, you see\nhundreds of women sitting in the doorways, TAKING CARE OF BABIES.\n\nIn lonesome farm houses, far out on monotonous plains, with the\nlate sun setting on a long day of hard work, you find women,\ncheerful and persevering, TAKING CARE OF BABIES.\n\nIn the middle of the night, in earliest morning, when MEN sleep,\nall over the world, in ice huts North, in southern tents, in big\nhouses and in dingy tenements, you find women awake, cheerfully\nand gladly TAKING CARE OF BABIES.  ----\n\nWe respect and praise the man selfishly working for himself.\n\nIf he builds up a great industry and a great personal fortune, we\npraise him.\n\nIf he risks his life for personal glory and for praise, we praise\nhim.\n\nIf he shows courage even in saving his own carcass from\ndestruction, we praise him.\n\nThere was never a man whose courage, or devotion, could be\ncompared with that of a woman caring for her baby.\n\nThe mother's love is unselfish, and it has no limit this side of\nthe grave.\n\nYou will find ONE man in a thousand who will risk his life for a\ncause.\n\nYou will find a THOUSAND women in a thousand who will risk their\nlives for their babies.\n\nEverything that a man has and is he owes to his mother.  From her\nhe gets health, brain, encouragement, moral character, and ALL\nhis chances of success.\n\nHow poorly the mother's service is repaid by men individually,\nand by society as a whole!\n\nThe individual man feels that he has done much if he gives\nsufficient money and a LITTLE attention to her who brought him\nfrom nothingness into life and sacrificed her sleep and youth and\nstrength for his sake.\n\nSociety, the aggregate of human beings, feels that its duty is\ndone when a few hospitals are opened for poor mothers, and a\nlittle medicine doled out in cold-hearted fashion to the sick\nchild.\n\nFortunately, it may truly be said that the great man is almost\nalways appreciative of his greater mother.\n\nNapoleon was cold, jealous of other men, monumentally egotistical\nwhen comparing himself with other sons of women.  But he\nreverenced and appreciated the noble woman who bore him, lived\nfor him, and watched over him to the end.  He said:\n\n\"It is to my mother, to her good principles, that I owe my\nsuccess and all I have that is worth while.  I do not hesitate\nto say that the future of the child depends on the mother.\"\n----\n\nThe future of the individual child depends on the individual\nmother, and the future of the race depends on the mothers of the\nrace.\n\nThink what has been done for mankind by thousands of millions of\nperfectly devoted mothers.\n\nEvery mother is entirely DEVOTED, entirely HOPEFUL, entirely\nCONFIDENT that no future is too great for her baby's deserts.\n\nThe little head--often hopelessly ill-shaped--rolls about feebly\non the thin neck devoid of muscles.  The toothless gums chew\nwhatever comes along.  The wondering eyes look feebly, aimlessly\nabout, without focus or concentration.  The future human being,\nto the cold-blooded onlooker, is a useless little atom added to\nthe human sea of nonentity.\n\nBut to the mother that baby is the marvel of all time.  There is\nendless meaning in the first mumblings, endless soul in the\nsenile, baby smile, unlimited possibilities in the knobby\nforehead and round, hairless head.  She sees in the future of the\nbaby responsibilities of government, and feels that one so\nperfectly lovely must eventually be acclaimed ruler by mankind.\n\nAs a result of perfect confidence in its future, the mother gives\nto every baby perfect devotion, perfect and affectionate moral\neducation.  Each child begins life inspired by the most beautiful\nexample of altruism and self-sacrifice.\n\nKindness has gradually taken the place of brutality among human\nbeings, because every baby at its birth has found itself\nsurrounded by absolute kindness.\n\nThe mother's kindness forms moral character.\n\nThe mother's confidence and encouragement stimulate ambition and\ninspire courage.\n\nThe mother's patient watchfulness gives good health, and fights\ndisease when it comes.\n\nThe mother's wrathful protection shields the child from the stern\nand dwarfing severity of fathers.\n\nTruly, a man may and should be judged by his feeling toward his\nown mother, and toward the mothers of other men--of ALL men.\n\nIn the character of Christ, whose last earthly thought on\nGolgotha was for His Mother, as in the character of the\nhard-working, ignorant man whose earnings go to make his mother\ncomfortable, the most beautiful trait is devotion to the mother\nwho suffers and works for her children, from the hours that\nprecede their birth through all the years that they spend on\nearth together.\n\nHonor thy father and THY MOTHER.\n\nAnd honor the mothers of other men.  Make their task easier\nthrough fair payment of the men who support the children, through\ngood public schools for their children, through respectful\ntreatment of ALL women.\n\nThe mother is happy.  For she knows \"the deep joy of loving some\none else more than herself.\"\n\nYou honor yourself, and prove yourself worthy of a good mother\nand of final success, when you do something for the mothers of\nthe world.\n\n\n\nYOUR WORK IS YOUR BRAIN'S GYMNASIUM\n\nFor \"buyers\" in big stores,\n\nFor clerks in little stores,\n\nFor office boys,\n\nFor typewriters, reporters, car conductors, household domestics,\nfor all who are hired to work for others, this article is\nintended.\n\nThere is no greater mistake than skimping your work--BECAUSE YOU\nARE WORKING FOR ANOTHER, AND FEAR YOU MAY DO TOO MUCH.\n\nFor your own sake remember that whatever you do in the way of\nhonest concentrated work you do FIRST OF ALL FOR YOURSELF.\n\nOnly one thing in the world can improve you and better your\ncondition, and that thing is your own effort.\n\nYou begin life with certain mental faculties, and with certain\nmuscular faculties.  Their development or decay depends entirely\non yourself.\n\nNo work that you do is worthless.  It will NEVER pay you to\nneglect or slur the task that you have undertaken.\n\nYou may be idle, in the thought that you are indulging yourself\nat the expense of your employer.  It is a dishonest thought, and\nit is a stupid thought at the same time.\n\nYou may rob your employer of the time that he pays for, but when\nyou shirk your work you rob yourself first of all.  ----\n\nYou may say that your employer pays you too little.  Perhaps he\ndoes.  But that is no reason for hurting your moral character\nthrough dishonesty.  It is no excuse for failing to develop\nyourself.\n\nThe store, or factory, or office in which you work is to your\nmind what a gymnasium is to your muscles.\n\nYou enter a gymnasium AND PAY FOR THE PRIVILEGE OF WORKING\nTHERE.\n\nYou do not say to yourself:  \"This gymnasium belongs to another\nman.  The profits go to him, and so I'll not work hard.\"\n\nOn the contrary, you realize that the owner of the gymnasium\ngives you the chance to develop your muscles, and you thank him,\nalthough he makes you pay for the privilege.  And you do your\nvery best, on the trapeze, rings, parallel bars, or in any other\ndirection.\n\nAct in your work as you do in your gymnasium hours.\n\nThere is no kind of work that can fail to make you a better and\nmore successful man if you work at it honestly and loyally.\n\nIf you sweep an office, sweep it well.  And begin punctually each\nday, remembering that punctuality acquired in sweeping an\noffice may be used later in governing a city.\n\nTrain your mind through your work, whatever it is.\n\nStudy the lives of those who have succeeded.  You will see that\nthey did whatever they did as well as they could.\n\nEdison was an ordinary telegraph operator.  But he was not\ncontent with merely working as others worked.  He worked very\nhard, devised means to make more valuable the instruments of his\nemployers.  Soon he was an employer himself, and what is far\nbetter than being an employer, he was a creator of new ideas and\na benefactor of the world.  ----\n\nIntelligent readers will not misinterpret this advice to mean\nthat they should OVERWORK themselves, or work regardless of\ntheir own physical welfare.\n\nThe right course is this:\n\nDo as much as you can in the present, without drawing on your\nfuture reserves.\n\nDon't work all night and then go on the next day.  Such effort\nimpairs permanently your store of vitality, and that vitality is\nyour capital.\n\nBut never form the habit of neglecting work, of shamming and\nlying instead of achieving honestly.\n\nYou may deceive one employer, or ten.  But 36> you can't deceive\nnature, and you can't deceive yourself.\n\nYou can form good habits only through regular work.  You can\ndevelop your faculties only through exercising them honestly and\nsystematically.  ----\n\nMERELY WORKING \"FAIRLY WELL\" IS NOT ENOUGH.\n\nIf you want to run a mile fast, you do not merely jog.  You try\nevery day to run the mile faster than you did the day before.  If\nyou want to learn to jump high, you strain your muscles and try\nover and over to do what you can't do.  Ultimately you achieve\nit.\n\nKeep that in mind when you work.  Remember that you must wind\nyourself up.  The most watchful employer may discharge you.  But\nhe cannot wind you up.\n\nBe a self-winding machine, and keep yourself wound up.\n\nYour hardest effort may fail to achieve greatness.  But honest\nwork will at least make it impossible for you to be a failure.\n\nTrain your brain, nerves and muscles to regular, steady,\nconscientious effort.  Make up your mind that FOR YOUR OWN\nSAKE you will make every effort your best effort.\n\nYou will soon find yourself a more successful, more\nself-respecting, abler man or woman.\n\nAnd here is an argument that should be more powerful with you\nthan self-interest:\n\nRemember that the world needs honest, conscientious men and\nwomen, able to do good work themselves and to people the earth\nwith children born of honest parents.\n\nMake up your mind to be one of the world's HONEST citizens.\n\nTo improve the world begin by improving yourself.\n\n\n\nTHE STEEPLE, MOVING LIKE THE HAND OF A CLOCK\n\nIf you live in the suburbs you devote perhaps two hours each day\nto travel.  Two hours per day means practically one-fifth of your\nactive life.\n\nHow many readers make any use of those two hours, and feel each\nday that they have been well spent?  ----\n\nInstead of being wasted, those hours should be among your best.\nNever mind if you are clinging to a strap because companies are\nlicensed to exploit you.  Never mind if you are tired and weary\nwhen the day is ended.  The tired brain often thinks better than\nthe fresh one.  And man, so recently descended from the monkey\nwho had to think while hanging head down, ought to have no\ntrouble thinking as he hangs from his strap--head up.  ----\n\nSome in the cars play cards as they travel homeward.  Others talk\ngossip, and tens of thousands waste too much time on this and\nother newspapers.\n\nTry this experiment:  Make up your mind to devote your hours of\ntravel to thinking.  The brain, like the muscles, needs definite\nand well-planned exercise.  It must be methodical and regular.\nThere is no limit to its possible results.  You would be glad to\nspend your two travelling hours in a gymnasium on wheels.  Make\nof your homeward car a mental gymnasium.  Each night or morning,\ntake up some one line of thought and follow it to its end--or as\nfar as your mind can take you.  Learn to observe, to study, to\nreflect.  Don't look at your fellow passengers as calves look at\neach other on the way to the slaughter house.\n\nLook, as a human being, at other human beings.  There they sit or\nstand or hang.  Some chatter, others scowl, fret, fume, complain,\nbrag, grin or otherwise express the strange emotions that move us\nhere.\n\nThey are all ghosts, as Carlyle tells you, imprisoned for a time\nin coverings of flesh, and a car packed full of real ghosts\npassing over the earth on their quick journey to the grave ought\nto stir you.  ----\n\nThe giggling shopgirls whose life of misery is still a joke to\nthem--blessed youth!--should interest you deeply.  And the negro,\ntoo, with a tired black face, resting for the next day's\nslavery--slavery on a wage basis, but slavery all the same.\nPossibly you despise his thick lips.  But those lips are carved\non every sphinx in Egypt's sand, and if you could go back far\nenough you would find the ancestors of that negro, before the\ndays of the Pharaohs, laying the foundations of your religion and\nlocating the stars in heaven.  At that time your forbears were\ngibbering cave savages, sharpening bones and gnawing raw flesh.\nWhen you see the negro on the opposite seat, the ill-starred one\nwho has gone down in the human race while we have gone up, think\nabout him, study him, speculate as to his ultimate end--and your\nown.  Don't merely say to yourself, \"That's a plain negro,\" and\ngo on chewing gum.  ----\n\nThe pictures that flash by your car windows should help you to\nthink.\n\nThe train rumbles over the switches, and in the dusk a swinging\nlantern tells you that a man is at work, guiding you safely when\nyour work is done.  Can't you take an interest in that human\natom, representing the Power that swings our tiny sun in space,\nlighting us on our journey toward the constellation Hercules?\n----\n\nA black steeple is outlined against the dark-blue sky of the\nevening.  That is a finger of stone, built by man to point\neverlastingly toward Infinite Power.  It now points \"upward.\" In\ntwelve hours--as the earth slowly turns--it will be pointing\n\"downward.\" But there is no upward or downward in the carpentry\nof the universe.  In the twenty-four hours, as it turns round\nwith the earth, that steeple points toward all the corners of\nspace, and constantly it points toward Eternal Wisdom and Justice\nin every corner.  ----\n\nThis is tiresome?  All right, then we'll stop.  But whether we\ntire or interest you, remember:\n\nAs a man thinks, so he grows.  Think, study, use all the hours\nthat separate your croupy cradle from your gloomy grave.  Those\nhours are few.\n\n\n\nCULTIVATE THOUGHT--TEACH YOUR BRAIN TO WORK EARLY\n\nTwo centuries back a young man of twenty-three sat in the quiet\nof the evening--THINKING.\n\nHis body was quiet; his vitality, his life, all his powers, were\ncentred in his brain.\n\nAbove, the moon shone, and around him rustled the branches of the\ntrees in his father's orchard.\n\nFrom one of the trees an apple fell.\n\nNo need to tell you that the young man was Newton; that the fall\nof the apple started in his READY brain the thought that led\nto his great discovery, giving him fame to last until this earth\nshall crumble.\n\nHow splendid the achievement born that moment!  How fortunate for\nthe world and for the youth Newton, that at twenty-three his\nbrain had cultivated the HABIT OF THOUGHT! ----\n\nOur muscles we share with everything that lives--with the oyster\nclinging to his rock, the whale ploughing through cold seas, and\nour monkey kinsman swinging from his tropical branch.\n\nThese muscles, useful only to cart us around, help us to do\nslave work or pound our fellows, we cultivate with care.\n\nWe run, fence, ride, walk hard, weary our poor lungs and gather\npains in our backs building the muscles that we do not need.\n\nAlone among animals, we possess a potentiality of mind\ndevelopment unlimited.\n\nAnd for that, with few exceptions, we care nothing.  ----\n\nMost of us, sitting in Newton's place and seeing the apple fall,\nwould merely have debated the advisability of getting the apple\nto eat it--just the process that any monkey mind would pass\nthrough.\n\nA Newton, a BRAIN TRAINED TO THINK, sees the apple drop, asks\nhimself why the moon does not drop also.  And he discovers the\nlaw of gravitation which governs the existence of every material\natom in the universe.  ----\n\nYoung men who read this, start in NOW to use your brains.\nTake nothing for granted, not even the fact that the moon stays\nin her appointed place or that the poor starve and freeze amid\nplenty.\n\nThink of the things which are wrong and of the possibilities of\nrighting them.  Study your own weaknesses and imperfections.\nThere is power in your brain to correct them, if you will\ndevelop that power.\n\nAs surely as you can train your arm to hold fifty pounds out\nstraight, just so surely can you train your brain to deal with\nproblems that now would find you a gaping incompetent.\n\nYou may not be a Newton.  But if you can condescend to aim at\nbeing an inferior Sandow, can't you afford to try even harder to\nbe an inferior Newton?\n\nDon't be a muscular monkey.  Be a low-grade philosopher, if you\ncan't be high-grade, and find how much true pleasure there is\neven in inferior brain gymnastics.  ----\n\nTake up some problem and study it:\n\nThere goes a woman, poor and old.  She carries a heavy burden\nbecause she is too sad and weak to fight against fate, too honest\nto leave a world that treats her harshly.\n\nThere struts a youngster, rich and idle.\n\nHow many centuries of hell on earth will it take to put that\nwoman's load on that other broad, fat, idle back?\n\nAnswer that one question, better still, TRANSFER THE LOAD, and\nyour life will not have been wasted.  ----\n\nIt is THOUGHT that moves the world.  In Napoleon's BRAIN\nare born the schemes that murder millions and yet push\ncivilization on.  The mere soldier, with gold lace and sharp\nsword, is nothing--a mere tool.\n\nIt is the concentrated thought of the English people under\nPuritan influence that makes Great Britain a sham monarchy and a\nreal republic now.\n\nIt is the thought of the men of independent MIND in this country\nthat throws English tea and English rule overboard forever.\n\nDon't wait until you are old.  Don't wait until you are ONE DAY\nolder.  Begin NOW.\n\nOr, later, with a dull, fuzzy, useless mind, you will realize\nthat an unthinking man might as well have been a monkey, with fur\ninstead of trousers, and consequent freedom from mental\nresponsibility or self-respect.\n\n\n\nTHE WIND DOES NOT RULE YOUR DESTINY\n\n\"There be three things which are too wonderful for me; yea, four\nwhich I know not.\n\n\"The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon\na rock; THE WAY OF A SHIP IN THE MIDST OF THE SEA, and the way\nof a man with a maid.\"\n\nAt sunset a long train of cars waited on a bridge as a sailing\nship passed through the draw.\n\nThe ship sailed up the river toward the cold Winter sun; another\nship sailed past it going in the OPPOSITE direction.\n\nOnly ONE wind was blowing.  Yet, of those two ships blown by\nthe same wind, moved by the same power, one sailed EAST and\none WEST.\n\nIt may be of use to you in your career to think for a few minutes\nabout these two ships and the lesson which they teach--especially\nto young men.  ----\n\nThe man who has sailed, in his life's journey, toward failure and\ndisaster looks always with envy, sometimes with hatred, and very\noften with an intense sensation of injustice, at the man who\npasses him going in exactly the opposite direction.\n\nYet the FORCES that move men bound toward success are exactly\nthe same as those that move other men to failure, humiliation and\ndefeat.\n\nIt is all a question of the way in which you use the forces\nwithin you--just as on shipboard it is all a question of the use\nof the common wind which blows.\n\nIT IS A QUESTION OF THE USE OF THE RUDDER.\n\nTwo ships pass, each with its sails filled out by the same wind.\nThe difference in direction is accounted for by the handling of\nthe rudder and the adjustment of the sails.\n\nWhat the force of the wind is to the ship, our varying emotions,\npassions, ambitions, appetites and aspirations are to us.  All of\nthese constitute the power which may be called HUMAN FORCE.\n\nThis power differs in different individuals, as the wind differs\non different days.  It may blow from the east or the west or the\nnorth or the south.  However it may blow, it can be forced, by\nproper steering, to send the ship in any direction desired.\n\nIt is harder to beat against the wind, of course, and many men\nhave hard struggles to steer themselves to a good port in the\nface of an adverse start, a hard beginning, or inclinations\ndifficult to overcome.  ----\n\nBut in all of us the force exists which can be made to move us in\nthe right direction--the force within us can be MADE to obey\nour will, if the will be strong and the hand on the rudder\nsteady.  This can be proved--for instance:\n\nThere is a certain force in human beings called LOVE.  This\nforce leads sometimes, and happily it leads usually, to\ndomesticity, morality, care of children and lifelong devotion.\nThen the force is used properly.\n\nThe same human passion leads to murder, suicide, theft, to almost\nall forms of crime.\n\nThere is another human passion called AMBITION.\n\nThis human force of ambition, with a Lincoln's conscience to\nguide it, saves a republic.\n\nThe same force guided by Benedict Arnold seeks to betray the\nnation.  ----\n\nConsider yourself a ship launched on the sea of life under\ncertain conditions--but with the essential condition in your own\ncontrol.\n\nThe wind may be feeble, you may drift for a while or move very\nslowly--move at least in the right direction.\n\nThe wind may blow a gale, and you may feel, as so many do, that\nyou cannot control your emotions and your appetites.  But if that\ncomes show at least as much interest in yourself as a sailor does\nin his ship.  Take in sail and fight the storm, instead of going\nwillingly to destruction.  ----\n\nFour things puzzled and impressed the wise man that wrote the\nnineteenth verse of the thirtieth chapter of Proverbs.\n\nThink to-day about the third of these things:\n\n\"The way of a ship in the midst of the sea\"\n\nThe way of a human being in the midst of life is like that of a\nship on the ocean.\n\nMake up your mind that your own way at least shall be controlled\nby the rudder of conscience, and learn from the passing ships a\nlesson of use in your own life.\n\n\n\nONE OF THE MANY CORPSES IN THE JOHNSTOWN MINE\n\nThe widow says to the mine owner:  \"Here he is, dead--killed\nworking for you.  Where were you when he was killed?  Driving in\nyour carriage, enjoying the difference between his EARNINGS\nand his PAY.  Was one dollar and thirty cents per day too much\nto pay him for this risk?  Was it too much to let him save\nsomething for us--who now have nothing?  Is there nothing to\narbitrate when the man who risks his life and gets nothing asks\narbitration of the man who risks nothing and gets all?  ----\n\nThere are many men in America--honest and sincere--who believe\nthat strikers are nearly always right, that failure of a strike\nis a calamity.\n\nOther men, less numerous, but also honest and sincere, consider\nstrikes an evil.  They believe that labor unionism threatens\n\"capital,\" threatens national energy, and our national industrial\nsupremacy.  ----\n\nLet us endeavor to take a clear view of the strike question, and\nto discuss--as free from bias as may be possible--some of the\nmain viewpoints of those interested.\n\nWe may, at the start, accept two statements as sound:\n\nFirst.  The employer wants as much money as he can possibly get.\n\nSecond.  The workman wants as much money as HE can possibly get.\n\nIt is impossible for both or for either to win absolutely.  The\nsuccess of one must leave the other penniless.\n\nLet us look at the matter of a coal strike only, for simplicity's\nsake.\n\nIn a coal mine you have three factors:\n\nFirst.  The COAL given to men--presumably for the use of mankind\nin general--by Divine Providence.\n\nSecond.  The WORKMEN who dig the coal, haul it, screen it, etc.\n\nThird.  The OWNER, who through money, or intelligence, or both,\ngets control of mines and works them for his profit.\n\nThe mine owner resents the suggestion that he and his men are\npartners.\n\nOught he to resent that suggestion?  We think not.\n\nMiners without any capitalist could certainly get coal out of the\nground.\n\nThe capitalist without miners could not possibly get coal out of\nthe ground.\n\nThe labor is at least as important as the mine.  ----\n\nThe capitalist who wishes to acquire a mine is willing to grant\ncertain rights and conditions to him who has the MINE for sale.\nHe treats with that person as with an equal.\n\nWHY WILL HE NOT GRANT RIGHTS AND EQUALITY TO THOSE WHO HAVE THE\nLABOR FOR SALE?\n\nIf a hundred men own the mine, and elect a certain agent to\nrepresent them in the sale, the capitalist will willingly treat\nwith that agent EVEN THOUGH HE BE NOT ONE OF THE ACTUAL MINE\nOWNERS.  It becomes simply a question of the agent's AUTHORITY.\n\nWhy does the capitalist haughtily refuse to treat with the\naccredited agent of the men who have the LABOR for sale,\n\nIs it not because he resents the workman's attempt at\nemancipation and equality?  Is it not because the capitalist in\nhis heart demands SUBMISSION from the man who works for a\ndaily wage?\n\nIs it not because the powerful among us fail to admit that\nworkers have passed from slavery to equality?\n\nA man owns vast mining properties.  He lives in New York and in\nNewport.  Comfortably, and at a distance, he runs and rules his\nmines.  He is good-natured enough, kind-hearted.  He means well.\nHe does not see the corpses brought up from the fire-damp. He\ndoes not notice the hollow chests of young children with the\npores of their skin and the pores of their lungs full of coal\ndust.\n\nThis owner--who rules and draws his profits from Newport--has one\nbitter complaint against his striking men.  He cannot forgive\nthem BECAUSE THEY CALL IN A LABOR LEADER FROM CHICAGO TO SETTLE\nA LABOR DISPUTE IN PENNSYLVANIA.\n\nImagining himself most condescending, he expresses willingness to\ntreat personally and individually with his men.  But he will not\ntolerate interference \"with my business\" on the part of the\nworkmen's agent, whom he calls \"an agitator from Chicago.\"\n\nWHY should he feel so badly about it?\n\nIf the Pennsylvania workman is willing to let a NEWPORT man\nmanage the capitalistic end, should not that Newport man allow a\nCHICAGO labor leader to manage the labor end?\n\nIs not one explanation the fact that the owner considers his\nworkmen, in every possible respect, financially, morally,\nlegally, ethically and eternally, his inferiors?\n\nIf one mine owner disagrees with another, each will treat with\nthe other's chosen agent, whether he be Tom Reed, corporation\nlawyer from Maine; Joe Choate, corporation lawyer from New York,\nor Levy, corporation lawyer from Chicago.\n\nWhy not accord to the workman the right to choose his accredited\nrepresentative?\n\nSo much for the much-talked-of \"interference in MY business by\nlabor agitators.\"\n\nWhat about the interests of the country?  There are in\nPennsylvania, let us say, one hundred square miles of coal lands\nOWNED BY ONE MAN, and WORKED BY TEN THOUSAND MEN.\n\nThe working of this mining region develops an annual net profit,\nperhaps, of five million dollars, AFTER the workmen have been\npaid as little as they will work for.\n\nThe owner lives in a house of a hundred rooms.\n\nThe miner's family lives in two rooms.  The owner has a yacht, a\nprivate car, a fast automobile, fine carriages, many servants.\n\nThe miner WALKS.  He has a wife who cooks, sews, scrubs,\nwashes, mends while he and his boys work in the mines.\n\nWe wish to arouse no \"maudlin sympathy\" for the miner, no\n\"anarchist loathing\" of the owner.\n\nWe ask an answer to this question:\n\nWhich would be better for America:  to let one man have five\nmillions a year, and keep ten thousand men on the edge of want;\nor to let the one (and, if you choose, SUPERIOR) man have one\nmillion a year, and divide the four millions among ten thousand\nfamilies, adding four hundred dollars to the income of each\nfamily?  That is a plain, simple question.\n\nRemember, we suggest and advocate no COMPULSION.  We state a\nsituation.  The STRIKER is trying to get a little more for\nhimself and family.  The OWNER is trying to keep the vast sum\nfor himself and his family.  Each is convinced of the\nrighteousness of his cause.  The striker does not try to TAKE\nAWAY money or property from the owner.  He simply strikes,\nsaying:\n\n\"I will not work for less than such a sum, unless you starve\nme into working.\"\n\nHe calls upon YOU, the public, to give him moral support.  He\nentreats other workmen not to take his place while he strikes.\n\nIt is for YOU, the public, and for YOU, the idle, hard-pressed\nworkmen, to answer conscientiously the question:\n\nIs it better for one man to have four extra MILLIONS a year, or\nfor each of ten thousand families to have four extra HUNDREDS a\nyear, that they need sadly and sorely?\n\nIf this question were answered as Christ would answer it, there\nwould be no smug respectabilities scoffing at the striker.  There\nwould be no heartless scabs taking the places of men struggling\nto support wives and children.\n\nLeave out sentimentality, if you will, and Christianity, and our\nhollow pretence of following Him who called every poor man \"my\nbrother.\"\n\nWhat about the cold utility?  Four millions more for an owner\nmean what?\n\nSome bogus antiquities, and perhaps a bogus title brought to\nAmerica.\n\nAnother palace, with a dissatisfied owner.\n\nA dissipated son; money spent by this son to promote vice, and by\nthe father to corrupt legislation.  Four hundred dollars more for\na workman's family mean wholesome food for children.  And the\nchildren go to school and have a chance.\n\nThis sum means a self-respecting life for a father, and for the\nmother it means everything.  She can hire some woman to help her\nwhen her babies come.  She can give her husband and her children\ngood food, rejoice in their comfort, add good, healthy citizens\nto the nation.  ----\n\nThe owner in his struggle makes various statements of which only\na few must be answered, and very briefly, for the sake of the\nimpatient reader.\n\n\"If capital goes on granting the demands of union labor there\nwill be no more capital, no more big manufactures, our prosperity\nwill die as England's prosperity is dying--killed by union\nlabor!\"\n\nThus speaks the indignant, would-be patriotic and unselfish\ncapitalist.  Let us see:\n\nWhat becomes of the established FACT that a nation is\nprosperous in proportion as the average individual citizen\n(NOT its few millionaires) is prosperous?  There are nowhere\non earth stronger labor unions than in the United States.  There\nare no such unions in Mexico, none such in South America, none\nas powerful in Canada.  Why are we not eclipsed industrially by\nthose countries?\n\nYou say that labor unions have killed English industry?  No.\nThey have kept England alive in the face of fierce competition.\nMillions upon millions of Englishmen live on a little foggy\nnorthern island incapable of supporting them.  By their courage,\ntheir mental power, their genius, their UNION, they have kept\nthe nation great.  It is as though in one corner of New York\nState we had the greatest industrial power on earth.  What the\nGulf Stream has been to England's agriculture, labor unionism has\nbeen to England's industry.\n\nIt is not the English WORKINGMAN who has been beaten.  The\nEnglish workmen did not sell the English mercantile navy to J.P.\nMorgan.  English capitalists did that.\n\nGet this in your heads, you who talk against unions.  Morgan and\nhis fellow American capitalists have formed themselves into\nfinancial UNIONS, which we call trusts.  And they have beaten\nthe English capitalist, who did not know enough to take lessons\nfrom his workman and form unions of his own.\n\nThe American FINANCIAL union, not the English LABOR union, has\nbeaten England in the race for industrial supremacy.\n\nUnion is strength everywhere and forever.  The remaining strength\nof England is in her labor unions, which give men time to think,\nfood to grow on, and give real men to the nation.  You say that\npowerful unions kill nations.\n\nWhy is not China a great industrial power?\n\nShe has vast fortunes and no unions.  Li Hung Chang was richer\nthan Morgan, and could cut off the head of any striker.  His\ncoolies got five cents a day and worked fourteen hours--is THAT\nyour ideal system?  ----\n\nLast of all (and we apologize for this unforgivably long\neditorial), let us discuss the question of foreign labor.  The\ncapitalist complains that the Hungarian, \"the brutal, ignorant\nforeigner,\" makes much of the trouble, and \"wants as much as an\nAmerican.\"\n\nLoud is this cry against the foreign laborer.  And the ignorant,\nknow-nothing American workman joins in the cry only too\nwillingly.\n\nWho brings in those foreign laborers by the shipload, Mr.\nMineowner?\n\nWho rounds up cargoes of Slavs on the other side and brings them\nhere to cut the wages and the living of the native-born?\n\nWho shrieks dolefully, Mr. Miner, when the Slav shows that he is\na MAN brave and willing to prove worthy of freedom by joining\nthe army of union labor?\n\nThe Slav and the Hungarian ARE HERE, and their children will\nbe here when we are dead.\n\nWhich is better, to underpay them, treat them like cattle, fill\nthem with just hatred of unjust discrimination, or give them a\nchance to be men?\n\nShall their children grow up ignorant mine slaves?  Or shall they\ngo to that factory of honest citizenship--the public school--to\nbe improved as we have all been improved, whether we came\noriginally from Hungary, Ireland, England, France, Russia, or\nelsewhere?\n\nThe struggle of the strikers, like all great struggles, is\nsometimes unjust.  It has not always the wisest or the most\nunselfish leaders.\n\nBut it is an effort to improve the AVERAGE CONDITION OF\nHUMANITY.  Help that effort.\n\n\n\n\"LIMITING THE AMOUNT OF A DAY'S WORK\"\nTHERE'S A GOOD DEAL OF NONSENSE TALKED ON THIS SUBJECT\n\nAn honest, well-meaning clergyman talked the other day on labor\nunions, and wandered out of his depth.  As a rule, clergymen,\nhaving studied the teachings of Christ, are aware that they ought\nto be on the side of the workingman.  Hence the strongest\nsupporters of the union are found among the clergy.\n\nThe mistake of the clergyman whom we mention is discussed here,\nbecause it is often made by well-meaning, but narrow-minded,\ncitizens.\n\nHe spoke of \"the custom union labor has of limiting a day's work\nAND OTHER DISHONEST PRACTICES.\"\n\nBy limiting a day's work, the reverend gentleman referred to the\nrule existing in certain unions regulating the maximum day's\nlabor.\n\nThat rule does exist, and sometimes undoubtedly--labor union men\nnot being angels or cherubim--the rule may be pushed to extremes.\n\nBut on the whole the rule is necessary, and it works for good.\n\nWe shall tell this clergyman and other citizens one special\nreason for limiting the day's work.\n\nThe contractors want to make all the money they can.  When the\nunions forced them into recognition of certain hours of labor as\nconstituting a day's work, THAT was looked upon as a dishonest\npractice.  It was felt in the old days that a workman should be\nonly too glad to get out of bed at daybreak and work until dark.\nNow even the stupidest and most selfish have come to recognize\nlimited hours as a feature of American industry.  And the\nenlightened gladly admit that the well-paid, well-rested,\nindependent worker usually does more in his eight or nine hours\nthan he used to do in his twelve or fourteen.\n\nAfter the inauguration of the limited-hour day the contractors\ninvented what is known as a \"rusher.\"\n\nThe \"rusher\" is a young workman, in his prime, marvellously quick\nin his work as compared with the ordinary, good, capable workman.\n\nOn a job of bricklaying, carpentering, or other work, it was\ncustomary for the shrewd contractor to hire one or more\n\"rushers.\"  Nominally the \"rusher\" was paid regular union wages.\nBut secretly the contractor paid him double wages, or more than\ndouble wages.  The \"rusher\" worked at high pressure hour after\nhour, day after day.  The others could not possibly have kept up\nwith him had he worked his fastest.  But his instructions\nwere to keep just a little ahead, that the others might struggle\nand do their best to keep even in their task, in order not to\nlose their work for apparent idleness.  Thus the \"rusher,\" a man\nof unusual skill, getting double wages, went along well within\nhis forces, while the others were working themselves to death in\norder to keep up and not lose their jobs.\n\nThe limitation of the day's output is based originally on the\ndesire to squelch this \"rusher\" idea, or to put the quietus on\nthe very young and able workman anxious to curry favor with his\n\"boss\" by making the pace too hot for the men working beside him.\n\n----\n\nOur friend, the clergyman, and many others say that it is\ndishonest to limit the day's output.  But is it dishonest?  What\nis the difference between limiting the DAY'S output and\nlimiting a YEAR'S output?\n\nIn the middle of the Summer the clergyman says, \"I have worked\nenough; I ought to go to Europe,\" and he goes.\n\nThe bricklayer does not criticise the clergyman for limiting his\nYEAR'S output to forty sermons.  