Book XII
Country
The higher patriotism; the duty of man to his country as seen from the point of view of those who would make the country the parent and friend of all who dwell in it.
Our Country
(Read July 4, 1883)
BY JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER
(New England Quaker poet, 1807-1892; a prominent anti-slavery advocate)
We give thy natal day to hope, O country of our love and prayer! Thy way is down no fatal slope, But up to freer sun and air.
Tried as by furnace fires, and yet By God's grace only stronger made, In future task before thee set Thou shalt not lack the old-time aid.
Great, without seeking to be great By fraud of conquest; rich in gold, But richer in the large estate Of virtue which thy children hold.
With peace that comes of purity, And strength to simple justice due-- So runs our loyal dream of thee; God of our fathers! make it true.
O land of lands! to thee we give Our love, our trust, our service free; For thee thy sons shall nobly live, And at thy need shall die for thee.
The New Freedom
BY WOODROW WILSON
(President of the United States, born 1856. The following is from his campaign speeches, 1912)
Are we preserving freedom in this land of ours, the hope of all the earth? Have we, inheritors of this continent and of the ideals to which the fathers consecrated it,--have we maintained them, realizing them, as each generation must, anew? Are we, in the consciousness that the life of man is pledged to higher levels here than elsewhere, striving still to bear aloft the standards of liberty and hope; or, disillusioned and defeated, are we feeling the disgrace of having had a free field in which to do new things and of not having done them?
The answer must be, I am sure, that we have been in a fair way of failure,--tragic failure. And we stand in danger of utter failure yet, except we fulfil speedily the determination we have reached, to deal with the new and subtle tyrannies according to their deserts. Don't deceive yourselves for a moment as to the power of the great interests which now dominate our development. They are so great that it is almost an open question whether the government of the United States can dominate them or not. Go one step further, make their organized power permanent, and it may be too late to turn back. The roads diverge at the point where we stand.
An Ode in Time of Hesitation
BY WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY
(In these noble words the poet voices his pain at the Philippine war, and the wave of "imperialism" which then swept over America)
Was it for this our fathers kept the law? This crown shall crown their struggle and their ruth? Are we the eagle nation Milton saw Mewing its mighty youth, Soon to possess the mountain winds of truth, And be a swift familiar of the sun Where aye before God's face his trumpets run? Or have we but the talons and the maw, And for the abject likeness of our heart Shall some less lordly bird be set apart?-- Some gross-billed wader where the swamps are fat? Some gorger in the sun? Some prowler with the bat?
Ah, no! We have not fallen so. We are our fathers' sons: let those who lead us know!... We charge you, ye who lead us, Breathe on their chivalry no hint of stain! Turn not their new-world victories to gain! One least leaf plucked for chaffer from the bays Of their dear praise, One jot of their pure conquest put to hire, The implacable republic will require; With clamor, in the glare and gaze of noon, Or subtly, coming as a thief at night, But surely, very surely, slow or soon That insult deep we deeply will requite. Tempt not our weakness, our cupidity! For save we let the island men go free, Those baffled and dislaureled ghosts Will curse us from the lamentable coasts Where walk the frustrate dead, The cup of trembling shall be drained quite, Eaten the sour bread of astonishment, With ashes of the heart shall be made white Our hair, and wailing shall be in the tent; Then on your guiltier head Shall our intolerable self-disdain Wreak suddenly its anger and its pain; For manifest in that disastrous light We shall discern the right And do it, tardily.--O ye who lead, Take heed! Blindness we may forgive, but baseness we will smite.
The Price of Liberty
BY THOMAS JEFFERSON
(See pages 228, 332)
Cherish the spirit of our people and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If once they become inattentive to public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, judges and governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions; and experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind; for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor.
To the Goddess of Liberty
(New York Harbor)
BY GEORGE STERLING
(See pages 504, 552)
Oh! is it bale-fire in thy brazen hand-- The traitor-light set on betraying coasts To lure to doom the mariner? Art thou Indeed that Freedom, gracious and supreme, By France once sighted over seas of blood-- A beacon to the ages, and their hope, A star against the midnight of the race, A vision, an announcement? Art thou she For whom our fathers fought at Lexington And trod the ways of death at Gettysburg? Thy torch is lit, thy steadfast hand upheld, Before our ocean-portals. For a sign Men set thee there to welcome--loving men, With faith in man. Thou wast upraised to tell, To simple souls that seek from over-seas Our rumored liberty, that here no chains Are on the people, here no kings can stand, Nor the old tyranny confound mankind, Sapping with craft the ramparts of the Law
For such, O high presentment of their dream! Thy pathless sandals wait upon the stone, Thy tranquil face looks evermore to sea: Now turn, and know the treason at thy back! Turn to the anarchs' turrets, and behold The cunning ones that reap where others sow!
In those great strongholds lifted to the sun They plot dominion. Thronèd greeds conspire, Half allied in a brotherhood malign, Against the throneless many....
Would One might pour within thy breast of bronze Spirit and life! Then should thy loyal hand Cast down its torch, and thy deep voice should cry: "Turn back! Turn back, O liberative ships! Be warned, ye voyagers! From tyranny To vaster tyranny ye come! Ye come From realms that in my morning twilight wait My radiant invasion. But these shores Have known me and renounced me. I am raised In mockery, and here the forfeit day Deepens to West, and my indignant Star Would hide her shame with darkness and the sea-- A sun of doom forecasting on the Land The shadow of the sceptre and the sword."
To the United States Senate
BY VACHEL LINDSAY
(Upon the arrival of the news that the United States Senate had declared the election of William Lorimer good and valid)
And must the Senator from Illinois Be this squat thing, with blinking, half-closed eyes? This brazen gutter idol, reared to power Upon a leering pyramid of lies?
And must the Senator from Illinois Be the world's proverb of successful shame, Dazzling all State house flies that steal and steal, Who, when the sad State spares them, count it fame?
If once or twice within his new won hall His vote had counted for the broken men; If in his early days he wrought some good-- We might a great soul's sins forgive him then.
But must the Senator from Illinois Be vindicated by fat kings of gold? And must he be belauded by the smirched, The sleek, uncanny chiefs in lies grown old?
Be warned, O wanton ones, who shielded him-- Black wrath awaits. You all shall eat the dust. You dare not say: "Tomorrow will bring peace; Let us make merry, and go forth in lust."
What will you trading frogs do on a day When Armageddon thunders thro' the land; When each sad patriot rises, mad with shame, His ballot or his musket in his hand?
The Duty of Civil Disobedience
BY HENRY DAVID THOREAU
(See page 295)
What is the price-current of an honest man and patriot today? They hesitate, and they regret, and sometimes they petition; but they do nothing in earnest and with effect. They will wait, well disposed, for others to remedy the evil, that they may no longer have it to regret. At most, they give only a cheap vote and a feeble countenance and God-speed, to the right, as it goes by them.
A Prophecy
(Written during the Revolutionary War)
BY THOMAS JEFFERSON
(See pages 228, 332, 596)
The spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless. A single zealot may become persecutor, and better men be his victims. It can never be too often repeated that the time for fixing essential right, on a legal basis, is while our rulers are honest, ourselves united. From the conclusion of this war we shall be going down hill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights. The shackles, therefore, which shall not be knocked off at the conclusion of this war, will be heavier and heavier, till our rights shall revive or expire in a convulsion.
An Election Campaign in New York
(From "The House of Bondage")
BY REGINALD WRIGHT KAUFFMAN
(See pages 53, 167)
For many days previously, any outsider, reading the newspapers or attending the mass-meetings in Cooper Union and Carnegie Hall, would have supposed that a prodigious battle was waging and that the result would be, until the last shot, in doubt. There were terrible scareheads, brutal cartoons, and extra editions. As the real problem was whether one organization of needy men should remain in control, or whether another should replace it, there were few matters of policy to be discussed; and so the speechmaking and the printing resolved themselves into personal investigations, and attacks upon character. Private detectives were hired, records searched, neighbors questioned, old enemies sought out, and family feuds revived. Desks were broken open, letters bought, anonymous communications mailed, boyhood indiscretions unearthed, and women and men hired to wheedle, to commit perjury, to entrap. Whatever was discovered, forged, stolen, manufactured--whatever truth or falsehood could be seized by whatever means--was blazoned in the papers, shrieked by the newsboys, bawled from the cart-tails at the corners under the campaign banners, in the light of the torches and before the cheering crowds. It would be all over in a very short while; in a very short while there would pass one another, with pleasant smiles, in court, at church, and along Broadway, the distinguished gentlemen that were now, before big audiences, calling one another adulterers and thieves; but it is customary for distinguished gentlemen so to call one another during a manly campaign in this successful democracy of ours, and it seems to be an engrossing occupation while the chance endures.
The Doom of Empires
BY ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
(American lawyer and lecturer, 1833-1899)
The traveler standing amid the ruins of ancient cities and empires, seeing on every side the fallen pillar and the prostrate wall, asks why did these cities fall, why did these empires crumble? And the Ghost of the Past, the wisdom of ages, answers: These temples, these palaces, these cities, the ruins of which you stand upon, were built by tyranny and injustice. The hands that built them were unpaid. The backs that bore the burdens also bore the marks of the lash. They were built by slaves to satisfy the vanity and ambition of thieves and robbers. For these reasons they are dust.
Their civilization was a lie. Their laws merely regulated robbery and established theft. They bought and sold the bodies and souls of men, and the mournful wind of desolation, sighing amid their crumbling ruins, is a voice of prophetic warning to those who would repeat the infamous experiment, uttering the great truth, that no nation founded upon slavery, either of body or mind, can stand.
The Statue of Liberty
(New York Harbor, A.D. 2900)
BY ARTHUR UPSON
(American poet, 1877-1908)
Here once, the records show, a land whose pride Abode in Freedom's watchword! And once here The port of traffic for a hemisphere, With great gold-piling cities at her side! Tradition says, superbly once did bide Their sculptured goddess on an island near, With hospitable smile and torch kept clear For all wild hordes that sought her o'er the tide. 'Twas centuries ago. But this is true: Late the fond tyrant who misrules our land, Bidding his serfs dig deep in marshes old, Trembled, not knowing wherefore, as they drew From out this swampy bed of ancient mould A shattered torch held in a mighty hand.
BY FRANCIS BACON
(English philosopher and statesman, father of modern scientific thought; 1561-1626)
Let states that aim at greatness take heed how their nobility and gentlemen do multiply too fast. For that maketh the common subject grow to be a peasant and base swain, driven out of heart, and in effect but the gentleman's laborer.
BY DANIEL WEBSTER
(New England statesman and orator, 1782-1852)
The freest government cannot long endure when the tendency of the law is to create a rapid accumulation of property in the hands of a few, and to render the masses poor and dependent.
The Deserted Village
BY OLIVER GOLDSMITH
(English poet and novelist, 1728-1774)
Sweet-smiling village, loveliest of the lawn! Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn; Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen, And desolation saddens all thy green; One only master grasps the whole domain, And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain; No more thy glassy brook reflects the day, But, choked with sedges, works its weedy way; Along thy glades, a solitary guest, The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest; Amidst thy desert walks the lapwing flies, And tires their echoes with unvaried cries; Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all, And the long grass o'ertops the mouldering wall; And, trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand; Far, far away thy children leave the land.
Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay: Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade-- A breath can make them, as a breath has made: But a bold peasantry, their country's pride, When once destroyed, can never be supplied. A time there was, ere England's griefs began, When every rood of ground maintained its man; For him light labor spread her wholesome store, Just gave what life required, but gave no more: His best companions, innocence and health; And his best riches, ignorance of wealth.
But times are altered: trade's unfeeling train Usurp the land, and dispossess the swain; Along the lawn, where scattered hamlets rose, Unwieldy wealth and cumbrous pomp repose; And every want to luxury allied, And every pang that folly pays to pride, Those gentle hours that plenty bade to bloom, Those calm desires that asked but little room, Those healthful sports that graced the peaceful scene, Lived in each look, and brightened all the green-- These, far departing, seek a kinder shore, And rural mirth and manners are no more....
Ye friends to truth, ye statesmen, who survey The rich man's joys increase, the poor's decay, 'Tis yours to judge how wide the limits stand Between a splendid and a happy land. Proud swells the tide with loads of freighted ore, And shouting Folly hails them from her shore; Hoards, e'en beyond the miser's wish, abound, And rich men flock from all the world around. Yet count our gains; this wealth is but a name, That leaves our useful products still the same. Not so the loss: the man of wealth and pride Takes up a space that many poor supplied; Space for his lake, his park's extended bounds, Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds; The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth, Has robbed the neighboring fields of half their growth; His seat, where solitary sports are seen, Indignant spurns the cottage from the green; Around the world each needful product flies, For all the luxuries the world supplies; While thus the land, adorned for pleasure all, In barren splendor, feebly waits the fall....
Where then, ah! where, shall poverty reside, To 'scape the pressure of contiguous pride? If, to some common's fenceless limits strayed, He drives his flock to pick the scanty blade, Those fenceless fields the sons of wealth divide, And even the bare-worn common is denied. If to the city sped, what waits him there? To see profusion that he must not share; To see ten thousand baneful arts combined To pamper luxury, and thin mankind; To see each joy the sons of pleasure know Extorted from his fellow-creatures' woe. Here while the courtier glitters in brocade, There the pale artist plies the sickly trade; Here while the proud their long-drawn pomps display, There the black gibbet glooms beside the way. The dome where Pleasure holds her midnight reign, Here, richly decked, admits the gorgeous train; Tumultuous grandeur crowds the blazing square-- The rattling chariots clash, the torches glare. Sure scenes like these no troubles e'er annoy! Sure these denote one universal joy! Are these thy serious thoughts? Ah! turn thine eyes Where the poor, houseless, shivering female lies; She once, perhaps, in village plenty blest, Has wept at tales of innocence distrest; Her modest looks the cottage might adorn, Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn; Now lost to all--her friends, her virtue fled-- Near her betrayer's door she lays her head; And, pinched with cold, and shrinking from the shower, With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour When, idly first, ambitious of the town, She left her wheel, and robes of country brown....
O luxury! thou curst by Heaven's decree, How ill exchanged are things like these for thee! How do thy potions, with insidious joy, Diffuse their pleasures only to destroy! Kingdoms by thee, to sickly greatness grown, Boast of a florid vigor not their own. At every draught more large and large they grow, A bloated mass of rank unwieldy woe; Till sapped their strength, and every part unsound, Down, down they sink, and spread a ruin round.
England in 1819
BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
(See page 272)
An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,-- Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow Through public scorn--mud from a muddy spring,-- Rulers, who neither see, nor feel, nor know, But leech-like to their fainting country cling, Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow-- A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field,-- An army, which liberticide and prey Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield,-- Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay; Religion Christless, Godless--a book sealed; A Senate,--Time's worst statute unrepealed,-- Are graves, from which a glorious Phantom may Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.
The Victorian Age
BY EDWARD CARPENTER
(See pages 186, 541)
I found myself--and without knowing where I was--in the middle of that strange period of human evolution, the Victorian Age, which in some respects, one now thinks, marked the lowest ebb of modern civilized society; a period in which not only commercialism in public life, but cant in religion, pure materialism in science, futility in social conventions, the worship of stocks and shares, the starving of the human heart, the denial of the human body and its needs, the huddling concealment of the body in clothes, the "impure hush" on matters of sex, class-division, contempt of manual labor, and the cruel barring of women from every natural and useful expression of their lives, were carried to an extremity of folly difficult for us now to realize.
Coronation Day
(From "The People of the Abyss")
BY JACK LONDON
(See pages 62, 125, 139, 519)
Vivat Rex Eduardus! They crowned a king this day, and there have been great rejoicing and elaborate tomfoolery, and I am perplexed and saddened. I never saw anything to compare with the pageant, except Yankee circuses and Alhambra ballets; nor did I ever see anything so hopeless and so tragic.
To have enjoyed the Coronation procession, I should have come straight from America to the Hotel Cecil, and straight from the Hotel Cecil to a five-guinea seat among the washed. My mistake was in coming from the unwashed of the East End. There were not many who came from that quarter. The East End, as a whole, remained in the East End and got drunk. The Socialists, Democrats, and Republicans went off to the country for a breath of fresh air, quite unaffected by the fact that four hundred millions of people were taking to themselves a crowned and anointed ruler. Six thousand five hundred prelates, priests, statesmen, princes and warriors beheld the crowning, and the rest of us the pageant as it passed.
I saw it at Trafalgar Square, "the most splendid site in Europe," and the very innermost heart of the empire. There were many thousands of us, all checked and held in order by a superb display of armed power. The line of march was double-walled with soldiers. The base of the Nelson Column was triple-fringed with bluejackets. Eastward, at the entrance to the square, stood the Royal Marine Artillery. In the triangle of Pall Mall and Cockspur Street, the statue of George III was buttressed on either side by the Lancers and Hussars. To the west were the red-coats of the Royal Marines, and from the Union Club to the embouchure of Whitehall swept the glittering, massive curve of the First Life Guards--gigantic men mounted on gigantic chargers, steel-breastplated, steel-helmeted, steel-caparisoned, a great war-sword of steel ready to the hand of the powers that be. And further, throughout the crowd, were flung long lines of the Metropolitan Constabulary, while in the rear were the reserves--tall, well-fed men, with weapons to wield and muscles to wield them in case of need.
And as it was thus at Trafalgar Square, so was it along the whole line of march--force, overpowering force; myriads of men, splendid men, the pick of the people, whose sole function in life is blindly to obey, and blindly to kill and destroy and stamp out life. And that they should be well fed, well clothed, and well armed, and have ships to hurl them to the ends of the earth, the East End of London, and the "East End" of all England, toils and rots and dies.
There is a Chinese proverb that if one man lives in laziness another will die of hunger; and Montesquieu has said, "The fact that many men are occupied in making clothes for one individual is the cause of there being many people without clothes." We cannot understand the starved and runty toiler of the East End (living with his family in a one-room den, and letting out the floor space for lodgings to other starved and runty toilers) till we look at the strapping Life Guardsmen of the West End, and come to know that the one must feed and clothe and groom the other....
In these latter days, five hundred hereditary peers own one-fifth of England; and they, and the officers and servants under the King, and those who go to compose the powers that be, yearly spend in wasteful luxury $1,850,000,000, or £370,000,000, which is thirty-two per cent of the total wealth produced by all the toilers of the country.
At the Abbey, clad in wonderful golden raiment, amid fanfare of trumpets and throbbing of music, surrounded by a brilliant throng of masters, lords, and rulers, the King was being invested with the insignia of his sovereignty. The spurs were placed to his heels by the Lord Great Chamberlain, and a sword of state, in purple scabbard, was presented him by the Archbishop of Canterbury, with these words:--
"Receive this kingly sword brought now from the altar of God, and delivered to you by the hands of the bishops and servants of God, though unworthy."
Whereupon, being girded, he gave heed to the Archbishop's exhortation:--
"With this sword do justice, stop the growth of iniquity, protect the Holy Church of God, help and defend widows and orphans, restore the things that are gone to decay, maintain the things that are restored, punish and reform what is amiss, and confirm what is in good order...."
"And how did you like the procession, mate?" I asked an old man on a bench in Green Park.
"'Ow did I like it? A bloomin' good chawnce, sez I to myself, for a sleep, wi' all the coppers aw'y, so I turned into the corner there, along wi' fifty others. But I couldn't sleep, a-lyin' there 'ungry an' thinkin' 'ow I'd worked all the years 'o my life, an' now 'ad no plyce to rest my 'ead; an' the music comin' to me, an' the cheers an' cannon, till I got almost a hanarchist an' wanted to blow out the brains o' the Lord Chamberlain."
Why the Lord Chamberlain I could not precisely see, nor could he, but that was the way he felt, he said conclusively, and there was no more discussion....
At three in the morning I strolled up the Embankment. It was a gala night for the homeless, for the police were elsewhere; and each bench was jammed with sleeping occupants. There were as many women as men, and the great majority of them, male and female, were old. Occasionally a boy was to be seen. On one bench I noticed a family, a man sitting upright with a sleeping babe in his arms, his wife asleep, her head on his shoulder, and in her lap the head of a sleeping youngster. The man's eyes were wide open. He was staring out over the water and thinking, which is not a good thing for a shelterless man with a family to do. It would not be a pleasant thing to speculate upon his thoughts; but this I know, and all London knows, that the cases of out-of-works killing their wives and babies is not an uncommon happening.
One cannot walk along the Thames Embankment, in the small hours of morning, from the Houses of Parliament, past Cleopatra's Needle, to Waterloo Bridge, without being reminded of the sufferings, seven and twenty centuries old, recited by the author of "Job":--
"There are that remove the landmarks; they violently take away flocks and feed them.
"They drive away the ass of the fatherless, they take the widow's ox for a pledge.
"They turn the needy out of the way; the poor of the earth hide themselves together.
"Behold, as wild asses in the desert they go forth to their work, seeking diligently for meat; the wilderness yieldeth them food for their children.
"They cut their provender in the field, and they glean the vintage of the wicked.
"They lie all night naked without clothing, and have no covering in the cold.
"They are wet with the showers of the mountains, and embrace the rock for want of a shelter.
"There are that pluck the fatherless from the breast, and take a pledge of the poor.
"So that they go about naked without clothing, and being an hungered they carry the sheaves."
Seven and twenty centuries agone! And it is all as true and apposite today in the innermost centre of this Christian civilisation whereof Edward VII is king.
The Wrongfulness of Riches
BY GRANT ALLEN
(See page 210)
Have you ever reflected with what equipment of rights the average citizen is born endowed in England? With the right of moving up and down the public roads till he drops from exhaustion. That is all. Literally and absolutely all.
BY WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
(English poet and essayist, 1775-1864)
A want of the necessaries of life, in peasants or artisans, when the seasons have been favorable, is a certain sign of defect in the constitution, or of criminality in the administration.