He does not say to him, \"You\nare ABLE to preach fifty-two sermons a year.  If you preach\nonly forty, you are dishonest and rob your parishioners.\"\n\nWhat business is it of the clergyman's if the bricklayers, among\nthemselves, decide that it is better for them in the long run to\nset only a given number of brick per day?\n\nThe trouble with some clergymen and many others is that they\nforget one important thing--namely, THAT THE WORKINGMEN NOW\nHAVE SOMETHING TO SAY.\n\nWhen it comes to a question of laying brick, it is no longer the\nsquire or the local clergyman who decides what shall be done.\nThe BRICKLAYER DECIDES WHAT SHALL BE DONE.\n\nAnd when it comes to carpenter work, the CARPENTER decides what\nshall constitute a day's work.\n\nIn olden times the clergymen, the lawyers, the rich, the lucky\nclass in general, decided for THEMSELVES what THEY should do, and\nthen they decided for their so-called inferiors what those\nINFERIORS should do.\n\nOur prosperous class are having a very painful time indeed\ngetting into their minds the fact that such a thing as the right\nof the majority REALLY EXISTS.  And they find it very hard indeed\nto believe that the doctrine of human equality is to be taken\nseriously in matters of business.\n\nLabor unions are performing an important educational function\nwhen they drive into the heads of these would-be superiors the\nfact that this nation is becoming actually a republic in which\nthe workingmen shall decide for themselves questions affecting\nthemselves, and in which they shall no longer be guided by the\nwhims or financial interests of would-be \"superiors.\"\n\n\n\nCATCHING A RED-HOT BOLT\n\nMen were working on the roof of a Pennsylvania ferryhouse,\noverhanging the North River on the Jersey side.\n\nThe passengers on one of the big ferryboats watched with\nadmiration the work of the fearless young mechanics.\n\nThe men stood on a board not more than a foot wide.  They had\nnothing to hold to.  Sixty feet below them was a mass of rough\npiles.  A misstep would have meant death.\n\nOne of the men, standing perfectly at ease on his narrow ledge,\nswung a heavy sledge-hammer, while the other held in place the\nbolt to be driven home in the iron-work.  ----\n\nThe work on that bolt was finished, and one of the young men, a\nwiry giant over six feet tall, picked up in his arms a small\nwooden keg which stood on the board beside him.  It was a keg\nsuch as nails are packed in.  About forty feet away from the\nbridge, up among the iron beams, a smith was at work heating the\nbolts red-hot.\n\nThis smith saw the young man on the narrow board holding the\nwooden keg in his arms.  He knew that another bolt was needed.\n\nThe bolt, white-hot, was seized with a pair of tongs, thrown\nviolently through the air, sending off a shower of white sparks\nas it went.\n\nAs the white bolt shot toward the metal worker, he held out the\nwooden keg in a matter-of-fact way, caught the bolt, picked it\nout of the keg with a pair of pincers, and soon the heavy sledge-\nhammer was at work driving the metal, still white-hot, into the\nhole.  ----\n\nPassengers who make their living in a less exciting way watched\nwith great excitement as one after another of these heavy red-hot\nbolts came flying through the air, each in its turn caught by the\nmechanic standing on the narrow board.\n\nIf the bolt had struck or burned him, he must almost inevitably\nhave fallen.  He must have fallen had he made a misstep reaching\nout the wooden keg to catch the flying iron.\n\nAmong those who watched him were very prosperous men come in from\nthe seaside on the flying express, bound for Wall Street.  These\nmen were sorry when their boat pulled out, so deeply interested\nwere they in the skill and courage of the mechanics working so\nhigh up on so narrow a footing.\n\nIf their opinion had been asked then and there they would have\nsaid that no reasonable rate of pay would be too high for such\nmechanics, and that eight hours of work catching red-hot bolts\nand driving them home, on a narrow plank sixty feet in the air,\nought to be considered a fair day's work.\n\nWe trust that if these men read in the future that the structural\niron-workers or the house-smiths are striking for a little more\npay and for eight hours' work they will remember those men\nworking on the ferryhouse, and remember that all of these\niron-workers, like all miners, and many others, earn their bread\nat the risk of their lives.\n\nWe hope that those who watched the red-hot bolts flying through\nthe air will remember their sensations when they hear of a strike\namong those men, and not say, as they usually do:\n\n\"The impudence of union labor must be suppressed.  The men are\nlazy; that's what's the matter with them.  It is all nonsense to\ntalk about working eight hours.  Union labor, if it keeps on,\nwill ruin this country's commercial supremacy.\"  ----\n\nThe trouble with human beings is that their lives are widely\nseparated and sympathy is killed by ignorance.\n\nThe banker does not see, therefore cannot appreciate, the courage\nof the man working on an iron beam at the top of a steel frame\n300 feet in the air.\n\nThe mechanic cannot understand, and therefore cannot appreciate,\nthe worry, the mental stress of the money man, who must make ends\nmeet, pay bills, arrange mortgages, find tenants and settle his\nunion troubles at the same time.\n\nBetter acquaintance with each other is what human beings need.\n\nIt would be well if more very rich men had seen that young\nmechanic catching his red-hot bolts.\n\nIt would be well if more young mechanics who like their beefsteak\nand onions could see John D. Rockefeller sipping his glass of\nmilk and seltzer (his whole dinner), or know what Rockefeller\nfeels when he lies awake half the night.  He has found pretty\nwell-paid employment for a hundred thousand men who sleep soundly\nwhile he tosses and turns and feels the weight of a ton on his\nchest.\n\n\n\nTHE TRUSTS AND THE UNION-- HOW DO THEY DIFFER?\n\nA letter signed \"Several Democrats from St. Paul\" reads, in\npart, as follows:\n\n\"In order to convert several rank Republicans it is necessary\nthat we should be able to explain the difference between a trust\nand a labor union.  Will you kindly, through your columns, make a\nclear explanation of this distinction?  Our opponents holdthat\nboth trusts and unions are combinations, which appears to be\ntrue, but there is apparently a weak point in our ability to\ndefinitely show the difference, and we beg that you explain it.\"\n----\n\nTrusts and unions are both combinations, beyond question.  But a\npronounced difference distinguishes them, and we shall endeavor\nto make it clear.\n\nYou see a horse after a hard day's work grazing in a swampy\nmeadow.  He has done his duty and is getting what he can in\nreturn.\n\nOn the horse's flank you may see a leach sucking blood.\n\nThe LEACH is the trust.\n\nThe HORSE is the labor UNION.\n\nPossibly you have read \"Sindbad the Sailor,\" with its story of\nthe Old Alan of the Sea.  The Old Man of the Sea rode round on\nthe sailor's back squeezing his neck with his tightly twisted\nlegs.\n\nThe OLD MAN is the TRUST.\n\nThe SAILOR is the labor UNION.  ----\n\nIn Chicago two combinations are fighting.  One is a combination\nof citizens--the Citizens' Union.  The other is a combination of\npublic robbers--the Gas Trust.  Each combination is trying to get\nwhat it wants.  Surely you can see the difference between the two\ncombinations.\n\nThe citizens are striving in a purely legitimate way to obtain\ntheir RIGHTS.\n\nSimilarly, Labor Unions, when soundly organized, are striving\nproperly and legitimately to obtain their RIGHTS.\n\nGas Trusts and other Trusts endeavor improperly and\nillegitimately to obtain what does not belong to them.  ----\n\nIn old times, on the high seas, there were two classes of\nvessels.  The great majority were honest vessels of commerce,\ndoing good to the world, while striving, of course, to benefit\ntheir crews and owners.\n\nThose honest SHIPS were the Labor UNIONS.  On the same waters\nthere sailed other ships--fast, daring--manned by unscrupulous,\nalthough able, men.\n\nThose were the pirate ships.\n\nThe TRUSTS compared to Labor UNIONS are the pirate ships\ncompared to honest ships of commerce.\n\n\n\nFRANCE HAS LEARNED HER LESSON\n\nThe employes on the Paris underground railroad had a strike and\nhave settled their strike.\n\nThe terms of the settlement amaze the outside world.  The terms\nare especially amazing to the American--and well they may be.\n\nThe employes of the underground railroad in Paris are GOVERNMENT\nemployes.\n\nTheir strike inconvenienced the public, and even the radical\nFrench people were annoyed with the strikers.\n\nIn other European countries and in this country, as the news\nreports very truly say, the strike of those Government employes\nwould have been dealt with very summarily.  Three engines of\ncivilization would have been brought into play effectively.\n\n\"First the police, second the cavalry, third Gatling guns.\" ----\n\nBut the police, the cavalry and guns were tried on the French\npeople long ago, and that little matter was fought out and\nsettled.  The men who govern France know that at a certain stage\nin the proceedings a courageous people will not stand Gatling\nguns, cavalry or police.  They have found out in France that the\nway to deal with striking workmen is just the way the Government\nofficial would like to be dealt with himself if he were a\nstriking workman instead of a well-paid public officer.\n\nThe striking men complained that their day's work was too long\nand their pay too small.  The pay was increased and the day\nshortened--which was perfectly right.\n\nEach employe is now allowed one day off in seven, and ten days'\nvacation every year with full pay--which is perfectly right.\n\nThe young men employed on the road are compelled to do twenty\ndays' work in the army each year.  Their wages are paid while\nthey are doing this compulsory military work--which is perfectly\nright.\n\nIf a man is ill through no fault or vice of his own he gets his\npay as long as he is ill up to three hundred and sixty-five days,\nand the company in whose service he has become ill pays his\ndoctor's bill, his drug store bill and any extra expenses\ninvolved--which is perfectly just and fair.\n\nNo striker is to be dismissed because of having taken part in the\nstrike.  A benefit fund is provided for the employes of this\nGovernment enterprise--and the company pays the membership\nsubscription to the benefit fund with NO DEDUCTION FROM THE\nWORKMEN'S PAY.\n\nThe above seems a horrible narrative to the energetic American\nexploiter of labor.\n\nIt would have seemed very stupid, in fact quite incomprehensible,\nto the French Government at any time before the Revolution.\n\nBut the Revolution taught France and some other people that a\nnation, like any other structure, is insecure when its foundation\nis agitated.  The foundation of a nation is the enormous mass of\nworking people, and that foundation the French have learned to\nrespect and treat well.\n\nWe shall learn as much here some day.  Let us hope we shall learn\nit more peaceably than the French did.\n\n\n\nUNION MEN AS SLAVE OWNERS\nWHAT PLANS HAS THE FIVE-DOLLAR-A-DAY MAN MADE TO HELP HIS POORER\nFELLOW-CREATURES?\n\nEvery addition within reason to wages, every reasonable reduction\nof working hours, must help the whole nation.  Working human\nbeings have been looked upon through the ages as slaves, either\non an actual slave-owning basis or on an insufficient wage\nbasis--which is about the same thing.  Each recognition of the\nworker's rights moves us a little farther from slave days.  Every\ntime a new class earns decent treatment by hard fighting we see\nincreased the number of those who may properly be called men.\n\nThe blind employer asks:  \"Shall men be allowed to fix their own\nwages?\"\n\nOF COURSE they shall.  And until they do fix their own wages they\nare not men at all.  The ox does not fix his hours of labor or\nthe quantity of his corn.  But the man does.  The man controlled\nlike an ox is nearer an ox than a man.\n\nWe delight in the efforts of unions.  We are advocates of every\nmovement that tends to divide among a still larger class the good\nthings of the world.\n\nBut this newspaper is no mere labor union organ.  We care more\nfor the welfare of the humblest, non-organized, underpaid,\nunderfed citizen than for the finest, most highly paid, most\nintelligent mechanic.\n\nThe man who is least well off needs our help most.  He needs,\nabove all men, some practical PROOF that he lives where men\nare equal.  He should be the object of earnest thought on the\npart of the five-dollar-a-day man.\n\nIt is the five-dollar-a-day man, the able mechanic, whom we\naddress to-day:  ----\n\nMany of your thoughts and words, Mr. Five-Dollar Man, are\ndevoted to plutocrats.  You are not free from envy.  You\nconsider, and with perfect justice, that you do not--even with\nyour five dollars--get your share of the world's good things.\n\nBut, for a change to-day, will you look DOWN instead of UP?\nYou work hard at five dollars per day \"to fatten in comfort the\nhappy millionaire employer.\"  All right; admitted.\n\nBut did you ever think who works hard to fatten YOU?\n\nDid it ever occur to you that you are a plutocrat, and a very\nnumerous and decided plutocrat?  Do you ever wonder what you will\nanswer when the time comes for those whom you underpay to demand\neight hours and fair wages of YOU?\n\nYou keep a servant girl to help your wife.  Does she work eight\nhours a day?  No; she works about fourteen, and hears a good deal\nof grumbling because she does not do better.  Does she get union\nwages?  No; she gets about thirty cents a day.  Does she get\ndouble pay on holidays?  Can she put on any substitute if she\nchooses to wander off for two or three days a week?\n\nThe woman who works to make your life comfortable works just as\nmany hours as you can make her work, and she gets just as little\npay as you can get her to take.  Is that all right?  ----\n\nAnd the servant girl is not the only one.  Some farmer's hand\nworks to raise the wheat, the potatoes that you eat.  What is he\npaid?  What are his hours?  Fifty cents a day, twelve or fourteen\nhours of work.  And your bootmaker in the factory, and the\nsweat-shop slave who makes your coat, and the long list of other\npoor devils who work for about one-tenth of your salary.  Do you\nknow why you are comparatively well off?  Simply because the man\nfor whom YOU work pays you ten times as much as you pay the\nmen and women who work for YOU.\n\nYou pay indirectly?  True.  But what difference does that make?\nYou are well-to-do because you purchase without question the\nproduct of men who are really slaves.  You have brains, and by\ncombination have FORCED your employer to treat you decently.\nYes, and you deserve credit.  But you are not fundamentally\nsuperior to the other men around you.  What are you going to do\nwhen they demand treatment as good as yours?  What are you going\nto reply when they class you with the other plutocrats?\n\nYou enjoy the work of only ten or twenty underpaid men--that is\nso.  But you are in the same class with the plutocrat who enjoys\nthe profit on the work of ten or twenty thousand men.\n\nUtter disregard of others--where it does not affect your own\nwages--is your rule, and you know it.  What better joke is there\nthan the joke about the union label?  How many hats on your rack\nhave union labels in them?  How many of you can swear no\nsweatshop ever saw your clothes?  How many of you would apologize\nfor not offering your friend a \"union-made\" cigar?\n\nIt is the nature of man to think earnestly of only one thing at a\ntime.  If one pursuit really engrosses his attention he has\nlittle time to think of anything else.  In the hard struggle for\na living the workingman has little time for any thought save for\nhis OWN wage, his OWN stomach, his OWN welfare.\n\nAs union men you will continue to struggle for your five dollars\na day--restricting apprentices, that others may be shut out from\nyour field; opposing changes threatening you, however beneficial\nthey may be generally.\n\nBut as individuals you must THINK.  You study, and, being\nfree from the grind of real poverty, you should be less hardened\nthan the unfortunate, and inclined to feel for others.\n\nYou have made a good fight against the slavery that used to\noppress you.  In England you destroyed mills, endured shooting\nand hanging.  All over the world, by hard fighting and wise\nvoting, you have established the fact that the top class of\nmechanics must no longer be treated as cattle.\n\nNow, what are you going to do for the others who are still\ncattle?  You have demanded in the name of holy justice that\nothers help you.  In the same name, what do you propose to do for\nthose still oppressed?  Will you use your big voting power for\nthe millions who are still at the bottom?\n\nWill you combine for the benefit of the vast army as you have\ncombined for your OWN benefit?\n\nOr will you wait--as did the employers--to be FORCED into\ndecency?  Will you free your own collection of underpaid,\noverworked slaves, or wait for them to organize and beat you into\ndecency, as your representatives did with your oppressors long\nago?\n\nTake a look downward once in a while.  Study those below you.\nGlance over your own little collection of \"wage slaves\" in your\nkitchen and wherever your money is spent.\n\nThere is a problem there for you when you shall have finished\nhurrahing for your own eight hours.\n\n\n\nAGAIN THE LIMITED DAY'S WORK\nWISELY HANDLED, IT MEANS EMANCIPATION FROM INDUSTRIAL SLAVERY.\n\nWe refer again to the much discussed rule in labor unions\nlimiting the amount of work that a man shall do in a day.  As a\nmatter of fact, in many unions no such rule exists.  In some it\ndoes exist, and MUST exist.\n\nThere is nothing in the notion that limiting the day's work will\ndiminish the excellence of American workmen.  On the contrary,\nthe BEST work is done slowly and carefully.  The WORST work is\ndone at high speed.\n\nThat very aristocratic financier who denounces the regulations as\nto a day's output will say to the man who is doing something\nFOR HIM, \"Take your time; I want this done very carefully.\"\n\nWhy should not EVERYBODY'S work be done carefully?\n\nBut it is not merely careful work that is involved in the\nregulating of the day's work.  The welfare of the nation and of\nthe nation's future is involved.\n\nGo with the man who denounces labor unions for limiting the\namount of work that a good American mechanic should do in one\nday, to the stable in which that man keeps his fine horses.  You\ncan easily bring about this dialogue:\n\n\"That mare in the box stall is a beautiful horse.  Is she fast?\"\n\nRich Owner--\"Yes, very fast.  I value her more highly than any\nhorse I have.  \"\n\n\"How many miles do you drive her every day?\"\n\n\"Oh, I don't drive her EVERY day.  I drive her one day, and\nhave her jogged quietly the next.  When I do drive her, I jog her\nfor two or three miles to warm her up, then speed her a mile or\ntwo, and then take her home.  She covers perhaps six or seven\nmiles in an entire day's work.\"\n\n\"But you COULD drive her twenty-five miles, couldn't you, and\ndrive her as far as that EVERY day?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, I COULD, of course, if I was only thinking of using\nher up and getting all I could out of her now.  But, you see, I\nmean to use her for a brood-mare; I expect to get some splendid\ncolts from her, and I don't want to wear out her vitality.  I\nmight get a little more fun or a little more work out of her just\nnow, BUT I WOULD LOSE IN THE LONG RUN.\" ----\n\nNow, gentlemen, the labor union rule limiting a day's work simply\nconsiders the workingman as that imaginary rich person considers\nhis beautiful horse.\n\nAnd the feeling of the labor unions should be shared by the\nentire country.\n\nThe highly skilled American mechanic is one of the chief assets\nof this country; the intelligent, scientific, up-to-date American\nfarmer is another highly important asset.  These two classes of\ncitizens ARE THE UNITED STATES.  Between them they are more\nimportant than all the rest of the nation put together.\n\nAND YET THEY ARE NOT AS IMPORTANT AS THEIR CHILDREN.\n\nThe workingman of to-day is the father of the future.\n\nThe trouble with us is that the employer, unlike the owner of the\nfine horses, has no interest in that workingman's future or in\nhis future family.\n\nHe employs and treats the workingman as the casual heartless\ncustomer would treat that fine horse if it were rented by the day\nat a livery stable.\n\nThere is much to be said, no doubt, on the side of harassed\nemployers, many of whom are fair-minded men, and many of whom\nare put to unjust annoyance by some of the labor unions'\nmistakes.\n\nBut, first of all, the employer must realize the RIGHTS and\nthe EQUALITY of his workmen.  And as a patriotic citizen he must\nrealize that the welfare of the future is in the health and\nvitality of parents to-day.\n\nBy limiting the amount of work which they do in one day our\nmechanics enable themselves to preserve some of their vitality\nfor mental work, for educating talks with their children.  THEY\nGIVE TO THEIR CHILDREN THE VITALITY WHICH THE SWEATSHOP SLAVE CAN\nNEVER GIVE.\n\nWhat are our laws against sweatshops but laws acknowledging the\njustice of regulating the amount of the day's work?\n\nAnd why do we refuse to permit unions to do for themselves what\nwe do on a sentimental, philanthropic, haphazard basis, through\nour \"sweatshop laws,\" for the miserable, unorganized workers of\nthe slums?\n\n\n\nTO THE MERCHANTS\nPLEASE LISTEN PATIENTLY TO A DISCUSSION OF THE LABOR UNION FROM\nYOUR POINT OF VIEW.\n\nWe invite the merchants to consider the question of unions and of\nhigh wages from THEIR OWN point of view.\n\nIf we err in our statements or conclusions we shall be glad to\nprint replies and criticisms from responsible merchants over\ntheir own signatures.\n\nThis we maintain:  THAT IN PROMOTING THE WELFARE AND INCREASING\nTHE WAGES OF THE GREAT BODY OF WORKINGMEN, WE PROMOTE THE WELFARE\nAND INCREASE THE PROSPERITY OF ALL LEGITIMATE MERCHANTS AND\nBUSINESS MEN.\n\nThe unions make mistakes.  The employers make mistakes.  The\nunions are often unreasonable.  The employers are unreasonable\nsometimes.\n\nNo doubt in America the workingman is more exacting and more\nhighly paid than anywhere else.\n\nBut in America, also, the merchant is more quickly and numerously\nsuccessful than anywhere else.  ----\n\nAs a subject for our text to-day we shall take the street-car\nlines--surface, underground or elevated--of any great American\ncity.\n\nThe success of every street-car system is made BY ALL THE\nINHABITANTS OF THE CITY.  Every woman who brings a baby into the\nworld in a great city adds so much value to the stock of that\ncity's street railroads.  She increases the gross income of that\nrailroad by about three dollars and sixty-five cents a year with\neach child to which she gives birth.\n\nTherefore the street railroad should properly serve the public\nthat gives the road its value.\n\nNext in importance to the traveling public come the human beings\nthat work on the street railroad--the conductors, motormen,\ngatemen, gripmen, engineers, etc.\n\nThis newspaper fights constantly to improve within reason the pay\nand the hours of work of the street railroad employes.\n\nThis we do for the sake of the employes themselves, and for no\nother reason.  We demand better pay for the men that they may\nlead decent American lives, feeding and clothing their wives and\nchildren, and educating their children properly.  We demand short\nhours for them, that they may live part of the twenty-four hours\nWITH their families, knowing their own children and bringing a\nlittle pleasure and companionship into the lives of their patient\nwives.\n\nWe are proud of the fact that we have helped in a small way to\nincrease the prosperity and happiness of many tens of thousands\nof honest families, that we have increased the OPPORTUNITIES of\nmany thousands of children.\n\nWe want the merchants to remember that, while we have thus\nstriven to protect those masses of the people whom we represent\nand whose ADVOCATE we are, we have also advanced enormously,\nalthough without premeditation, the fortune and quick success of\nevery capable and legitimate merchant.\n\nWho owns the stock in the street railroads?  A few individuals--a\nWidener, an Elkins, a Yerkes, a Whitney, or some other energetic\nprivate individual.\n\nOne street railroad system, let us say, employs ten thousand men.\n\nThey struggle to add one dollar per day to their pay.  We help\nthem with moral support and publicity, and they succeed.  TEN\nTHOUSAND FAMILIES have each ONE DOLLAR a day more to spend, or\nten thousand dollars a day in all.\n\nWhat becomes of that ten thousand dollars added daily to the\nliving-money of ten thousand families?\n\nEVERY DOLLAR OF IT GOES INTO THE HANDS OF THE MERCHANT, THE\nLANDLORD, OR THE SAVINGS BANK.\n\nIf the men had not got that increase in wages, what would have\nbecome of that ten thousand dollars daily, or $3,650,000 A YEAR?\n\nWould it have gone to the merchants of the great cities?  Would\nit have gone to build up thousands of comfortable little homes in\nall the suburbs of the great towns?  Would it have enabled\nthousands of American boys and girls to stay in school instead of\ngoing in their infancy to the mills and factories?\n\nNo!\n\nIf that money were not distributed among the people in the shape\nof good American wages for good American work, it would go to\nbuild big race tracks, where thieves and gamblers are\nmanufactured.  It would go to buying foolish bogus antiquities\nthat no man needs.  It would go to building ridiculous and\nuncalled-for palaces where human mushrooms without a sense of\nhumor imitate in their idleness the active types of the past.\n----\n\nWhen this newspaper adds to the payroll of a great corporation,\nit adds to the happiness of a great many families; and therein\nlie its pride and its excuse for being.  And at the same time\nthis increase in the payroll of the Trust or the monopolizer of\npublic privileges means an increase in the income, the\nprosperity, the legitimate reward of the enterprising merchant,\nbuilder and general business man.\n\nWe do not lack criticism from well-meaning friends who conduct\ngreat stores or other business enterprises.  We appreciate all\ncriticisms and suggestions.  We offer a suggestion in return:\n\nLet the builder who dislikes unions GO TO CHINA and build his\napartment houses.  He will find patient workmen at ten cents a\nday.  He will find laws that suppress the unions, and laws that\nsuppress the newspaper which takes the side of the poor.\n\nHe will find a non-union Utopia.\n\nBut he will not find tenants for his buildings, because in a\nland where men don't get high wages they can't pay high rents,\nand when the few Li Hung Changs have built their palaces the\nbuilding boom is over.\n\nLet the great merchant who deplores unions start a DEPARTMENT\nSTORE IN CHINA.\n\nHe will never see a walking delegate; he will never be bothered\nby the dark cloud of unionism.\n\nHe will find a perfect heaven in the way of low wages.\n\nBUT HE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO SELL GOODS.\n\nHis department store will dwindle into a store for selling rice,\nand while his velvets, silks, hats and muslins moulder he will\nget very sick of a hundred million women who don't spend forty\ncents in a year.\n\nIn the land where men are not well paid THEY CAN'T SPEND MONEY.\n\nThe best friend of the American merchant, builder, lawyer,\ndoctor, property owner, banker and general business man is the\nindividual or the newspaper that helps the people to get high\nwages, AND THUS GIVES THEM MONEY TO SPEND.\n\n\n\nWHAT ABOUT THE CHINESE, KIND SIR?\n\nA prosperous and old New York merchant assures a conference of\nworkingmen that England's great strikes have caused that country\nto lose its leadership in exports of machinery.\n\nIf England's wonderful system of trades unionism has hurt its\nexports of machinery, if abundance of very cheap slave labor\nmeans great industrial superiority, we beg to ask this question:\n\nWHY IS NOT CHINA THE GREAT EXPORTING COUNTRY OF THE WORLD?\n\nThere are scores of millions of men in China glad to work for a\nfew pennies per day.\n\nThere are no labor unions in China, and in some districts the\nemployer can have his workmen beheaded for demanding an increase\nof pay.  If the venerable old New York merchant is right, China\nought to be certainly a marvellously successful country\nindustrially.\n\nAs a matter of fact, China is dead, and there is no better proof\nof her complete deadness than the fact that among all her\nmillions of coolies there is not enough spirit for the formation\nof a labor union.\n\nThe energy of the British workman established England's\nindustrial greatness and fought for and won the great\ntrades-union system which the workmen of this country are\ndeveloping so ably.  ----\n\nSuppose it were true that trades unionism, with its higher wages\nand shorter hours, decreases exports--what of it?\n\nIs it not more important to have ten million workmen well paid,\nwith reasonable leisure and decent lives, than to have a handful\nof iron masters and coal-mine owners piling up millions of pounds\nand producing sons like the famous \"Jubilee Juggins\"?\n\nWouldn't it be better for China if her several hundred millions\nof citizens were well paid, well fed and well educated, even\nthough Li Hung Chang and the other prosperous viceroys should all\nbe paid a little less money, and own fewer square miles of rice\nfields and tea plants?  ----\n\nIn Huxley's admirable biography, written by his son, you may read\nof a 'longshoreman who, thanks to reasonably short hours of work\nand a little leisure, took up the study of scientific subjects.\n\nHe was aided by Huxley, who lent him a microscope, and ultimately\nthis common 'longshoreman's researches were of real value to the\nscientific world.\n\nIsn't it well to have a trades-union system which curbs the\navariciousness of employers and gives workmen a chance to\ndevelop the best that is in them?\n\nIsn't it better for England to have that 'longshoreman develop\ninto a scientist than to let some man who employs him make an\nextra shilling a day out of his labor, even though it should add\na little to the exports of England?  ----\n\nA country's greatness depends on the quality of the men that live\nin the country, not on goods manufactured to sell to outside\nnations.\n\nRome was doing little exporting when she ruled the world.\n\nShe was breeding men, independent and brave, who could bring the\nproducts of the world to her.\n\nShe did not need to worry about exports, nor does any other\ncountry need to worry about them.\n\nThe thing to worry about is the condition of your citizens, the\neducation of children, the decent treatment of women, the\nequality of laws.\n\nOther things take care of themselves.\n\n\n\n150 AGAINST 150,000--WE FAVOR THE 150,000\n\nIt should not take long to convince a man fit to live in a\nrepublic that public welfare demands the support of Union Labor.\n\nNo better proof of that could be asked than a spectacle presented\nin Chicago.\n\nONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY contractors have practically locked out ONE\nHUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND men.\n\nThe contractors want bigger profits--to be got through\nunderpaying and overworking their employes.\n\nThe men want better pay and shorter hours.  ----\n\nLeave out sentiment if you choose.  Ignore the fact that on one\nside the few who enjoy everything are industriously squeezing the\nmany who have little enjoyment.\n\nLook at things purely from the standpoint of benefit to the\nnation and the nation's future.\n\nIf the hundred and fifty win, they will have a little more money.\n\nTheir wives and daughters will dress a little more grotesquely.\nTheir families will be able to go abroad oftener and stay longer.\n\nTheir heirs will be able to make more complete idiots of\nthemselves--and that is all.  Personally we should like to see\nall contractors' families prosperous--all American families\nprosperous.  No man's wife or daughter can be too happy to suit\nus, provided things more important be not neglected.  ----\n\nIf Union Labor wins, ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND families\nwill be able to lead at least decent American workingmen's lives.\n\nONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND wives will be able to dress\ntheir children comfortably and to dress themselves respectably.\n\nONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND families of children will be\nbrought up more nearly as American children ought to be.\n\nWhich is more important:\n\nTHE WELFARE OF 150 CONTRACTORS' FAMILIES?  (They will have\nenough anyhow.)\n\nOr THE WELFARE OF 150,000 WORKINGMEN'S FAMILIES?  (They will\nhave only a decent living at best.)\n\nPerhaps you have drifted away from the early American idea, and\nrefuse to admit that one family is as good as another.  It may\nseem anarchistic to suggest that the workingman's wife, who acts\nas wife, mother, cook, washwoman, nurse and housekeeper, is as\ngood as the lady who has less to attend to.\n\nBut admitting--which we don't--that one hundred and fifty\ncontractors' families are more important than one hundred and\nfifty workingmen's families, surely all will agree that ONE\nHUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND of the alleged inferiors ought to\noffset the 150 alleged superiors.  ----\n\nIf the contractors win, the Paris dressmakers will be richer, and\na few families will have a little added to what they do not\nreally need.\n\nIf the workingmen win, the future of hundreds of thousands of\nmen, women and children will be made brighter, and the\ncitizenship of the future made stronger by men better fed, better\nclothed and better educated.  ----\n\nThis newspaper hopes for labor union victory and means to help it\nalong, BECAUSE THE PUBLIC WELFARE DEMANDS IT.\n\n\n\nTO-DAY'S WORLD-STRUGGLE\n\nFar off in the distance shines the goal of present human\nambition.\n\nIt is a shining, golden light.  Toward that light the millions\nstruggle, trampling each other, sacrificing everything in the\nharsh fight for the dollar.\n\nHere and there a preacher thunders, here and there a philosopher\nproses against the money struggle.  But they might as well\nwhisper at the brink of Niagara.  And often the preacher changes\nhis thundering when a RICH church calls him, often the\nphilosopher grasps the first chance to forget philosophy in Wall\nStreet.\n\nThe men admired to-day are the men who have made millions--some\nare admired because they find excitement in giving the millions\naway, others because they silently pile more millions upon the\nothers already gained.\n\n\"Society,\" the class devoted to pleasure, consists now, in\nAmerica, of those who have much money.\n\nLiterary success depends upon the money which the writer\naccumulates.\n\nThe man talked about is he who has SOLD a hundred thousand\nbooks.\n\nThe rich boy at school is followed by toadies.  In college he\nlearns contempt for human nature from the sycophancy of others.\n\n\"Representatives\" of the People may be found dogging the\nfootsteps of those who need to buy laws, or to steal the people's\nrights.  ----\n\nIt is a fierce and remorseless climb up the steep road to wealth.\n\nThere are many corpses, many crimes, many broken hearts, haggard\nfaces and bitter disappointments on that road.\n\nThe man with the \"Good-money-making idea\" struggles on with it\nover the bodies of suicides and of those who have fallen in\ndespair.\n\nAt the bottom of the road the murderer plies his trade with knife\nor poison--to make money.  And the murderer who has tried for\nMUCH money calls forth special interest and special\nprivileges, special new trials, special newspaper headings.\n\nAt the top of the road to wealth, another, more intelligent\nclass, work with equally remorseless energy.  They murder no\nindividual.  But they rob entire classes of society.\n\nThey tax others to fatten their pockets--they add to the cost of\nfood that children eat--they coin human life into cash--smoothly\nand nicely, using law-makers as tools.  Envy and admiration are\ntheirs--such admiration as the retail murderer can never earn.\n----\n\nThe struggle for money is the struggle of THE WHOLE WORLD to-day.\n\nAnd of the money-making movement, as of ALL WORLD-WIDE MOVEMENTS,\nthere is a side that is good and necessary.\n\nDivine wisdom guides the world, and the human race, working out\nits destiny in seeming blindness, is not allowed to wander from\nthe track of actual progress.\n\nThe money-making mania is one phase of human advancement.\n\nThis is the age of industrial progress.  Money is simply the\nmeans of perfecting industry.  It is human labor condensed and\nput into compact, transferable shape.\n\nThe man with the hundred millions can build the great railroad\nacross the continent.  