The True Imperialism
BY WILLIAM WATSON
(English poet, conspicuous for his courage in opposing the Boer war; born 1858)
Here, while the tide of conquest rolls Against the distant golden shore, The starved and stunted human souls Are with us more and more.
Vain is your Science, vain your Art, Your triumphs and your glories vain, To feed the hunger of their heart And famine of their brain.
Your savage deserts howling near, Your wastes of ignorance, vice, and shame,-- Is there no room for victories here, No fields for deeds of fame?
Arise and conquer while ye can The foe that in your midst resides, And build within the mind of Man The Empire that abides.
Letters from a Chinese Official
BY G. LOWES DICKINSON
(See page 510)
Like the prince in the fable, you seem to have released from his prison the genie of competition, only to find that you are unable to control him. Your legislation for the past hundred years is a perpetual and fruitless effort to regulate the disorders of your economic system. Your poor, your drunk, your incompetent, your aged, ride you like a nightmare. You have dissolved all human and personal ties, and you endeavor, in vain, to replace them by the impersonal activity of the State. The salient characteristic of your civilization is its irresponsibility. You have liberated forces you cannot control; you are caught yourselves in your own levers and cogs. In every department of business you are substituting for the individual the company, for the workman the tool. The making of dividends is a universal preoccupation; the well-being of the laborer is no one's concern but the State's. And this concern even the State is incompetent to undertake, for the factors by which it is determined are beyond its control. You depend on variations of supply and demand which you can neither determine nor anticipate. The failure of a harvest, the modification of a tariff in some remote country, dislocates the industry of millions, thousands of miles away. You are at the mercy of a prospector's luck, an inventor's genius, a woman's caprice--nay, you are at the mercy of your own instruments. Your capital is alive, and cries for food; starve it and it turns and throttles you. You produce, not because you will, but because you must; you consume, not what you choose, but what is forced upon you. Never was any trade so bound as this which you call free; but it is bound, not by a reasonable will, but by the accumulated irrationality of caprice.
Utopia
BY SIR THOMAS MORE
(See pages 160, 490)
When I consider and way in my mind all these common wealthes, which now a dayes any where do florish, so god helpe me, I can perceave nothing but a certain conspiracy of riche men procuringe theire owne commodities under the name and title of the commen wealth. They invent and devise all meanes and craftes, first how to kepe safely, without feare of losing, that they have unjustly gathered together, and next how to hire and abuse the worke and laboure of the poore for as litle money as may be. These devises, when the riche men have decreed to be kept and observed under coloure of the comminaltie, that is to saye, also of the pore people, then they be made lawes. But these most wicked and vicious men, when they have by their unsatiable covetousnes devided among them selves al those thinges, whiche woulde have sufficed all men, yet how faire be they from the welth and felicitie of the Utopian commen wealth?
Tales of Two Countries
BY MAXIM GORKY
(A volume of short stories representing the later work of the Russian novelist, the fruit of his sojourn in Capri. It is interesting to note how this change of environment altered not merely his point of view, but even his literary style. The following narrative has the clarity and delicacy of the best French prose. It is the story of an Italian workingman)
"I was born naked and stupid, like you and everybody else; in my youth I dreamed of a rich wife; when I was a soldier I studied in order to pass the examination for an officer's rank. I was twenty-three when I felt that all was not as it should be in this world, and that it was a shame to live as if it were....
"We, our whole regiment, were sent to Bologna. The peasantry there were in revolt, some demanding that the rent of land should be lowered, others shouting about the necessity for raising wages: both parties seemed to be in the wrong. 'To lower rents and increase wages, what nonsense!' thought I. 'That would ruin the landowners.' To me, who was a town-dweller, it seemed utter foolishness. I was very indignant--the heat helped to make one so, and the constant travelling from place to place and the mounting guard at night. For, you know, these fine fellows were breaking the machinery belonging to the landowners; and it pleased them to burn the corn and to try to spoil everything that did not belong to them. Just think of it!"
He sipped his wine and, becoming more animated, went on: "They roamed about the fields in droves like sheep, always silently, and as if they meant business. We used to scatter them, threatening them with our bayonets sometimes. Now and then we struck them with the butts of our rifles. Without showing much fear, they dispersed in leisurely fashion, but always came together again. It was a tedious business, like mass, and it lasted for days, like an attack of fever. Luoto, our non-commissioned officer, a fine fellow from Abruzzi, himself a peasant, was anxious and troubled: he turned quite yellow and thin, and more than once he said to us:
"'It's a bad business, boys; it will probably be necessary to shoot, damn it!'
"His grumbling upset us still more; and then, you know, from every corner, from every hillock and tree we could see peeping the obstinate heads of the peasants; their angry eyes seemed to pierce us. For these people, naturally enough, did not regard us in a very friendly light....
"Once I stood on a small hillock near an olive grove, guarding some trees which the peasants had been injuring. At the bottom of the hill two men were at work, an old man and a youth. They were digging a ditch. It was very hot, the sun burnt like fire, one felt irritable, longed to be a fish, and I remember I eyed them angrily. At noon they both left off work, and got out some bread and cheese and a jug of wine. 'Oh, devil take them!' thought I to myself. Suddenly the old man, who previously had not once looked at me, said something to the youth, who shook his head disapprovingly, but the old man shouted: 'Go on!' He said this very sternly.
"The youth came up to me with the jug in his hand, and said, not very willingly, you know: 'My father thinks that you would like a drink and offers you some wine.'
"I felt embarrassed, but I was pleased. I refused, nodding at the same time to the old man and thanking him. He responded by looking at the sky. 'Drink it, signor, drink it. We offer this to you as a man, not as a soldier. We do not expect a soldier to become kinder because he has drunk our wine!'
"'D-- you, don't get nasty,' I thought to myself, and having drunk about three mouthfuls I thanked him. Then they began to eat down below. A little later I was relieved by Ugo from Salertino. I told him quietly that these two peasants were good fellows. The same night, as I stood at the door of a barn where the machinery was kept, a slate fell on my head from the roof. It did not do much damage, but another slate, striking my shoulder edgewise, hurt me so severely that my left arm dropped benumbed."
The speaker burst into a loud laugh, his mouth wide open, his eyes half-closed. "Slates, stones, sticks," said he, through his laughter, "in those days and at that place were alive. This independent action of lifeless things made some pretty big bumps on our heads. Wherever a soldier stood or walked, a stick would suddenly fly at him from the ground, or a stone fall upon him from the sky. It made us savage, as you can guess."
The eyes of his companion became sad, his face turned pale and he said quietly: "One always feels ashamed to hear of such things."
"What is one to do? People take time to get wise. Then I called for help. I was led into a house where another fellow lay, his face cut by a stone. When I asked him how it happened he said, smiling, but not with mirth:
"'An old woman, comrade, an old gray witch struck me, and then proposed that I should kill her!'
"'Was she arrested?'
"'I said that I had done it myself, that I had fallen and hurt myself. The commander did not believe it, I could see it by his eyes. But, don't you see, it was awkward to confess that I had been wounded by an old woman. Eh? The devil! Of course they are hard pressed, and one can understand that they do not love us!'
"'H'm!' thought I. The doctor came and two ladies with him, one of them fair and very pretty, evidently a Venetian. I don't remember the other. They looked at my wound. It was slight, of course. They applied a poultice and went away....
"My comrade and I used to sit at the window. We sat in such a way that the light did not fall on us, and there once we heard the charming voice of this fair lady. She and her companion were walking with the doctor in the garden outside the window and talking in French, which I understand very well.
"'Did you notice the color of his eyes?' she asked. 'He is a peasant of course, and once he has taken off his uniform will no doubt become a Socialist, like all of them here. People with eyes like that want to conquer the whole of life, to drive us out, to destroy us in order that some blind, tedious justice should triumph!'
"'Foolish fellows,' said the doctor--'half children, half brutes.'
"'Brutes, that is quite true. But what is there childish about them?'
"'What about those dreams of universal equality?'
"'Yes, just imagine it. The fellow with the eyes of an ox, and the other with the face of a bird--our equals! You and I their equals, the equals of these people of inferior blood! People who can be bidden to come and kill their fellows, brutes like them.' ...
"She spoke much and vehemently. I listened and thought: 'Quite right, signora.' I had seen her more than once; and you know, of course, that no one dreams more ardently of a woman than a soldier. I imagined her to be kind and clever and warm-hearted; and at that time I had an idea that the landed nobility were especially clever, or gifted, or something of the kind. I don't know why!
"I asked my comrade: 'Do you understand this language?'
"No, he did not understand. Then I translated for him the fair lady's speech. The fellow got as angry as the devil, and started to jump about the room, his one eye glistening--the other was bandaged.
"'Is that so?' he murmured. 'Is that possible? She makes use of me and does not look upon me as a man. For her sake I allow my dignity to be offended and she denies it. For the sake of guarding her property I risk losing my soul.'
"He was not a fool and felt that he had been very much insulted, and so did I. The following day we talked about this lady in a loud voice, not heeding Luoto, who only muttered:
"'Be careful, boys; don't forget that you are soldiers, and that there is such a thing as discipline.'
"No, we did not forget it. But many of us, almost all, to tell you the truth, became deaf and blind, and these young peasants made use of our deafness and blindness to very good purpose. They won. They treated us very well indeed. The fair lady could have learnt from them: for instance, they could have taught her very convincingly how honest people should be valued. When we left the place whither we had come with the idea of shedding blood, many of us were given flowers. As we marched along the streets of the village, not stones and slates but flowers were thrown at us, my friend. I think we had deserved it. One may forget a cool reception when one has received such a good send-off."
The Rights of Man
BY THOMAS PAINE
(English radical writer, who took a prominent part in the American and French revolutions; 1737-1809)
The superstitious awe, the enslaving reverence, that formerly surrounded affluence, is passing away in all countries, and leaving the possessor of property to the convulsion of accidents. When wealth and splendor, instead of fascinating the multitude, excite emotions of disgust; when, instead of drawing forth admiration, it is beheld as an insult upon wretchedness; when the ostentatious appearance it makes serves to call the right of it in question, the case of property becomes critical, and it is only in a system of justice that the possessor can contemplate security.
BY OTTO VON BISMARCK
(German statesman, 1815-1898)
I believe that those who profess horror at the intervention of the state for the protection of the weak lay themselves open to the suspicion that they are desirous of using their strength for the benefit of a portion, for the oppression of the rest.
The Demand of Labor
BY ABRAHAM LINCOLN
(President of the United States; 1809-1865. A frequently quoted passage attributed to Lincoln, prophesying the developments of modern capitalist industry, has been proven to be spurious. It therefore seems worth stating that the passages quoted in this volume have been duly verified)
Inasmuch as most good things are produced by labor, it follows that all such things ought to belong to those whose labor has produced them. But it has happened in all ages of the world that some have labored, and others, without labor, have enjoyed a large proportion of the fruits. This is wrong, and should not continue. To secure to each laborer the whole product of his labor as nearly as possible is a worthy object of any good government.
Bryanism
(From the New York "Tribune")
(The following passage is given space as a curiosity of the class-struggle, and by way of encouragement to social reformers who may suffer under the lash of capitalist abuse. It is from an editorial published in one of New York City's most conservative and respectable journals on the day after the presidential election of 1896; its subject is the Hon. William Jennings Bryan, now a conservative and plodding Secretary of State)
The thing was conceived in iniquity and was brought forth in sin. It had its origin in a malicious conspiracy against the honor and integrity of the nation. It gained such monstrous growth as it enjoyed from an assiduous culture of the basest passions of the least worthy members of the community. It has been defeated and destroyed because right is right and God is God. Its nominal head was worthy of the cause. Nominal, because the wretched, rattle-pated boy, posing in vapid vanity and mouthing resounding rottenness, was not the real leader of that league of hell. He was only a puppet in the blood-imbued hands of Altgeld, the anarchist, and Debs, the revolutionist, and other desperadoes of that stripe. But he was a willing puppet, Bryan was--willing and eager. Not one of his masters was more apt than he at lies and forgeries and blasphemies and all the nameless iniquities of that campaign against the Ten Commandments. He goes down with the cause, and must abide with it in the history of infamy. He had less provocation than Benedict Arnold, less intellectual force than Aaron Burr, less manliness and courage than Jefferson Davis. He was the rival of them all in deliberate wickedness and treason to the Republic. His name belongs with theirs, neither the most brilliant nor the most hateful of the list. Good riddance to it all, to conspiracy and conspirators, and to the foul menace of repudiation and anarchy against the honor and life of the Republic!
BY FERDINAND LASSALLE
(German Socialist leader; 1825-1864)
It is the opposition of the personal interest of the higher classes to the development of the nation in culture, which causes the great and necessary immorality of the higher classes.
The Rough Rider
BY BLISS CARMAN
(American poet of nature, born 1861)
Take up, who will, the challenge; Stand pat on graft and greed; Grow sleek on others' labor, Surfeit on others' need; Let paid and bloodless tricksters Devise a legal way Our common right and justice "To sell, deny, delay."
Not yesterday nor lightly We came to know that breed; Our quarrel with that cunning Is old as Runnymede. We saw enfranchised insult Deploy in kingly line, When broke our sullen fury On Rupert of the Rhine....
Now, masking raid and rapine In debonair disguise, The foe we thought defeated Deludes our careless eyes, Entrenched in law and largess And the vested wrong of things, Cloaking a fouler treason Than any faithless king's.
He takes our life for wages, He holds our land for rent, He sweats our little children To swell his cent per cent; With secret grip and levy On every crumb we eat, He drives our sons to thieving, Our daughters to the street....
Against the grim defenses Where might and murrain hide, Unswerving to the issue Loose-reined and rough we ride Full tardily, to rescue Our heritage from wrong, And stablish it on manhood, A thousand times more strong.
BY WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE
(English liberal statesman, 1809-1898)
In almost every one, if not in every one, of the greatest political controversies of the last fifty years, whether they affected the franchise, whether they affected commerce, whether they affected religion, whether they affected the bad and abominable institution of slavery, or what subject they touched, these leisured classes, these educated classes, these titled classes, have been in the wrong.
The Bad Shepherds
BY OCTAVE MIRBEAU
(Celebrated French man-of-letters, born 1850. A play, first produced in 1897, with Sarah Bernhardt in the leading rôle, presenting the class-struggle from the point of view of the anti-parliamentarian. At the height of a desperate strike of steel-workers, the leader of the strikers is addressing a secret gathering in a forest, near a religious shrine)
JEAN:--You reproach me--and this is the worst charge you bring against me--that I refused the meeting with the radical and socialist deputies who wanted to mix up in our affair, and take the direction of the strike?
VOICES:--Yes--yes! Silence! Hear him!
JEAN:--Your deputies! Ah, if you had seen them at work! And you, yourselves--have you forgotten the infamous rôle, the pitiful, sinister comedy they played in the last strike? How, having pushed the workers to a desperate resistance, they gave them up weakened, despoiled, bound hands and feet, to the master--the very day where a last effort, a last surge, would have compelled him, perhaps, to surrender? Ah, no indeed! I have not wished that intriguers, under the pretext of defending you, should come to impose upon you combinations--wherein you are nothing but a means to maintain and increase their political power--a prey to satisfy their political appetites! You have nothing in common with those people! Their interests are not any more yours--than those of the usurer and the creditor, of the assassin and his victim!
VOICE:--Bravo! It's true! Down with politics! Down with the deputies!
JEAN:--Understand, then, that they exist only by your credulity! Your brutalization, they exploit it as a farm--your servitude, they treat it as an income. They grow fat upon your poverty and your ignorance, while you are living; and when you are dead they make a pedestal of your corpses! Is that what you want?
VOICE:--No, no. He is right!
JEAN:--The master is at least a man like yourselves! You have him before you--you speak to him--you make him angry--you threaten him--you kill him. At least he has a face, a breast into which you can thrust a knife! But go now, and move that being without a face that is called a politician! Go kill that thing that is known as politics! That slippery and fugitive thing, that you think you have, and that always escapes you--that you believe is dead, and it begins once again--that abominable thing by which all has been made vile, all corrupted, all bought, all sold--justice, love, beauty! Which has made of the venality of conscience a national institution of France--which has done worse yet, since with its foul slime it has soiled the august face of the poor--worse yet, since it has destroyed in you the last ideal--the faith in the Revolution! Do you understand what I have desired of you--that which I still demand of your energy, your dignity, your intelligence? I have desired, and I desire, that you shall show for once, to the world of political parasites, that new example, fecund and terrible, of a strike made, at last, by yourselves, for yourselves! And if once more you have to die, in this struggle which you have undertaken, know how to die--one time--for yourselves, for your sons, for those who will be born of your sons--and no more for those who trade upon your suffering, as always!
MADELEINE (a girl-striker, springs up):--March--march with him, and no longer with those whose hands are red with the blood of the poor! March! The road will be long and hard! You will fall many times upon your broken knees--what matters it? Stand up and march again! Justice is at the end!
A VOICE:--We will follow you!
MADELEINE:--And do not fear death! Love death! Death is splendid--necessary and divine! It makes life young again! Ah, do not give your tears! Through all the centuries that you have wept, who has seen them, who has heard them flow? Give your blood! If blood is as a hideous spot upon the face of the hangmen, it shines upon the face of martyrs as an eternal sun! Each drop of blood that flows from your veins--every stream of blood that pours from your bosoms--will mean the birth of a hero--a saint (pointing to the crucifix)--a god! Ah, would that I had a thousand lives, that I might give them all for you! Would that I had a thousand breasts, so that all that blood of deliverance and love might pour out upon the ground where you suffer!
The Cultured Classes
BY JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE
(German philosopher, 1762-1814)
It is particularly to the cultured classes that I wish to direct my remarks in the present address. I implore these classes to take the initiative in the work of reconstruction, to atone for their past deeds, and to earn the right to continue life in the future. It will appear in the course of this address that hitherto all the advance in the German nation has originated with the common people; that hitherto all the great national interests have, in the first instance, been the affair of the people, have been taken in hand and pushed forward by the body of the people.
The Duty of Civil Disobedience
BY HENRY DAVID THOREAU
(See pages 295, 600)
The mass of men serve the State thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, gaolers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens.
Others--as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders--serve the State chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God.
A very few, as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men, serve the State with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it.
BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON
(See pages 235, 522)
Let man serve law for man; Live for friendship, live for love, For truth's and harmony's behoof; The state may follow how it can, As Olympus follows Jove.
The Happiness of Nations
BY JAMES MACKAYE
(American writer upon economics, born 1872)
Everywhere we are taught that "life is sacred," that "liberty is sacred," that "property is sacred,"--but where are we taught that happiness is sacred? And yet it is only because of their relation to happiness that these other things have a trace of sacredness.
Paris
BY ÉMILE ZOLA
(See page 91)
All boiled in the huge vat of Paris; the desires, the deeds of violence, the strivings of one and another man's will, the whole nameless medley of the bitterest ferments, whence, in all purity, the wine of the future would at last flow.
Then Pierre became conscious of the prodigious work which went on in the depths of the vat, beneath all the impurity and waste. What mattered the stains, the egotism and greed of politicians, if humanity were still on the march, ever slowly and stubbornly stepping forward! What mattered, too, that corrupt and emasculate bourgeoisie, nowadays as moribund as the aristocracy, whose place it took, if behind it there ever came the inexhaustible reserve of men who surged up from the masses of the country-side and the towns!... If in the depths of pestilential workshops and factories the slavery of ancient times subsisted in the wage-earning system, if men still died of want on their pallets like broken-down beasts of burden, it was nevertheless a fact that once already, on a memorable day of tempest, Liberty sprang forth from the vat to wing her flight throughout the world. And why in her turn should not Justice spring from it, proceeding from those troubled elements, freeing herself from all dross, ascending with dazzling splendor and regenerating the nations?
Farewell Address
BY GEORGE WASHINGTON
(See page 305)
Observe good faith and justice toward all nations, cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened and at no distant period a great nation to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt but, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages which might be lost by a steady adherence to it; can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue. The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which enobles human nature. Alas, is it rendered impossible by its vices?
America the Beautiful
BY KATHARINE LEE BATES
(Professor at Wellesley College, born 1859. This poem has been adopted as the official hymn of the American Federation of Women's Clubs)
O beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain, For purple mountain majesties Above the fruited plain! America! America! God shed His grace on thee And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea!
O beautiful for pilgrim feet, Whose stern, impassioned stress A thoroughfare for freedom beat Across the wilderness! America! America! God mend thine every flaw, Confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law!
O beautiful for heroes proved In liberating strife, Who more than self their country loved, And mercy more than life! America! America! May God thy gold refine, Till all success be nobleness, And every gain divine!
O beautiful for patriot dream That sees beyond the years Thine alabaster cities gleam Undimmed by human tears! America! America! God shed His grace on thee And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea!
Book XIII
Children
Social injustice as it bears upon literature and the producers of literature; pictures of the life of the outcast poet, and of art in conflict with mammon.
The Children of the Poor
BY VICTOR HUGO
(See pages 182, 267)
(Translated by Algernon Charles Swinburne)
Take heed of this small child of earth; He is great: he hath in him God most high. Children before their fleshly birth Are lights alive in the blue sky.
In our light bitter world of wrong They come; God gives us them awhile. His speech is in their stammering tongue, And his forgiveness in their smile.
Their sweet light rests upon our eyes. Alas! their right to joy is plain. If they are hungry, Paradise Weeps, and, if cold, Heaven thrills with pain.
The want that saps their sinless flower Speaks judgment on sin's ministers. Man holds an angel in his power. Ah! deep in Heaven what thunder stirs,
When God seeks out these tender things Whom in the shadow where we sleep He sends us clothed about with wings, And finds them ragged babes that weep!