There is no more important work now than\nthe building of that road.\n\nThe man with the thousand millions can control the great oil\ntrust and a dozen other trusts.  He taxes the people--but his\nhundreds of millions do an important and necessary work.\n\nIt is well for us all that such a man has sacrificed health,\ndigestion, happiness and all idea of self-indulgence to the\naccumulation of a vast industrial army of dollars.\n\nThe scramble for money, looked at without understanding, is a\nhorrid sight.  But horrid also is the sight of a battle that\nfrees slaves.\n\nWhen the battle of money shall end, the score will be on the\nright side of humanity's ledger.\n\nA few forgotten billionaires will have struggled and died.  Some\nmillions of men will have died disappointed.\n\nBut industry will have been brought to perfection.  Universities,\nlibraries and other benefactions will abound, pleading for\nrecognition of the money-making dyspeptics.  Human ingenuity will\nhave contrived some means for freeing men's minds from the dread\nof destitution.\n\nThe money struggle will have ended and humanity will be much\nbetter off, much further advanced--as it is at the end of all\ngreat and painful struggles.\n\n\n\nWHITE-RABBIT MILLIONAIRES AND OTHER THINGS\n\nThe most wonderful thing in America is--what do you think?  It is\nthe absolute nullity of the man of many millions.  It is the\nvapid colorlessness, the dull inactivity, the total lack of\nimagination among men whose power is unlimited.  What\npossibilities are spread out before the man who by signing his\nname could set to work in any direction a million of his fellow\nmen!  The world stands ready to obey his orders; every law says\nthat he shall have whatever he demands.  Any conception born in\nhis brain can become reality as soon as conceived.  But there is\nno conception there.\n\nThese comments are written, not to scold, or complain, or\nsuggest, but simply to express wonder.\n\nWhat man of millions does anything that a white rabbit does not\ndo?\n\nOne man--of a hundred millions at least--has become recently very\nconspicuous among his golden fellows.\n\nHow?\n\nBy undertaking a scheme to irrigate the desert of Sahara and give\nmillions of fertile acres to humanity?\n\nNo.\n\nBy calling together, at his expense, the ablest thinkers of the\nworld to discuss and to solve, if possible, the social questions\nthat so deeply concern the millionaire's future?\n\nNo.\n\nBy seeking, through study and experiment, to abolish child-labor,\nto promote public education, to encourage science art or American\ninventiveness?\n\nNo.\n\nThis millionaire, much discussed because of his piquant\noriginality, has put on a dress coat with two pointed tails\nbehind, and, geared in a white shirt front and white tie, with\nsilk socks highly colored and patent leather shoes, this splendid\nAmerican product has led a cotillon and has led a cakewalk.\n\nGrand, splendid, magnificent, inspiring, isn't it?\n\nWhat lop-eared, mild-eyed rabbit dancing in a clover field with a\nfull paunch need fear comparison with this man of millions?\n\nOld Jacques Coeur, of France, giving his fleets to his\ncountry--there was a man of millions and imagination combined.\nBut his kind has died out, and in his place we have a herd of\noverfed, sleek, timorous, hopping white rabbits, hoarding their\npiles of gold, shivering at the mention of change or innovation,\nasking only for peaceful possession, as free from thought as\nthe fat oyster in his bed.\n\nWhat wonderful things, what useful things, what dangerous things\ncould these all-powerful men do?\n\nWhat could they not do?  They DO nothing.\n\n\n\nNO HAPPINESS SAVE IN MENTAL AND PHYSICAL ACTIVITY.\n\nBresci, who murdered the Italian King, is sentenced to solitary\nconfinement for life.  While you read this he sits on a narrow\nplank in a cell not much bigger than a sleeping-car section.\n\nIf you talk to any friend about Bresci--and especially if you\nmention the subject to any young man inclined to be idle--call\nattention to this point.  You can amplify what must be presented\nbriefly here.\n\nBresci's imprisonment is torture--why?\n\nBecause it sentences him to DO NOTHING.\n\nEvery man put on this earth is put here for a purpose.  He is put\nhere to work, to struggle, to interest himself in his fellows, to\nshare the pleasures and disappointments of others.  The wise laws\nruling the universe fill us with a DESIRE to do that which we\nwere meant to do.  It is intended that we should be active here,\nand, therefore, although we often fail to realize it, our\nhappiness lies in activity.\n\nBresci is to be tortured beyond the power of imagination because\nhe will be forbidden to follow nature's law.  He will be\nforbidden to fulfill man's destiny here.  His brain, his muscles,\nhis sentiments must lie idle until death or insanity shall\ncome to relieve him.  ----\n\nBresci will live on bread and water--but it is not the bread and\nwater that will make his life worse than death.  He could be\nhappy on such simple fare if his mind had work to do.  Many a man\nhas done his good work and enjoyed life's greatest pleasures\nwhile suffering mere hunger or poor fare.\n\nMany men would be happier if they could see Bresci, the murderer,\nforced into that idleness which is sometimes ignorantly desired.\n\nIn his prison Bresci is protected from the sun and the rain and\nthe cold.  He can sleep as many hours as he likes.  No duns can\ntrouble him.  He pays no rent.  There is absolutely nothing that\nhe MUST do.  But there is absolutely nothing that he CAN do.\n\nThe saddest slave in Morocco toiling under the heaviest load\nwould win Bresci's gratitude if only he would let Bresci carry\nthat load.\n\nThe most desperate man, harassed by cares of all kinds, would\nseem blissfully happy in Bresci's eyes, for he has at least full\nplay for his sentiments, for his activities.  ----\n\nTo punish Ravaillac's attack on the life of the French King, long\nago, they tried ingenious devices.  They broke him on the wheel.\nThey tortured him slowly.  Finally they poured melted lead\ninto his stomach through his navel.  It was a hard death.\n\nBut they did not punish Ravaillac as severely as Bresci is to be\npunished.\n\nThe minutes, the hours, the weeks, months and years will drag\nalong.\n\nIdleness, idleness, idleness.  Nothing, nothing, nothing.\n\nNo human smile or voice to measure time.\n\nSleep, bread and water; sleep, bread and water.\n\nGradually madness will come and bring relief.\n\nBe glad that you are active, you who work willingly.\n\nAnd you young man who rebel against labor and long for the chance\nto do nothing, study Bresci's case and take up your load gladly.\n\nThe decree condemning us to earn our bread in the sweat of our\nbrow was merciful, not stern.  For that same power which\nsentences all to work also causes happiness to be found in work\nalone.\n\n\n\nTHE OWNER OF A GOLDEN MOUNTAIN\n\nAn old man sits at the end of his life, with money piled up on\nall sides of him.  Years ago he was working hard.  All his\nability was strained to the utmost pushing back those who strove\nto pass him on the road up the golden mountain.\n\nHe enjoyed the conflict, he enjoyed the sight of beaten rivals.\nHis delight was in work, in ACQUISITION.  His growing surplus\nadded new zest to his life.  He pitied \"the poor fool\" who wasted\ntime at anything save money-making.\n\nBut he is at the top of the heap of money now.  He looks about,\nand none compete with him.  A few strugglers--too far away to be\nheard--strive for a little of his useless accumulation.  Legal\nsharpers struggle and get a little, and in return keep away those\nwho try to climb up near him.\n\nThe interest has gone out of life.  Where he used to see\ncompetitors, he now sees only old memories.  The old associates\nhave gone--it is even too late to help them--and he will soon go,\ntoo.\n\nHe looks out over the land, and sees, when it is too late, all\nthat he has missed while he thought he was doing the thing most\nimportant.\n\nHe has made a hundred millions of dollars, but not one human\nfriend.\n\nHe can hire almost any man to do anything.  But there is not\nenough money in the world to hire any one to miss him sincerely\nwhen he is gone.\n\nSuch a man as this--an actual individual, with wealth far\nexceeding one hundred millions--has insured his life for half a\nmillion.  To those who asked \"why\" he replied:  \"I want some\ninsurance company to be sorry when I die.  No one else will be\nsorry.\"  Possibly he thought he was joking.  But there was truth\nin what he said.\n\nThe man who piles up money builds a solid wall that shuts out the\nworld from him.  Sycophants climb over the wall--but their\nflattery and fawning grow tiresome.  Old age and cessation of\nstrong feeling cause the mind to see clearly--and hypocrisy no\nlonger deceives in the old, pleasant way.\n\nThe most depressing fact in the old man's life is the\nhopelessness of trying to change.  His mind has worked so long in\none direction that it can no longer work in any other.  He would\nlike, perhaps, to begin now and live as others live, but he\ncannot do it.\n\nThere are men whose great wealth is earned WITH PART OF THEIR\nABILITY, leaving them force and strength for other things.  Such\na man was Peter Cooper.\n\nBut the man most frequently seen in America is the man who\naccumulates money for money's sake.  His is a sad heart when he\nlooks over the past and ahead into the short future.\n\nIf he has children, he has hardly known them--and HIS MONEY\nhas separated them from each other.\n\nWhen his son was a little child the rich man made himself think\nthat he was piling up the money for that boy.  What became of\nthat boy?\n\nAsk the Keeley Cure, the public gambling houses, Monte Carlo, the\ndivorce court--and the other \"resources\" of the sons of the very\nrich.\n\nThousands envy him, and he knows it.  But there is little in\nbeing envied when old age makes a lonely life unbearable, and\nwhen the next striking event in his career will be a funeral.\n\nThere are hundreds of thousands of men with their thoughts fixed\nabsolutely on money making.  They hate what threatens money.\nThey love those who sympathize with money.  They live, work,\nvote, talk, marry and cheat their friends for money.\n\nIf they fail--as most of them do--they die unhappy.  If they\nsucceed, money cheats THEM, and for all their devotion gives\nthem nothing.\n\n\"For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world,\nand lose his own soul?\"\n\nThe man wastes his soul who devotes its forces only to\naccumulating wealth.\n\n\n\nTHE HUMAN WEEDS IN PRISON\n\nHow shall we approach a prison to see it fairly and to study it\nintelligently?\n\nLet us imagine ourselves visitors from a world outside of this.\n\nFar off in infinite space there is a small whirling planet--our\nearth.\n\nLittle creatures move about this planet, chained to it by the\nforce of gravity.  But they MOVE as they choose, and they call\nthemselves FREE.\n\nThere are millions of free square miles, and hundreds of millions\nof free human beings.\n\nBut there just below us is the prison at Auburn.  There the human\nbeings are not free.  There suffer those who for any reason have\nviolated the established rules of the little globe that supports\nthem.\n\nThey have not even the freedom of the little patch of soil fenced\nin for them.  They cannot walk, speak, sit down, lie down, or\nstand up as they please.\n\nThey have broken some of the rules established for the protection\nof all.  They have misused their freedom, and in punishment their\nfreedom is taken away from them.\n\nThey live in small cells, in a very big prison.\n\nGray stone, iron bars, striped suits, enforced silence, enforced\nwork, enforced regularity of life--all these punish most keenly\nthose whose first crime was lack of self-control and lack of\nregularity.  ----\n\nIn every prison and in every prisoner there are lessons for each\nof us.  You will not waste time to-day if you walk through this\ngreat Auburn prison and think of the men there think why they\ncame there, think how they could have been saved, think what will\ngradually empty prisons and make them unnecessary.\n\nA man with one arm opens the first iron gate--his mutilated body\nforeshadows the mutilated minds and souls within.\n\nBefore the door of the prison there are bright flowers--the name\nof the prison itself stands out in brightly colored blossoms to\nprove the gardener's ability and strange sense of the\nappropriate.  Many of the causes that bring men there are written\nout in just such bright colors--when first seen--and many a\nprisoner must have thought of that as he passed through the iron\ndoor.\n\nA party of six or seven go through the prison with you.\n\nThere is a woman of middle age, stout and cheerful, in a bright\npurple dress.  There are two children, a moon-faced man, a\ntall, thin man, and others whom you do not notice.\n\nCarelessly they look at a nervous woman sitting in the reception\nroom talking to a convict.  They take no interest in her, no\ninterest in the convict.  To you the prison guide says:\n\n\"She comes here to see him as often as the rules allow.  She's\nhis wife.  She's been coming for seven years.  I tell you,\nwomen get the hard end of it in this world.\"\n\nWomen do indeed get the hard end of it.  There are twelve hundred\nmen in that prison--and every one of them has caused some woman\nto suffer.  And every one has broken the heart of one other\nwoman--his mother.\n\nThrough a narrow door you travel with your fellow-visitors.\n\nAt every step you marvel at the curious indifference of average\nhumanity to the one interesting thing--their fellow-man.\n\nThere are shown to you piles upon piles of loaves of bread--fresh\nand brown.  The guide says:  \"We bake every day.  Nine hundred\nloaves a day.\"\n\nThe stout woman in purple sighs with amazement, the children\ngape, the man with the round face has an anxious look--he seems\nto be a taxpayer.\n\nBut not one looks at or thinks of the convict who turns quickly\naway to hide a thin, white face.  To you the guide says:  \"He's a\nforger.  You can see he's sensitive about being here.  Some of\nthem never seem to get used to it.\" ----\n\nThe stout woman in purple is delighted with the enormous copper\nvats for making the convicts' coffee.  She is charmed with the\ngreat iron pots for boiling soup.\n\nBut you will be more interested in these facts:\n\nThere is a great chapel--BUT NO CONVICT IS COMPELLED TO ATTEND.\n\nThere is a huge wash room--fitted with showers for the hardy,\nwith porcelain tubs for the old and crippled--AND EVERY MAN IS\nCOMPELLED TO TAKE HIS BATH.\n\nHow much of progress, how much that is hopeful for humanity, is\ntold in those words!\n\nReligious services are optional--no more compulsion of man's soul\nor of his belief.\n\nBathing IS COMPULSORY.  Truly, we progress, and the prison rules\nprove it.\n\nThere were showers in every prison and in every insane asylum one\nhundred years ago--but those showers were used only to torture\nthe criminal or the lunatic.  He was doused with cold water until\nsenseless.\n\nThere were chapels in the old-time prisons, and all were forced\nto accept and profess such views as the majority or the ruler\nchose to profess.\n\nThat prison at Auburn is a monument to humanity's sorrows and\nweaknesses.  But it tells in every department of human decency\nand of a constant striving by those who are fortunate to help\nothers.\n\nIn the prison yard a squad of convicts are marching.  The\nlock-step is there no longer.  Prison reform has ended that.  The\nconvict is no longer forced into a gait which stamps him ever\nafter.\n\nThere are electric lights in the hundreds of cells--and there is\nabsolute cleanliness throughout the vast structure.  No hotel is\ncleaner, if any be as clean.\n\nThe convicts get their letters twice a week.  They have pictures\nin their cells--and they may have musical instruments if they\nwish; and many a man, beside his narrow plank bed, has a strip of\nrag carpet made at home.  Their lives are horrible--for\nconfinement kills men's souls; and one has said who knew prison\nlife:\n\n\"It is only what is GOOD in man\nThat wastes and withers there;\nPale Anguish keeps the heavy gate,\nAnd the Warder is Despair.\" ----\n\nWhile you go through the prison you see the things\nmentioned--electric lights, clean halls, bathing apparatus, and\nthe rest.  But you STUDY the human beings working at their\nfixed tasks, or moving about in their dismal, heavy suits of\nstripes.\n\nJust as many kinds of faces as you see in a city street you see\nin that prison--but there you see more than elsewhere the\nfailures, the human weeds.\n\nBut at least there is a striving to make things better.  Society\nno longer willingly tortures its failures.  It controls,\npunishes, but does not hate them.  There are no beatings, no\ntortures, no close-cropped heads, even, for the convict may grow\nhis hair as he chooses.\n\nEvery man who knows no trade is taught one.  There is a feeling\nof moral responsibility to the criminal, and a desire at least to\nmake him NO WORSE.\n\nThe prisoners are divided into two classes:  those whose faces\nand skulls tell of evil birth and predestined failure, and those\nwho are simply like others--average men, victims of chance, of\ntemptation, of ability ill-balanced, of ignorance, of drink, or\neven of accident.\n\nIn one great room the convicts are weaving--working at hand\nlooms.  The work is desperately hard.  Both hands and both feet\nare going constantly.  Human power is used, that the greatest\namount of labor and least competition with the outside working\nworld may be simultaneously achieved.\n\nAt one loom sits a poor creature, a dismal human failure.  His\nforehead is half an inch high and a bony ridge-telling of\nunfortunate prenatal influence--runs high along the top of his\nhead.  His small eyes are close together.  His exaggerated\nchin protrudes; only a cunning look directed now and then toward\nthe watchful warden tells that any thinking goes on in that\nmiserable being.  His best place, perhaps, is there.  He is\nprotected against himself, and society has no other way of taking\ncare of him.\n\nNear him sits a young boy in his teens.  His face is intelligent;\nhe is not a born criminal.  He is above the average in\nintelligence, and in him there are all possibilities of success\nand usefulness.\n\nA boyish piece of criminal foolishness brought him there--and he\nmust now spend years degenerating into real criminality under the\ninfluences around him.\n\nThere are the two extreme samples of humanity in that cage which\nwe build to protect ourselves against ourselves.\n\nIt is a dismal garden set apart for human weeds and in it many a\ngood plant is hopelessly driven into the weed class.\n\nOf the men in that prison may truly be said what a great student\nof plant life--Luther Burbank-- says of the poor weeds that we\ndespise among plants:\n\nThere is not one weed or flower, wild or domesticated, which\nwill not, sooner or later, respond liberally to good cultivation\nand persistent selection.  * * * Weeds are weeds because they are\njostled, crowded, cropped and trampled upon, scorched by fierce\nheat, starved, or, perhaps, suffering with cold, wet feet,\ntormented by insect pests or lack of nourishing food and\nsunshine.\n\nMost of them have no opportunity for blossoming out in luxurious\nbeauty and abundance.  * * * When a plant once wakes up to the\nnew influences brought to bear upon it the road is opened for\nendless improvement in all directions.\n\nMore pitiable than any weeds in a garden and more worthy of\nsympathy are those poor human weeds in the great prison.\n\nCrowded and kept ignorant in youth, tempted, ill-fed, cold and\nworried in after years, their lot was hard--and their fall almost\ninevitable.  They must be confined, they must be protected\nagainst themselves, they must suffer for the poor start given to\nthem.\n\nBut the duty of those who are FREE and fortunate is to treat\nkindly those who fall, and especially to deal in such fashion\nwith the young as shall minimize the crop of weeds later.\n\nFortunately, it may truly be said that humanity begins to realize\nits responsibilities in both lines of effort.\n\nKindness reaches the convict in his prison.\n\nAnd Education, the thrice blessed AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOL, does\nsteadily the work that makes useful plants of growing youth,\ndiminishing year by year the crop of weeds.\n\nKindness and EDUCATION--go to Auburn prison and you will\nrealize how much work they have still to do in our country.\n\n\n\nCRIME IS DYING OUT\n\nMany of us feel that crime is the striking feature of modern\nlife, that this century sits among the skulls of crime's victims,\nand that Father Time, after all his ages of travel, sees no\nimprovement.\n\nBut those discouraged by modern crime misunderstand the meaning\nof events and fail to make a just comparison between the past and\nthe present.\n\nIt is true that crime to-day is shocking in its frequency.  Each\nday we see spread out before us murders.\n\nBut first of all remember this:\n\nWe often mistake widespread NEWS of crime for increase in crime\nitself.  The newspapers are multiplied in number by tens of\nthousands, and they all tell what happens.  It seems as though\ncrime had increased, whereas in reality we have simply increased\nfacilities for letting all the people know what goes on among us.\n----\n\nWe are shocked occasionally by crimes of poisoning.  Go back a\nfew centuries and you find men and women making a regular\nbusiness of selling poison to those who want to commit murder.\nThe crimes that fill us with horror would not have been noticed\nin those days.\n\nWe hear of a father killing his own child, and we declare that\nhumanity is going to destruction.  Yet but a few centuries back\nand THE LAW RECOGNIZED EVERY FATHER'S RIGHT TO KILL HIS CHILD IF\nHE CHOSE.\n\nWe shudder when we hear that a mother has exposed a new-born\nchild on a doorstep or thrown it into an ash barrel.  That is a\nhorrid and unbelievable crime.\n\nBut in Rome, before the days of Christianity, there were\nappointed places where mothers might legally expose their\nchildren to destruction.  The wild beasts or dogs ate the\nchildren thus exposed, and no one was shocked.  Whoever might\ncare to take such an exposed child could keep that child for a\nslave forever.  That kind of crime we have outgrown certainly.\n\nThe Presbyterian teaching of infant damnation seems to us\nhorrible.  We shudder at the statement that God would condemn a\nhelpless baby to eternal punishment simply because it had not\nbeen baptized.  The idea seems cruel now.  But it was invented by\nthe well-meaning early Christians in order to make women give up\nthe legal practice of infanticide.  The mother was made to\nbelieve that her unbaptized child went to hell, and that she must\nfollow later on for not having had it baptized.  Thus women were\nafraid to expose their children secretly, and infanticide was\nstamped out by a Christian doctrine which now seems so brutal.\n----\n\nAnd note one thing above all:  Crime still lingers among us.  But\nit is now LABELED AS CRIME.  We no longer have horrible crimes\nsanctioned by law.\n\nWe read that a criminal has tortured some old man or woman for\nmoney--and then murdered the victim.  We can scarcely believe in\nsuch atrocity.  But only a little while ago--barely two\ncenturies-- IT WAS THE REGULAR LEGAL CUSTOM TO TORTURE OLD\nPEOPLE AND YOUNG.\n\nPoor old women, falsely accused of witchcraft, were burned alive\nand ducked in this country, while clergymen and magistrates\nlooked on and applauded.\n\nAll over Europe innocent witnesses could be tortured to make them\ngive testimony at a trial.\n\nMen accused of no crime whatever were tortured to make them give\ntestimony against others--often when they had no testimony to\ngive.  They were hung up by the thumbs, the bones of their legs\nwere crushed in a boot of steel, the soles of the feet were\nroasted over a brazier of red-hot coals--to make them help\nconvict another.\n\nThe noble leaders of the French Revolution abolished such torture\nof witnesses in France, and they were criticised for doing so by\nthe respectabilities.\n\n\"How are you going to convict criminals if you do not torture\nwitnesses?\" the respectable element asked.  We have got beyond\nthat state of affairs.  We hear of murders based on jealousy--\nperverted affection.  We hear of crimes based on envy--perverted\nambition.  All of the best elements in man, when perverted and\nthwarted, lead to crime.\n\nAnd these perverted passions will continue to breed crime until\nmen shall have learned to regulate society on a basis that will\ngive full and natural play to the forces within us.  But\norganized murder on a really vast scale is practically done away\nwith.\n\nCaesar, Alexander, Napoleon and others like them had great\nambition.  To gratify their ambitions they forced millions of men\nto die for them.\n\nHuman beings have protected themselves against the murderous\nambitions of their great leaders.\n\nThe Napoleon of to-day must get a Congress to give him his\nsoldiers.\n\nPublic opinion, the ballot and financial science have pulled the\nteeth of the greatest instrument of crime--the conquering army of\nambition.\n\nIt is horrible to witness the assassination of a national leader.\n\nThe murder of McKinley or Carnot makes republican hopes seem\nchimerical.\n\nBut it must be remembered that not so long ago the head of a\ngovernment who ESCAPED assassination was the exception. A few\ncenturies back, and murder was the natural end of the average\nruler.  ----\n\nMurder results first from control of the brain by animal\npassions.  Almost every animal is a murderer, and at stated times\nmurders its own kind.  Primitive man is always murderous.  Murder\nresults, in the second place, from misdirected forces within us.\n\nCrime will diminish through education, as the mind takes control\nof us, and through society better organized, which shall give men\na chance to develop normally.  Thanks to education and to\nimproving social conditions, crime is disappearing, NOT\nincreasing.  Even our despondency is comforting.  It proves that\nwe have progressed so far as to be horrified at that which we\nshould have taken for granted a few centuries back.\n\n\n\nTHE VALUE OF POVERTY TO THE WORLD\nASK YOUR FRIEND WHAT HE WOULD DO IF HE HAD A MILLION\n\nA majority of men long for a great deal of money.\n\nEach man will tell you that he is struggling along in uncongenial\nemployment; that if he had his way his life would be arranged\nvery differently.\n\nPut to any friend this question:\n\n     \"What would you do if you had a million dollars?\"\n\nYou will learn that, first of all, he would get rid of the useful\ndaily plodding that occupies him.  Instead of living to work he\nwould live to enjoy himself.\n\nA majority of men are usefully employed because they must work to\nlive.\n\nIf we all had our way we should do as we chose, and there would\nbe no progress.  Fortunately, the wisdom of Providence keeps the\ngreat majority of men poor and usefully busy.  ----\n\nThis writer asked an able business man, who manages the material\nsuccess of a great newspaper, what he would do if he had a\nmillion dollars.  He replied without hesitation:  \"I would go\nabroad and spend the rest of my life collecting artistic things\nand enjoying them.\"\n\nBy his newspaper work, which helps to disseminate truth and to\nfight privilege, this man renders the greatest possible service\nto the world.  He is head of the commissariat department of an\narmy of righteousness.  How fortunate that he cannot abandon his\nuseful work to collect artistic trash that would only make him\nuseless and enrich a few unscrupulous dealers! ----\n\nJoseph Jefferson as an actor has done great good for the world.\nHe has filled hundreds of thousands of young and old hearts with\nkindly sympathy.  He has set a good example to all the actors of\nthe world.  He is truly a public benefactor.\n\nIf Joseph Jefferson had had a great fortune he would have spent\nhis life painting pictures, for he believes that he was meant to\nbe a painter.\n\nHe was not meant to be a painter; if his life had been devoted to\npainting it would have been wasted.\n\nHow lucky that he was not rich enough to be able to waste his\nlife! ----\n\nOften the world marvels that the sons of great and successful men\naccomplish so little.\n\nThe world is foolish.  It should marvel that the sons of the rich\naccomplish anything at all.\n\nFor genius has truly been called the capacity to take infinite\npains.  It is the splendid fruit that grows on the tree of HARD\nWORK.\n\nInfinite pains and hard work are distasteful to human beings.\nThey are avoided by those who can avoid them.  It is lucky for\nthe world that the number of those who can shirk is limited.\n----\n\nDryden tells you in four lines what the actual man would amount\nto if he had his way.\n\n\"My next desire is, void of care and strife,\nTo lead a soft, secure, inglorious life.\nA country cottage near a crystal flood,\nA winding valley and a lofty wood.\"\n\nEvery man who could afford it would live for himself, to indulge\nsome useless little tenth-rate part of his brain activity.  ----\n\nThe world progresses because the wisdom of the universe compels\nevery man to work directly or indirectly for every other man.\n\nIf we had our way, if hard necessity did not compel us to do the\ndisagreeable work for which we are fitted, we should all live for\nourselves; we should all be mere human sponges, absorbing\npersonal gratification--the progress of the human race would\nstop.\n\nLet this fact console you when you contemplate with bitterness\nthe few who accumulate great fortunes.\n\nYou are a disappointed drop in a great ocean of useful human\nbeings.  The interest of the whole ocean demands that you and the\nvast majority of all other drops should fail to get what you\ncrave--\n\nTHE OPPORTUNITY TO BE USELESS.\n\n\n\n600 TEACHERS NOW, 600,000 GOOD AMERICANS IN THE FUTURE\n\nOn one single day 600 teachers, representing and devoted to the\nAmerican public school system, sailed for the Philippine Islands.\n\nThese 600 teachers, men and women, will do more than 6,000 or\n6,000,000 soldiers could do with cannon and Gatling guns to\ncivilize and Americanize the new possessions.\n\nThey will teach the inhabitants FACTS.  They will give them\nsolid knowledge in place of degrading ignorance and superstition.\n\nThey will teach them that the world is round and that every man\non it has the same chance, if he will use his brain; that if he\nhimself cannot seize the opportunity it can he seized by the\nchildren whose success is as dear to him as his own.\n\nLike all wars, the conquest of the Philippines has had many\ndiscouraging and some disgraceful features.  The killing of\nignorant men and women, the burning of houses, the unnecessary\nseverity, will all be forgotten when the school teachers of\nAmerica shall have done their work.  ----\n\nA great many thoughtless people imagine that the world is\nretrograding, that times are not as good as they used to be.\n\nWe are still far from perfect.  But as a matter of fact we are\nangels compared to the men of olden times.  A few years ago the\nusual course was as follows:\n\nFirst, soldiers were sent to subdue the people.\n\nThen tax collectors followed with the public executioner, the\nnoose and various ingenious instruments of torture to extract\ncash payments.\n\nWe still send soldiers, but with them we send physicians to cure\nthe wounded; and when the soldiers' work is done we do not send\ntax collectors or other civil vampires.\n\nWe send school teachers, publishers of newspapers, organizers of\nlabor unions.  We send those agencies which shall enable the\npeople conquered to make themselves equal or superior to their\nconquerors.\n\n\n\nEDUCATION--THE FIRST DUTY OF GOVERNMENT\n\nWe wish to discuss with our readers in this and in later editions\nof this newspaper the great and serious question of education.\n\nIt is a question as broad as the ocean, and as deep.  It is a\nquestion so vast that organized discussion of it seems hopeless.\n\nThe greatest minds of the world have devoted their powers to the\nintricate question of developing the human brain, and the problem\nhas been scarcely touched.\n\nThe greatest works on education in the history of the world are\nundoubtedly Plato's \"Republic,\" Spencer's \"Education\" and\nRousseau's \"Emile.\"  The last is the greatest of all.  It should\nbe read by every father and mother and by every earnest citizen.\n\nOther works that may be earnestly recommended are Aristotle's\n\"Politics,\" Pestalozzi's \"How Gertrude Teaches Her Children\" and\nFroebel's \"Education of Man.\"\n\nTo Rousseau undoubtedly belongs the high honor of having thought\nand written most powerfully, most originally and most practically\non the greatest of problems.  His brain is the cornerstone of the\nstructure of intelligent educational methods.\n\nHe foreshadowed in his \"Emile\" Fourier's splendid principle of\n\"attractive industry.\" ----\n\nTHE PROGRESS OF HUMANITY DEPENDS UPON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE\nHUMAN BRAIN THROUGH EDUCATION.\n\nThe intricate processes of thinking separate mankind from other\nmembers of the animal creation.\n\nMan is far from the animal in proportion as his brain is\ncultivated.  Even the animals themselves rank in their kingdom in\nproportion to their brain activity.\n\nWilliam T. Harris said truly:  \"If man had let himself alone he\nwould have remained the monkey that he was.  Not only this, but\nif the monkey had let himself alone he would have remained a\nlemur, or a bat, or a bear, or some other creature that now\noffers only a faint suggestion of what the ape has become.\"\n\nThe elephant and the ape, among our humble animal brothers,\nappear to have reached their limits of possibility in the way of\neducational development.  They still remain, and always will\nremain, vastly inferior to their microscopic comrades--the ants\nand bees and other insects.\n\nThe human race has barely begun the systematic study of the\nproblem of application, and systematic application of the truths\ndiscovered and agreed upon.  In proportion to our stature and\npossibilities we are hideous ignoramuses compared with the ant in\nthe garden path.\n\nThe education of children is regulated not by their brain\nformation and possible development, but by the wealth of their\nparents, the parsimony of municipalities, the baleful influences\nof tradition and the colossally stupid idea that thorough brain\ncultivation is in some way antagonistic to material success.\n\nThe greatness of a nation depends upon the average mental power\nof the nation's citizens, and mental power depends absolutely\nupon education.\n\nThe man who doubts the importance of educating his son\nthoroughly--if any such man now exists--is invited to consider\nthe following brief statement of facts:\n\nThe holders of slaves in the Southern States and outside of\nAmerica desired to keep their slaves down.  They wanted them to\nbe content with slavery.  They wanted them and their children to\nremain willing, humble, helpless machines.\n\nTHEY PUNISHED AS A CRIMINAL ANY MAN WHO TAUGHT A SLAVE TO READ.\nTHEY KNEW THAT SLAVERY AND EDUCATION COULD NOT LONG ENDURE IN THE\nSAME HUMAN BEING.  ----\n\nThe ignorant man who has succeeded through natural force and\nlucky opportunity is fond of asking these questions:\n\n\"What is the good of education?  Of what practical use is\nscientific training?\" These men are admirably answered by Herbert\nSpencer, to whose work they are referred.\n\nA collection of Englishmen ruined themselves in the sinking of\nmines in search of coal.  They might have saved their money had\nthey known that a certain fossil which they dug up in abundance\nbelongs to a geological stratum below which no coal is ever\nfound.  They went on digging cheerfully and wasting their money.\nAn acquaintance with that fossil and its meaning would have saved\ntheir cash.\n\nSome individuals spent one hundred thousand dollars trying to\nsave the alcoholic byproduct that distils from bread in baking.\nThey would have saved their money had they known that only a\nhundredth part of the flour is changed through fermentation.\n\nThe study of biology is essential in the successful fattening of\ncattle.\n\nAn \"entozoon\" seems to the practical man a foolish, imaginary\ncreature.  But millions of sheep have been saved by the discovery\nthat one of these fancy scientific entozoa, pressing on the\nbrain, caused the sheep's death.  When you know the entozoon you\ncan dig him out and save the sheep's life.\n\n\"My son's going to be an artist,\" says one proud father.  \"He\ndoes not need to study a lot of scientific rubbish.\"\n\nThis parent does not know that the difference between a good and\na bad sculptor or painter is often based on knowledge or\nignorance of anatomy and mechanical principles.  ----\n\nEducation is important to the individual because it means\ndevelopment of the brain, development of capacity for production\nand increased chances of success.\n\nEducation is important to the State because it means not only\nCOMPETENT citizens, but MORAL citizens.\n\nThe animal in us yields to the influence of education.  Knowledge\nand brutality are enemies.  They do not dwell together.\n\nThe most important institutions in this country are the public\nschools--the gymnasiums of human brains.  The most important\ncitizens of the nation are the teachers.\n\nThe greatest criminals are the employers of child labor, because\nthey deny education, cut down in childhood the citizen's chance\nof progress and success.\n\nWork and vote for more and better public schools.\n\n\n\nPOVERTY IS THE FATHER OF VICE, CRIME AND FAILURE\n\nThese are days when men do their hardest work for money, when\nthey scramble and struggle and strike each other down in the\neffort to reach wealth.  And it is not possible to blame them.\nThey are trying to escape from poverty, from a disaster worse\nthan any prairie fire or other physical danger.\n\nDire poverty is the worst of curses.  It combines every kind of\nsuffering, physical, mental, moral, and in the end it means\neither death or degradation.\n\nThe great task of humanity is the abolition of poverty.  The\ngreat benefactors of humanity are the great industrial organizers\nof this day, because, in spite of individual selshness,{sic} they\nare planning production on a scale that will in the end provide\nfor all.\n\nIt is worth while to discuss and to realize what real poverty\nmeans.  If we can realize its meaning every one of us must be\nmore anxious to relieve, as far as we can, the poverty around us,\nand especially anxious to work for the social betterment that\nshall one day wipe out poverty forever\n\nPoverty means dirt.\n\nThe thoughtless and comfortable have a way of saying:  \"The poor\nmight at least be clean.\" But cleanliness is a LUXURY; it\ndemands leisure and peace of mind, as well as bathtub, soap, hot\nwater and good plumbing.  The very poor cannot be clean.\n\nPoverty means ignorance, and it means ignorance handed down from\nfather to son.\n\nPoverty means drunkenness.  The pennies of POOR men and POOR\nwomen pay for more than half the vile whiskey, gin and other\npoisons that men buy to help them forget.\n\nPoverty and its sister, Ignorance, fill the jails and the insane\nasylums.\n\nPoverty is the mother of disease, and it fills the hospitals.\n\nTens of thousands of consumptives alone are murdered every year\nby poverty.  They are too poor to do that which is required to\nsave their lives.  ----\n\nThe great men of the world do not emerge from poverty, from\nsqualor.\n\nThey come from very modest homes, from the log cabin, and from\nthe towpath, as advertised.  They come from those whose fathers\nand mothers and grandfathers and grandmothers had at least enough\nto eat, and enough fresh air to give them pure blood and proper\nnourishment for their brains.\n\nPoverty destroys ambition, inventive power and the capacity to\nstruggle.\n\nA starved body produces a starved brain.  The greatest genius\nthat ever lived could not think better than a child of ten if you\ndeprived him of food for ten days.\n\nWhat can you expect of the inferior minds that have been half fed\nthrough a lifetime, or through several generations?\n\nDo you know what made the Revolution and changed conditions in\nFrance?  It was not poverty.  Not a single poor man was a leader\nin that Revolution.  Every one of them was well fed, had a well-\nnourished brain--Danton, Robespierre, Marat, Desmoulins,\nMirabeau--every one a well-fed brain in a vigorous body.\n\nThe labor unions and the great strikes, although sometimes unwise\nand unreasonable, are great blessings to the Nation.  They compel\nthe worker to get such pay as will feed himself and his children,\ngiving the Nation well-fed brains.  The Union is the enemy of\npoverty, and for that reason especially it is an agent for good.\n----\n\nAs poverty breeds ignorance, so ignorance breeds poverty.  The\ngreatest enemy of poverty is the Public School.  Work and vote,\ntherefore, for public school betterment.\n\nMiserable women walk the streets by thousands on cold Winter\nnights--poverty has put them there.\n\nHundreds of thousands of children are born only to struggle for a\nfew years through a stunted infancy--poverty digs their graves.\n\nFor one genius that has fought and conquered in spite of poverty\nten thousand have sunk out of sight in the fight against the\nworst of enemies.\n\nDon't waste time extolling the blessings of poverty--use your\nenergies to diminish poverty's curse, and to improve humanity by\ngiving it the full efficiency which freedom from worry alone can\ngive.\n\n\n\nTHE IMPORTANCE OF EDUCATION PROVED IN LINCOLN'S CASE\n\nThe very old and very foolish saying, \"A little knowledge is a\ndangerous thing,\" is disproved every day.  Whenever you hear a\nman talk about \"a little knowledge\" ask him what he thinks about\nthe danger of a great deal of IGNORANCE.  Tell him this:\n\n\"THE SCHOOLING OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, ALL TOLD DID NOT AMOUNT TO AS\nMUCH AS ONE YEAR.\"\n\nThe teaching was elementary, including reading, writing,\nciphering, and very little of each one.  It was picked up at odd\ntimes, when he could be spared from daily labor.  Remember that\nwhen he was a lad his father used to hire him out to work on\nother men's farms for very little money.\n\nWith that little learning he built himself up into one of the\ngreatest men in history, saved the nation, ended once and for all\ncivilized recognition of slavery.\n\nA little learning might possibly have been dangerous had he been\none of the idiotic kind of men.  It might have made him feel\ndissatisfied with the hard labor for which he was fit, without\nstimulating him to better things.\n\nBut Lincoln's little learning gave him no rest--it kept him\nconstantly adding more learning to his little supply.  ----\n\nThe self-pitying young man who thinks he has no chance may be\ninterested in Lincoln's methods of getting ahead.  He walked\nabout twenty miles through the wilderness to borrow an English\ngrammar.  He could get no other books, so he read and re-read the\nstatutes of Indiana.  He wanted to teach himself to write well\nand think closely.  He had never heard Bacon's saying:  \"Writing\nmaketh an exact man,\" but he felt the truth of the fact for\nhimself, and he was bound to write.  He had no paper and could\nnot afford to buy any.\n\nAt night, when his work was done, he would bend his huge\nsix-foot-four frame close down by the firelight to write and\ncipher ON THE BACK OF A WOODEN SHOVEL.\n\nWhen the back of the shovel was covered with writing he would\nshave a thin layer from it and begin writing once more.  ----\n\nIt is a very useful thing for men occasionally to feel ashamed of\nthemselves.  If you want to feel ashamed of yourself, if you are\ncomplaining and whining, just picture to yourself Abraham Lincoln\nin his father's little hut, with no windows and no flooring,\ncrouching by the fire and developing his mind by laborious\nwriting on the back of a wooden shovel.\n\nChildren of twelve in schools, precocious little girls even of\nseven or eight, know much more than Abraham Lincoln knew when he\nwas twenty-one years old.\n\nWith his \"little knowledge\" he grew and did the work that was to\nimprove the condition of millions of men.\n\nDon't be ashamed of your \"little knowledge.\"\n\nBut do be ashamed if you do not add to it whenever you can, and\nespecially if you fail to make it useful to your fellow-men.\n\n\n\nKNOWLEDGE IS GROWTH\n\nConsider to-day the CHEERFUL side of conditions on earth.\n\nEvery human being has his troubles and worries.  The luckiest of\nus all yearns for what cannot be had, and sees much to regret.\n\nBut one splendid fact should always be borne in mind:  THE\nPROGRESS OF HUMANITY IS INCESSANT.  WE ARE INFINITELY BETTER OFF\nNOW THAN WE HAVE BEEN BEFORE ON THIS EARTH, AND UNLIMITED\nPOSSIBILITIES OF IMPROVEMENT ARE AHEAD OF US.\n\nThe progress of humanity has been like that of an individual\nclimbing the paths of a steep mountain.  At every turn there are\nfresh dangers and difficulties to be overcome, fresh\ncomplications for which the traveler is prepared only by his\ncourage and determination.\n\nBut every step takes the traveler higher up, out of the dark\nvalley, toward the light at the top, and every danger overcome\nmakes it easier to deal with the dangers to follow.\n\nIn its long fight the human race has encountered many enemies.\n\nAt one time in Europe one single epidemic destroyed half of\nall the population.  But we have struggled on; through science we\nhave almost conquered disease, and the plagues of the past are\nunknown among us.\n\nIn olden times brutal superstition, disguised as religion,\ndwarfed men's minds, punishing, with atrocious cruelty, the crime\nof independent thought and apparently making impossible any\nmental growth in the face of bigotry and monstrous persecutions.\n\nBut to-day bigotry begins to give place to true religion; the\nburning alive and protracted torture which disgraced all the\nreligions of Europe until recently have ceased, probably forever.\n\nMankind in its travels has progressed as far as the stage of\nindependent thought.  If a creature still lives that would take\nthe life of another because that other thinks differently from\nhimself he dares not confess his criminal thought.\n\nA few centuries ago the great majority of all human beings were\nslaves or serfs.  The noblest of human brains, those of the Greek\nphilosophers, wrote and lived in the midst of slavery.  Even as\ngreat a man as Aristotle could not conceive a society based on a\nnon-slave-holding system.\n\nBut except in some African jungle, here and there among savage\nand semi-savage races, no man is a slave now.  And where slavery\ndoes exist it exists in stagnant pools of humanity, and it exists\nside by side with the other monsters, cruel superstition and\nwidespread disease, that progressive humanity has left behind.\n----\n\nEvery century of which the history has been preserved shows us\nits horrid side of life, its cruelties, its sufferings without\nnumber.  But each succeeding century shows also some one point\ngained, some one hideous feature of life eliminated.\n\nThe enemy of the world to-day, the monster in the path of\nprogress, is organized greed, the insane desire of a few men to\ntake from others, and for themselves, what they do not need.\n\nThe trust, seeking through capital to reintroduce slavery under\nanother form, and to establish the tyranny of money in place of\nthe tyranny of swords and bullets, represents the present\nproblem.\n\nThis problem, like all the others, will be solved in its turn.\nIt will be found that the great danger did good as well as harm,\nand that, on its overthrow, only good was left behind it.\n\nThe diseases that once destroyed men forced them to live a decent\nlife of cleanliness.  Those diseases frightened human beings out\nof filth into respect for themselves as the rulers of the world.\n\nWe owe the cleanness and decent temperate living of to-day, as\nwell as our knowledge of medical science, to the diseases that\nformerly destroyed the people.\n\nThe hideous travesties called religion which relied for their\npower on superstition, fire and sword appeared to block all\nspiritual development among men.  These religions have passed\naway; only the vital, true religious principle is left--the\ncommand laid upon men to feel toward each other as brothers, to\nworship the ONE and benevolent power that rules the world.\n\nA few years or centuries from now the trust problem will be\nsolved, and that particular monster will lie dead on its ledge of\nrock back in the pages of history.  And men will know that to the\ngreat danger and brutality of to-day they owe much of their\nprogress and happiness.\n\nWhen the trust goes commercial greed will go with it.  It will\nhave killed the hideous theory of competition, with its swindling\nof the public, its cutting of wages, its general mean, petty,\ntreacherous tradesmen's warfare.  ----\n\nEvery human being should read history intelligently, if only for\nthe encouraging effect on the mind.\n\nIn every direction, and in spite of foolish croakers, the human\nrace has improved.\n\nGood men and women deplore the drunkenness of to-day, and they do\nright.  But for their own satisfaction and encouragement they\nshould know that in comparison with former times the drunkenness\nof to-day amounts to nothing.\n\nWhere one man drinks too much in these days, a thousand men and a\nthousand women were frightfully drunk a few years ago.\n\nDrunkenness, which formerly attacked the most useful of human\nbeings--doctors, statesmen, poets, the best mechanics--is\nconfined now to a feeble fragment of humanity made weak by\ndisease, hereditary influence, discouragement or imperfect\norganization.\n\nMore important than this encouraging development is the changed\nattitude of the public mind toward the drinking habit.\nTwenty-five centuries ago a Greek philosopher, to make heaven\nattractive, described the table at which heroes sat in a\nnever-ending, blissful state of drunkenness.\n\nTo-day even the meanest man is ashamed to have it known that he\nis drunk, and the most hopeless drunkard would ask no greater\nfavor than that some one should make it impossible for him ever\nto drink again.\n\nThere is a criminal conspiracy, called the Beef Trust, which\nthrives on the needs and privations of the whole people.  It is a\nblot on humanity.  Do what you can to destroy this evil.  But do\nnot be made bitter by it.  Your age is a happier one than others.\n\nIn France, not so long ago, human beings were punished for eating\nthe bodies of men that had died of the plague, and strict laws\nwere issued to stop that kind of cannibalism.  The Beef Trust age\nis an improvement on that age, is it not?  High prices are\nbad, but not as bad as hideous, widespread starvation.  ----\n\nHuman selfishness and heartlessness are criticised to-day, and\nthe criticism is just.  Yet, MORALLY, the human race has\nimproved more than in any other way.\n\nWe see to-day callous, heartless men spending millions upon their\npersonal pleasures, paving insufficiently the laborers whose work\nenriches them, and robbing the public whose patience makes the\ngreat fortunes possible.\n\nBut the worst plutocrat of to-day is an angel compared with the\nmildly vicious men of olden times.\n\nYour selfish man to-day only asks for a yacht and some race\nhorses, mild forms of dissipation.  A thousand years ago the\nvicious man demanded and exercised the power of life and death\nover those who surrounded him, and his mildest fit of irritation\ncost the life of some helpless human being.\n\nMen are ill-paid to-day, but their condition is Paradise compared\nto the slavery of their predecessors.  ----\n\nYou should daily criticise yourself and others, and do what you\ncan in your little sphere as preacher, politician, editor or\nprivate individual to help along humanity's progress.\n\nBut remember always for your encouragement that the world is\nimproving steadily.  It never stands still; it never goes\nbackward.  And there are no limits to our future improvement,\nthanks to our inborn love of what is right and to the steady\ninfluence of EDUCATION.\n\n\n\nA WHISKEY BOTTLE\n\nHow should a whiskey drinker talk to his son?  If he talked as he\nfeels he would hold up the flat, brown bottle and say:\n\n\"My boy, you know that I am a poor man and have nothing to leave\nto you or your mother.\n\n\"The difference between myself and the successful men who have\npassed me is this:\n\n\"I have gone through life with this bottle in my hand or in my\npocket.  They have not.\"\n\nA man comes into the world prepared to do his share of the\nworld's work, well or ill, as his brain and his physical strength\nmay decide.  Of all his qualities the most important practically\nis BALANCE.\n\nThe whiskey in that bottle destroys balance, mental and physical.\n\nIt substitutes dreaming and foolish self-confidence for real\neffort.\n\nIt presents all of life's problems and duties in a false light.\nIt makes those things seem unimportant which are most important.\n\nIT DULLS THE CONSCIENCE, WHICH ALONE CAN MAKE MEN DO THEIR DUTY\nIN SPITE OF TEMPTATION, AND STRUGGLE ON TO SUCCESS IN SPITE OF\nEXHAUSTION.\n\nKeep away from this bottle, and keep away from those who praise\nit.  He who hands it to his fellow man is a criminal, and he\nwho hands it to a young man is a worse criminal and a villain.\n----\n\nIt is a well-established fact that in the usual order of events\ndrunkenness would be handed down from father to son, and hundreds\nof thousands of families would be ultimately wiped out by\nwhiskey.\n\nIt is not true, fortunately, that the son of a drunkard actually\ninherits drunkenness fully developed.  But a drunkard gives to\nhis son weakened nerves and a diminished will power, which tend\nto make him a drunkard more easily than his father was made a\ndrunkard before him.\n\nThe great safeguard of a drunkard's children undoubtedly lies in\nthe warning which they see every day in their home and in the\nearnest advice which the man who drinks will give to all young\npeople if he have any conscience left.\n\nIf the man who drinks would save his own children from the same\ndanger, he can do so better than any other.  He need not lose\ntheir respect by telling them of his own mistakes, if these\nmistakes have been hidden from them.  Let him simply tell them,\nwithout personal reference, what he knows about whiskey, its\neffects on a man's happiness, success, self-respect and physical\ncomfort.\n\nWhiskey gives a great many things to men.  Of these gifts here\nare a few:\n\nLack of friends, lack of will, lack of self-respect, lack of\nnervous force--lack of everything save the hideous craving that\ncan end only with unconsciousness, and that begins again with\nincreased suffering when consciousness is restored.  ----\n\nFathers and mothers blessed with self-control and with good\nchildren should use the picture of a drinking man as a useful,\nmoral lesson in talking to boys and girls from seven to twenty\nyears of age.\n\nChildren are impressed most easily through their imaginations.\nAn intelligent father or mother can produce upon a child's\nreceptive mind an impression that will last for years.\n\nWith the fear of whiskey there should be impressed upon children\nsympathy and sorrow for the unfortunate drunkard.\n\nOne of the ablest men, and one of the most earnest in America,\nsaid to his friends very recently:\n\n\"I never drink, as you know.  But when I see a man lying drunk\nin the gutter, I know that he has probably made that very day\na harder effort at self-control, a nobler struggle to control\nhimself, than I ever made in my life.  He has yielded and fallen\nat last, but only because all of his strength is insufficient to\novercome the disease that possesses him.\"\n\nTeach your children that drunkenness is a horrible disease, as\nbad as leprosy.  Teach them that it can be avoided, that the\ndisease is contracted in youth through carelessness, and that it\nis spread by those who encourage drinking in others.  Tell them\nthat the avoiding of whiskey is not merely a question of morals\nor obedience to parents, but a question involving mental and\nphysical salvation, success in life, happiness, and the respect\nof others.\n\n\n\nTHOSE WHO LAUGH AT A DRUNKEN MAN\n\nHow often have you seen a drunken man stagger along the street!\n\nHis clothes are soiled from falling, his face is bruised, his\neyes are dull.  Sometimes he curses the boys that tease him.\nSometimes he tries to smile, in a drunken effort to placate\npitiless, childish cruelty.\n\nHis body, worn out, can stand no more, and he mumbles that he is\nGOING HOME.\n\nThe children persecute him, throw things at him, laugh at him,\nrunning ahead of him.\n\nGROWN MEN AND WOMEN, TOO, OFTEN LAUGH WITH THE CHILDREN, nudge\neach other, and actually find humor in the sight of a human being\nsunk below the lowest animal.\n\nThe sight of a drunken man going home should make every other man\nand woman sad and sympathetic, and, horrible as the sight is, it\nshould be useful, by inspiring, in those who see it, a\ndetermination to avoid and to help others avoid that man's fate.\n----\n\nThat reeling drunkard is GOING HOME.\n\nHe is going home to children who are afraid of him, to a wife\nwhose life he has made miserable.\n\nHe is going home, taking with him the worst curse in the\nworld--to suffer bitter remorse himself after having inflicted\nsuffering on those whom he should protect.\n\nAND AS HE GOES HOME MEN AND WOMEN, KNOWING WHAT THE HOME-COMING\nMEANS, LAUGH AT HIM AND ENJOY THE SIGHT.  ----\n\nIn the old days in the arena it occasionally happened that\nbrothers were set to fight each other.  When they refused to\nfight they were forced to it by red-hot irons applied to their\nbacks.\n\nWe have progressed beyond the moral condition of human beings\nguilty of such brutality as that.  But we cannot call ourselves\ncivilized while our imaginations and sympathies are so dull that\nthe reeling drunkard is thought an amusing spectacle.\n\n\n\nLAW CANNOT STOP DRUNKENNESS-- EDUCATION CAN\n\nEverybody knows that until recently the average statesman, the\nmajority of prominent men, in England, drank to excess.\n\nPitt was a drunkard--and Pitt was the most remarkable statesman\nin England.\n\nFox was a drunkard.\n\nIn fact, to write a list of England's greatest men, who lived\nmore than a hundred years ago, would be to make a list of famous\ndrunkards.\n\nTo-day the drunkard in public life is practically unknown in\nEngland, as well as in America.  No legal pressure has been\nbrought to bear upon the prosperous drunkard.\n\nHe was not badgered by policemen or by blue-laws.\n\nHe could get ALL that he wanted to drink WHENEVER he wanted\nit--yet, OF HIS OWN ACCORD, the prosperous drunkard has\nreformed and become temperate.  ----\n\nOur own great Daniel Webster was a drunkard, as were many other\ngreat Americans.  No man to-day could be a drunkard and at the\nsame time be respected.\n\nEducation, experience and common sense have done their work, and\ndrunkenness is now left to self-indulgent fools, or to those\nwhose lives are made dull by poverty, to whom alcohol affords the\nonly escape from horrible monotony.\n\nIt would, perhaps, be worth while for the advocates of temperance\nto study the causes which have practically eliminated drunkenness\nfrom the most intelligent classes of men.\n\nEducation undoubtedly is the greatest factor.\n\nIn nearly all the public schools now the evil effects of alcohol\nare taught.\n\nThese evil effects are taught, not in a lackadaisical way, with\nsentiment or religious duty as a basis.  They are taught as\nFACTS.\n\nFacts appeal to the mind, and they persist in their effect in\nlater life, when moral suasion and religious appeals are\nforgotten.\n\nTeach every child that alcohol destroys his chances of success,\nimpairs his muscular efficiency, inflames the substance of the\nbrain and prevents development--MAKE HIM FEEL THAT A DRINKING\nMAN IS A SECOND-CLASS MAN, AND YOU WILL HAVE DONE MUCH TO DESTROY\nTHE DRUNKENNESS OF THE FUTURE.  ----\n\nAs a matter of fact, drunkenness, like dirt, is mainly an\naccompaniment of poverty and a sad, hopeless life.\n\nFor the man or woman given to drinking, when the troubles of\nlife are no longer to be borne, some relief must be had.\n\nMake the lives of human beings more comfortable, make good food\nmore plentiful, spread education--and you will solve the problem\nof excessive drinking.\n\n\n\nTHE DRUNKARD'S SIDE OF IT\n\nYou lucky, well-balanced ones talk much, and sincerely, of the\nhorrors of drink, and of the drunkard's weakness.\n\nYou think the whiskey drinker ought to stop.\n\nDo you ask yourself whether or not he CAN stop?\n\nLet us consider to-day the drunkard's side of the case.  ----\n\nVery often physical weakness causes drunkenness.  Many a man\ntakes a drink because the task put upon him is heavier than he\ncan bear.  The whiskey does not help him--it hurts him.  But it\ncheats him and makes him THINK that he is helped.\n\nYou realize that whiskey drinking as a settled habit must be\nfought with weapons of some kind.\n\nWILL POWER is the great weapon to use in our own behalf.  You\ntell the drunkard to use his will power.\n\nBut you forget that the first thing that whiskey attacks is will\npower.\n\nYou remind the drunkard that his weakness brings suffering on\nothers, and you appeal to his conscience.  But you forget that\nwhiskey weakens conscience even more than it weakens the nerves.\nYou forget, too, that whiskey makes its victims suffer.  If\nhe could free himself he would do so, if only for his own sake.\n\nAnd you must not forget that whiskey argues ingeniously, in\naddition to its telling of lies.\n\nA man is overcome with some great grief.  Whiskey makes him\nforget, or at least it makes him not care.\n\nA man is suffering some great humiliation, some sense of personal\nshortcoming, that is intolerable to him.  Whiskey offers to\nrelieve him, and for the moment it does relieve him.  ----\n\nYOU who talk nobly of temperance and advocate laws governing\nother men are apt to be proud of your own self-control.\n\nPerhaps you have been a drinking man and have stopped.  But you\ndo not know how much lighter whiskey's hold may have been upon\nyou than upon others.\n\nSuppose you worked hard every day, every week and every year.\n\nSuppose you had no pleasure in life, save the fictitious pleasure\nand excitement that come from whiskey.  Suppose you failed, and\nfailed and failed again--and suppose that whiskey was always\nready to praise you, make you feel proud of yourself, make you\nhold others responsible for your failures--are you sure you could\nlet it alone?  ----\n\nIn your condemnation of those who persist in whiskey drinking\nyou must remember that what is easy for one man is very hard for\nanother.\n\nSuppose you should urge two animals to go without meat--one of\nthe animals being a tiger and the other a sheep.  Would you\npraise the sheep for its faithful keeping of the promise?  Would\nyou blame the tiger for breaking its word, if the temptation to\neat meat were offered?\n\nIn men's nervous systems, in their craving for alcohol, there is\nas great a difference between different temperaments as between\nthe appetites of the sheep and the tiger.  One man is dragged\ntoward the gulf by whiskey with a force of which you have no\nconception.\n\nYou look with contempt at a hopeless drunkard, shuffling along\ntoward destruction.\n\nTHERE ARE THOUSANDS OF SUCH MEN WHO EVERY DAY OF THEIR LIVES\nMAKE AN EFFORT OF THE WILL OF WHICH YOU WOULD BE INCAPABLE.\n\nBut that effort, great as it is, is not great enough to save\nthem--whiskey drags them too hard in the other direction.\n\nFortunately, we can all congratulate ourselves on the steady\nfalling off in drunkenness.  To drink to excess is no longer\nrespectable.  Once it was a leading sign of respectability.\nDoctors in the old days wrote their prescriptions illegibly,\nbecause when called late at night they were usually drunk.\nTo-day a drunken doctor cannot possibly survive.\n\nWork as hard as you can against drunkenness, for drunkenness\nharms every one, even the saloon-keeper himself.  The drunkard\nsoon comes to ruin and ceases to be a profitable customer.\n\nArgue with young men, and talk to children ABOUT THEIR OWN\nWELFARE in the matter.\n\nBut remember also that the drunkard often has tried harder than\nyou could try to overcome the enemy that has conquered him.\nRemember that unless you have lived his life you cannot know his\nexcuse and cannot judge him.\n\n\n\nDRINK A SLOW POISON\n\nOften a man talks about like this:\n\n\"I am a regular but moderate drinker.  No one ever saw me drunk,\nand yet I drink every day.  And what's the harm of it?  Can you\nsee anything the matter with me?\"\n\nThe man would seem to have the advantage of you.  You cannot SEE\nanything wrong with him.  So far as outward appearances go the\ncase is squarely against you.  The man APPEARS to be all right.\n\nBut is he?  The effects of drink upon the system do not show\nthemselves to the extent of attracting very marked attention, at\nleast until the conditions are fairly ripe.\n\nIn the man who comes out on to the street after a PROTRACTED\nDEBAUCH the effects of whiskey are visible; even the little\nchildren notice him.\n\nHe may not be drunk.  It may have been hours since he touched a\ndrop.  But any one can see that his physical system has received\na severe shock.\n\nIn the moderate drinker these signs are not visible, but the\nalcohol which he daily imbibes is doing its work, and slowly but\nsurely his constitution is being undermined.\n\nNow and then we run across some old man who is hale and\nhearty, notwithstanding the fact that he has been a moderate\ndrinker all his life.\n\nBut no one will think of denying the fact that this old man is an\nexception--a very rare exception.\n\nMany old men who SHOULD be hale and hearty are suffering from\nailments born of the drink habit, by which, in their earlier\ndays, they were enslaved.\n\nIn the \"rheum, the dry serpigo and the gout\" which rack their\nframes, make their bones ache and render miserable and thankless\nthe evening days which should be so full of peace and beauty,\nthey are reaping the fruits of their \"harmless\" moderate\ndrinking.\n\nTwo or three weeks ago we made reference to the report by Mr.\nMesureur, Director of the Department of Charities, Paris, upon\nthe results of alcoholism in France.\n\nThat report was no sooner made public than the French liquor\ndealers were up in arms against it.  Indignation meetings were\nheld.  The mails were flooded with all sorts of protests against\nthe truth of Mesureur's claim that alcoholism was slowly but\nsurely destroying the French people.\n\nThe discussion at last became so heated that the government took\nit upon itself to subject the offensive report to a careful\nscrutiny, with the result that it was CONFIRMED in every\nparticular.\n\nWe quote from a poster, issued by the \"Investigation Council for\nPromoting the Public Welfare,\" and now displayed all over France:\n\n\"Alcoholism is the chronic poisoning resulting from the constant\nuse of alcohol, even if it does not produce drunkenness.\n\n\"It is an error to say that alcohol is a necessity to the man who\nhas to do hard work, or that it restores strength.\n\n\"The artificial stimulation which it produces soon gives way to\nexhaustion and nervous depression.  Alcohol is good for nobody,\nbut works harm to everybody.\n\n\"Alcoholism produces the most varied and fatal diseases of the\nstomach and liver, paralysis, dropsy and madness.  It is one of\nthe most frequent canses of tuberculosis.\n\n\"Lastly, it aggravates and enhances all acute diseases, typhus,\npneumonia, erysipelas.\n\n\"THESE DISEASES ONLY ATTACK A SOBER MAN IN A MILD DEGREE, WHILE\nTHEY QUICKLY DO AWAY WITH THE MAN WHO DRINKS ALCOHOL.\n\n\"The sins of the parents against the laws of health visit their\noffspring.  If the children survive the first months of their\nlives they are threatened with imbecility or epilepsy, or death\ncarries them away a little later by such diseases as meningitis\nor consumption.\n\n\"Alcoholism is one of the most terrible plagues to the individual\nhealth, the existence of the home, and the prosperity of the\nnation.\"\n\n\n\nTO THOSE WHO DRINK HARD-- YOU HAVE SLIPPED THE BELT\n\nMen have explained variously their reasons for drinking to\nexcess.\n\nAn able architect drank too much every night.  He said that he\nHAD to drink.  If he went to bed perfectly sober his mind went\non working and dreaming, after he had gone to sleep, and he woke\nup fatigued and unable to attend to his work.\n\n\"I don't want to drink,\" said he, \"but in order to do my\nwork I must have the sleep that follows what is ordinarily\ncalled taking too much.\"\n\nOther men explained excessive drinking as follows:\n\n\"I must have the mental excitement that comes from drinking.\"\n\n\"You can't imagine the delightful agility of the mind under\nthe influence of alcohol.\"\n\n\"The brain works more quickly, more energetically, more freely.\"\n\n\"After drinking a certain amount I can live more in an hour than\nI could ordinarily in a month,\" etc.  ----\n\nThese men who believe that alcohol improves the mind, stimulating\nit to better effort, constitute a very large class, perhaps the\nlargest class of those who drink to excess.\n\nWe wish we could persuade such men that they are mistaken in\nbelieving that excessive alcohol feeds the brain.\n\nThe man who has drunk too much, and thinks that his mind is\nworking splendidly, might learn something by studying any sort of\nmachinery when the belt slips off the wheel, or the screw of a\nsteamer when the power of the waves throws the screw out of the\nwater.\n\nWhile the belt is securely attached, doing its works, it turns\nslowly and monotonously.\n\nWhile the screw is buried in the water, fighting its way and\npushing its load ahead, it turns slowly and laboriously.\n\nWhen the belt slips off or the screw comes out of the water, the\nwhole thing is changed.  The screw whizzes around like lightning.\n\nThe belt rattles and dances.\n\nThe screw in the water and the machinery doing its work properly\nare like the sober brain.\n\nThe brain that is made abnormal by alcohol is simply the screw\nout of water, the misplaced machine belt.  The brain is no longer\nconnected with the working realities of life.  It has lost its\nbalance and its function.  It works rapidly and aimlessly.  It\nmoves with wonderful swiftness, but it accomplishes nothing.\n\nLet men who drink too much, believing that the action of their\nminds is improved by drinking, think over this proposition about\nthe machinery and see if there is not something in it to\ninterest them.\n\nHow much actual work does this alcoholized brain turn out?  What\ndo they actually DO \"next day\"?\n\n\n\nTRY WHISKEY ON YOUR FRIEND'S EYEBALL\n\nYour friend drinks too much, or drinks temperately but unwisely.\n\nYou may entreat, or argue, or abuse, or threaten.\n\nYou may show your friend the happy home where rum never enters.\n\nYou may lead him through the alcoholic ward at Bellevue.\n\nSuch sights may produce an impression.  But usually they do not.\n\nThe man who possesses, indulges and keenly enjoys an overwhelming\npassion--for drink or any other vice--is rarely moved by your\nfine talk, for the reason that he believes in his wily soul that\nyou do not know what you are talking about.\n\nMr. Lecky, in his history of European morals, page 135, volume\nI., observes:\n\n\"That which makes it so difficult for a man of strong, vicious\npassions to unbosom himself to a naturally virtuous man is not so\nmuch the virtue as THE IGNORANCE OF THE LATTER.\"\n\n\nYou are naturally virtuous.  Your drinking friend is naturally\nand proudly bad.  He thinks you do not know what you are talking\nabout when you ask him to give up drink.  ----\n\nWhen you start out to cure a vicious friend by arguing with\nhim, do you ever reflect how little you know what goes on within\nhim?  Suppose that in his nerves there is a craving ten thousand\ntimes louder and stronger than your most virtuous arguments?\nWhat good will those arguments do?  No use whispering poetry to a\nman in a boiler shop.  No use humming a love song in a whirlwind.\n\nThe poetry, the song, are out of place.  Any sort of argument\nsave the most powerful is wasted on a man whose soul is filled\nwith the racket of a dominating passion, such as drink or\ngambling.  ----\n\nJust two things can cure a drunkard--two things, and nothing else\non earth.\n\nFirst, his own cold reason and strength of will.\n\nSecond, the growth within him of some passion stronger than his\nlove of drink.\n\nLove of his children, love of a woman, will cure a drunkard (but\nwe earnestly advise any woman to make sure he is cured before\ntrusting her future to him).  Ambition--which includes every form\nof vanity and self-delusion--will cure a drunkard, and has cured\nmany thousands.  Even the miser's passion of economy may outweigh\nlove of drink and cure the lesser desire.  ----\n\nTo cure a drunkard, try to arouse within him some desire stronger\nthan his desire to drink.  Any boy will stop smoking to play\nfootball or to excel in any sort of athletics.  You reach his\nvanity.  What preaching could produce the same effect?\n\nIf you feel that you must use argument, try such arguments as\nwill appeal to the man himself, not such as seem sound to you in\nyour fine state of virtue.\n\nThe American drunkard is usually manufactured by the vile\nAmerican habit of drinking pure whiskey or cocktails.  No other\nrace, except among the most degraded classes, absorbs crude\nspirits as stupidly as this race.  ----\n\nSuppose you have a young friend whose tendency to drink\n\"straight\" whiskey makes you nervous.  You see what it is leading\nto.  Instead of trying to make a teetotaler of him, try to\ntransform him into a sensible drinker.  ----\n\nWhen your friend orders his whiskey, start off as follows:\n\nTell him you take it for granted that he knows all about the\nmucous membrane.  