In a Southern Cotton Mill
BY ELBERT HUBBARD
(American author and lecturer, born 1859; died May 7, 1915)
I thought to lift one of the little toilers to ascertain his weight. Through his thirty-five pounds of skin and bone there ran a tremor of fear, and he struggled forward to tie a broken thread. I attracted his attention by a touch, and offered him a silver dime. He looked at me dumbly through a face that might have belonged to a man of sixty, so furrowed, tightly drawn, and full of pain it was. He did not reach for the money--he did not know what it was. There were dozens of such children, in this particular mill. A physician who was with me said that they would all be dead probably in two years, and their places filled by others--there were plenty more. Pneumonia carries off most of them. Their systems are ripe for disease, and when it comes there is no rebound--no response. Medicine simply does not act--nature is whipped, beaten, discouraged, and the child sinks into a stupor and dies.
The Flower Factory
BY FLORENCE WILKINSON EVANS
(Contemporary American poetess)
Lizabetta, Marianina, Fiametta, Teresina, They are winding stems of roses, one by one, one by one, Little children who have never learned to play; Teresina softly crying that her fingers ache to-day;
Tiny Fiametta nodding, when the twilight slips in, gray. High above the clattering street, ambulance and fire-gong beat, They sit, curling crimson petals, one by one, one by one.
Lizabetta, Marianina, Fiametta, Teresina, They have never seen a rose-bush nor a dew-drop in the sun. They will dream of the vendetta, Teresina, Fiametta, Of a Black Hand and a Face behind a grating; They will dream of cotton petals, endless, crimson, suffocating, Never of a wild rose thicket or the singing of a cricket, But the ambulance will bellow through the wanness of their dreams, And their tired lids will flutter with the street's hysteric screams.
Lizabetta, Marianina, Fiametta, Teresina, They are winding stems of roses, one by one, one by one. Let them have a long, long play-time, Lord of Toil, when toil is done, Fill their baby hands with roses, joyous roses of the sun.
The Beast
BY BEN B. LINDSEY AND HARVEY J. O'HIGGINS
("The Children's Judge," who founded the first children's court in America, tells the story of his long fight with the powers of privilege in Colorado. In the following extract, he narrates what came of a newspaper interview on the subject of the revolting conditions under which children were kept in prison)
The result was an article that took even my breath away when I read it next day on the front page of the newspaper. It was the talk of the town. It was certainly the talk of the Police Board; and Mr. Frank Adams talked to the reporters in a high voice, indiscreetly. He declared that the boys were liars, that I was "crazy," and that conditions in the jails were as good as they could be. This reply was exactly what we wished. I demanded an investigation. The Board professed to be willing, but set no date. We promptly set one for them--the following Thursday at two o'clock in my chambers at the Court House--and I invited to the hearing Governor Peabody, Mayor Wright, fifteen prominent ministers in the city, and the Police Board and some members of the City Council.
On Thursday morning--to my horror--I learned from a friendly Deputy Sheriff that the subpœnas I had ordered sent to a number of boys whom I knew as jail victims had not been served. I had no witnesses. And in three hours the hearing was to begin. I appealed to the Deputy Sheriff to help me. He admitted that he could not get the boys in less than two days. "Well then," I said, "for heaven's sake, get me Mickey."
And Mickey? Well, Mickey was known to fame as "the worst kid in town." As such, his portrait had been printed in the newspapers--posed with his shine-box over his shoulder, a cigarette in the corner of his grin, his thumbs under his suspenders at the shoulders, his feet crossed in an attitude of nonchalant youthful deviltry. He had been brought before me more than once on charges of truancy, and I had been using him in an attempt to organize a newsboys' association under the supervision of the court. Moreover, he had been one of the boys who had been beaten by the jailer, and I knew he would be grateful to me for defending him.
It was midday before the Sheriff brought him to me. "Mickey," I said, "I'm in trouble, and you've got to help me out of it. You know I helped you."
"Betcher life yuh did, Judge," he said. "I'm wit' yuh. W'at d' yuh want?"
I told him what I wanted--every boy that he could get, who had been in jail. "And they've got to be in this room by two o'clock. Can you do it?"
Mickey threw out his dirty little hand. "Sure I kin. Don't yuh worry, Judge. Get me a wheel--dhat's all."
I hurried out with him and got him a bicycle, and he flew off down Sixteenth Street on it, his legs so short that his feet could only follow the pedals half way round. I went back to my chambers to wait....
As two o'clock approached, the ministers began to come into my room, one by one, and take seats in readiness. Mr. Wilson of the Police Board arrived to represent his fellow-commissioners. The Deputy District Attorney came, the president of the upper branch of the City Council came, Mayor Wright came, and even Governor Peabody came--but no boys! I felt like a man who had ordered a big dinner in a strange restaurant for a party of friends, and then found that he had not brought his purse.... I was just about to begin my apologies when I heard an excited patter of small feet on the stairs and the shuffle and crowding of Mickey's cohorts outside in the hall. I threw open the door. "I got 'em, Judge," Mickey cried.
He had them--to the number of about twenty. I shook him by the shoulder, speechless with relief. "I tol' yuh we'd stan' by yuh, Judge," he grinned.
He had the worst lot of little jailbirds that ever saw the inside of a county court, and he pointed out the gem of his collection proudly--"Skinny," a lad in his teens, who had been in jail twenty-two times!" All right, boys," I told them, "I don't know you all, but I'll take Mickey's word for you. You've all been in jail and you know what you do there--all the dirty things you hear and see and do yourselves. I want you to tell some gentlemen in here about it. Don't be scared. They're your friends the same as I am. The cops say you've been lying to me about the way things are down in the jails there, and I want you to tell the truth. Nothing but the truth, now. Mickey, you pick them out and send them in one by one--your best witnesses first."
I went back to my chambers. "Gentlemen," I said, "we're ready."
I sat down at the big table with the Governor at my right, the Mayor at my left and the president of the Board of Supervisors and Police Commissioner Wilson at either end of the table. The ministers seated themselves in the chairs about my room. (We allowed no newspaper reporters in, because I knew what sort of vile and unprintable testimony was coming.) Mickey sent in his first witness.
One by one, as the boys came, I impressed upon them the necessity of telling the truth, encouraged them to talk, and tried to put them at their ease. I started each by asking him how often he had been in jail, what he had seen there, and so forth. Then I sat back and let him tell his story.
And the things they told would raise your hair. I saw the blushes rise to the foreheads of some of the ministers at the first details. As we went on, the perspiration stood on their faces. Some sat pale, staring appalled at these freckled youngsters from whose little lips, in a sort of infantile eagerness to tell all they knew, there came stories of bestiality that were the more horrible because they were so innocently, so boldly given. It was enough to make a man weep; and indeed tears of compassionate shame came to the eyes of more than one father there, as he listened. One boy broke down and cried when he told of the vile indecencies that had been committed upon him by the older criminals; and I saw the muscles working in the clenched jaws of some of our "investigating committee"--saw them swallowing the lump in the throat--saw them looking down at the floor blinkingly, afraid of losing their self-control. The Police Commissioner made the mistake of cross-examining the first boy, but the frank answers he got only exposed worse matters. The boys came and came, till at last, a Catholic priest, Father O'Ryan, cried out: "My God! I have had enough!" Governor Peabody said hoarsely: "I never knew there was such immorality in the world!" Some one else put in, "It's awful,--awful!" in a half groan.
"Gentlemen," I said, "there have been over two thousand Denver boys put through those jails and those conditions, in the last five years. Do you think it should go on any longer?"
Governor Peabody arose. "No," he said; "no. Never in my life have I heard of so much rot--corruption--vileness--as I've heard today from the mouths of these babies. I want to tell you that nothing I can do in my administration can be of more importance--nothing I can do will I do more gladly than sign those bills that Judge Lindsey is trying to get through the Legislature to do away with these terrible conditions. And if," he said, turning to the Police Commissioner, "Judge Lindsey is 'crazy,' I want my name written under his, among the crazy people. And if any one says these boys are 'liars,' that man is a liar himself!"
Phew! The "committee of investigation" dissolved, the boys trooped away noisily, and the ministers went back to their pulpits to voice the horror that had kept them silent in my small chamber of horrors for two hours. Their sermons went into the newspapers under large black headlines; and by the end of the next week our juvenile court bills were passed by the Legislature and made law in Colorado.
The Cry of the Children
BY ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
(See page 644)
Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, Ere the sorrow comes with years? They are leaning their young heads against their mothers-- And that cannot stop their tears. The young lambs are bleating in the meadows; The young birds are chirping in the nest; The young fawns are playing with the shadows; The young flowers are blowing toward the west-- But the young, young children, O my brothers, They are weeping bitterly! They are weeping in the playtime of the others, In the country of the free.
Do you question the young children in the sorrow Why their tears are falling so? The old man may weep for his to-morrow Which is lost in Long Ago; The old tree is leafless in the forest, The old year is ending in the frost, The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest, The old hope is hardest to be lost: But the young, young children, O my brothers, Do you ask them why they stand Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers, In our happy Fatherland?
They look up with their pale and sunken faces, And their looks are sad to see, For the man's hoary anguish draws and presses Down the cheeks of infancy; "Your old earth," they say, "is very dreary, Our young feet," they say, "are very weak; Few paces have we taken, yet are weary-- Our grave-rest is very far to seek. Ask the old why they weep, and not the children, For the outside earth is cold, And we young ones stand without, in our bewildering, And the graves are for the old." ...
"For oh," say the children, "we are weary, And we cannot run or leap; If we cared for any meadows, it were merely To drop down in them and sleep. Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping, We fall upon our faces, trying to go; And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping, The reddest flower would look as pale as snow. For, all day, we drag our burden tiring Through the coal-dark, underground, Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron In the factories, round and round.
"For, all day, the wheels are droning, turning; Their wind comes in our faces, Till our hearts turn, our head, with pulses burning, And the walls turn in their places: Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling, Turns the long light that drops adown the wall, Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling, All are turning, all the day, and we with all. And all day, the iron wheels are droning, And sometimes we could pray, 'O ye wheels,' (breaking out in a mad moaning) 'Stop! be silent for to-day!'" ...
They look up, with their pale and sunken faces, And their look is dread to see, For they mind you of the angels in their places, With eyes turned on Deity. "How long," they say, "how long, O cruel nation, Will you stand, to move the world, on a child's heart,-- Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation, And tread onward to your throne amid the mart? Our blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper, And your purple shows your path! But the child's sob in the silence curses deeper Than the strong man in his wrath."
Child Labor in England
(From "An Industrial History of England")
BY HENRY DE B. GIBBINS
Sometimes regular traffickers would take the place of the manufacturer, and transfer a number of children to a factory district, and there keep them, generally in some dark cellar, till they could hand them over to a mill owner in want of hands, who would come and examine their height, strength, and bodily capacities, exactly as did the slave owners in the American markets. After that the children were simply at the mercy of their owners, nominally as apprentices, but in reality as mere slaves, who got no wages, and whom it was not worth while even to feed and clothe properly, because they were so cheap and their places could be so easily supplied. It was often arranged by the parish authorities, in order to get rid of imbeciles, that one idiot should be taken by the mill owner with every twenty sane children. The fate of these unhappy idiots was even worse than that of the others. The secret of their final end has never been disclosed, but we can form some idea of their awful sufferings from the hardships of the other victims to capitalist greed and cruelty. The hours of their labor were only limited by exhaustion, after many modes of torture had been unavailingly applied to force continued work. Children were often worked sixteen hours a day, by day and by night.