He will say that he does--for it is our\nAmerican mania to want to appear wise.\n\nCasually state that of course he knows the covering of his\neyeball is identical in all important respects--especially as\nregards sensitiveness--with the lining of his stomach; in fact,\nof his whole interior from his mouth down.\n\nHe will assent and gravely pour out his poison.\n\nThen say to him:\n\n\"Just dip the tip of your finger in that whiskey and put the\nfinger to your eye-ball.\"\n\nIf he does so he will feel the eye smart.  The eyeball will\nbecome inflamed, and sight for a moment will be difficult.\n\nThen let him dilute the whiskey with water--four or five parts\nwater to one of whiskey.  That dilution, rubbed into the other\neye, instead of irritating it, will act as a gentle stimulant.\nIt will produce an agreeable effect.\n\nWhen your friend has experimented with the whiskey \"straight\" and\ndiluted, deliver to him this little lecture:\n\n\"One drop of pure whiskey on your eyeball makes it hard to use\nthe eye.  That glass of whiskey that you are now pouring into\nyourself would blind you absolutely, at least for a time.  If\nstraight whiskey has such an effect on the covering of the\neyeball, must not its effect be equally injurious to the covering\nof the stomach and intestines, which is the same as that of the\neye?\n\n\"If diluting your whiskey makes it so much better as an eye-wash,\nwould not diluting it make it better also as a 'stomach-wash'?\"\n\nOne other thing:  When you argue with a drunkard don't tell him\nthat any man can cure himself if he will \"only be a man.\"  The\ndrunkard knows that that is not so.  Tell him, on the contrary,\nthat not one man in fifty, not one woman in a hundred, can\novercome the drink habit.\n\nHe will wink his tired eyes at you and say:  \"I want you\ndistinctly to understand that I'm one in a hundred.\"  Tell him\nhow difficult it is--not how easy--and thus stir up his ambition.\n----\n\nAbove all, when you start out to admonish or despise the victim\nof bad habits, just remember that you have no notion whatever of\nwhat you criticise.  Not one drunkard in a hundred has will power\nto cure himself.  Not one \"virtuous\" man in a thousand has\nimagination enough to realize the drunkard's temptation and\nsuffering.  We offer to your consideration this other extract\nfrom Lecky's book, quoted above:\n\n\"The great majority of uncharitable judgments in the world may be\ntraced to a deficiency of imagination.  * * * To realize with any\nadequacy the force of a passion we have never experienced, to\nconceive a type of character radically different from our own, *\n* * requires a power of imagination which is among the rarest of\nhuman endowments.\"\n\n\n\nWHAT ARE THE TEN BEST BOOKS?\n\nAn interesting discussion progresses in Chicago.  Mr. Sam T.\nClover has asked this startling question:\n\n\"If you were bound for a desert island, and could take with\nyou only ten books, which ten books would you select?\"\n\nWhoever is refined and well read in Chicago seems to have\nanswered Mr. Clover's question.  Mr. Clover introduces each\nguesser with a graceful speech; then the guesser solemnly names\nten books.\n\nThe selections are, from the moral viewpoint, admirable.  The\nBible is omitted rarely, and the Rubaiyat never.  It is amazing\nto see how many inhabitants of Cook County would be unhappy on a\ndesert island without Col. Omar.  ----\n\nIt may not be permissible for a Yellow Editor to break into a\nCook County literary fiesta.  We dislike to run the risk--but we\nshall run it.\n\nFirst we remark that a man living on a desert island needs no\nbooks at all.\n\nReading books is an idle occupation unless you make your reading\nprofitable to other human beings, and that you cannot do on a\ndesert island.\n\nThe trouble with many readers is this:  They read as though they\nWERE on a desert island.  They sop up literature or facts as a\nsponge sops up water; then, like human sponges, do nothing with\ntheir wisdom.  They read for themselves; they read to increase\ntheir egotism and self-approval, and for no other purpose.  ----\n\nBut, after walking into an intellectual parlor above our station\nin life, it certainly does not become us to be finicky.\n\nWe'll tell as quickly as possible what it is that surprises us:\n\nNOT ONE COOK COUNTY THINKER MENTIONS A BOOK ON ASTRONOMY.\n\nA man on a desert island has a little sand, some goats and a few\nmiles of ocean around him--nothing else in sight.\n\nBut above him, and on the low plains of the horizon, the great\nuniverse is spread out.  Vega flashes overhead, beckoning to this\nlittle solar system that is rolling on toward her.\n\nThe old, benevolent stars look through cold space at our little\nsun that was not even hatched in their yesterday.\n\nThe Milky Way, that Mississippi of the sky, rolls across the\nthousands of billions of miles of space.\n\nThe messenger-boy comets go on their long, elliptical errands.\nThe colored planets and moons, the nebular masses and the cold,\ndead worlds lying in the silent morgue of eternity tell the\nwonderful story of cosmic grandeur.\n\nWe should think that a man on a desert island, living constantly\nin contemplation of God's real work, would want to study that\nwork.\n\nThe greatest book ON MEN that ever was written on this earth\nis but an analysis of the emotions of imperfect human minds.  A\ngood ASTRONOMY is a guide book of GOD'S kingdom.\n\nMany Cook County litterateurs select Carlyle for a desert island\ncompanion.  Have they not observed that Carlyle's mind was fixed\non contemplation of the universe?--\"the eternal silences\" were\nhis friends.  And when he seeks monkeyfied human soldiers, booted\nand spurred, he asks, \"What thinks Bootes of them, as he leads\nhis hunting dogs across the zenith in a leash of sidereal fire?\"\n\nO, Cook County thinkers, inhabitants of a small corner of this\nsmall ant-hill, drop your alcohol-loving tentmaker--Omar--forget\nyour half-hearted fondness for Milton.  Buy \"Ball's Story of the\nHeavens,\" or even some simpler astronomy; spend four dollars and\nfour weeks finding out how grand is our real home, the boundless,\nbeautiful universe.\n\n\n\nTHE MARVELLOUS BALANCE OF THE UNIVERSE--A LESSON IN THE TEXAS\nFLOOD\n\nA tidal wave and hurricane combined have destroyed thousands of\nlives in one small corner of the globe.\n\nAfter the first excitement and horror, the creditable outpouring\nof help, there should be thankfulness in the hearts of the many\nmillions who live on safely.\n\nDo you ever think of the wonderful protection, the marvellous\nprecision in celestial mechanics that guard you as you travel\nthrough space?  ----\n\nThe oceans, seas and lakes contain water enough to cover the\nentire surface of the earth to a depth of six hundred feet, if\nthe earth's surface were actually round.\n\nIn huge reservoirs, which we call oceans, the earth's waters are\nstored for our use.  Those vast volumes of water rest on the\nsurface of a whirling sphere travelling through space at fearful\nspeed.  The slightest derangement, the slightest lack of balance\nin our motion round the sun, the slightest shifting of the poles,\nand mountains of water miles high would sweep over the continents\nand wipe out--not only one small city--but the entire human\nrace.  ----\n\nOur existence here requires a precision so great that our minds\ncan but feebly grasp it.  Change the temperature of your body by\nbut a few degrees and you die.  But you travel through space\nsafely, with a freezing ocean of ether about you.  You travel in\ncompany with suns that throw out endless billions of degrees of\nheat.  You are protected in a travelling hothouse, regulated\nexactly to suit your feeble strength and all your wants.  ----\n\nDid you ever see the small, black nose of a pug dog pressed\nagainst the window of a flying express train?\n\nHave you ever seen that pug barking at the landscape whirling by?\n\nHave you ever reflected on the utter inability of that pug to\nrealize the marvellous intelligence and power that are whirling\nhim along as he barks and wags his tail and enjoys himself\ncalmly?\n\nKind reader, you and all of us, whirling along in this\nmagnificently conducted express train called the earth--whirling\nonward to a destiny worthy of our habitation--are so many poor\nlittle pug dogs looking out at nature's marvels and looking out\nwith less than pug-dog appreciation.\n\n\n\nTHE EARTH IS ONLY A FRONT YARD\n\nThe philosophers, political economists, lawmakers, editors,\nsociologists, and all the other would-be deep thinkers of this\nearth, are really engaged in a pretty small business.\n\nWe are like a swarm of human beings cast away on some desert\nisland.  This earth is our island, a little island in space, and\nit is a desert island and a badly arranged island in more ways\nthan one.  Many of us lack good dwellings, some of us lack food,\nall of us are worried about the future.  The island is infested\nwith mosquitoes and with diseases that we have not learned to\nconquer.  There are many criminals on it that prey upon the\nhonest people--criminals at the top and criminals at the bottom\nof society.\n\nAnd all of those who think and sympathize with their fellow\ncreatures are busy with the problem of putting things right on\nthis little desert island that carries us along in the wake of\nthe sun.\n\nMost of us imagine that the most important work for men is the\norganization of life on this little planet.  That is a very small\nand mean idea of man's real destiny.\n\nWhen a man builds a house, the planning of sanitary arrangements\nmust first be attended to.  After that begin the real life\nand the real interests.  That real life and those real interests\nare not confined to the front yard or the back yard of the man\nthat owns the house.  ----\n\nSo it will be some day with us who are now engaged in the\ndetailed organization of the little home which we call the earth.\n\nWe are fixing up our moral plumbing--fighting poverty, injustice,\nand, above all, ignorance.  We are fighting the meanness that\ncomes of competition and the greater meanness that is based upon\nthe dread of poverty in the future.  Some of us are piling up\nmillions that we can never use, while others suffer for lack of\nthat which could be abundantly supplied.\n\nAll these little earthly questions that seem so big will be\nsettled in time.\n\nBut a few years in the sight of Time--a few hundred centuries,\nperhaps, as we count them--and our earthly habitation will have\nbeen made fit to live in.  We shall have eliminated the\nunfit--not by killing them off, but by educating them.  We shall\nhave solved the question of poverty by solving the question of\nproduction, and especially of distribution.  We shall have\ndeveloped a citizenship capable of earnest work, of sobriety and\nof moral decency, without the spur of want, imprisonment or the\nscaffold as necessary adjuncts.\n\nIn time the human race will have solved its little problems\nhere--the problems that seem so vast to-day.\n\nWhen that time comes we shall be like the man who has put his\nhouse in order, and our thoughts will not be confined to this\nlittle piece of ground.  Then we shall appreciate the cosmic\nwisdom which has divided our day into darkness and light--the\nlight for the enjoyment of the material beauties of our earthly\nhome; THE NIGHT FOR THE STUDY AND ENJOYMENT OF THE VAST,\nMYSTERIOUS UNIVERSE SPREAD OUT AROUND US.\n\nEverybody knows that the aged require less sleep than the young.\nIn the future, this will make old age what it ought to be, a\nblessing, because it will give to the old more hours of the night\nfor contemplation of the Infinite and all its wonders.\n\nThose of us who now think themselves very abstract when they\nspeculate on the North Pole, or when they discuss the possibility\nof reclaiming the Desert of Sahara, will have their minds many\nmillions of miles away from this earth a great deal of the time.\n\nWe shall communicate, perhaps, with our sister-planet, Venus--the\nplanet most like ours in physical arrangement.  We shall be\nintensely interested in that world, where it is always night on\none side of the planet, and always day on the other.\n\nWe shall realize with deepest envy the fact that the constant,\nterrific currents of air whirling around Venus, in consequence of\nthe extreme heat and the extreme cold on opposite sides of the\nplanet, have developed a race as far superior to us as the trout\nin the swift-flowing brook is superior to the heavy-eyed catfish\nin the bottom of the pond.  ----\n\nWe shall humbly beg for information from the superior inhabitants\nof other worlds, and perhaps wait with impatience for release\nfrom duty here which shall take us to a higher planetary\nexistence.  If we look backward at all, we shall consider our\npresent selves simply as refined cannibals, who lived upon the\nlabor and the suffering of our fellows instead of feeding upon\ntheir bodies.  ----\n\nIt may seem ridiculous to predict that the time will come when\nthe intelligent man's interests will be nearly all outside of the\nearth on which he lives.\n\nBut to the savage of the Congo, squatted beside a decaying\nhippopotamus, gorging himself with the meat, with not a thought\nbeyond that carcass or beyond the edge of the river, it would\nseem preposterous to speak of men whose interests range out over\nthe entire world.\n\nWe look upon a man as very small to-day unless all knowledge\ninterests him, unless his mind roams daily all over the civilized\nglobe, sharing in the interests of all nations, in the\nliterature, the discoveries and the activities of all nations.\n\nTo-day we, with our minds on little, material problems, our\nthoughts centred on this one little planet, as we lead our\nselfish lives, are like that Congo savage hacking away at the\ndead hippopotamus.\n\nWhen night comes, we shut our eyes like the chickens, waiting for\nthe light that means money-making or pleasure of the senses; or\nwe go to theatres or to balls, or elsewhere, to shut out as far\nas possible all knowledge of that marvellous, unlimited creation\nto which we belong, and which it is our greatest privilege feebly\nto study.  ----\n\nThe geography class of the future will be a class in astronomy.\nThe real problems of the future will be the problems outside of\nthis earth, and the real interests of the future will be\ninterests connected with the universe at large.\n\nWe shall make of this earth a beautiful garden, inhabited by\nsafe, happy human beings.  We shall take pride in it, and enjoy\nit by day.  Our intellectual lives will begin with the going down\nof the sun and the gradual appearance of those mighty neighbors\nin space that alone will interest the thinking man of future\ndays.\n\n\n\nLAST WEEK'S BABY WILL SURELY TALK SOME DAY\n\nIt is believed by scientists that the planet Mars may be striving\nat this moment to communicate with us.  Lines of light are seen\non her surface--on the border of that part of Mars known as Lake\nIscarie--and men of learning believe that the Martians are trying\nto signal our earth.\n\nPossibly they are trying.\n\nOf this you may be sure:  Sooner or later we shall communicate\nwith all the planets, and perhaps through the giant sun receive\nnews of outside solar systems.\n\nWe have lived comparatively but a few hours on this earth.  The\ncivilization on Mars is millions of years older than our own.\n\nAlthough we are still primitive savages, we have done wonders\nalready.\n\nWe can talk instantaneously with a Chinese sitting cross-legged\non the under (or upper) side of our earth.  We can send a message\naround the earth in a few seconds.\n\nOf course we shall talk to Mars as soon as we get out of our\ncradle down here.\n\nLook into an ordinary cradle where a week-old baby lies nursing\nhis wrath or trying to talk to his toe.  There are around him\neighty millions of other human beings--fourteen hundred\nmillions if you count all on earth--and he, the baby, cannot say\none word to any of them.  He does not even know his own mother.\n\nLike humanity on this earth, he is busy growing up.  He has not\nhad time to spread out and get an interest in his surroundings.\n\nHis liver must get small--at the end of his milk diet.  His legs\nmust get straight and strong.  He must learn to creep and walk.\nAfter a period as extensive in his life as a thousand centuries\nin the life of the race, he begins to talk to those about him.\n\nWe do not believe that the time has yet come for us to talk to\nthe Martians, or to the inhabitants of any other older planet.\n\nThey may possibly be signalling to us up there, as a man\ninexperienced will signal to a new-born baby or even try to make\nit understand what he says.\n\nIt is probable, however, that Mars, far advanced in science, as\nsuperior to us as we are to new-born infants, would use the light\nonly to attract our interest and let us know that when the time\ncomes we have an old brother planet anxious to chat with this\nbaby earth.\n\nIt will be most interesting when the talking time does come.  The\nmen who have lived, studied, experimented millions of years ahead\nof us will be able to tell us many things that we need to know.\n\nLike the baby in the cradle, we are compelled now to discover\neverything for ourselves.  Our old brother Mars, as soon as we\ncan understand, may help us to take giant steps forward, just as\na younger brother, as soon as he can speak, is taught by his\nelder in one of our families.  ----\n\nIt will be interesting, also, to observe how we shall probably\nreject the good advice given us, as the young person here rejects\nthe words of experience.\n\nSuppose we could talk to Mars, and suppose the wise old people up\nthere should tell us that millions of years of experience had\nmade clear the fact that making money is a foolish occupation.\nHow many of us would cease striving for money?  The very\nscientist giving us the message would patent his interstellar\ntalking process and die happy with a huge fortune.\n\nHow cheerful also will it be a million or so years hence!  We\nshall then be like a very young child among the planets.  Two of\nthe older worlds will be talking, and we shall be permitted to\nlisten, but not to interrupt.\n\nWe shall hear questions put as to our origin and destiny.\n\nWe know now that the sun, flying through space, is dragging us\ntoward some unknown spot in the universe.  Our older brothers in\nspace will have definite ideas as to where we are going and\nwhy we are going there.\n\nIt will be interesting to follow their speculations, and\noccasionally, if permitted, to offer our feeble little ideas, as\nthe smart boy occasionally speaks up before his elders.\n\nOur future as one of a family of planets freely communicating\nwith each other cannot be doubted.\n\nHe must have a dull imagination who believes that the eternal Law\nregulating matters here has put such limits to our possible\ndevelopment as would shut us out from a share in the big solar\nfamily life to which we belong.\n\n\n\nTHE GOOD THAT IS DONE BY THE TRUSTS\nTHE MAMMOTH MADE OUR FIRST PATHS THROUGH THE FOREST\n\nEvery big movement in this world in some way or other does solid\ngood in the long run, however irritating it may be before it is\nunderstood.\n\nThe saddest period in a child's life is undoubtedly the period of\nteething.  If you saw a baby for the first time and didn't\nunderstand that period, you would denounce the cruelty which\ninflamed its gums, upset its digestion, kept it awake, condemned\nit to incessant torture.  But we all know that a full set of\nteeth under the control of the child is to reward the suffering\nof teething, and this reconciles us to the teething age.\n\nWe tell you--and we don't want you to forget this--that all the\ntrust impositions and suffering and thievery now agitating us\nconstitute a teething process through which we must pass.  The\nresult will be a full set of industrial teeth owned and\ncontrolled by the nation, which now suffers the torments of the\nteething baby.  ----\n\nYou will realize that individuals must at first do that which\nnations do later.\n\nThe despotic, irresponsible rule of the savage chief, of the\nable individual fighter, was a forerunner of the present system\nof government.\n\nWe have now taken the governing power from the individual,\nbestowing it on the whole people, but at first we had to have our\nAttilas, our Napoleons and Alexanders.  ----\n\nAs individual control of the government has been superseded by\ncollective control, so individual control of industries will be\nfollowed by collective control.  That is the natural order.\n\nWhy does not the government take full charge at once?\n\nWhy does not the hen lay a hen all covered with feathers, instead\nof laying an egg?  Everything must have its crude beginning and\nits perfect ending, for on this basis we are organized.\n\nThe French government to-day makes millions from the national\ncontrol of the match industry.  But a solitary individual working\nin Batavia, New York State, had to create the match and make his\nlittle money out of it before the French government could take it\nand make its millions.\n\nThat same French government derives millions from its tobacco\nbusiness, incidentally giving the people good tobacco cheap\ninstead of poisonous tobacco dear.  The red Indian dodging bears\nand using his squaws as slaves had to start that great tobacco\nindustry before the French government could get it.\n\nDon't waste your time and energy joining the thoughtless crowd\nthat howls against trusts.  Use your vote and your voice to put\nthose trusts under government control as soon as may be.  Be glad\nthat an old Vanderbilt had brains enough to build great railroad\nsystems.  Don't denounce him or begrudge him the fortune he made.\n\nHis work was worth the money.\n\nLet us say to his little descendants the pee wee Vanderbilts of\nto-day:\n\n\"You have had enough now.  Although you have done nothing,\nwe shall pay you generously for what your great-grandfather\ndid, and with your kind permission, or without it, we shall\ntransfer these roads to the people whose patronage gives\nthem value.\"  ----\n\nIn due time this pleasant message of just appropriation will be\ndelivered to all the various trust owners.  They will all be well\npaid for their work.  They deserve to be, for they have done as\nindividuals the work which the collective commonwealth could not\ndo.\n\nBut they will be made to see that they cannot forever keep what\nthey have created.  If a man invents a steam engine worth to the\nworld at large ten thousand billions, he is allowed to keep his\nproperty only seventeen years, under our patent laws.  Shall we\nallow a clever highway robber of a commercial organizer to keep\nthe proceeds of his energy for himself and his descendants\nforever?  ----\n\nWe had almost forgotten the mammoth mentioned at the top of this\narticle.  That mammoth, dead and forgotten, is the forerunner of\nto-day's trust.  The mammoth was hated by all created things\naround him.  An accidental blow from his left hind foot would\nbreak up any family in existence.\n\nBut his vast weight and power ploughed the first paths through\nthe swamps and forests.  The paths made by the mammoth through\nunexplored tracts were a great boon to half-savage man.  In fact,\nman followed along those paths after awhile and learned how to\nkill the mammoth very neatly.\n\nThe trusts are marking out organized paths through the hitherto\nchaotic, disorganized systems of industry.  Those paths will be\nuseful to all men through all time.  The trust will be killed\nwhen his day comes, as the mammoth has been killed.\n\nLet us be patient meanwhile, and not forget that, though a\nmonster, he was a monster absolutely necessary and very useful.\n\n\n\nTRUSTS AND THE SENATE\n\nIf you are willing to assume your responsibilities as an American\ncitizen you should study seriously the question of the trusts.\n\nAlready trust organization has assumed very real and very\nthreatening proportions.\n\nEvery family in the United States knows of the existence of the\nMeat Trust, which cuts down the food supply of the people to add\nto its bank account.\n\nEvery merchant feels keenly the existence of half a dozen trusts\non which he is absolutely dependent, and from which there is no\nescape.\n\nWe all have seen the Coal Trust keeping ready armed men to shoot\nworking citizens whenever it should give the order.  This Coal\nTrust, in a calm, matter-of-fact way, boasted that it would, if\nnecessary, \"call out the United States Government troops\" to\nshoot the miners.  Here is one trust already talking as though it\ncontrolled the army and all the other forces of Government.  The\ntrusts believe themselves already in control, and their national\npower is very great.\n\nThe crisis of trust development has not been reached.  The\npresent power of concentrated, organized money is very great, but\nit is nothing to the power which money will exert in the\nfuture.\n\nThis future development of the trust force should be discussed\nand studied calmly, rationally and dispassionately by all\nAmericans.\n\nThere is no use in denouncing or in hating the trusts.  It is\ntrue that they are entirely selfish; it is NOT true that they\nrepresent evil, pure and simple.\n\nThe trust is a necessary development in humanity's journey toward\norganization, concentration and the simplifying of industry.\n\nThe first locomotive ever built was a trust.  It performed the\nwork of a thousand four-horse teams, deprived four thousand\nhorses and a thousand drivers of a livelihood.\n\nThe railroad trust is simply an extension of the concentration of\nlabor, the simplifying of industrial operation, represented in\nthe building of the first locomotive.\n\nTHE TRUSTS IN THE END WILL DO INFINITE GOOD.\n\nThey will destroy the mean competition which for centuries has\nmade liars, swindlers and slavedrivers of men.\n\nThey will practically eliminate the great number of large private\nfortunes, and thus compel men to devote their energies to\npursuits nobler than the accumulation of money.\n\nAt first a few enormous fortunes will dominate the nation--the\nbeginning of these great fortunes you may see already.\n\nThen will come the owning of the trusts--that is to say, of all\nthe great national industries--by the nation itself.\n\nThe people of the land will own and operate their own\nnecessities.  These necessities, instead of making a few men\nenormously rich at the expense of many, will contribute to the\ncomfort of many without injustice to the few.  ----\n\nThe development of trusts must run its course, like every other\ngreat feature of human history.\n\nIts beginning--in corrupt legislation, watered stocks, human\nselfishness--was inevitable.\n\nIts ending--in national ownership, competition eliminated, and\nindustrial life vastly improved--is also inevitable.\n\nBut thousands of struggles, thousands of economical battles,\nthousands of ruined men, will mark this evolution of human\nindustry from the control of individual selfishness to the\nservice of the nation.\n\nThe duty of the people is to study and, as far as possible, to\nforesee and regulate this enormous and inevitable development of\nthe trusts.\n\nThe trusts cannot be destroyed, and they should not be destroyed.\n\nBut they can be regulated, and with proper vigilance they can be\nkept from commanding and controlling absolutely this nation,\nwhich sees the birth of their great development.  ----\n\nWe believe that the most pressing public duty at present is\nthe reorganization of the Senate of the United States on the\nbasis of popular election.\n\nIt has been said truthfully:  \"You cannot indict an entire\npeople,\" and, fortunately for us, it may truthfully be said, \"You\ncannot PURCHASE an entire people.\"\n\nThe trusts of the United States base their hopes of continued and\ngrowing power upon the United States Senate.\n\nThe trusts own absolutely many United States Senators.  Of those\nSenators whom the trusts do not own, many are deeply interested\nin the trusts, which is the same thing as though the trusts did\nown them.\n\nUnder the present system, the public elects State Legislatures,\nand these Legislatures choose the United States Senators.\n\nIf a trust can buy the Legislature--which, as we all know, it\nusually can--the trust can control the Senatorial representatives\nof the State.\n\nThe State of New York in the National Congress at Washington is\nrepresented by thirty-four Congressmen and two Senators.  The\nthirty-four Congressmen are elected by the people and two\nSenators are chosen by the trusts.  And with these two Senators\nthe trusts can absolutely veto every bill passed by the\nthirty-four Representatives elected by the people.\n\nDoes anybody believe that Mr. Depew and Mr. Platt could possibly\nhave been elected to the United States Senate by the PEOPLE of\nthe State of New York?\n\nDoes anybody question the outrageousness of a system which forces\nupon the people as representatives two Senators whom they would\nnot have chosen and whom they actually believe to be inimical to\ntheir interests?\n\nThis condition prevails practically throughout the Union.\n\nThe upper house of our National Legislature is the real ruling\npower in the United States.\n\nIt controls all of the President's appointments.\n\nAccording to the Constitution, he is compelled to appoint \"by and\nwith the advice and consent of the Senate.\"\n\nThe trusts buy the Legislatures, they own the Senators, and\ntherefore the Constitution of the United States now reads\npractically as follows:\n\n\"The President appoints national officers by and with the\nadvice and consent of the trusts.\"\n\nAs an American voter, you have no more important duty than to\nwork for the election of Senators by the people.\n\nYou should not tolerate the selection of Judges of the Supreme\nCourt, United States Ambassadors, Federal Judges throughout the\ncountry, and all the great executive forces subject to the\napproval of the trusts that notoriously make, break and destroy\nlaws.\n\nA small trust can buy the Legislature of the State of New York.\n\nBut the biggest trust can scarcely buy New York's six million\ninhabitants.  And, thanks to our secret voting system, we are\nprotected even against ourselves and our own selfishness.\n\nIf a trust buys the ordinary voter it cannot be sure that it gets\nwhat it buys.\n\nBut if a trust buys the legislators it can count votes and secure\ndelivery of the goods purchased.\n\nUse your influence to curb the power of the trusts by taking away\nfrom venal legislators that power to sell to trust managers the\nSenate of the United States.\n\nThis subject you should discuss with your neighbors.  You should\nurge it upon all of those voters with whom you come in contact.\n\nYou should influence legislators in your State to vote for a\nConstitutional amendment causing popular election of\nSenators--and no legislator will resent your suggestion if he be\nan honest man.\n\nEverybody knows that the United States Senate to-day does not\nrepresent the people.  There are exceptions among the Senators,\nbut they are in the minority.  Every year the Senate is less and\nless representative of the nation, more and more representative\nof organized capital.  Good Americans, irrespective of party,\nwill strive to work for this change in the national machinery.\nTake away from the trusts now the power to tamper with national\nlaws through the Senate.\n\n\n\nTHE PROMISING TOAD'S HEAD\n\nThe head of a toad, like the head of a trust, is superficially a\nhideous thing to look at.\n\nSometimes it is alleged that valuable jewels are found in a\ntoad's head, and on this account the hideousness even of the\nfar-famed horned toad of the West becomes less repulsive.\n\nThe trust toad, as you will find by examining it closely and\nstudying events, has a head equipped with jewels of a very fine\nquality.  Many years from now men will be very glad that the\ntrust toad was born, because of the good that will come from it.\n----\n\nAlready we see that the trusts are inevitably strengthening labor\nunions.  They are bringing the men into closer relationship and\nforming them into greater and more closely united bodies of\nworkmen.\n\nThe trusts organize admirably the great industries and prepare\nthe day when all of these industries will be owned by the\nGovernment--that is to say, by the people themselves.\n\nThe trusts eliminate competition, which is a stupid, out-of-date\nform of barbarism, leading to cheating, thievery and\nadulteration.\n\nThe trusts do away with the vast armies of middlemen, and, by\ndiminishing every day the number of those who live on the work of\nothers, they compel an ever-growing number to enter the fields of\nuseful production.  ----\n\nJust at present the jewel that stands out most prominently in the\nugly trust toad's head is \"FREE TRADE.\"\n\nMen have argued and fought and voted and made speeches and\nparaded for Free Trade--and all in vain.  The more they talked\nand paraded, the heavier were the duties.\n\nBut when the TRUSTS want Free Trade, they will have it, for the\ntrusts control legislation.\n\nAnd we SHALL have Free Trade, for the trusts WILL want it very\nsoon.\n\nA trust engaged in manufacturing wants to buy as cheaply as it\ncan the raw materials used.\n\nThe trusts will soon own all the industries, all the\nmanufactures, and they will want freedom from the duties which\nare now paid on the material.\n\nAlready there is in process of formation a great Clothing Trust.\n\nThe small man who makes clothing now must pay a duty on wool to\nprotect the American farmer who raises sheep.\n\nHow long do you think the Clothing Trust will tolerate this duty\non wool?\n\nHow long do you think the Trust engaged in making cloths in\nAmerica will tolerate a duty on wool that makes the industry so\nexpensive?\n\nSome of the duties will be retained, of course--at least until\nthe trusts shall be powerful enough even to despise foreign\ncompetition.\n\nBut one thing after another the trusts will want free from duty,\nand these things will be freed as fast as the trusts' order is\ngiven.  ----\n\nThe trusts are going to do a great deal of good to the masses of\nthe people in time.  They will end by forcing universal\nGovernment ownership of monopolies upon the people.\n\n\n\nTRUSTS WILL DRIVE LABOR UNIONS INTO POLITICS\n\nA workman should use the best tools at his command--the\nworkman's best tool is his ballot.  Everything that men want it\ncan give them if used intelligently.  The reasons urged against\nits use by labor unions are conscientious but not strong.  They\nare based upon the fact that labor men fear to trust each other,\nand fear especially to trust their leaders.  They will not vote\nas unions because they fear that they may be sold out--that is\nthe plain, unpleasant fact.\n\nWe cannot believe that their fears are well founded.  We know\nthat leaders both able and honest can be found among American\nworkingmen, and we say that they should be found and trusted\npromptly.  ----\n\nFor mark this:\n\nTHE TRUSTS WILL INEVITABLY COMPEL THE LABOR UNIONS TO BECOME\nPOLITICAL UNIONS.\n\nTRUSTS WILL MAKE IT CLEAR TO UNIONS THAT THEIR ONLY HOPE IS IN\nPOLITICAL ACTION WHICH SHALL GIVE THEM THE POWER TO CONTROL\nLEGISLATION.\n\nWhen individual firms are competing the injustice of one firm may\nbe punished and controlled by a strike.\n\nTHE TRUST WILL RENDER THE STRIKE LAUGHABLE AND USELESS.\n\nSuppose all the shops or manufactories of a certain kind to be\nunder the control of one trust.  What good will a strike do?  The\nconcern in which the strike occurs will simply stop work.  Its\nbusiness will go to other concerns in the trust; the firm in\nwhich the strike occurs will calmly draw its share of the trust\nprofits and laugh at the strikers.  The latter will lose their\nwages and time--no one else will lose anything.\n\nWhat does one paper mill care for a strike if all the other mills\nin the Paper Trust are running, and making the money which it\nnominally loses?  ----\n\nPerhaps the workingmen think they can stop ALL the manufactures\nof a certain kind.  In the first place they probably cannot--with\ntrusts that reach across 3,000 miles of country.\n\nAnd if they could, what about the TRUST OF TRUSTS?\n\nIf the trusts are not already formed into a formal union for\nmutual support they soon will be.  And the union of trusts\nalready exists so far as practical sympathy goes.\n\nHavemeyer will gladly spend millions of trust money--not his\nown--to help Morgan in a coal-trust fight.\n\nRockefeller will spare a few hundred thousand if necessary to buy\na small State Legislature and prevent passage of laws threatening\na weak little trust now and dangerous to him in the long run.\n----\n\nJealousy, mistrust, and the lack of really competent leaders may\ndelay political union among workmen for a time.\n\nBut the political union must come.  Bigger work must be done by\nAmerican workmen than chattering about little local wage\nregulations or quarreling about hours or overtime.\n\nThe question at issue is:\n\nSHALL ORGANIZED CAPITAL CONTROL THE PEOPLE, OR SHALL THE PEOPLE\nCONTROL ORGANIZED CAPITAL AND LIMIT ITS POWER?\n\nThe workingmen are the people.  They are the interested parties,\nand they have got to vote together pretty soon or fight together\na little later.