Mill Children
(From "Processionals")
BY JOHN CURTIS UNDERWOOD
(American poet, born 1874)
We have forgotten how to sing: our laughter is a godless thing: listless and loud and shrill and sly. We have forgotten how to smile. Our lips, our voices too are vile. We are all dead before we die.
Our mothers' mothers made us so: the father that we never know in blindness and in wantonness Caused us to come to question you. What is it that you others do, that profit so by our distress?
You and your children softly sleep. We and our mothers vigil keep. You cheated us of all delight, Ere our sick spirits came to birth: you made our fair and fruitful earth a nest of pestilence and blight.
Your black machines are never still, and hard, relentless as your will, they card us like the cotton waste. And flesh and blood more cheap than they, they seize and eat and shred away, to feed the fever of your haste.
For we are waste and shoddy here, who know no God, no faith but fear, no happiness, no hope but sleep. Half imbecile and half obscene we sit and tend each tense machine, too sick to sigh, too tired to weep, Until the tortured end of day, when fevered faces turn away, to see the stars from blackness leap.
In the Slums of London
(From "The People of the Abyss")
BY JACK LONDON
(See pages 62, 125, 139, 519, 609)
There is one beautiful sight in the East End, and only one, and it is the children dancing in the street when the organ-grinder goes his round. It is fascinating to watch them, the new-born, the next generation, swaying and stepping, with pretty little mimicries and graceful inventions all their own, with muscles that move swiftly and easily, and bodies that leap airily, weaving rhythms never taught in dancing school.
I have talked with these children, here, there, and everywhere, and they struck me as being bright as other children, and in many ways even brighter. They have most active little imaginations. Their capacity for projecting themselves into the realm of romance and fantasy is remarkable. A joyous life is romping in their blood. They delight in music, and motion, and color, and very often they betray a startling beauty of face and form under their filth and rags.
But there is a Pied Piper of London Town who steals them all away. They disappear. One never sees them again, or anything that suggests them. You may look for them in vain among the generation of grown-ups. Here you will find stunted forms, ugly faces, and blunt and stolid minds. Grace, beauty, imagination, all the resiliency of mind and muscle, are gone. Sometimes, however, you may see a woman, not necessarily old, but twisted and deformed out of all womanhood, bloated and drunken, lift her draggled skirts and execute a few grotesque and lumbering steps upon the pavement. It is a hint that she was once one of those children who danced to the organ-grinder. Those grotesque and lumbering steps are all that is left of the promise of childhood. In the befogged recesses of her brain has arisen a fleeting memory that she was once a girl. The crowd closes in. Little girls are dancing beside her, about her, with all the pretty graces she dimly recollects, but can no more than parody with her body. Then she pants for breath, exhausted, and stumbles out through the circle. But the little girls dance on.
The children of the Ghetto possess all the qualities which make for noble manhood and womanhood; but the Ghetto itself, like an infuriated tigress turning on its young, turns upon and destroys all these qualities, blots out the light and laughter, and moulds those it does not kill into sodden and forlorn creatures, uncouth, degraded, and wretched below the beasts of the field.
Slum Children
(From "Songs of Joy")
BY WILLIAM H. DAVIES
(See page 577)
Your songs at night a drunkard sings, Stones, sticks and rags your daily flowers; Like fishes' lips, a bluey white, Such lips, poor mites, are yours.
Poor little things, so sad and solemn, Whose lives are passed in human crowds-- When in the water I can see Heaven with a flock of clouds.
Poor little mites that breathe foul air, Where garbage chokes the sink and drain-- Now when the hawthorn smells so sweet, Wet with the summer rain.
But few of ye will live for long; Ye are but small new islands seen, To disappear before your lives Can grow and be made green.
No. 5 John Street
BY RICHARD WHITEING
(See page 137)
Some are locked in all day, "to keep 'em quiet," while their owners go forth to work or to booze. The infant faces, lined with their own dirt, and distorted by the smeared impurities of the window-panes, seem like the faces of actors made up for effects of old age. The poor little hands finger the panes without ceasing, as they might finger prison bars. The captives crawl over one another like caged insects, and all their gestures show the irritation of contact. But the clearest transmission through that foul medium is to the ear rather than to the eye, in the querulous whimper, at times rising to a wail, which betokens the agitation of their shattered nerves. The children playing below look up at them, and beckon them into the yard, or make faces at them, with the charitable intent of provoking them to a smile.
Locksley Hall Fifty Years After
BY ALFRED TENNYSON
(See pages 77, 486)
Is it well that while we range with Science, glorying in the time, City children soak and blacken soul and sense in city slime? There among the gloomy alleys Progress halts on palsied feet; Crime and hunger cast out maidens by the thousand on the street;
There the master scrimps his haggard seamstress of her daily bread; There the single sordid attic holds the living and the dead; There the smouldering fire of fever creeps across the rotted floor, And the crowded couch of incest, in the warrens of the poor.
Past and Present
BY THOMAS CARLYLE
(See pages 31, 74, 133, 488, 553)
Descend where you will into the lower class, in Town or Country, by what avenue you will, by Factory Inquiries, Agricultural Inquiries, by Revenue Returns, by Mining-Laborer Committees, by opening your own eyes and looking, the same sorrowful result discloses itself: you have to admit that the working body of this rich English Nation has sunk or is fast sinking into a state, to which, all sides of it considered, there was literally never any parallel. At Stockport Assizes, a Mother and a Father are arraigned and found guilty of poisoning three of their children, to defraud a "burial-society" of some £3 8s. due on the death of each child: they are arraigned, found guilty; and the official authorities, it is whispered, hint that perhaps the case is not solitary, that perhaps you had better not probe farther into that department of things.... In the British land, a human Mother and Father, of white skin and professing the Christian religion, had done this thing; they, with their Irishism and necessity and savagery, had been driven to do it. Such instances are like the highest mountain apex emerged into view; under which lies a whole mountain region and land, not yet emerged. A human Mother and Father had said to themselves, what shall we do to escape starvation? We are deep sunk here, in our dark cellar; and help is far.--Yes, in the Ugolino Hunger-tower stern things happen; best-loved little Gaddo fallen dead on his father's knees!--The Stockport Mother and Father think and hint: Our poor little starveling Tom, who cries all day for victuals, who will see only evil and not good in this world: if he were out of misery at once; he well dead, and the rest of us perhaps kept alive? It is thought, and hinted; at last it is done. And now Tom being killed, and all spent and eaten, Is it poor little starveling Jack that must go, or poor little starveling Will?--What a committee of ways and means!
Waifs and Strays
BY ARTHUR RIMBAUD
(French poet, 1854-1891)
Black in the fog and in the snow, Where the great air-hole windows glow, With rounded rumps,
Upon their knees five urchins squat, Looking down where the baker, hot, The thick dough thumps.
They watch his white arm turn the bread, Ere through an opening flaming red The loaf he flings.
They smell the good bread baking, while The chubby baker with a smile An old tune sings.
Breathing the warmth into their soul, They squat around the red air-hole, As a breast warm;
And when, for feasters' midnight bout, The ready bread is taken out, In a cake's form--
Sigh with low voices like a prayer, Bending toward the light, down there Where heaven gleams
--So eager that they burst their breeches, And in the winter wind that screeches Their linen streams!
Oliver Twist
BY CHARLES DICKENS
(See page 88)
The room in which the boys were fed, was a large stone hall, with a copper at one end; out of which the master, dressed in an apron for the purpose, and assisted by one or two women, ladled the gruel at meal times. Of this festive composition each boy had one porringer, and no more--except on occasions of great public rejoicing, when he had two ounces and a quarter of bread besides. The bowls never wanted washing. The boys polished them with their spoons till they shone again; and when they had performed this operation (which never took very long, the spoons being nearly as long as the bowls) they would sit staring at the copper, with such eager eyes, as if they could have devoured the very bricks of which it was composed; employing themselves, meanwhile, in sucking their fingers most assiduously, with the view of catching up any stray splashes of gruel that might have been cast thereon. Boys have generally excellent appetites. Oliver Twist and his companions suffered the tortures of slow starvation for three months; at last they got so voracious and wild with hunger, that one boy, who was tall for his age, and hadn't been used to that sort of thing (for his father had kept a small cook-shop), hinted darkly to his companions, that unless he had another basin of gruel per diem, he was afraid he might some night happen to eat the boy who slept next to him, who happened to be a weakly youth of tender age. He had a wild, hungry eye; and they implicitly believed him. A council was held; lots were cast who should walk up to the master after supper that evening, and ask for more; and it fell to Oliver Twist.
This evening arrived; the boys took their places. The master, in his cook's uniform, stationed himself at the copper; his pauper assistants ranged themselves behind him; the gruel was served out; and a long grace was said over the short commons. The gruel disappeared; the boys whispered to each other, and winked at Oliver; while his next neighbors nudged him. Child as he was, he was desperate with hunger, and reckless with misery. He rose from the table; and advancing to the master, basin and spoon in hand, said, somewhat alarmed at his own temerity:
"Please, sir, I want some more."
The master was a fat, healthy man; but he turned very pale. He gazed in stupefied astonishment on the small rebel for some seconds, and then clung for support to the copper. The assistants were paralyzed with wonder; the boys with fear.
"What!" said the master at length, in a faint voice.
"Please, sir," replied Oliver, "I want some more."
The master aimed a blow at Oliver's head with the ladle; pinioned him in his arms; and shrieked aloud for the beadle.
The board were sitting in solemn conclave, when Mr. Bumble rushed into the room in great excitement, and addressing the gentleman in the high chair, said:
"Mr. Limbkins, I beg your pardon, sir! Oliver Twist has asked for more!"
There was a general start. Horror was depicted on every countenance.
"For more!" said Mr. Limbkins. "Compose yourself, Bumble, and answer me distinctly. Do I understand that he asked for more, after he had eaten the supper allotted by the dietary?"
"He did, sir," replied Bumble.
"That boy will be hung," said the gentleman in the white waistcoat. "I know that boy will be hung."
Nobody controverted the prophetic gentleman's opinion. An animated discussion took place. Oliver was ordered into instant confinement; and a bill was next morning pasted on the outside of the gate, offering a reward of five pounds to anybody who would take Oliver Twist off the hands of the parish. In other words, five pounds and Oliver Twist were offered to any man or woman who wanted an apprentice to any trade, business, or calling.
"I never was more convinced of anything in my life," said the gentleman in the white waistcoat, as he knocked at the gate and read the bill the next morning: "I never was more convinced of anything in my life, than I am that that boy will come to be hung."
The Children's Auction
BY CHARLES MACKAY
(English Chartist poet, 1814-1889)
Who bids for the little children-- Body, and soul and brain? Who bids for the little children-- Young and without a stain? "Will no one bid," said England, "For their souls so pure and white, And fit for all good or evil The world on their page may write?"
"We bid," said Pest and Famine; "We bid for life and limb; Fever and pain and squalor, Their bright young eyes shall dim. When the children grow too many, We'll nurse them as our own, And hide them in secret places Where none may hear their moan."
"I bid," said Beggary, howling; "I bid for them one and all! I'll teach them a thousand lessons-- To lie, to skulk, to crawl! They shall sleep in my lair like maggots, They shall rot in the fair sunshine; And if they serve my purpose I hope they'll answer thine."
"I'll bid you higher and higher," Said Crime, with a wolfish grin; "For I love to lead the children Through the pleasant paths of sin. They shall swarm in the streets to pilfer, They shall plague the broad highway, They shall grow too old for pity And ripe for the law to slay.
"Give me the little children, Ye good, ye rich, ye wise, And let the busy world spin round While ye shut your idle eyes; And your judges shall have work, And your lawyers wag the tongue, And the jailers and policemen Shall be fathers to the young!"
A Modest Proposal
BY JONATHAN SWIFT
(English man of letters, 1667-1745; dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. Master of the bitterest satiric pen in English)
(From "A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from Being a Burthen to their Parents or Country, and for making them Beneficial to the Public")
It is a melancholy object to those, who walk through this great town, or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabin-doors, crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four or six children, all in rags, and importuning every passenger for an alms. These mothers instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in strolling, to beg sustenance for their helpless infants, who, as they grow up, either turn thieves for want of work, or leave their dear Native Country to fight for the Pretender in Spain, or sell themselves to the Barbadoes.
I think it is agreed by all parties, that this prodigious number of children, in the arms, or on the backs, or at the heels of their mothers, and frequently of their fathers, is in the present deplorable state of the kingdom, a very great additional grievance; and therefore whoever could find out a fair, cheap and easy method of making these children sound, useful members of the commonwealth would deserve so well of the public, as to have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation.
But my intention is very far from being confined to provide only for the children of professed beggars, it is of much greater extent, and shall take in the whole numbers of infants at a certain age, who are born of parents in effect as little able to support them, as those who demand our charity in the streets....
There is another great advantage in my scheme, that it will prevent those voluntary abortions, and that horrid practice of women murdering their bastard children, alas, too frequent among us, sacrificing the poor innocent babes, I doubt, more to avoid the expense, than the shame, which would move tears and pity in the most savage and inhuman breast....
I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout.
I do therefore humbly offer it to public consideration, that of the hundred and twenty thousand children, already computed, twenty thousand may be reserved for breed, whereof only one fourth part to be males, which is more than we allow to sheep, black-cattle, or swine; and my reason is that these children are seldom the fruits of marriage, a circumstance not much regarded by our savages; therefore only one male will be sufficient to serve four females. That the remaining hundred thousand may at a year old be offered in sale to the persons of quality, and fortune, through the kingdom, always advising the mother to let them suck plentifully in the last month, so as to render them plump, and fat for a good table....
I am not so violently bent upon my own opinion, as to reject any offer, proposed by wise men, which shall be found equally innocent, cheap, easy, and effectual. But before something of that kind shall be advanced in contradiction to my scheme, and offering a better, I desire the author, or authors will be pleased maturely to consider two points. First, as things now stand, how they will be able to find food and raiment for an hundred thousand useless mouths and backs. And secondly, there being a round million of creatures in human figure, throughout this kingdom, whose whole subsistence put into a common stock, would leave them in debt two millions of pounds sterling, adding those, who are beggars by profession, to the bulk of farmers, cottagers and laborers with their wives and children, who are beggars in effect. I desire those politicians, who dislike my overture, and may perhaps be so bold to attempt an answer, that they will first ask the parents of these mortals, whether they would not at this day think it a great happiness to have been sold for food at a year old, in the manner I prescribe, and thereby have avoided such a perpetual scene of misfortunes, as they have since gone through, by the oppression of landlords, the impossibility of paying rent without money or trade, the want of common sustenance, with neither house nor clothes to cover them from the inclemencies of the weather, and the most inevitable prospect of entailing the like, or greater miseries upon their breed for ever.
I profess in the sincerity of my heart that I have not the least personal interest in endeavoring to promote this necessary work, having no other motive than the public good of my country, by advancing our trade, providing for infants, relieving the poor, and giving some pleasure to the rich. I have no children, by which I can propose to get a single penny; the youngest being nine years old, and my wife past child-bearing.
Child Labor
BY CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN
(See pages 200, 209, 421)
No fledgling feeds the father bird! No chicken feeds the hen! No kitten mouses for the cat-- This glory is for men:
We are the Wisest, Strongest Race-- Loud may our praise be sung! The only animal alive That lives upon its young!
Mother Wept
BY JOSEPH SKIPSEY
(Contemporary English poet, whose work possesses a quaint simplicity, often suggesting Blake)
Mother wept, and father sighed; With delight a-glow Cried the lad, "Tomorrow," cried, "To the pit I go."
Up and down the place he sped,-- Greeted old and young; Far and wide the tidings spread; Clapped his hands and sung.
Came his cronies; some to gaze Rapt in wonder; some Free with counsel; some with praise; Some with envy dumb.
"May he," many a gossip cried, "Be from peril kept;" Father hid his face and sighed, Mother turned and wept.
A Workingman's Home-Life
(From "The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists")
BY ROBERT TRESSALL
(The life-story of an English house-painter who died of consumption, leaving behind him a manuscript portraying the pitiful lives of the half-starved English artisans. Published in book form, it proved to be one of the literary events of the year 1914)
"Hark!" said the mother, holding up her finger.
"Dad!" cried Frankie, rushing to the door and flinging it open.
He ran along the passage and opened the staircase door before Owen reached the top of the last flight of stairs.
"Why ever do you come up at such a rate?" exclaimed Owen's wife reproachfully, as he came into the room exhausted from the climb upstairs and sank panting into the nearest chair.
"I al--ways--for--get," he replied, when he had in some degree recovered.
As he lay back in the chair, his face haggard and of a ghastly whiteness, and with the water dripping from his saturated clothing, Owen presented a terrible appearance.
Frankie noticed with childish terror the extreme alarm with which his mother looked at his father.
"You're always doing it," he said with a whimper. "How many more times will mother have to tell you about it before you take any notice?"
"It's all right, old chap," said Owen, drawing the child nearer to him and kissing the curly head. "Listen, and see if you can guess what I've got for you under my coat."
"A kitten!" cried the boy, taking it out of its hiding place. "All black, and I believe it's half a Persian. Just the very thing I wanted."
While Frankie amused himself playing with the kitten, which had been provided with another saucer of bread and milk, Owen went into the bedroom to put on the dry clothes....
After the child was in bed, Owen sat alone by the table in the draughty sitting-room, thinking.
Although there was a bright fire, the room was very cold, being so close to the roof. The wind roared loudly round the gables, shaking the house in a way that threatened every moment to hurl it to the ground.
Staring abstractedly at the lamp, he thought of the future.
A few years ago the future had seemed a region of wonderful and mysterious possibilities of good, but to-night the thought brought no such illusions, for he knew that the story of the future was to be much the same as the story of the past. He would continue to work, and they would all three have to go without most of the necessaries of life. When there was no work they would starve.
For himself he did not care much, because he knew that, at the best--or worst--it would be only a very few years. Even if he were able to have proper food and clothing, and take reasonable care of himself, he could not live much longer; but, when that time came, what was to become of them?
There would be some hope for the boy if he were more robust and if his character were less gentle and more selfish. In order to succeed in the world it was necessary to be brutal, selfish, and unfeeling; to push others aside and to take advantage of their misfortunes.
Owen stood up and began walking about the room, oppressed with a kind of terror. Presently he returned to the fire and began rearranging his clothes that were drying. He found that the boots, having been placed too near the fire, had dried too quickly, and, consequently the sole of one of them had begun to split away from the upper. He remedied this as well as he was able, and, while turning the wetter parts of the clothing to the fire, he noticed the newspaper in the coat pocket. He drew it out with an exclamation of pleasure. Here was something to distract his thoughts. But, as soon as he opened the paper, his attention was riveted by the staring headlines of one of the principal columns: TERRIBLE DOMESTIC TRAGEDY. Wife and Two Children Killed. Suicide of the Murderer.
It was one of the ordinary crimes of poverty. The man had been without employment for many weeks and they had pawned or sold their furniture and other possessions. But even this resource must have failed at last, and one day the neighbors noticed that the blinds remained down and that there was a strange silence about the house. When the police entered they found, in one of the upper rooms, the dead bodies of the woman and the two children, with their throats cut, laid out side by side upon the bed, which was saturated with their blood.
There was no bedstead, and no furniture in the room except the straw mattress and the ragged clothes and blankets upon the floor.
The man's body was found in the kitchen, lying with outstretched arms face downward on the floor, surrounded by the blood from the terrible wound in his throat, which had evidently been inflicted by the razor that was grasped in his right hand.
No particle of food was found, but, attached to a nail in the kitchen wall, was a piece of blood-smeared paper, on which was written in pencil:
"This is not my crime, but Society's."
The report went on to explain that the deed must have been perpetrated during a fit of temporary insanity brought on by the sufferings the man had endured.
"Insanity!" muttered Owen, as he read this glib theory. "Insanity! It seems to me that he would have been insane if he had not killed them."
Surely it was wiser and better and kinder to send them all to sleep than to let them continue to suffer.
At the same time it seemed strange that the man should have chosen to do it in that way, when there were so many other cleaner, easier, and less painful ways of accomplishing his object.
One could take poison. Of course, there was a certain amount of difficulty in procuring it, and one would have to be very careful not to select a poison that would cause a lot of pain.
Owen went over to his bookshelf, and took down "The Cyclopedia of Practical Medicine," an old, rather out-of-date book, which he thought might contain the required information. He was astonished to find what a number of poisons there were within easy reach of whoever wished to make use of them: poisons which could be relied upon to do their work certainly, quickly, and without pain. Why, it was not even necessary to buy them; one could gather them from the hedges by the roadside and in the fields.
The more he thought of it the stranger it seemed that such a clumsy method as a razor should be so popular. Strangulation, or even hanging would be better than that, though the latter method could scarcely be adopted in their flat, because there were no beams or rafters or anything from which it would be possible to suspend a cord. Still, he could drive some large nails or hooks into one of the walls. For that matter, there were already some clothes hooks on some of the doors. He began to think that this would be a more excellent way than poison: he could pretend to Frankie that he was going to show him some new kind of play. The boy would offer no resistance, and in a few minutes it would all be over.
He threw down the book and pressed his hands over his ears. He fancied he could hear the boy's hands and feet beating against the panels of the door as he struggled in his death agony.
Then, as his arms fell nervelessly by his side again, he thought he heard Frankie's voice calling:
"Dad! Dad!"
Owen hastily opened the door.
"Are you calling, Frankie?"
"Yes. I've been calling you quite a long time."
"What do you want?"
"I want you to come here. I want to tell you something."