\n\n\n\nTHE TRUSTS ARE NATIONAL SCHOOL TEACHERS\n\nLook at the coal strike, the opinions that it calls forth, and\nnotice how respectability dances and hops from one foot to the\nother when the RESPECTABLE shoe pinches and the RESPECTABLE\ntoe suffers.\n\nA little while ago the man who spoke against trusts and general\nmonopolies of public necessities was called demagogue, socialist,\nanarchist, inciter of the masses against the classes, and so on.\n\nBut along comes the Beef Trust and begins to punish even the\nrespectable \"upper\" classes.  Double prices for food mean a\nserious difference even in a very respectable income.\n\nThen you have the respectabilities also suddenly developing signs\nof demagogism, socialism and anarchy.\n\nThey want the tariff taken off of foodstuffs.  They want the\nmanagers of the Food Trust put in jail.\n\nThe Beef Trust teaches the nation one interesting lesson--namely,\nthat by excessive extortion the trusts will lose soon their\nrespectable friends and unite all of the people against them.\n\nThe Beef Trust also teaches that the language called socialistic\nand anarchistic, when confined to working people, becomes\nprofound political economy when uttered by some\nrespectability with a pinched toe.  ----\n\nThe Coal Trust is a later and even more radical national teacher.\n\nThe respectable individual who a short time ago could see no\ndifference between advocating Government ownership of national\nresources and communism or thievery has seen a wonderful light\nwhile gazing on his coal fire at Twelve Dollars a ton.\n\nJudges on the bench, eminently respectable newspapers--by which\nwe mean those newspapers representing the interests of men who\nthink with their pockets--are expressing the most radical\nout-and-out socialistic ideas.\n\nOne of the mildest suggestions made by these respectabilities is\nthat the Government should seize the coal mines and work them for\nthe benefit of the people, setting aside the preposterous claims\nof the Coal Trust.\n\nPapers like the Springfield Republican, the Philadelphia\nLedger and other solemn organs of antiquity are advocating,\nwithout knowing it, ideas which mean inevitably universal\ngovernment ownership of monopolies.\n\nThe Coal Trust as a public educator is an undoubted success, more\nof a success than it would like to be if it could understand the\nnature of its teachings.\n\nIf the Government has a right to seize coal mines and work them\nfor the people, as respectability now declares, why has it not a\nright to seize railroads, telegraphs and all the other great\nindustries whose value depends entirely upon the national\npopulation?  ----\n\nMany men in this world hated their teachers while they were being\nwhipped in the old- fashioned way, but look back with gratitude\nlater on to those same teachers and those same whippings.\n\nOur national teachers, the trusts, are severe teachers.  Their\nlessons are hard lessons, and they believe in very unpleasant\nforms of corporal punishment--inflicting hunger and cold upon\ntheir pupils.\n\nThis nation in time will look back with gratitude to the lessons\nand to the whippings of the trusts.\n\nThe trusts are teaching us inevitably that competition is\nantiquated; that organization is the real basis of industry.\nThey are teaching us that it is feasible and necessary for the\nnation eventually to take possession of and manage its own\nproperties, industrial as well as others.\n\n\n\nA WOMAN TO BE PITIED\n\nWhy is it that comparatively few women find intense enjoyment in\nlife after middle age?\n\nWhy is it that you cannot duplicate among women such careers in\nold age as the careers of Spencer, Gladstone, Huxley, or any of\nthe great men whose interest lies in mental activity and mental\nachievement?\n\nOne reason is this:  A great majority of women are inclined to\naccept and adopt without question the ideas formed for them.\n\nTHEY GIVE UP THINKING EARLY IN LIFE.\n\nWhen a human being stops thinking, that human being's life\npractically ends.\n\nAll over the country you may see thousands and hundreds of\nthousands of calm, settled, placid-faced, middle-aged women.\n\nThey admire themselves and they are admired generally.  They\nought to be pitied.\n\nThey think now on all subjects just as they thought ten or\ntwenty or thirty years ago.\n\nThey view with horror things which they know nothing about.  They\nreject opinions which they don't understand; they have unlimited\nfaith in matters of which they know absolutely nothing.  ----\n\nEvery one pities a man whose existence and enjoyments are limited\nto the physical, sentimental side of life.\n\nWe all feel that a man of fifty, unless hard conditions and want\nhave ground interest and vitality out of him, ought to be at his\nbest.  He ought to be active, alert, OPEN TO NEW IDEAS.\n\nHis mind is his one asset, and he should be constantly adding to\nhis knowledge, to his observation, and therefore he should be\nconstantly changing his mental point of view.\n\nMany women suffer undoubtedly from the sentimental, physical and\nintellectual reaction caused by the cessation of the\nresponsibility of maternity.\n\nSuch passionate affection, devotion and self-sacrifice are\nlavished upon the children that when they grow up nothing more\nseems worth while except to set them a good example.\n\nMany other things are worth while:  And as improving civilization\nfrees women more and more from the endless cares of the petty\nhousehold and the worries of poverty, the field for their mental\ndevelopment will steadily expand.\n\nWhen woman shall have accomplished her greatest material duty,\nthat of fully populating the earth, big families will no longer\nbe known, not more than two years of any woman's life will be\ndevoted to the worries of infancy, and then woman will have to do\nher share of the world's thinking and its original intellectual\nwork.  ----\n\nFor her own sake and for the sake of those about her, every\nwoman, whatever her age, should realize that there is no old age\nfor the brain well cared for.\n\nMany men and women view with sentimental reverence the picture of\na middle-aged lady, old before her time, sitting in her\nrocking-chair, knitting placidly, without one original thought in\na month.\n\nThis sentimental idea is a false one.\n\nThe type of woman to be admired is Mrs. Julia Ward Howe,\neighty-four years old, filling Carnegie Hall with her wonderful\nvoice, thrilling with admiration all of those who listened to\nher, reciting with the greatest mental power her splendid battle\nhymn, \"Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory of the Coming of the Lord.\"\n\nTHERE is a woman who enjoys her life.  It is safe to say that\nthe eighty-fourth year of her existence is as happy as any year\nthat preceded it.\n\nShe is an old woman, and to most women that means sorrow and\ndulness.  But she is happy, admired and useful, BECAUSE SHE\nTHINKS.\n\nThere are in the United States hundreds of thousands of splendid\nbrains going to waste among our women, because they do not\nrealize the duty of using, to the last, all the intellectual\npower within them.\n\n\nWHEN WILL WOMAN'S MENTAL LIFE BEGIN?\n\nIt is pathetic to hear women of intelligence arguing in support\nof woman's claim to \"equality\" with man.\n\nOf course, woman is really man's superior in important matters.\nShe is vastly superior morally, beyond any question.\n\nShe does the greatest work in the world; she gives to earth its\nthinking population and creates every one of the great men that\nmove civilization along.  ----\n\nBut otherwise, in the way of MATERIAL accomplishment, woman\ncannot be said to equal man at present, and she cannot be said\never to have equaled him.\n\nMany of the most intelligent women demand recognition for woman\nas equal or superior to man in all ways.\n\nThey are deeply hurt if in gentle, patient reply you ask them to\nmention a female equivalent to a Newton, Archimedes or\nShakespeare.  It annoys them to tell them that a million\nautopsies prove fundamental differences between male and female\nbrains in favor of the former--at least as regards volume and\ndepth of cerebral convolutions.\n\nSometimes, after you have listened to a proud, high-spirited\nwoman trying to prove that women would equal men in material\naccomplishment, if only they had a chance, you get so sad that\nyou find yourself helping her out--digging up De Sevignes,\nDe Staels, and other \"great\" women who  have made up in brains\nfor what they perhaps lacked in femininity.  ----\n\nIt is necessary to bear in mind that this earth, when man was\nturned loose upon it, was really a sort of desert island.  It was\na conglomeration of swamps, forests, deserts--all filled with\nwild beasts.  Even the human beings, struggling feebly toward\nbetter days, were not far from the beasts at first.  (They are\nnot very far from them even now.)\n\nTwo kinds of work had to be done.  The men had to fight, dig,\nhunt, drain marshes and murder each other.\n\nThe women had to SUPPLY THE MEN to do all the working and\nfighting and killing.\n\nBeasts, wars, fevers killed off the sons of women almost as fast\nas they could bear them.  Women must supply the demand for\nsoldiers and workers and at the same time a surplus big enough to\npopulate the globe.  Thus far she has put on earth fourteen\nhundred millions of her own kind.  Quite an achievement, we\nshould say, when the career of a Napoleon or an Alexander called\nfor a couple of million of men extra, or a plague like the\nblack death, due to man's stupid lack of cleanliness, wiped out\ntwo-thirds of Europe's people.  ----\n\nMen were the material workers--of course they exceeded in\nmaterial achievement the women nursing babies at home.\n\nBut woman, caring for her children, sacrificing her life for\nthem, developed on earth the moral sentiments, started each\ngeneration on its career a little better than its predecessor.\nShe could not do all this and do the material things as well.  In\nfact, she could not even THINK except on matters very near to\nher cradle, or her affections.\n\nRemember that throughout the world's history it has been the lot\nof a vast majority of women to be constantly caring for young\ninfants, or young children.  Families of twenty children, or even\nmore, have been common.  It is probable that woman from the\nbeginning of our racial existence until now has been the mother\nof from fifteen to twenty-five children on an average.\n\nThe dullest mind can see what that means.\n\nAtrocious suffering.  Endless worry about the children.  Constant\nwarfare against the man's selfish brutality.\n\nHow could woman rear her twenty children and at the same time do\nother work?  How could she keep every thought, every effort of\nher brain on her offspring and develop her mind in other ways at\nthe same time?\n\nGive a man one young child to take care of FOR ONE DAY, and when\nyou return to him you find a semi-imbecile, half-tearful\ncreature.\n\nIn every great man's life you hear some remark of this sort:\n\"How can I work, Maria, if you let the children make such a\nnoise?\"\n\nWell, how could the millions of Marias work with the children\nhanging to their skirts all through history?  ----\n\nBut a better day is ahead for woman, and we are proud to point it\nout to her.\n\nWise men begin to wonder what we shall do when the earth is fully\npeopled?  Shall we kill surplus babies, or what shall we do?\n\nThere will be no surplus babies.  Nature will arrange that.\n\nFor every two human beings on earth two new ones will be born.\n\nWars will be ended.  Common sense will have done away with the\nunnecessary illness which now robs millions of mothers.\n\nNo woman will have more than two children.  Education will be\nunderstood.  Women will not be slaves to their babies.  They will\nbe admired and thanked and made happy before the babies arrive\n--instead of being half ashamed, as at present.\n\nThe rearing of children will be simple.  Each woman, instead of\ndevoting twenty years of her life to child slavery, will have\npractically her whole life to devote to other things.  She will\nbe able to cultivate her mind.  She will have more of a hold on\nMr. Selfish Man, and he will have to pay more attention to her.\n\nWOMAN'S hour of full mental development will arrive with the\nfinal and complete population of the globe, just as man's day of\nreal mental growth will come after he shall have mastered the\nforces of nature and learned the elements of true social science.\n\n----\n\nEven then we do not anticipate that repulsive \"equality\" between\nmen and women which is so much prated about.\n\nThe complete human being is not A MAN, nor is it A WOMAN.  The\nCOMPLETE human being is a man AND a woman.  The TWO MAKE ONE.\nEach\nwill contribute a share to the perfection of the whole.  That was\nthe way it was planned from the beginning, and we think we could\nprove it, if this column were six feet longer.\n\n\n\nTHE COW THAT KICKS HER WEANED CALF IS ALL HEART\n\nAn estimable and very intelligent lady criticises modern\neducation, saying, \"So much brain is forced into the girl\nnowadays that it crowds out her heart.\" ----\n\nAt the risk of shattering the foundations of romance and poetry,\nit must be said here once and for all that the heart has nothing\nwhatever to do with the emotions.  It is simply a pump, and a\nlarge part of its work consists in pumping blood to the brain.\nThe greater the brain, the greater and more active the heart must\nbe.  A serpent, with little or no brain and a cold disposition\nall around, gets along very nicely with little or no heart.\n\nThose who speak of the heart as opposed to the mind mean to speak\nof unreasoning sentiment as opposed to intellectual strength.\n\nThe lady quoted and many others say that the woman and mother\nshould be all affection, and that development of the mind\ndiminishes the affection.\n\nWe wish to lay down a few rules; we invite criticism.\n\nThe best thing, the only important thing about a woman, a man, a\nbaby, or any other human being, is the intellect.\n\nAffection is a beautiful thing, but affection is BORN in the\nbrain and CONFINED to the brain.\n\nA young woman looks at a splendid creature in a soldier's\nuniform.  Her heart beats fast, and she imagines, as all\nantiquity has imagined, that the heart is the seat of the\nemotions.  Nonsense!\n\nThe emotion is in the BRAIN, which has just received, through\nthe optic nerve, a conception of the lovely vision in brass\nbuttons.  The heart is ordered to pump more blood to the head of\nthe young girl, to supply mental activity and the becoming blush.\n\nIf you hear bad news you feel the effect on your heart; sometimes\nyou fall unconscious.  That is because the brain sensation is so\nstrong as to interfere with the heart's action.  You feel the\nshock that the brain sends to the heart.  ----\n\nThe idea that cultivation of the mind interferes with a woman's\nmoral, sentimental, or motherly qualities is foolish twaddle.\n\nThe idea that mere sentiment, ignorant, vague affection are\nsufficient without education to make a first-class human mother\nis false and feeble.\n\nHave you ever seen a cow follow the wagon that carries her calf\nto the butcher shop?  It is a very sad sight, the plaintive\nlowing of the poor mother as she follows behind begging for\nher child to be restored.  Every farmer knows that there is no\nnecessity for hitching the cow to the wagon when her calf is\ninside.  She will follow that calf until she drops.\n\nThere is your loving, devoted mother without education.  The\ncow's heart, to use the old expression, is all right.  Her mental\nequipment is perfectly suited to a cow.  Nature and society\nrequire that she should give the utmost love to her calf this\nyear, and give all of that same love to another calf next year.\n\nBring back in three months that calf that she follows now with\nsuch pitiful appeals.  If the weaned calf tries to re-establish\nthe old relationship, its mother, \"all heart and no head,\" will\nkick it in the ribs and then butt it across the lot.  ----\n\nIt's all right for the COW to be all heart and no head; she\ndoes not need the higher education.\n\nIt is all right for the humble savage mother in the dark African\njungle to be built on the same lines.  Like the cow, all that she\nhas to do is to take care of the baby until it is able to run\naround and forage for itself.\n\nBut the civilized mother, the woman who must do her duty in the\npresent and in the future as well, requires a good mind, love\nbased upon knowledge and a sense of justice, affection that\nfollows the child from the cradle to maturity, gradually\nsubstituting for intense motherly physical care an equally\nintense and loving intellectual companionship and guidance.  ----\n\nIt is important, of course, that mothers of all kinds, human or\nanimal, should be cheerful, and above all healthy, able to feed\ntheir babies themselves and feed them well.\n\nBut as the brain in a human being is above the stomach, so the\nintellect in a mother is above the mere maternal affection\ninspired by babyhood.\n\nThe great mothers are those who, when they cease feeding the\nchild's body, can begin to feed the child's brain.\n\nThe great men are great, and they were lucky, because they had\nmothers who did not cease to feed them when they were weaned, but\nkept on feeding them mentally into their manhood.  ----\n\nThe woman with a big brain is the best IN EVERY WAY.\n\nShe is better before she is married, for she attracts the man of\nintelligence, and establishes a family of intelligent beings.\n\nShe is better as a young wife, because the ambition and\nintelligence in her call out the ambition and intelligence in her\nhusband.\n\nHers is the happy home that needs no divorce lawyer.  Pink\ncheeks, small feet, squeezed waists, curly hair and such things\ndisappear or get tiresome.  And all pink cheeks are very much\nalike, as Dr. Johnson said of the green fields.\n\nBut intelligence never gets tiresome; no two brains are ever at\nall alike if well developed.  A woman of intelligence always\ndevelops new qualities; she can never be monotonous.\n\nThere is no such thing as too much education, although educating\nus primitive men and women is apt to develop unexpected\nlittleness.  and thus create prejudice.  ----\n\nNote this important fact:  The bigger the brain, the bigger the\nheart, not only physically, but sentimentally and morally.  It\ntakes brain to feel real emotion; a well-developed mind to\ndevelop real sentiment, real affection.\n\nA foolish, ignorant young woman may be pleasant enough to look\nat, but she is like a white, pink-eyed rabbit--ornamental, but a\npoor companion.\n\n\n\nRESPECTABLE WOMEN WHO LISTEN TO \"FAUST\"\n\nYou know what happens in Gounod's great opera, \"Faust,\" which is\nbased on Goethe's work.\n\nAn old man--his name is Faust--yearns for youth.  He gets the\nyouth, makes the devil's acquaintance, sells his soul to the\ndevil for the devil's help.  In the opera the devil is politely\ncalled Mephistopheles.  Everybody is beautifully dressed, from\nthe devil and Faust, the peasant girls and the ballet dancers, to\nthe old grandmothers, with their diamonds and pearls, in the\nboxes.\n\nIf you want to study human nature, you ought to look at the\nrespectable old and young women at the opera while \"Faust\" is\nsung.\n\nThe centre of the whole thing is a young woman named Marguerite.\nWhen the curtain goes up she has the best of intentions, the best\ncharacter, the prettiest of faces, and two long, yellow braids\ndown her back.  She is dressed very prettily indeed, and in the\nopera house she has a high-sounding name, like Melba, Nordica,\nCalve or Patti.\n\nEvery night that \"Faust\" is sung this young woman goes to the\nbad.\n\nEvery night that \"Faust\" is sung every woman in the audience\nsympathizes with Marguerite, who behaves so badly.  Many shed\ntears over her misfortune.  All forgive her, feel sorry for\nher, and know that she is not to blame.\n\nThe most severe old woman in the most expensive box would put her\narms around Marguerite's neck and tell her not to fret.  ----\n\nHow does that old lady act if on the way to her carriage she\nfinds the sidewalk obstructed by some unfortunate creature who\nhas Marguerite's sorrows without Marguerite's good clothes?  Does\nshe not say that it is an outrage for the police to allow such\nthings?\n\nPossibly she will observe that in the opera Marguerite has not a\nfair chance.\n\nFaust has such beautiful silk tights, one leg striped and the\nother leg covered with spangles; and, besides, he has a devil to\nbring a box of jewels to tempt Marguerite.\n\nBut we should like to tell the conservative old lady that the\nerring housemaid whom she may have judged so severely had greater\ntemptation and a better excuse than did Marguerite, even though\nshe could not get her voice up quite so high.\n\nMephistopheles is just as busy with housemaids and poor,\noverworked shopgirls as with any Marguerite that ever lived.  And\nhis work is made easier by long hours, dull routine and hopeless\nfuture.\n\nIt is strange and sad that moral women find it so easy to\nsympathize with the Marguerite whose sins and life end in the\nbeautiful \"Anges purs, anges radieux\" aria written by Gounod, and\nnot with the Marguerite who ends in the hospital, the morgue and\nthe Potter's Field.\n\nIt makes a great difference, apparently, to moral and virtuous\nwomen whether the erring Marguerite has a famous tenor on one\nside of her and a famous basso on the other, or whether she has\non one side of her Bellevue Hospital and on the other side\nBlackwell's Island.\n\n\n\nWHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE\n\nIn this country and throughout the world women progress toward\nthe full possession of the ballot, and toward equality with men\nin educational facilities.\n\nIn one State after another women are beginning to practise law,\nthey are obtaining new suffrage rights, they flock to newly\nopened schools and colleges.\n\nIn England and Scotland, but a few years ago, only a few men in\nthe population were allowed to vote--money was the requisite\nquality.  To-day, in those countries, women vote at county\nelections, and in many cases at municipal elections.  In Utah,\nColorado and Idaho women as voters have the same rights as men.\nThey have certain rights as voters in nine other States.  In the\ngreat Commonwealth of New Zealand, so far ahead of all the rest\nof the world in humanity and social progress, the wife votes\nabsolutely as her husband does.  ----\n\nThe woman who votes becomes an important factor in life, for a\ndouble reason.  In the first place, when a woman votes the\ncandidate must take care that his conduct and record meet with a\ngood woman's approval, and this makes better men of the\ncandidates.\n\nIn the second place, and far more important, is this reason:\n\nWhen women shall vote, the political influence of the good men in\nthe community will be greatly increased.  There is no doubt\nwhatever that women, in their voting, will be influenced by the\nmen whom they know.  But there is also no doubt that they will be\ninfluenced by the GOOD men whom they know.\n\nMen can deceive each other much more easily than they can deceive\nwomen--the latter being providentially provided with the X-ray of\nintuitional perception.\n\nThe blustering politician, preaching what he does not practise,\nmay hold forth on the street corner or in a saloon, and influence\nthe votes of others as worthless as himself.  But among women his\nhome life will more than offset his political influence.\n\nThe bad husband may occasionally get the vote of a deluded or\nfrightened wife, but he will surely lose the votes of the wives\nand daughters next door.\n\nVoting by women will improve humanity, because IT WILL COMPEL\nMEN TO SEEK AND EARN THE APPROVAL OF WOMEN.\n\nOur social system improves in proportion as the men in it are\ninfluenced by its good women.\n\nAs for the education of women, it would seem unnecessary to urge\nits value upon even the stupidest of creatures.  Yet it is a fact\nthat the importance of thorough education of girls is still\ndoubted--usually, of course, by men with deficient education of\ntheir own and an elaborate sense of their own importance and\nsuperiority.\n\nMary Lyon, whose noble efforts established Mount Holyoke College,\nand spread the idea of higher education for women throughout the\nworld, put the case of women's education in a nutshell.  She\nsaid:\n\n\"I think it less essential that the farmers and mechanics\nshould be educated than that their wives, the mothers of their\nchildren, should be.\"\n\nThe education of a girl is important chiefly because it means the\neducating of a future mother.\n\nWhose brain but the mother's inspires and directs the son in the\nearly years, when knowledge is most easily absorbed and\npermanently retained?\n\nIf you find in history a man whose success is based on\nintellectual equipment, you find almost invariably that his\nmother was exceptionally fortunate in her opportunities for\neducation.\n\nWell educated women are essential to humanity.  They insure abler\nmen in the future, and incidentally they make the ignorant man\nfeel ashamed of himself in the present.\n\n\n\nASTRONOMY WOMAN'S FUTURE WORK\n\nIn the centuries to come, perhaps a thousand centuries from now,\nperhaps a little sooner, woman will get her chance on earth.\nPopulation will have reached its normal limit, and nature's wise\nlaw, dealing with a really civilized race, will automatically\nlimit children to two in each family.\n\nSchools and nurseries will be scientific and perfect.  The care\nof children will be the duty of the State.  Very poor women will\nbe unknown, and unknown will be the woman burdened with the\nisolated care of children in an isolated household.\n\nIn those distant days woman will do her share of the world's\nintellectual and artistic work.  Physical work of all kinds will\nhave been practically annihilated by machinery.  Our big,\nmuscular bodies, developed hitherto with an eye to pursuing wild\nanimals, carrying heavy burdens and fighting each other like\ndog-apes in the forest, will be refined and very different from\ntheir present brutality.\n\nIt will be an agreeable earth, a very agreeable and much improved\nhuman race.  ----\n\nThose millennial days, which are sure to come, will find us with\nour little earthly problems solved.  We shall have outgrown\nour infancy, and, like a child that has learned to walk and\nbalance itself, we shall understand the forces of nature and use\nthem.\n\nOur principal occupation will be harmonious life on this planet\nand persistent investigation of the marvels of the universe\noutside of our own little sphere.\n\nAs centuries have gone by on earth, power has dwelt with\ndifferent classes of human beings.  In the days of the\nTroglodytes, when one gentleman would crack another gentleman's\nthigh-bone to get at the marrow, the most important man of course\nwas the one best able with physical force to murder his fellows.\nAt various times the great explorer, the great military\nstrategist, has been the most important of men.  To-day the most\nimportant man is the organizer of industry.  He is really the\nmost important, not only in the size of his reward, but in the\nservice which he renders.  Nature gives the biggest reward to him\nwho does the most important work.\n\nA thousand centuries from now the most important human being will\nbe the most efficient astronomer.\n\nThe man who shall bring us accurate news of other worlds will be\nwelcomed as was Christopher Columbus or Drake or Raleigh in his\nday.\n\nWomen will be very important factors in astronomical research.\n\nThe work of the astronomer is especially the work of patience, of\nenthusiasm, of devotion.\n\nPatience, enthusiasm and devotion are more highly developed in\nwomen than in men.\n\nAlready, in view of her extremely limited opportunities, woman\nhas done admirably well in the field of astronomy.  We note that\nit is a woman at Cambridge whose stellar photographs first\nlocated the new star in Perseus.  In England, in Germany and in\nFrance women astronomers are doing work almost equal to that of\nthe best men.\n\nEverybody will remember the faithful labor of Herschel's sister,\nworking all through the night and sleeping through the day, month\nafter month and year after year, helping her great brother in his\nstudies.\n\nThere is a kind of small-fry man who dislikes the idea of mental\ndevelopment among women.  He is a mouselike kind of creature, so\nthoroughly conscious of his own smallness, so thoroughly in love\nwith his own importance, that he dreads the intellectual woman,\nwho makes him feel microscopic.\n\nDespite the protests of such men, some of whom are editors, women\nare making progress.  When they shall give to science, especially\nto astronomy, the passionate, devoted attention which they have\ngiven for ages to the care of children, they will rank among the\nhighest on earth.\n\n\n\nWOMAN'S VANITY IS USEFUL\n\nWe'll waste no time in proving that women, from the cradle to the\ngrave, at all hours and all ages, are sincerely interested in\ntheir personal appearance.\n\nNo man should object to this--the constitutional guarantee\nreferring to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness covers\nthe ground fully.\n\nBut it is not enough for men NOT TO OBJECT to woman's various\ninnocent vanities.\n\nEvery man should be delighted that women are vain.  Each man\nshould do what he can to keep the vanity alive.\n\nFOR WOMAN'S VANITY, DEARLY BELOVED, IS THE ONE AND INDISPENSABLE\nPRESERVER OF HER HEALTH.\n\nA woman cannot be pretty, according to her own notions, unless\nHEALTHY.\n\nIf too fat, she is not pretty--and she is miserable until,\nthrough self-control, she gets thin.\n\nIf too thin, she is not pretty.  At present she has a crazy sort\nof idea that to be \"skinny\" is to be attractive.  That is a\npassing delusion.  In the long run women realize that there is\nnothing beautiful about a female living skeleton, and they strive\nthrough normal living to become normal.\n\nAbove all, no woman can have a good complexion unless she have\ngood health and live normally.  This one absorbing question of\ncomplexion does more for woman's health; it gives us more strong\nmothers, and more sensible girls, than all the preachings,\nbeseechings, prayers and expostulations of all the world's male\nadvisers.\n\nA woman's instinct is to eat buckwheat cakes, adding boiling hot\ncoffee and iced water.  She likes to eat candy between meals, and\nher idea of a fine luncheon is lobster salad and ice cream.  But\nsmall spots appear.  Those fine pink cheeks get too pink or too\npale, and sensible eating is adopted as a life rule.\n\nEven the hideous corset squeezing is counteracted by the power of\ncomplexion.  Woman likes to look like a wasp, and if she could\nshe would move her poor system all out of place for the sake of a\nwaist hideously small.\n\nBut, providentially, a waist squeezed too mercilessly gives a\nbright pink tip to the end of the nose; and for the sake of the\ncolor of that nose-tip the poor waist gets a rest--the corset is\nlet out.\n\nIt cannot be denied that among idle, nervous women to-day there\nis a tendency to take stimulants to excess, and even to smoke\nabominable cigarettes.\n\nAlcohol, fortunately, ruins the complexion.  And for the sake of\ntheir looks women often deny themselves and show a strength of\nresolution that would not be called forth by any moral appeal.\n\nCigarettes in short order make the face sallow, spoil the shape\nof the mouth, make the eyes heavy, fill the hair with permanently\nunpleasant nicotine suggestions, develop a mustache--and women\nare cured of cigarette smoking by a look in the glass, when they\ncould not be cured by tearful appeals of the wisest philosophers.\n\n----\n\nDo not, therefore, O men, despise the vanity of women.  Praise\nand cherish it rather.  Be grateful that nature works in a\nwonderful way through the power of attraction, making woman do\nfor good looks' sake that which is most important to her welfare.\n\nIf you want to cure your wife or some other female relative of\nlacing, don't moralize.  Say to her six or seven times:\n\n\"Isn't the end of your nose a little red?\"\n\nShould she act in any way unwisely, staying up too late, living\nfoolishly, trying the silly and unwomanly habit of cigarette\nsmoking, don't criticise the habit.\n\nCriticise her complexion, or the look of her eyes, or her general\nlack of youthfulness.  She will soon be cured, if you can follow\nthis advice astutely.\n\n\n\nTO EDITORIAL WRITERS--ADOPT RUSKIN'S MAIN IDEA\n\nHis pen is rust, his bones are dust (or soon will be), his\nsoul is with the saints, we trust.\n\nRuskin is to be buried in Westminster Abbey.  It is a fine home\nfor a dead man, with Chatham and his great son Pitt in one tomb,\nand the other great skeletons of a great race mouldering side by\nside so neighborly.\n\nThe death of a wolf means a meal for the other wolves.  The death\nof a great man means a meal--mental instead of physical--for\nthose left behind.  Wolves feed their STOMACHS--we feed our\nBRAINS--on the dead.\n\nThere is many a meal for the hungry brain in Ruskin's remains.\nWe offer now a light breakfast to that galaxy of American talent\ncalled \"editorial writers.\"\n\nEditorial writing may be defined in general as \"the art of saying\nin a commonplace and inoffensive way what everybody knew long\nago.\"  There are a great many competent editorial writers, and\nthe bittern carrying on his trade by the side of some swamp is\nabout as influential as ten ordinary editorial writers rolled\ninto one.\n\nWhy is it that we are so worthless, O editorial writers?  Why\ndo we produce such feeble results?  Why do we talk daily through\nour newspapers to ten millions of people and yet have not\ninfluence to elect a dog catcher?\n\nSimply because we want to sound wise, when that is impossible.\nSimply because we are foolish enough to think that commonplaces\npassed through our commonplace minds acquire some new value.  We\nstart off with a wrong notion.  We think that we are going to\nlead, that we are going to remedy, that we are going to DO THE\nPUBLIC THINKING FOR THE PUBLIC.\n\nSad nonsense.  The best that the best editorial writer can\nachieve is to make the reader think for himself.  At this point\nwe ask our fellow editorial men--our superiors, of course--to\nadopt Ruskin's idea of a useful writer.\n\nIn a letter to Mrs. Carlyle, written when he was a young man, he\noutlined the purpose which he carried out, and which explains his\nusefulness to his fellow-men:\n\n\"I have a great hope of disturbing the public peace in various\ndirections.\"\n\nThis was his way of saying that he hoped to stir up\ndissatisfaction, to provoke irritation, impatience and a\ndetermination to do better among the unfortunate.  He did good,\nbecause he awoke thought in thousands of others, in millions of\nothers.\n\nEditorial writers, don't you know that stirring up\ndissatisfaction is the greatest work you can do?\n\nTell the poor man ten thousand times:\n\n\"There is no reason why you should be overworked.  There is no\nreason why your children should be half-fed and half-educated.\nThere is no reason why you should sweat to fatten others.\"\n\nTell them this often enough, stir up their determination\nsufficiently--they will find their own remedies.\n\nIf you want to drive out the handful of organized rogues that\ncontrol politics and traffic in votes, don't talk smooth\nplatitudes.  Tell the people over and over again that the thieves\nARE thieves, that they should be in jail, that honest government\nwould mean happier citizens, that the INDIVIDUAL CITIZEN is\nresponsible.  Keep at it, and the country will be made better by\nthose who alone can make it better--the people. ----\n\nOn the front platform a fat policeman said, after deep thought:\n\n\"Well, it's an ill wind that blows nobody good.\"\n\nThe driver, this writer and an Italian workman looked at the\npoliceman in deep admiration.  It was so evident that he had the\nmaking in him of an expensive editorial writer.  He could say so\nsolemnly and authoritatively what every living man knew by heart.\n\nSuppose you stop spouting platitudes, editorial gentlemen, and\ntry your hand at stirring up plain, everyday antagonism to\nexisting false conditions.  \"Disturb the public peace,\" as Ruskin\nput it.  You must know that you can't win the fights\nindividually, so be like the Norse maidens that stirred up the\nreal fighters to do their duty.  Keep singing to the public that\nit is their duty to fight.  They will fight and win, and thank\nyou for the suggestion.\n\n\n\nIMAGINATION WITHOUT DREAMING THE SECRET OF MATERIAL SUCCESS\n\n\"Marconi has imagination without being a dreamer.\"\n\nThus Mr. Serviss gave an explanation of material achievement and\nmaterial success on big lines.\n\nWITHOUT imagination a man may prosper relatively.  He may live\ncomfortably and die contented.\n\nBut at best such a man will only follow in beaten paths.  He will\nonly do what others have done before him.\n\nHe will not receive any of the great rewards which humanity\noffers to those whose IMAGINATION opens for the benefit of all\nnew fields of thought, of successful material effort.  ----\n\nIn material achievement there are two elements--executive force\n(which may be sub-divided into an indefinite number of\nclassifications) and the great creative power, IMAGINATION.\n\nImagination enabled Marconi to see the possibility of sending\nelectric messages without wires.\n\nHad he been a dreamer, had he allowed his imagination to wander\non indefinitely into notions of talking to other planets, the\npower of his imagination might have been in vain.\n\nHis imagination enabled him to SEE the possibility, and the\nlack of the dreamer's quality enabled him to REALIZE it.\n\nThere were many men centuries ago who, in an abstract kind of\nway, knew that the earth was round.  Their imaginations led them\nto the discovery of facts--and long before Galileo's recantation\nmany men knew vaguely the truth of what he taught.\n\nIt took Galileo, a man of great imagination, not a dreamer, to\ndemonstrate his truth to all the world.\n\nIt took Columbus, with imagination and courage, but none of the\ndreamer about him, to sail around the world to America and prove\npractically what is now known to every child.\n\nWherever you see great material success on a new line, you see\nimagination without dreaming.  It took real power of imagination\nin Rockefeller to conceive and execute the construction of the\nStandard Oil monopoly.\n\nIt took the financial imagination of Morgan to conceive the idea\nof taking $500,000,000 worth of steel mills and welding them into\nthe Steel Trust--no dreamer could have done this thing.\n\nMany a dreamer had foreseen the steam engine, the steamboat and\nother great inventions, without result.  At the right moment\na man of imagination like Fulton came along and did the actual\nwork that the dreamer could not do.\n\nIf you want to succeed in the world, cultivate your imagination.\nAnd if you want your children to succeed encourage them in the\ndevelopment of their imaginations.\n\nBut let your imaginings and the imaginings of your children stop\nthis side of dreamland.\n\nYour brain's activity is divided into the conscious and\nsub-conscious departments.  The conscious side of your mentality\nputs you into communication with the world, enables you to meet\nand to cope with conditions and individuals.\n\nIf you are to succeed materially the conscious mind must control,\ndirect and limit the activities of the sub-conscious mind with\nwhich the imagination does its work.\n\nIf your sub-conscious brain, in the departments of abstract\nthought, imagination and dreaming, be allowed to run away with\nthe practical side, you may be a very great man in the\nfar-distant future, but you may be sure that you will not succeed\nnow.  ----\n\nTHE EARTH'S GREATEST MEN ARE DREAMERS.\n\nThe world never recognizes these dreamers.  The successful man\nadmits limitations.  He accepts conditions as they are.  He uses\nhis imagination only as long as it can carry him to individual\nsuccess and comfort.\n\nBut the very greatest spirits among men are the spirits of\ndreamers.\n\nThese are the men who refuse to acknowledge any limitations save\nthe limitations of absolute truth and of absolute possibility.\n\nWhen nine-tenths of human beings were slaves, these dreamers\nrefused to recognize slavery, and they died for their belief.\nEvery man who led a great moral reform ahead of his time was a\ndreamer.  And these dreamers, whose lives are scattered through\nhistory, each a tragedy and each a milestone on the path of\ncivilization, did for civilization what a frontiersman does for a\nnew country.\n\nJesus Christ was a dreamer.  He saw the truth and preached it,\nalthough it meant death, and He knew that it meant death.  The\nbrotherhood that He preached nineteen hundred years ago has not\nyet been realized, but it WILL be realized in His name, and\nHis teachings and His death will be eternal factors in its\nrealization.\n\nSlowly through the centuries the men of imagination who do not\ndream are working and striving, each doing his little part to\nrealize the prophecies of the Great Dreamer.\n\nEach compared to Him is as a tiny tallow dip compared to the\nnoonday sun, but each is necessary.\n\n\n\nTHE ONE WHO NEEDS NO STATUE\n\nA movement is started in Italy to celebrate religiously the close\nof the nineteenth century.\n\nThe idea is to erect at different points on the Peninsula\nnineteen colossal statues of Christ.  The statues, one for each\ncentury, are to be of cast-iron, gilded, heroic in size.\n\nThere can be no objection to the idea, since it gives expression\nto proper religious feeling.  But should it fail of execution,\nthat would be quite as well.  ----\n\nFor one Man only in all the history of the world no statue is\nneeded.  To the glory of one Man we can add nothing save through\nobedience to the laws which He brought on earth.  ----\n\nWhere a weak woman is kindly treated, where children are received\nwith tenderness, where the hungry are fed and the old cared for,\nthere is a monument to Christ--such a monument as He would ask to\nhave built.\n\nThe wisdom of Confucius, the self-abnegation of Gautama, the\nlofty idealism of Zoroaster, may be fitly commemorated and\nperhaps magnified by human monuments or human praise.\n\nBut men can build nothing that shall add to the glory of that\nlife which is the basis of good among all men.\n\n\n\nTHE VAST IMPORTANCE OF SLEEP\n\nMIschievous stories are told about the ability of great men to do\nwithout sleep.\n\nThe foolish young man reads that Napoleon slept only three or\nfour hours at night--and he cuts down his hours of sleep.  He\nmight better open a vein and lose a pint of blood than lose the\nsleep, which is life itself.\n\nMost of the stories told about great men doing without sleep are\nmere lies.  Some of them are true.  For instance, it is\nundoubtedly true that Napoleon--an inconceivably foolish,\nreckless man in matters affecting his physical welfare--did\ndeprive himself of sleep in his early years.  But he paid for it\ndearly.  In his last battles his power of resistance was so\nslight that he actually went to sleep during the fighting.\nChronic drowsiness weakened his brain, weakened his force of\ncharacter.  The foundation of his final ruin was laid in Russia,\nwhen lack of sleep, and unwise living generally, had taken away\nhis mental elasticity and deprived him of the power to form and\ncarry out resolutions.  ----\n\nIt is mainly the young man who needs the lecture on sleep, for\nthe experience of years soon proves to every human being the\nfolly of cheating nature by adding a few hours of drowsy\nconsciousness to the day.\n\nYou begin life with a certain amount of vitality, a certain\ninitial vital VELOCITY, which carries you through life and\nmakes possible certain accomplishments.  When you deprive\nyourself of sleep you squander this original capital.  Just as\nsurely as the young spendthrift ruins himself financially when he\nthrows away his money, just so surely you bring irreparable loss\nupon yourself when you go without sleep.\n\nTHE FOOD WHICH YOU EAT IS DIGESTED AND TRANSFORMED INTO NEW\nTISSUE, INTO BLOOD, NERVE, MUSCLES AND BRAIN WHILE YOU ARE\nSLEEPING.\n\nLook at the men who engage in the atrocious six-day walks and\nbicycle races.  They eat enormously, absorbing in one day five\ntimes as much as the ordinary man can possibly swallow.  But the\nend of their task finds them extremely emaciated.  Lack of sleep\nhas made it impossible for them to TRANSFORM THE FOOD INTO NEW\nTISSUE.\n\nAny man or woman who has suffered from insomnia will confirm this\nstatement, that lack of sleep decreases weight and diminishes\nvitality more quickly than anything else.  ----\n\nRemember this when you brag foolishly about going without sleep!\n\nA man can go forty days without solid food.  He can live seven\ndays, or even longer, without food or water.  He cannot live\nseven days without sleep.  The Chinese, ingenious in torments,\ndiscovered no worse death than killing their victims by\ndepriving them of sleep.\n\nOf course, every young man can go without sleep for a whole night\noccasionally and go on with his work.  He can do this because,\nfrom his father and mother, he has inherited a certain amount of\nvitality, which, if he knows no better, he can squander stupidly,\njust as he can squander, if he will, what money is left to him.\n\nBut no man can deprive himself of sleep, or sleep irregularly,\nwithout suffering permanently, without diminishing his chances of\nsuccess in the world.  ----\n\nMany a woman among those called \"fashionable\" looks at the\nhealthy child of a gardener, and wonders that her child is so\ndifferent.\n\nThe reason is simple.  The gardener's wife did not cheat her\nchild by giving to balls and late hours the vitality needed by\nher babies.\n\nThe woman who loses sleep will make a failure of her children.\n\nThe man who loses sleep will make a failure of his life, or at\nleast diminish greatly his chances of success.\n\n\n\nWOMAN SUSTAINS, GUIDES AND CONTROLS THE WORLD\n\nOf all events here on earth, the greatest is the birth of a baby.\n\nGreat battles are fought, won and lost.  Nations and religions\nrise and fall.  Great cities flourish to-day, and to-morrow the\nsand lies heavy over them.  And of all these events the eternal\nNiagara of new babies is the first and essential foundation.\n\nHe knows little of real life, its greatest happiness, deepest\ndevotion, intensest suffering, who has never witnessed the\narrival of a new human being in this life of progress and\nstruggle.\n\nThere lies the new baby at last, its black face gradually turning\npink, its first gasping breaths changing the color of its blood,\nits tiny fists opening and closing--reaching out for nourishment\nalready, its face tying itself into the first philosophical,\ncosmos-interrogating knot.  Its feet turn inward and its legs are\ncrooked.  Its head is so shapeless as to discourage any one but a\nmother; it has three years of gurgling, ten years of childhood,\nten years of foolishness, ten years of vanity--and possibly a\nfew years of real usefulness ahead of it.\n\nSome one must be patient, hopeful, interested, proud, never\ndiscouraged, always devoted, through all these years.\n\nThat \"some one,\" the mother, lies there weak and white on the\nbed.\n\nHer forehead and all her body are wet with agony--but she thinks\nno longer of that.\n\nShe has heard her baby's first cry, and whether it be her first\nor her tenth, the feeling is the same.  Her feeble, outstretched\narms and her hollow, loving eyes are turned toward the helpless\nlittle creature.\n\nThose arms and that love will never desert it as long as the\nmother shall live.\n\nThe mother's weak hand supports the heavy, dull baby head and\nguides it to its rest on her breast.\n\nAnd that hand which supports the head of the new-born baby, the\nmother's hand, supports the civilization of the world.\n\n\n\nTHE STORY OF THE COMPLAINING DIAMOND\n\nThe Rev. David James Burrell, in \"A Quiver of Arrows,\" presents\na very interesting parable on the benefit of trials.\n\nHere is the parable:\n\nTrials are profitable.\n\nThe rough diamond cried out under the blow of the lapidary:\n\"I am content; let me alone.\"\n\nBut the artisan said, as he struck another blow:\n\n\"There is the making of a glorious thing in thee.\"\n\n\"But every blow pierces my heart.\"\n\n\"Ay; but after a little it shall work for thee a far more\nexceeding weight of glory.\"\n\n\"I cannot understand,\" as blow fell upon blow, \"why I should\nsuffer in this way.\"\n\n\"Wait; what thou knowest not now, thou shalt know hereafter.\"\n\nAnd out of all this came the famous Koh-i-noor to sparkle in the\nmonarch's crown.  ----\n\nThere is a lesson in the story of the diamond for every man, and\nthere is an ESPECIALLY good lesson for the young man who is\nsucceeding too fast.\n\nThat diamond became the extraordinarily beautiful stone that we\nread about, and that many of us would foolishly like to own,\nbecause of the trials through which it passed.\n\nWe do not mean to suggest that men, to succeed, should\nNECESSARILY undergo repeated poundings and hammerings,\nalthough, as a matter of fact, the really great men of the world\nhave undergone such grinding and polishing and hard knocks as no\ndiamond was ever submitted to.  But we do say distinctly that\nalmost every man needs in the course of his life a FIRST-CLASS\nFAILURE.\n\nNo man is more unfortunate than he who succeeds too quickly and\ntoo easily.  His success makes him exaggerate his own importance\nand ability.  It makes him underestimate the strength of those\nwho compete with him, and the difficulty of winning in the long\nrun.\n\nThe world is full of all kinds of disappointed beings--artists,\nwriters, business men--workers of all sorts, who lead\ndisappointed lives.\n\nOf these men, a great many started out hopefully and promisingly.\n\nBut fate failed to do for them the work of the polishing lapidary\nthat we all need.\n\nThey succeeded too soon, they made money too easily, they rose\ntoo suddenly.\n\nFailure at the right time would have made them think, work and do\nbetter.  But failure came too late, and when the energy to fight\nand overcome was no longer there.\n\nIf every young man who thinks well of himself will realize that\nhe mistakes good fortune for great ability, and that the failure\nthat has been put off will come sooner or later, unless he\nthinks of it and struggles to improve himself in spite of\nsuccess, many disappointments will be saved in the future.\n\nDiscount your failure.  Don't wait for it to discount you.\n\n\n\nDON'T BE IN A HURRY, YOUNG GENTLEMEN\n\nThere are many young men on earth who fail because they lack\nambition and determination to advance.  There are many more whose\ntrouble is hasty ambition.  They fail to realize their present\nchances in their hurried reaching out for something better.  You\nmay see in any club, pool-room or other resort for wasting time\ncrowds of young men smoking and deploring their lack of success.\n\n\"I've been working three years at the same job and the same\nsalary,\" one will say, \"and I don't see what chance I have for\ngetting ahead.\"\n\nThe young man who talks in this way does not realize that success\ndepends on developing the qualities which are in him.  He can\ndevelop them if he will, no matter what his place in the world.\nOnce he is ready to do good work, once he is developed, the work\nwill find him out.  ----\n\nWhen Napoleon Bonaparte was resting from his labors at St. Helena\nhe used to tell this story:\n\n\"One day on parade a young lieutenant stepped out of the ranks\nmuch excited to appeal to me personally.  He said to me that he\nhad been a lieutenant for five years and had not been able to\nadvance in rank.  I said to him, 'Calm yourself.  I was seven\nyears a lieutenant, and yet you see that a man may push himself\nforward, for all that.' \" ----\n\nNapoleon, when he preached this lesson to the young, dissatisfied\nofficer, was the self-made Emperor of the French and of a great\nmany other nations.  He had come to Paris a thin, hollow-cheeked,\nunder-sized boy from the conquered and despised island of\nCorsica.  He stuck in the humble grade of lieutenant for seven\nyears.  When the time came he blossomed out.\n\nWhen he was lieutenant he was developing himself.  He studied and\nmastered the art of war.  He wrote the history of Corsica, and no\none would publish it.  He wrote a drama which was never acted.\nHe wrote a prize essay for the Academy of Lyons, and did not win\nthe prize.  On the contrary, his effort was condemned as\nincoherent and poor in style.  These were a few failures; enough\nto make your ordinary young man throw up his hands and say:\n\"I've done all I can do; now let the world look out for me.\"\n\nJust as he became hopeful about the future when he knew that he\nhad real military genius, he was dismissed from the army, and his\ncareer seemed to be ended.  He made the thin soup upon which he\nand his brother lived.  He could afford to change his shirt only\nonce a week.  He said:\n\n\"I breakfasted off dry bread, but I bolted the door on my\npoverty.\"\n\nHe kept at it, and all the time, successful or otherwise, he was\ndeveloping himself.  He developed into an emperor.  Young men\nwill please notice that fact, and the fact that Napoleon worked\nand tried under adversity and monotony instead of grumbling.\n----\n\nThe newspaper reporter who does not get ahead very fast, the\nauthor whose manuscripts are treated as were Napoleon's first\nefforts, may study with considerable profit a young American\nwriter named Richard Harding Davis.  That young man had been a\nreporter in Philadelphia for seven years when he went to work on\na New York evening newspaper at a small salary.  He had written\nand was writing some of his best stories, but could not get\nahead, apparently.  Nevertheless, he kept on trying, and\ndeveloped himself.  When other young men were busy talking about\nthemselves or deploring their lot Davis was writing and grinding\naway out of working hours at the effort to get out and realize\nwhat was in him.  He succeeded.  ----\n\nA few cases have been mentioned for young men to think over.\nThey are selected at random.  No young man need worry about\nhimself so long as he can honestly say that he is doing his best.\n\nBeing in the same place at the same salary for seven years can do\nyou no harm, if you are developing during that time what is in\nyou.  But you may well worry if you are drifting aimlessly,\npitying yourself, making no effort.  If your mind stays in the\nsame spot for years, that is dangerous.  But don't worry about\nanything else.\n\n\n\nWHEN THE BABY CHANGED INTO A FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD\n\nNothing is more common than to hear men--especially great and\nmoral men--deplore the results of civilization, of mechanical,\nindustrial and scientific progress.  We quote a typical lament by\na noble and sincere man, the Reverend Charles Wagner, author of\nan admirable book called \"The Simple Life.\"  The author says:\n\n\"If it had been prophesied to the ancients that one day humanity\nwould have all of the machinery now in use to sustain and protect\nnatural existence, they would have concluded therefrom, first, an\nincrease of independence, and in the second place, a great\ndecrease in the competition for worldly possessions, They would\nhave thought that the simplification of life would have been the\nresult of such perfected means of action, that there would follow\nthe realization of a higher standard of morality.  Nothing of\nthis sort has come to pass--not happiness, nor social peace, nor\nenergy for good has increased.\"\n\nNaturally, from a superficial point of view, it is discouraging\nto see poverty, ostentation of wealth, injustice and the love of\nmoney increasing, instead of declining, with the great\ndevelopments in human power.\n\nSuppose it had been said two hundred years ago that some day one\nsingle man, with a loom, would be able to make cloth enough\nto clothe scores in one day; that a few children working in a\nstocking factory would be able to produce more stockings than a\nmillion women could knit.\n\nIt would, of course, have been prophesied that when these great\ninventions came everybody would be well clothed, every woman and\nchild would have warm stockings--and so on.\n\nBut we find, as society's powers increase, as machinery improves,\nand the means of producing and distributing wealth develop, that\nthe struggle for existence and the display of avarice are\naccentuated.\n\nThe pessimistic man, observing these conditions, is filled with\ndespair for the future of humanity.  He predicts worse and worse\ntimes ahead, while he longs for the peaceable old days before the\nsteam engine had appeared among us.  ----\n\nNow, in order to map out a parable, we must ask you to do a good\ndeal of supposing.\n\nSuppose, in place of the human race, one single human baby.\nSuppose that its mother had never seen another baby, and had no\nidea of the laws governing a baby's development.\n\nAnd suppose, as the helpless baby lay on its back in the cradle,\nwaving its arms, kicking its legs, gasping and blinking, that the\nfollowing prophecy had been made to the mother:\n\n\"Some day that baby of yours will be five feet high.  Some day it\nwill be able to walk and run, and throw stones, and carry\nweights, and fight, and do all kinds of things.\"\n\nOf course, the mother, hearing this, would have been very much\nrejoiced, saying to herself:\n\n\"My baby now is feeble and helpless, and I must watch it all the\ntime to see that it does not roll out of the cradle, or that the\ncat does not bite it.  When my baby gets to be five feet high and\nable to fight and run and jump, of course it will be free from\ndanger, it will live happily, and I shall be free from anxiety.\"\n\nNow, suppose that fourteen years have passed.  The mother has\nseen the baby grow to be five feet high and fourteen years old,\nand the prophecy is fulfilled.\n\nIs the mother happy?  She is weeping bitterly.  The baby has\ncertainly improved in its powers most wonderfully.  It can run\nand jump and fight.  As a result of its abilities, it comes back\none day with a black eye, the next day with a broken nose, the\nnext day with a sore toe.  It is always in trouble.  It has even\ndeveloped vicious traits of its own.  It tells lies, it steals,\nit is even disrespectful to its mother.\n\nYou supposed, don't forget, that this mother never saw another\nbaby, and knew nothing about the development of human beings\nalong certain lines.  Would she not be horrified at her child's\ncondition?  Would she not think it getting worse and worse,\nand that it must end horribly and tragically?  Would she not sigh\nfor the old days of the cradle, and wish that her baby might go\nback to its babyhood and live comfortably once more, on its back,\nwith its hands and feet in the air and a vacant look in its eyes?\n\n----\n\nThe human race has gone ahead, as that supposititious baby goes\nahead in fourteen years.  We have obtained many new forces, many\nnew accomplishments.  We have learned to use steam and\nelectricity, as the child learns to use its legs and its hands.\nBut, like the child of fourteen, we have not developed morally or\nmentally in proportion to our physical development.\n\nBut just as surely as the child passes on from childhood, with\nits follies, its quarrels, and its accidents, to mature,\nself-respecting manhood, just so surely will the human race go\nthrough its babyhood, through its boyhood, and on into years of\nwisdom, justice, self-control and real accomplishment.  ----\n\nAt present we are in a childish condition as a race, just about\nable to walk and run around a little.  We do not see our future\nclearly, and many of us look back regretfully to the simple days\nof industrial babyhood.\n\nBut those days can never be brought back, even if we wanted to\nbring them back.  The thing for us to do is to remember that\ngreat progress and a great future are ahead of us, and do all we\ncan to prepare for the future and hurry it along.  We should\nrefrain especially from feelings of pessimism.  We should study\nand work to control ourselves as well as we can, and look ahead\ninto the future.\n\nRemember this very true saying and apply it in your attitude\ntoward the world:\n\n\"It is not enough to believe in God; one must believe in man, in\nhumanity and its future.\"\n\n\n\nTHE EYE THAT WEIGHS A TON\n\nAll our fussing and fuming about little matters must end in time.\n\nIt is a comfort to feel sure that the time will come when\nquestions of wages, starvation, justice, supply and demand,\nfinance, and all the miserable worries of to-day, from\nPresidential elections to the digging of sewers, will be things\nof the past.\n\nHad we been intended for such things exclusively, we might as\nwell have been put in a hole in the ground or in some cool corner\nof Hades to fight out our troubles.  We should not have needed\nfor our home a beautiful globe, swinging through endless space,\nbathed in sunlight or blessed with the companionship of other\nsuns and planets whirling with us on mysterious errands.\n\nMan's work of to-day--the fighting, the sweating, the starving,\nthe cheating and lying, the miserable births and the dull,\nstupid, monotonous living--will end soon.  Real HUMAN life\nwill dawn and end the period of savage life.\n\nControl of nature's forces will supply every man with what he\nneeds to keep his body alive, his soul and his brain free from\ncare.\n\nThen men will cease their animal lives, cease eating to live and\nliving to eat.  They will live to think.  The brain, which\ndifferentiates them from the animals, will give the real interest\nto their lives.  Mental work--art, science and things worth\nwhile--will occupy them.  ----\n\nDoes it not seem probable that when the day of organized life\ncomes our chief interest will be the study of the universe--the\nother worlds outside of our own?\n\nThe great man will be he whose genius shall cross interstellar\nspace as Columbus crossed the ocean.  The great newspaper editor\nwill be the first to get a signed statement from Mars.\n\nThe discoverer of that day will get from some older planet\ninformation millions of years ahead of our own.\n\nAs the dull mind of the field-plodder now looks toward the great\ncities--toward the vast movement outside his own little life--so\nshall men look away from this little, limited, but by that time\nwell regulated, planet, to the mysteries and the grandeurs of the\nworlds outside.\n\nLife will be complete in those coming days.  Men will look back\nwith pity to the time when they quarreled about little metal\nmoney tokens, locked each other up in jail, or choked each other\nto death legally.\n\nLet us hope and believe that we may come back then to share the\npleasure of the world's mature days, since we are sentenced to\nexist here to-day in the greasy, clammy period of struggle and\nhalf-bakedness.  ----\n\nWhile the infant sits drawing milk, with never a dream of solid\nfood, the teeth are growing beneath its gums.  And while we crawl\naround here now, with no conception of our future state, some of\nthe forces at work among us are preparing for the days when real\nlife shall begin.  Among these forces you may count the\nconstructors of the great cosmic eye--the huge telescope that is\nnow building in Paris.  Compared with all other exhibits at the\nParis Fair, that great instrument will be as a giant among\nbabies, a Corliss engine among children's toys.\n\nIt is the precursor of the great instruments which in the future\nwill take man on his travels through space.  Imperfect as it is,\nit fills the mind with awe and the imagination with delight.\n----\n\nThink of the great celestial eye, flint and crown glass lenses\nmore than four feet in diameter, weighing a ton, and suspended at\nthe end of a tube one hundred feet long! It will reach out\nthousands of billions of miles into space, giving us, perhaps,\nnew secrets of the universe.  Yet it is but a child's toy\ncompared to the instruments which must follow it.\n\nAnd you who read this, if your mind is fresh and your imagination\nnot jaded, may be the man who shall add to the power of this\ninstrument as Galileo added to that given to the world by\nLippershey, the humble Dutchman.\n\nWe invite the young American of ambition to study this latest\nproof of man's growing skill, and see whether he can imagine\nanything to add to it.  ----\n\n\"I have not seen it\" say you.  If you are the right man, you do\nnot need to SEE it.  Galileo only HEARD of Lippershey's\ndiscovery.  He thought hard on the problems of refraction for one\nnight, and as a result produced a telescope capable of magnifying\nthreefold.  He finally produced a telescope of thirty-two-fold\npower.\n\nThis French telescope magnifies six thousand times, but it is\nonly a baby telescope, full of faults.  It is rendered imperfect\nby the wavy motion of the air, which affects our sight just as\nthe motion of the waves affects the sight of a fish.  It lacks\nany adequate arrangement for light supply.  The great trouble of\nthe astronomer is the getting of more light in his telescopes.\nYou may be the man to tell him how to do it without adding to the\ndiameter of his object glass.\n\nAnyhow, think about the big telescope.  If it does not make you\nan astronomer or a great inventor, it may stir up your brain to\nthe pitch of inventing a really good chicken coop.  That is still\nlacking, and in great demand.\n\n\n\nWHAT ANIMAL CONTROLS YOUR SPIRIT?\n\nOf all animals upon earth man came last.\n\nAll of earth's animal creations are bound up in man.\n\nAs to the first statement there is no difference of opinion.\n\nThe Bible and Darwin agree that man was created last of all the\nanimals.\n\nVery superficial observation will convince you that man contains\nin his mental make-up all of the \"inferior\" animals, or at least\na great many of them.\n\nYou, Mr. Jones, or Smith, who read this are in your single self\na sort of synthesis of the entire animal creation.\n\nIf you could be divided into your component animal parts there\nwould be a menagerie in your house, and you, Smith or Jones,\nwould be missing.  That thing we call a \"soul\" would be floating\naround, impalpable, looking for its house to live in.  ----\n\nOf course, you can see the animal make-up in your neighbor more\nreadily than in yourself.\n\nHow do men describe each other?  Do they not speak as follows,\nand mean exactly what they say\n\n\"He is as sly as a fox.\"\n\n\"He eats like a pig.\"\n\n\"He has dog-like faithfulness.\"\n\n\"He is as brave as a lion.\"\n\n\"He is as treacherous as a snake.\"\n\n\"He was as hungry as a wolf,\" etc.  ----\n\nOur good and our bad qualities alike are mapped out in our humble\nanimal relations.\n\nThe horse stands for ambition, which strives and suffers in\nsilence.  The dog represents friendship, which suffers and\nsacrifices much, but whines loudly when injured.\n\nWe have no doubt that of the twelve passions which enter into\nFourier's complex analysis of man each has its prototype in some\none animal.  ----\n\nTo rebel at the animal combination which makes up a man would be\nfolly.\n\nThe Maker of us all, from ants to anti-imperialists, naturally\ngathered together the various parts in lower animal form before\nfinishing the work in man.\n\nA harmoniously balanced mixture of all the animals is calculated\nundoubtedly to produce the perfect man.  ----\n\nTherefore, study your animal make-up.  Analyze honestly and\nintelligently the so-called \"lower\" creatures from whom you\nderive your mental characteristics.  If you have not yet done so,\nstudy at once some good work on embryology, and learn with\namazement and awe of your marvelous transformations before birth.\n\nThen do your best to control the menagerie that is at work in\nyour mind.\n\nStultify Mr. Pig, if he is too prominent.  Circumvent Mr. Fox,\nif he tries to rule you and make of you a mere cunning machine.\nDo not let your Old Dog Tray qualities of friendship lead to your\nbeing made a fool.\n\nIn short, study carefully the animal qualities that make up your\ntemperament and prove in your own person the falseness of\nNapoleon's irritating statement that a man's temperament can\nnever be changed by himself.  ----\n\nIt may interest you to note that when man becomes insane, the\nfact is at once made apparent that his mind, dethroned, had acted\nas the ruler of a savage menagerie.  Many crazy men imagine\nthemselves animals of one sort or another.  Nearly all of them\ndisplay the grossest animal qualities, once their mind is\nderanged.  Women of the greatest refinement sink into dreadful\nanimalism when insane.  Heine tells of a constable who, in his\nboyhood, ruled his native city.  One fine day \"this constable\nsuddenly went crazy, * * * and thereupon he began to roar like a\nlion or squall like a cat.\"\n\nHeine remarks with calculated naivete:  \"We little boys\nwere greatly delighted at the old fellow, and trooped, yelling,\nafter him until he was carried off to a madhouse.\"\n\nThere is, by the way, much of the natural animal in \"little\nboys.\" It takes years to make a fairly reasonable creature of a\nyoung human.  For that reason many ignorant parents are foolishly\ndistressed at juvenile displays of animalism, which are perfectly\nnatural.  ----\n\nThe same Heine, whose writings you ought not to neglect,\ndescribes beautifully a human menagerie.  We'll quote that, and\nthen let you off for the day.  Heine was living in Paris in the\nforties, and used to visit a curious revolutionary freak named\nLudwig Borne.  Of this man's house Heine wrote:\n\n\"I found in his salon such a menagerie of people as can hardly be\nfound in the Jardin des Plantes (the Paris zoological garden).\nIn the background several polar bears were crouching, who smoked\nand hardly ever spoke, except to growl out now and then a real\nfatherland 'Donnerwetter' in a deep bass voice.  Near them was\nsquatting a Polish wolf in a red cap, who occasionally yelped out\na silly, wild remark in a hoarse tone.  There, too, I found a\nFrench monkey, one of the most hideous creatures I ever saw; he\nkept up a series of grimaces, each of which seemed more lovely\nthan the last,\" etc.\n\nIf Heine's polar bears, wolf and monkey had studied themselves,\nas we advise you to study yourself, they might have escaped the\nsarcasm of the sharpest tongue ever born in or out of Germany.\n\n\n\nFROM MAMMOTHS TO MOSQUITOES --FROM MURDER TO HYPOCRISY\n\nYou are standing with this writer on the edge of a stagnant pool\nin Northern Europe, fifty thousand years ago.\n\nThe trees are strange, the life is strange.  There are certain\nfamiliar things visible.  For instance, on one side of the pool\nthere is an angry mammoth, with long hair and long tusks.\n\nHe is a huge, savage beast, monster of power with tiny, vicious\neyes, and a curled trunk of unlimited force.\n\nYou recognize his resemblance to the modern elephant, and you\nfeel at home.\n\nIn the middle of the pool, standing up to his waist in water,\nthere is another queer creature.  He has long, red hair, and\nthrough his lips you can see that in his rage he is grinding a\nlarge set of teeth with the canine incisors abnormally developed.\n\nHe is a shaggy, savage-looking brute, with a bloody and an\napprehensive eye.  You will recognize him as a human being.\n\nAs he stands in the pool there is a familiar slap of his right\nhand on the back of his left shoulder--he has killed a mosquito.\n\nThat is the picture.  We leave the mammoth, primitive man and the\nmosquito to settle their troubles.\n\nWe call your attention to this.  If you really witnessed that\nscene you would have undoubtedly said to the red-eyed savage in\nthe pool:\n\n\"My friend, you can kill that mosquito easily, and possibly in\ntime you will kill all the mosquitoes.  But that MAMMOTH is a\nproblem that you will not solve for a long time, if ever.\"\n\nHad you known that the red-eyed human animal in the middle of the\npool was sent there by Providence to regulate the globe,\ncultivate it, destroy the noxious forms of animal life, etc., you\nwould certainly have believed that that person would have got rid\nof the mosquitoes long before getting rid of the mammoth.\n\nAs a matter of fact, the mammoth has gone, the woolly rhinoceros\nof Northern Europe has gone, the sabre-toothed tiger prowls no\nmore.  Even wolves have disappeared, and the mosquito is still\nflourishing in his millions and billions.\n\nWe have only just learned that it is he who gives us malaria,\nthat it is he who spreads yellow fever and undoubtedly many other\ndiseases.\n\nThe human race, which in its earliest, incapable childhood easily\nmanaged to dispose of the mammoth and his huge fellow-monsters,\nstill stands helpless before the little mosquito, deadliest of\nVISIBLE animals on earth.\n\nIs it not interesting to realize that the hardest work of the\nhuman race, as of the individual, is the most minute work; that\nthe intellect, which easily copes with the heaviest and the\nbiggest problems, is baffled by the tiniest?\n\nUltimately, and perhaps soon, we shall send the mosquito, the\nhouse-fly and the other buzzing pirates to join in the grave's\nsilence their big brothers--the mastodon and the rest.\n\nThen our fight will begin against invisible animal life, against\nthe actual microbes of disease which the mosquito has been\ncarrying around and injecting into us.  It is a long fight, but,\nof course, we shall win it.  ----\n\nAnd is it not interesting, also, to reflect that in the moral, as\nin the physical, battles of life man requires the longest time to\ndeal with his smallest enemies?\n\nMorally we are still primitive savages.  We are still combating\nmurder, arson, theft--like the cave-dweller fighting the\nphysical mammoth, we are fighting the mammoths of moral\ndeformity.\n\nEventually they will disappear.  Murder will be unknown, and\ntheft, rendered unnecessary by decent social organization, will\nhave disappeared also.\n\nAt that time we shall be fighting the smaller and more dangerous,\nmore elusive and more persistent moral troubles--HYPOCRISY,\nCONCEIT, UNCHARITABLENESS.  These are the mosquitoes and flies\nof the world of immorality that will pursue us when the big\nfellows--murder and theft--shall have been killed off.\n\n\n\nTHE MONKEY AND THE SNAKE FIGHT\n\nWe wish to tell you of the monkey and the snake fight, described\nby a witness in the Lahore Tribune.  ----\n\nBefore men arrived on earth, when all the animals were racing for\nsupremacy, the monkey seemed to have the smallest chance.  No one\nwould have guessed that the descendants of this feeble,\ndefenseless little brute would eventually rule the earth, killing\noff tigers, lions and the other huge monsters at pleasure.\n\nWe have before called your attention in this column to the fact\nthat the monkey, or some animal like him, had the honor of\ncontributing our proud human services as the world's rulers\nBECAUSE HE COULD USE HIS BRAIN.\n\nThat fight between the monkey and the cobra illustrates this\nquite clearly.\n\nThe monkey was a little monkey, with scarcely enough muscle to\nstrangle a hen.\n\nHis little black finger-nails could hurt nobody.  His teeth were\nfit only to nibble fruit or to chatter in rage at his fellow\nmonkeys.\n\nThis monkey had the misfortune to annoy a huge cobra.\n\nMr. Cobra is the most dangerous, the most formidably armed, of\nall living animals.  He is a solid mass of muscle, gifted with\nlightning speed.  The slightest touch of his fangs means death.\n\nThe brain of the cobra is about as big as a mustard seed.  The\nbrain of the monkey--even a small one--is several hundred times\nas big as the brain of the largest snake.  We refer to the\ncerebrum, the front brain, which does the thinking.\n\nThe monkey annoyed the snake, and the snake chased him.  Mr.\nMonkey, shrieking and chattering, rushed over the ground until he\ncame to a rock.  He stood still in front of the rock.\n\nThe snake dashed its head at him to annihilate him; the monkey\njumped to one side and let the snake beat its head against the\nrock.\n\nOver and over, this operation was repeated, the monkey with\nlightning speed avoiding the dart of the snake, and the snake,\nwith never-ending stupidity, dashing its head against the rock.\n\nEventually the powerful, dangerous snake was stretched out at\nfull length, bleeding and tired out.\n\nThe monkey was not bleeding and not tired.  He was extremely\ncheerful.  He seized the snake by the neck, just back of the\nhead, and placidly proceeded to rub its head off on the stone.\n\nWhen he had rubbed the head to a pulp.  incidentally destroying\nits primitive brain, he left the dead snake lying there, and\ngratefully accepted the Indian corn and sugar-cane donated by\nthe admiring humans-his relatives-who had witnessed his\nperformance.  ----\n\nThe monkey used his brain--the snake did not.\n\nThe monkey did not say, but he might as well have said:\n\n\"You need not wonder that my half-sister, Eve, crushed the\nserpent's head.  We monkeys and humans have soft hands and no\npoison sacs, but WE KNOW HOW TO MAKE OUR BRAINS WORK, and\nthat means that we rule creation.\"\n\n\n\nTOO LITTLE AND TOO MUCH\n\nHere is a quotation from a very wise person called Aristotle.\n\nThis Greek philosopher was the teacher of Alexander the Great,\nand incidentally he has been the teacher of millions of men since\nhe began to talk philosophy, more than twenty centuries ago.\n\n\"First of all, we must observe that in all these matters of\nhuman action the too little and the too much are alike ruinous,\nas we can see (to illustrate the spiritual by the natural)\nin the case of strength and health.  Too much and too little\nexercise alike impair the strength, and too much meat and drink\nand too little both alike destroy the health, but the  fitting\namount produces and preserves them....  So, too, the man who\ntakes his fill of every pleasure and abstains from none becomes a\nprofligate; while he who shuns all becomes stolid and\ninsusceptible.\"\n\nThe next time you fall into a philosophical mood, and begin\nreviewing the causes of your troubles, see if you can't find some\nuseful suggestion in the common-sense statement of Aristotle we\ngive today.\n\nHow about the \"too much\" of one thing and \"too little\" of\nanother?\n\nAre you quite sure that you don't do too much talking and too\nlittle thinking?\n\nAre you sure that you don't do too much drinking and playing and\nidling, and too little reading?\n\nAre you sure that you don't do too much of things you like that\ndo you no good, and too little of things that you ought to like,\nand that would help you to succeed?  ----\n\nWe believe that every one of our readers has some friend or\nbrother or son who can be really helped by the reading of this\nquotation from the old Greek wise man.\n\nYou can state to any young man or woman to whom you send this\nadvice that the man who gave it formed the character and judgment\nof Alexander, the world's most successful young man.\n\n\n\nDO YOU FEEL DISCOURAGED?\n\nA young man lost his money in stocks the other day and killed\nhimself.  Other young men lose heart when things go against them\nand drift through life helpless, useless derelicts.  Let us give\nsuch men a bit of advice:\n\nDon't let failure discourage you.  Almost all the brilliantly\nsuccessful characters of history have known early trials and\nreverses.  The great philosopher, Epictetus, was a slave.  Alfred\nthe Great wandered through the swamps as a fugitive and got\ncuffed on the ears for letting the cakes burn.  Columbus went\nfrom court to court like a beggar to try to raise money for the\ndiscovery of the New World and when he finally won the favor of\nthe Spanish Queen he was so poor that he could not go to court\nuntil Isabella had advanced him money enough to buy decent\nclothes.\n\nWhen Frederick the Great was fighting all Europe he fell into\nsuch desperate straits that he carried a bottle of poison about\nwith him as the last way of escape from his enemies.  If he had\ntaken that dose the whole history of our time would have been\ndifferent.  Instead of shaking a \"mailed fist\" at the world,\nyoung William of Hohenzollern might have been a mediatized\nprincelet on the lookout for an American heiress; there might\nnever have been a Leipzig or a Waterloo, as there certainly would\nnot have been a Sedan, and the heirs of Napoleon might now have\nbeen ruling over an empire covering all Central Europe, from\nthe Tiber to the Baltic.\n\nNobody ever had greater cause for discouragement than George\nWashington had when he led the straggling remnants of his army\nacross the Delaware in December, 1776.  But in the very darkest\nhour, when absolute ruin seemed inevitable and a British gallows\nappeared the probable ending of his career, he struck a blow that\ncleared the way to the highest place in the world's history.\n\nAndrew Jackson was born in a cabin, suffered every sort of\nadversity, lost his mother and two brothers from the sufferings\nof war, was cut with a sword for refusing to clean a British\nofficer's boots, and grew up almost without education.\n\nAbraham Lincoln, poor, ignorant, sprung from the lowliest stock,\ndeprived of all advantages for culture or for money making,\ndistressed by domestic troubles, might have had some excuse for\ndiscouragement.  But he kept on, with what results the world\nsees.\n\nIf ever there was a man who seemed doomed to failure it was U. S.\nGrant in the spring of 1861.  He had cut loose from the\nprofession for which he had been trained, and, after drifting\nfrom one occupation to another and failing in all, he was now, at\nthirty-nine years old, a clerk in a country store and unable to\nmake ends meet at that.  Three years later he was\nLieutenant-General of the armies of the United States, and five\nyears after that he was President.\n\nSolon said it was never safe to call any man happy until he was\ndead.  Unhappiness is equally uncertain.  If you are poor now you\nmay be rich to-morrow.  If you are unknown now you may be famous\nto-morrow.  If you are even in the penitentiary now you may be\nrunning a street-car system to-morrow.\n\nSo don't be discouraged if your fortunes are in temporary\neclipse.  The savage is in despair when the sun goes into the\nmoon's shadow, for he thinks that some monster has swallowed it,\nand that there will never be any daylight again.  But to the\nastronomer an eclipse is merely an interesting opportunity to\nmake scientific observations.  Be as sure of the coming of\ndaylight as the astronomer is, and your moments of darkness will\ntrouble you no more than his trouble him.\n\n\n\nTWO KINDS OF DISCONTENT\n\nEmerson says:\n\n\"Discontent is the want of self-reliance; it is infirmity of\nwill.\"\n\nAnother individual, at least as solemn if not as wise as Emerson,\nsays:\n\n\"Discontent is the foundation of all human effort.\"\n\nBoth are right, for there are two kinds of discontent.\n\nAlmost everybody is afflicted with one kind of discontent or the\nother.\n\nIt would be well for you, Mr. Reader, to decide what kind of\ndiscontent afflicts you.  If you have the wrong kind, hurry and\nget the other as fast as possible.\n\n          THE DISCONTENT THAT WHINES\n\nThis is the kind of discontent which Emerson refers to when he\nsays that \"discontent is the want of self-reliance.\"\n\nThe WHINING discontent ruins many lives; it is used as the\nexcuse for much foolish conduct, much neglect of duty.\n\nIt is the discontent which reflects the feeble soul, the\nself-indulgent, worthless being.\n\nA young man who gets drunk or dissipates otherwise, who offers as\nan excuse, \"Well, I was feeling kind of DISCONTENTED and had to\ndo something,\"  is afflicted with the wrong kind of discontent in\nits most virulent form.\n\nThe office boy with small wages who is caught smoking cigarettes,\nor evading his duties, or undermining his moral character by\ngambling, will also say, \"I was discontented and had to do\nsomething.\"\n\nIf you have THAT discontent, try to get rid of it and get the\nother kind.\n\n          THE DISCONTENT THAT MEANS AMBITION\n\nAlexander the Great lived and died discontented, but Emerson\nwould scarcely have attributed that gentleman's discontent to\nlack of self-reliance.\n\nAlexander was discontented, first, because he could not conquer\nthe whole world, and, second, because there were no others that\nhe could conquer.  He was a vast genius, almost humorous in his\nambitious discontent sometimes--especially when he looked at the\nstars and said, as alleged, that he was ashamed to look at all\nthose other worlds when he had barely conquered this one little\nworld that he lived on.\n\nIf you have in you Alexander's brand of discontent you may well\nbe grateful.\n\nYou are still more to be envied if you have the discontent which\nhas impelled thousands of great men to devote their lives\nceaselessly to the discovery of truth, working for others.  ----\n\nWhen Taglioni, the great ballet dancer, was a little girl, with\nskinny legs and a skinnier future, being extremely homely and\nwith no prospects of success, she was discontented.\n\nOther skinny-legged little ballet dancers of her class were\ndiscontented also.\n\nBut Taglioni's discontent impelled her to spend every spare\nmoment whirling on her big toe, practicing her entrechat, or\nlaboring over the art of smiling, naturally, with aching toes,\naching back, aching thighs, and solar plexus almost exhausted\nfrom the unnatural strain.\n\nThe other skinny-legged discontented ones exercised their\ndiscontent on their patient mothers, instead of exercising it on\ntheir own big toes.  THEY never were heard of, whereas Taglioni\npranced on HER big toe before every court in Europe, and her\nsmile, which ultimately became natural, attracted the opera\nglasses of all the great men.\n\nThere are thousands of young musicians, young business men, young\nsingers, young electricians--thousands and hundreds of thousands\nof human beings engaged in all kinds of effort in all directions.\n\nALL OF THEM ARE DISCONTENTED.  Those that have the right kind of\ndiscontent will go at least as far as their natural capacity can\ntake them, and those that have the wrong kind will collapse,\nachieve nothing and devote wasted lives to wasting pity on\nthemselves.  ----\n\nTry to acquire the discontent of Alexander, Carlyle, Pagallini,\nTaglioni, or even that of the honest bootblack who \"shines them\nup\" so hard that the perspiration comes through his check jumper\nin cold weather.\n\n\n\nWHAT THE BARTENDER SEES\n\nA young man with a cold face, much nervous energy and a\ntired-of-the-world expression leans over the polished,\nsilver-mounted drinking bar.\n\nYou look at him and order your drink.\n\nYou know what you think of him, and you think you know what he\nthinks of you.\n\nDid you ever stop to think of ALL THE STRANGE HUMAN BEINGS\nbesides yourself that pass before him?\n\nHe stands there as a sentinel, business man, detective, waiter,\ngeneral entertainer and host for the homeless.\n\nIn comes a young man, rather early in the day.\n\nHe is a little tired--up too late the night before.  He takes a\ncocktail.  He tells the bartender that he does not believe in\ncocktails.  He never takes them, in fact.  \"The bitters in a\ncocktail will eat a hole through a thin handkerchief--pretty bad\neffect on your stomach, eh?\" and so on.\n\nOut goes the young man with the cocktail inside of him.\n\nAnd the bartender KNOWS that that young man, with his fine\nreasonings and his belief in himself, is the confirmed drunkard\nof year after next.  He has seen the beginning of many such\ncocktail philosophers, and the ending of the same.\n\nThe way NOT to be a drunkard is never to taste spirits.  The\nbartender knows that.  But his customers do NOT know it.  ----\n\nAt another hour of the day there comes in the older man.  This\none is the fresh-faced, YOUNG oldish man.\n\nHe has small, gray side-whiskers.  He shows several people--whom\nhe does not know--his commutation ticket.\n\nHe changes his mind suddenly from whiskey to lemonade.  The\nbartender prepares the lemon slowly, and the man changes his mind\nback to whiskey.\n\nThen he tries to look more dignified than the two younger men\nwith him.  In the midst of the effort he begins to sing \"The\nHeart Bowed Down with Weight of Woe,\" and he tells the bartender\n\"that is from 'The Bohemian Girl.'\"\n\nHe sings many other selections, occasionally forgetting his\ndignity, and occasionally remembering that he is the head of a\nmost respectable home--partly paid for.\n\nThe wise man on the outside of the bar suggests that the oldish\nman will get into trouble.  But the bartender says:  \"No; he will\ngo home all right.  But he won't sing all the  way there.  About\nthe time he gets home he'll realize what money he has spent, and\nyou would not like to be his wife.\"\n\nThe bartender KNOWS that the oldish man--about fifty-one or\nfifty-two--has escaped being a drunkard by mere accident, and\nthat he has not quite escaped yet.\n\nA little hard luck, too much trouble, and he'll lose his balance,\nforget that there IS lemonade, and take to whiskey\npermanently.  ----\n\nAt the far end of the bar there is the man who comes in slowly\nand passes his hand over his face nervously.  The bartender asks\nno question, but pushes out a bottle of everyday whiskey and a\nsmall glass of water.\n\nThe whiskey goes down.  A shiver follows the whiskey and a very\nlittle of the water follows the shiver.  The man goes out with\nhis arms close to his sides, his gait shuffling and his head\nhanging.\n\nIt has taken him less than three minutes to buy, swallow and pay\nfor a liberal dose of poison.\n\nSays the bartender:\n\n\"That fellow had a good business once.  Doesn't look it, does\nhe?  Jim over there used to work for him.  But he couldn't let it\nalone.\"\n\nThe \"it\" mentioned is whiskey.\n\nOutside in the cold that man, who couldn't let it alone, is\nshuffling his way against the bitter wind.  And even in his poor,\nsodden brain reform and wisdom are striving to be heard.\n\nHis soul and body are sunk far below par.  His vitality is gone,\nnever to return.\n\nThe whiskey, with its shiver that tells of a shock to the heart,\nlifts him up for a second.\n\nHe has a little false strength of mind and brain and that\nstrength is used to mumble good resolutions.\n\nHe THINKS he will stop drinking.  He thinks he could easily\nget money backing if he gave up drinking for good.  He feels and\nreally believes that he WILL stop drinking.\n\nPerhaps he goes home, and for the hundredth time makes a poor\nwoman believe him, and makes her weep once more for joy, as she\nhas wept many times from sorrow.\n\nBut the bartender KNOWS that that man's day has gone, and that\nNiagara River could turn back as easily as he could remount the\nswift stream that is sweeping him to destruction.  ----\n\nFive men come in together.  Each asks of all the others:\n\n\"What are you going to have?\"\n\nThe bartender spreads out his hands on the edge of the bar,\nattentive and prepared to work quickly.\n\nEvery man insists on \"buying\" something to drink in his turn.\nEach takes what the others insist on giving him.\n\nEach thinks that he is hospitable.\n\nBut the bartender KNOWS that those men belong to the Great\nAmerican Association for the Manufacture of Drunkards through\n\"treating.\"\n\nEach of those men might perhaps take his glass of beer, or even\nsomething worse, with relative safety.  But, as stupidly as\nstampeded animals pushing each other over a precipice, each\ninsists on buying poison in his turn.  And every one spends his\nmoney to make every other one, if possible, a hard-drinking and a\nwasted man.  ----\n\nYou, Sir. Reader, have seen all these types and many others, have\nyou not?\n\nWHY did you see them?  What REASON had you for seeing them?\n\nThe bartender stands studying the procession to destruction,\nbecause he must make his living in that way.  He is a sort of\nclean-aproned Charon on a whiskey Styx, ferrying the multitude to\nperdition on the other side of the river.  But what is YOUR\nbusiness there?\n\nYou might as well be found inside an opium den.\n\nThe drink swallowed at the bar braces you, does it?  If you think\nyou need a drink, you REALLY need sleep, or better nourishment,\nor you need to live more sensibly.  Drink will not give you what\nyou need.  It may for a moment make your nerves cease tormenting\nyou.  It may do in your system for an hour what opium does in the\nChinese for a whole day.  But if it lifts you up high, it drops\nyou down HARD.\n\nAnd remember:\n\nTHERE IS NO SUCH THING AS MODERATE DRINKING AT A BAR.\n\nYou THINK you can take your occasional drink safely and\nphilosophize about the procession that passes the bartender.\n\nBut the bartender KNOWS that you are no different from the\nothers.  They all began as you are beginning.  They all, in the\nearly stages, despised their own forerunners.\n\nThey were once as you are, and the bartender KNOWS that the\nchances are all in favor of your being eventually like one of\nthem.\n\nEven like the poor, thin, nervous drinker of hard whiskey, who\nonce wondered why men drink too much.  ----\n\nThe bartender's procession is a sad one, and you who still think\nyourself safe are the saddest atom in the line, for you are there\nwithout sufficient excuse.\n\nIt is a long procession, and its end is far off.\n\nIt is born of the fact that life is dull, competition is keen,\nand ambition so often ends in sawdust failure.\n\nA better chance for strugglers, a more generous reward for hard\nwork, better organization of social life, solution of the great\nunsolved problem of real civilization, will end the bartender's\nprocession.\n\nMeanwhile, keep out of it if you can.  And be glad if it can be\nsuspended, temporarily at least, on Sundays.\n\n\n\nWHAT SHOULD BE A MAN'S OBJECT IN LIFE?\n\nSermons in stones are familiar, but few take the trouble to dig\nthem out.  Certainly none looks for sermons in a one-cent evening\nnewspaper.\n\nAt the same time, will you kindly think over and answer the\nquestion that heads this column?\n\nHere we are, marooned for a few days on a flying ball of earth.\nWe don't know how we got here.  We don't know where we are going.\n\nWe are full of beautiful and satisfying FAITH.  But we don't\nKNOW.\n\nInto this Universe, and WHY not knowing,\nNor WHENCE, like Water, willy-nilly flowing;\nAnd out of it as Wind along the Waste,\nI know not WHITHER, willy-nilly blowing.\n\nThat's the way Omar, the old tent-maker, puts it.  ----\n\nWe drift from dinner to the theatre, thence to bed, thence to\nbreakfast, thence to work, and so on.  Or, if in hard luck, we\nstruggle and wail, \"cursing our day,\" or more frequently cursing\nsociety.\n\nWe rarely stop to think what it is all about, or what we are here\nfor.  ----\n\nWe know the pig's object in life.  It has been beautifully and\npermanently outlined in Carlyle's \"pig catechism.\" The pig's life\nobject is to get fat and keep fat--to get his full share of swill\nand as much more as he can manage to secure.  And his life object\nis worthy.  By sticking at it he develops fat hams inside his\nbristles, and WE know, though he does not, that the production of\nfat hams is his destiny.  ----\n\nBut our human destiny is NOT to produce fat hams.  Why do so many\nof us live earnestly on the pig basis?  Why do we struggle\nsavagely for money to buy our kind of swill--luxury, food, etc.\n--and cease all struggling when that money is obtained?\n\nIs fear of poverty and dependence the only emotion that should\nmove us?\n\nAre we here merely to STAY here and EAT here?\n\nA great German scientist, very learned and about as imaginative\nas a wart hog, declares that the human face is merely an\nextension and elaboration of the alimentary canal--that the\nbeauty of expression, the marvellous qualities of a noble human\nface, are merely indirect results of the alimentary canal's\nstrivings to satisfy its wants.\n\nThat is a hideous conception, is it not?  But it is no more\nunworthy than the average human life, and the average existence\nhas much to justify the German's speculations.\n\nWhat SHALL we strive for?  MONEY?\n\nGet a thousand millions.  Your day will come, and in due course\nthe graveyard rat will gnaw as calmly at your bump of\nacquisitiveness as at the mean coat of the pauper.\n\nThen, shall we strive for POWER?\n\nThe names of the first great kings of the world are forgotten,\nand the names of all those whose power we envy will drift to\nforgetfulness soon.  What does the most powerful man in the world\namount to standing at the brink of Niagara, with his solar plexus\ntrembling?  What is his power compared with the force of the wind\nor the energy of one small wave sweeping along the shore?\n\nThe power which man can build up within himself, for himself, is\nnothing.  Only the dull reasoning of gratified egotism can make\nit seem worth while.  ----\n\nThen what IS worth while?  Let us look at some of the men who\nhave come and gone, and whose lives inspire us.  Take a few at\nrandom:\n\nColumbus, Michael Angelo, Wilberforce, Shakespeare, Galileo,\nFulton, Watt, Hargreaves--these will do.\n\nLet us ask ourselves this question:  \"Was there any ONE THING\nthat distinguished ALL their lives, that united all these men,\nactive in fields so different?\"\n\nYes.  Every man among them, and every man whose life history is\nworth the telling, did something for THE GOOD OF OTHER MEN.\n\nHargreaves, the weaver, invented the spinning-jenny, and his\ninvention clothes and employs hundreds of millions.\n\nGalileo perfected the telescope, spread out before man's\nintellect the grandeur of the universe.  Wilberforce helped to\nawaken man's conscience.  He freed millions of slaves.  Columbus\ngave a home to great nations.  We thrive to-day because of his\nnoble courage.  Michael Angelo and Shakespeare stirred human\ngenius to new efforts, and fed the human mind--a task more worthy\nthan the feeding of the human stomach.  We ride in Fulton's\nsteamboats, and Watt's engine pulls us along.\n\nMen who are truly great have DONE GOOD to their fellow-man.  And\nthe greatest Soul ever born on earth came to urge but one thing\nupon humanity, \"Love one another.\" ----\n\nGet money if you can.  Get power if you can.  Then, if you want\nto be more than the ten thousand million unknown mingled in the\ndust beneath you, see what good you can do with your money and\nyour power.\n\nIf you are one of the many millions who have not and can't get\nmoney or power, see what good you can do without either.\n\nYou can help carry a load for an old man.  You can encourage and\nhelp a poor devil trying to reform.  You can set a good example\nto children.  You can stick to the men with whom you work,\nfighting honestly for their welfare.\n\nTime was when the ablest man would rather kill ten men than feed\na thousand children.  That time has gone.  We do not care much\nabout feeding the children, but we care less about killing the\nmen.  To that extent we have improved already.\n\nThe day will come when we shall prefer helping our neighbor to\nrobbing him--legally--of a million dollars.\n\nDo what good you can NOW, while it is unusual, and have the\nsatisfaction of being a pioneer and an eccentric.\n\n\n\nCRUEL FRIGHTENING OF CHILDREN\n\nThe most acute suffering is that produced by FEAR, and those who\nsuffer most acutely from fear are YOUNG children.\n\nWho does not remember the intense agony in youth based upon the\nsuperstitious teachings of some foolish older person?\n\nAnd how many children are made miserable through the hideous fear\nthat comes from threats and from punishment postponed?\n\nIf a man should be whipped incessantly for three or four hours he\nwould think his tormentor a monster of brutality.\n\nYet you say to a child:\n\n\"I will whip you for that to-morrow.\"\n\nYou sentence that child to hours of the most acute mental\nsuffering, and if the child be nervous and unusually sensitive,\nyou may permanently injure its health.  ----\n\nHere is a scene unfortunately not rare in this country:\n\nA thin, nervous little boy, perhaps ten years old, was walking\nalong a suburban street.  Suddenly, on turning a corner, he was\nconfronted by a man, apparently his father.\n\nThe child stood trembling.  The man, in a voice of cold,\nconcentrated anger, said:\n\n\"Didn't I tell you to come early.  You go to the house and WAIT\nTHERE TILL I COME BACK AND FIX YOU.\"\n\nThe man walked on, to get the drink of beer or whiskey that\nshould add to his natural cruelty, and the poor child, without a\nword, started for home to await the coming punishment.\n\nNo more cruel treatment was ever endured by any human being than\nthe punishment inflicted by that thoughtless man on the nervous,\nhelpless child placed in his power.\n\nLater, of course, there followed the punishment; a huge, powerful\nman striking repeatedly the delicate body of the child,\nemphasizing the brutality of his blows with more brutal words,\nand feeling when it was over that he had gloriously done his duty\nas a typical American father.\n\nOf course, the actual brutal beating was only a small part of the\nchild's ordeal.\n\nThe most horrible part was the waiting for the punishment.  No\nman in the death cell ever suffered more than thousands of\nchildren suffer every day waiting for the brutality which is to\nexemplify our savage notions concerning the education of\nchildren.\n\nIf such a monstrous parody on a father should be met in some\nlonely wood by a huge gorilla and treated as that father treats\nhis own son, he would complain bitterly of the gorilla's\nferocity.  Yet it would not equal in any way his own brutal and\nless excusable cruelty.  ----\n\nIf a parent says that he cannot bring up his children and control\nthem without beating them, you may say to that parent:\n\nYou never struck a child in your life except when you were angry,\nand you would not have dared to strike it if it had been of your\nown size.\n\nChildren born of decent parents can be brought up, and ARE\nbrought up, without beatings, and if yours are a different kind\nof children it is a reflection on YOU, and on your whole brood\nand family.\n\nThe poor, ignorant hen can teach its young ones to scratch and\nhunt worms, and acquire whatever education they need without\nhurting them, and a human being should be able to do for his own\nas much as a hen can do.\n\n\n\nIT IS NATURAL FOR CHILDREN TO BE CRUEL\n\nYou have perhaps read that Mrs. Isabelle Bailey, of Palmyra,\nN.J., was cruelly tortured by three little girls.\n\nThe unfortunate woman was eighty-five years old, paralyzed, and\nconfined to her bed.\n\nThe three children, two of them eight and one eleven years old,\ntormented the poor woman in a brutal manner, of which details\nshall not be published here.\n\nThe helpless woman ultimately died, and the children were charged\nwith murder.  ----\n\nThis horrible story is mentioned in the hope of concentrating the\nminds of mothers and fathers on the fact that children are\nnaturally more cruel, more vicious, than grown people.\n\nThe children mentioned in this case were, perhaps, abnormal and\nunusual monstrosities.  But they serve to illustrate the fact\nthat infancy and childhood duplicate, in the individual, the\nprimitive animal life on earth.\n\nMany children are brutally punished and ruined for life because\nignorant parents imagine that childhood is naturally pure and\ninnocent and good, and that a child which misbehaves must be\nabnormally wicked.\n\nIf parents knew more about the physical and mental development of\ntheir children, they would be better fitted to have charge of\nthem.  ----\n\nIt is a fact taught by embryology that the human body before its\nbirth passes through numerous stages of development which\ncorrespond exactly with the lower forms of animal life.\n\nAfter birth the child develops MENTALLY in the same way, passing\nthrough inferior mental stages and reaching a state of\nbenevolence, honesty, truthfulness and self-restraint only as a\nresult of long education and wise control.\n\nA perfectly truthful child probably never existed.  All childish\nraces of savages are incessant liars and thieves.  All children\npassing through the primitive stages of mental development are\nnaturally given to deception, and even to theft, especially when\nthey are frightened by the consequences of truth, and when things\nwhich they desire are denied them.\n\nAll children are cruel--and there is no greater brutality than\nconfiding a helpless animal to the tender mercies of a young\nchild.\n\nThere may be a few exceptions, but they are very rare, and there\nis no reason why parents should expect their particular children\nto be the exceptions.\n\nYou may see a man of mature age, kind-hearted, absolutely\nbenevolent and just.  And you may learn that when he was a baby\nhe bit his nurse, lied, and was cruel to animals and to other\nchildren.\n\nBut parents are stupidly egotistical, and believe that their\npretty children ought to be born morally perfect.\n\nThis moral perfection can be obtained only as the result of\neducation.\n\nDon't expect your children to be models of virtue.\n\nDon't brutalize them by punishments and contempt because you\ndiscover that their primitive mental life duplicates the mental\nconditions of inferior animals.\n\nSet them a good example, and by education make them what you want\nthem to be.\n\nThe ignorant and stupid belief that children are born naturally\ngood accounts for the brutality of many fathers and the ruin of\nmany young lives, making cowards of children, accentuating their\nuntruthfulness and cowardice and their cruelty through a desire\nfor revenge.\n\n\n\nTWO THIN LITTLE BABIES ARE LEFT\n\nThe authorities of New York City, at this writing, have two\nbabies to give away.\n\nA few days since there were about two hundred babies in the city\nfoundling asylum to be had for the asking.\n\nOf all these little ones there remain but two whom nobody seems\nto want.\n\nThese two forlorn little things are described as \"thin and\nnervous; inclined to cry, and not taking kindly to those who come\nto pick out free babies for adoption.\"\n\nHundreds of women anxious for children have gone to the asylum,\nhave passed by the two little skinny babies, and have asked to be\ninformed as soon as fat babies should be on hand.\n\nPresently we shall tell childless persons--especially\nbachelors--why they should get a baby and bring it up.\n\nBut first, learn that the best possible choice would be one of\nthose two despised \"thin\" babies.\n\nIn all the world's history, the greatest men have begun life as\nTHIN babies.\n\nYou must know from common observation that in babyhood the head\nis big out of all proportion to the rest of the body.\n\nA baby one year old has in its brain alone at least one-third of\nall the blood in its body.\n\nTHE BIGGER AND MORE ACTIVE THE BRAIN the more blood is required\nto nourish it, and THE MORE THE REST OF THE BODY SUFFERS.\n\nA baby luckily born may combine a good brain and a fat body.  But\nsuch luck is very rare.\n\nNine times out of ten the best baby MENTALLY is the\npoorest-looking baby PHYSICALLY.\n\nWe have told you in this column about the pathetic babyhood of\nthe great Voltaire.  Had he been in the foundling asylum during\nthe recent selection of babies, he would surely be among the\ndespised and rejected.  Yet what a glory to have picked out and\nraised the wonderful Voltaire!\n\nVoltaire, whose name as a baby was Arouet, was the thinnest and\nmost nervous of babies.  He had a disease very much like rickets;\nhe cried night and day, and there was little hope of keeping him\nalive.\n\nPitt, the great British Prime Minister, was as sick and skinny a\nbaby as was ever seen.  Pope, when a baby, would not have seemed\nworth keeping alive to anybody but a loving mother.\n\nWe advise the women who have spurned the two thin babies in the\nasylum to take another look at them.  They may be the best two\nbabies in the entire lot.\n\n\n\nA BABY CAN EDUCATE A MAN\n\nIf you will read Drummond's beautiful work \"The Ascent of Man,\"\nyou will learn that we owe to children the good that is in us.\nIt is the child that educates the father and mother.\n\nIf you are a solemn bachelor, gradually drying up in your selfish\nlife, try having a baby around for a while.\n\nGet a despised thin one from the asylum.  Get some good, kind old\nwoman to take care of it.  Give the woman and the baby the\nquietest room in your house or flat, and then watch the\nimprovement in your character.\n\nYou can feed the baby for the cost of one or two cocktails daily.\n\nYour health will improve if you give up the cocktails, and watch\nthe effect of their substitute, milk, on the little child.\n\nWhen you get up in the morning, if the hour is early, you will\nfind the old woman giving the baby its bath.  The poor, little\nthin thing will wriggle joyously in the warm water, once it gets\nused to the daily bathing.  Its head will be soaped first, then\nsponged.  It will be dried with a warm towel, and you can hit the\ntin bathtub with your keys to keep it from crying while its\nclothes are put on.\n\nHold the baby for a while each morning, letting its head rest on\nyour shoulder that its neck may not be strained.  (This will give\nthe nurse a chance to prepare the bottle that follows the bath.)\n\nIt will get used to you after a few mornings.  The first time it\nshows affection for you, you will be the proudest man in your\noffice.\n\nIf asked to take a cocktail you will say:\n\n\"No, thank you.  My cocktail money is spent to make a thin baby\nfat.\"\n\nIf others boast of their friends, you will know that YOU have a\nfriend whom money cannot influence, one skinny little admirer at\nhome whose affection is genuine.\n\nIf a man shows delight in the love of his dog, you will say to\nyourself:\n\n\"Any dog will like any man.  But there are few that could get a\nbaby to like them in six days as that thin Jimmy likes me.\"\n\nIf you go home early, before the baby is put to bed, you will\nfind him trying to crawl along the floor, or trying to eat the\npattern in the carpet.  He will look at you out of his pale,\nlittle, blue eyes and reach his skinny arms toward you.\n\nSee if that does not make you glad that you tried the baby\nexperiment.\n\nGradually the thin body will get fatter, and the small, busy\nmouth will begin a mumbling language of its own.  The old nurse\nwill pretend to understand everything it says and will insist\nthat it knows your name.\n\nThe first tooth piercing the heated, suffering gum; the first\nfeeble steps with the help of a chair; the first tottering effort\nall alone, with arms outstretched toward you, ending in a flabby\ncollapse, will delight you more than much experimenting with race\nhorses, if you are the right sort of man.\n\nIt will not be long before you will decide that the bringing up\nof babies is your destiny, and a good one.\n\nBut when you bring a wife into the house, and she brings you\nother babies, thin or fat, of your own, don't forget the original\nthin Jimmy baby.  Provide for the old nurse and for the\nyoungster.  Say to your wife:\n\n\"Be fond of that Jimmy baby, for it was he who taught me that I\ncould not get along without you.\"\n\n\n[End Project Gutenberg Etext of Editorials from the Hearst\nNewspapers by Arthur Brisbane]\n*** x-header ***","title":"Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":76296}