"Well, what is it, dear? I thought you were asleep a long time ago," said Owen, as he came into the room.
"That's just what I want to speak to you about. The kitten's gone to sleep all right, but I can't go. I've tried all different ways, counting and all, but it's no use, so I thought I'd ask you if you'd mind coming and staying with me, and letting me hold your hand for a little while, and then p'raps I could go."
The boy twined his arms round Owen's neck and hugged him very tightly.
"Oh, dad, I love you so much!" he said. "I love you so much I could squeeze you to death."
"I'm afraid you will, if you squeeze me so tightly as that."
The boy laughed softly as he relaxed his hold.
"That would be a funny way of showing you how much I loved you, wouldn't it, dad? Squeezing you to death!"
"Yes, I suppose it would," replied Owen, huskily, as he tucked the bedclothes round the child's shoulders. "But don't talk any more, dear, just hold my hand and try to sleep."
Lying there very quietly, holding his father's hand and occasionally kissing it, the child presently fell asleep....
Owen lay listening to the howling of the wind and the noise of the rain as it poured heavily on the roof. But it was not the storm only that kept him awake. Through the dark hours of the night his thoughts were still haunted by the words on that piece of blood-stained paper on a kitchen wall: "This is not my crime, but Society's."
Behold the Future
(From "The Red Wave")
BY JOSEPH-HENRY ROSNY, THE ELDER
(A glimpse of the home-life of a Syndicalist leader, an interesting contrast with the passage from the English book preceding)
François raised the little chap in his arms. "Well, my young rebel, are you happy to be alive? Tomorrow I will teach you a new game: the dance of the bourgeois."
He seated himself in an arm-chair and gazed at the child with the grave and persuasive eyes of a leader of men. "You will be a good Socialist, eh, little Antoine? You will love men; you will not separate your life from that of others, like a Robinson Crusoe of egoism. Vive la revolution!"
"Vive la revolution!" cried the child.
"Behold the future!" said François Rougemont, rocking the little one upon his knees. "It will see the shining of the great dawn, the dawn of a humanity as different from our own as ours is different from the humanity of the pyramids. Ah, my little man, you will know things beside which steam, electricity, and radium are as nothing. You will see man in his beauty, because he will no longer be hungry--and for a hundred thousand years he has been hungry. He will no longer be hungry, he will have all his force! He will no longer be hungry, he will be able to unfold all his genius! He will no longer be hungry, he will construct beneath the sea tunnels that will go from one continent to another, and his aeroplanes will fill the firmament; he will no longer be hungry, and he will build cities out of fairy tales, with fields and forests upon the roofs, with bridges of glass over the streets, with elevators at every corner; he will no longer be hungry, he will draw enormous energies from the ocean and from the warm bosom of the earth. Ah! my little boy, in what gardens of enchantment you are going to live!"
The little one listened hypnotized; the grandmother was quivering with happiness. A shining glory passed over their souls.
The Factories
BY MARGARET WIDDEMER
(See pages 256, 307)
I have shut my little sister in from life and light (For a rose, for a ribbon, for a wreath across my hair), I have made her restless feet still until the night, Locked from sweets of summer and from wild spring air; I who ranged the meadow lands, free from sun to sun, Free to sing and pull the buds and watch the far wings fly, I have bound my sister till her playing-time is done-- Oh, my little sister, was it I?--was it I?
I have robbed my sister of her day of maidenhood (For a robe, for a feather, for a trinket's restless spark), Shut from Love till dusk shall fall, how shall she know good, How shall she pass scatheless through the sinlit dark? I who could be innocent, I who could be gay, I who could have love and mirth before the light went by, I have put my sister in her mating-time away-- Sister, my young sister,--was it I?--was it I?
I have robbed my sister of the lips against her breast (For a coin, for the weaving of my children's lace and lawn), Feet that pace beside the loom, hands that cannot rest, How can she know motherhood, whose strength is gone? I who took no heed of her, starved and labor-worn, I against whose placid heart my sleepy gold heads lie, Round my path they cry to me, little souls unborn, God of Life--Creator! It was I! It was I!
God and the Flowers
(From "My Lady of the Chimney-Corner")
BY ALEXANDER IRVINE
(A tender and loving picture of the author's mother, an Irish peasant-woman. See page 385)
That night there was an unusual atmosphere in her corner. She had a newly tallied cap on her head and her little Sunday shawl over her shoulders. Her candle was burning and the hearth stones had an extra coat of whitewash. She drew me up close beside her and told me a story.
"Once, a long, long time ago, God, feelin' tired, went to sleep an' had a nice wee nap on His throne. His head was in His han's an' a wee white cloud came down an' covered him up. Purty soon He wakes up an' says He:
"'Where's Michael?'
"'Here I am, Father!' said Michael.
"'Michael, me boy,' says God, 'I want a chariot and a charioteer!'
"'Right ye are!' says he. Up comes the purtiest chariot in the city of Heaven an' the finest charioteer.
"'Me boy,' says God, 'take a million tons of th' choicest seeds of th' flowers of Heaven an' take a trip around th' world wi' them. Scatter them,' says He, 'be th' roadsides an' th' wild places of th' earth where my poor live.'
"'Aye,' says the charioteer, 'that's jist like ye, Father. It's th' purtiest job of m' afther-life an' I'll do it finely.'
"'It's jist come t' Me in a dream,' says th' Father, 'that th' rich have all the flowers down there an' th' poor haave nown at all."
At this point I got in some questions about God's language and the kind of flowers.
"Well, dear," she said, "He spakes Irish t' Irish people, an' the charioteer was an Irishman."
"Maybe it was a woman!" I ventured.
"Aye, but there's no difference up there."
"Th' flowers," she said, "were primroses, buttercups, an' daisies, an' th' flowers that be handy t' th' poor, an' from that day to this there's been flowers a-plenty for all of us everywhere!"
The Leaden-Eyed
(From "The Congo")
BY VACHEL LINDSAY
(See pages 335, 599)
Let not young souls be smothered out before They do quaint deeds and fully flaunt their pride. It is the world's one crime its babes grow dull, Its poor are ox-like, limp and leaden-eyed. Not that they starve, but starve so dreamlessly, Not that they sow, but that they seldom reap, Not that they serve, but have no gods to serve, Not that they die, but that they die like sheep.
Children and Economics
(From "What Is It To Be Educated?")
BY C. HANFORD HENDERSON
(American educator; born 1861)
One will not talk economics in any formal way to children. It is not necessary. But one cannot avoid the economic implications upon which our current daily life and all history and literature quite obviously rest.
Children are very explicit in their interest. They want to know what the hero feeds upon, how he is dressed, where he sleeps. If great deeds are in prospect, wars to be waged, palaces to be built, pleasure parks to be laid out, princesses to be won, tourneys to be run off, the little reader has a keen eye for the sinews of war. In every tale worth the telling, the hero sets out with the express purpose of seeking his fortune. Parents and teachers do not have to drag in economics by the heels. They may, of course, ignore the question, and allow the children to grow up with confused and mediæval ideas; but if they do so, they fail quite miserably to educate the children in the fundamentals of a moral individual and social life. The bread-and-butter question must be met by each parent and teacher in his own personal life; and in dealing with the children, it must be met constantly and in the most unexpected quarters.
What to Do
BY LEO TOLSTOY
(See pages 88, 110, 148, 276, 374, 416, 555)
It is very easy to take a child away from a prostitute, or from a beggar. It is very easy, when one has money, to have him washed, cleaned and dressed in good clothes, fed up, and even taught various sciences; but for us who do not earn our own bread, it is not only difficult to teach him to earn his bread, it is impossible; because by our example, and even by those material improvements of his life which cost us nothing, we teach the opposite.
True Education
(From "Zadig")
BY VOLTAIRE
(French philosopher and poet, 1694-1778; a skeptic and bitter satirist, imprisoned and exiled to England. One of the great intellectual forces which prepared the French Revolution)
A widow, having a young son, and being possessed of a handsome fortune, had given a promise of marriage to two magi, who were both desirous of marrying her.
"I will take for my husband," said she, "the man who can give the best education to my beloved son."
The two magi contended who should bring him up, and the cause was carried before Zadig. Zadig summoned the two magi to attend him.
"What will you teach your pupil?" he said to the first.
"I will teach him," said the doctor, "the eight parts of speech, logic, astrology, pneumatics, what is meant by substance and accident, abstract and concrete, the doctrine of the monades, and the pre-established harmony."
"For my part," said the second, "I will endeavor to give him a sense of justice, and to make him worthy the friendship of good men."
Zadig then cried: "Whether thou art the child's favorite or not, thou shalt have his mother."
New Worlds for Old
BY H. G. WELLS
(See page 519)
The Socialist holds that the community as a whole should be responsible, and every individual in the community, married or single, parent or childless, should be responsible, for the welfare and upbringing of every child born into that community. This responsibility may be delegated in whole or in part to parent, teacher, or other guardian--but it is not simply the right but the duty of the state--that is to say, of the organized power and intelligence of the community--to direct, to inquire, and to intervene in any default for the child's welfare.
The Way to Freedom
BY FRANCISCO FERRER
(See page 336)
We must destroy all which in the present school answers to the organization of constraint, the artificial surroundings by which children are separated from nature and life, the intellectual and moral discipline made use of to impose ready-made ideas upon them, beliefs which deprave and annihilate natural bent. Without fear of deceiving ourselves, we can restore the child to the environment which entices it, the environment of nature in which he will be in contact with all that he loves, and in which impressions of life will replace fastidious book-learning. If we did no more than that, we should already have prepared in great part the deliverance of the child.
Book XIV
Humor
Comedy of the social struggle; masterpieces from those who have had the courage to fight the battle for social progress with the weapon of laughter.
The Reserved Section
BY WILBUR D. NESBIT
(At the time of the great anthracite coal strike of 1902, George F. Baer, head of the coal trust, was quoted as declaring: "The rights and interests of the laboring man will be protected and cared for, not by labor and agitation, but by the Christian men to whom God in his infinite wisdom has given control of the property interests of this country")
In the prehistoric ages, when the world was a ball of mist-- A seething swirl of something unknown in the planet list; When the earth was vague with vapor, and formless and dark and void-- The sport of the wayward comet--the jibe of the asteroid-- Then the singing stars of morning chanted soft: "Keep out of there! Keep off that spot which is sizzling hot--it is making coal for Baer!"
When the pterodactyl ambled, or fluttered, or swam, or jumped, And the plesiosaurus rambled, all careless of what he bumped, And the other old time monsters that thrived on the land and sea, And did not know what their names were, any more than today do we-- Wherever they went they heard it: "You fellows keep out of there-- That place which shakes and quivers and quakes--it is making coal for Baer."
The carboniferous era consumed but a million years; It started when earth was shedding the last of her baby tears, When still she was swaddled softly in clumsily tied on clouds, When stars from the shop of nature were being turned out in crowds; But high o'er the favored section this sign said to all: "Beware! Stay back of the ropes that surround these slopes--they are making coal for Baer!"
The Monthly Rent
(From "The Game of Life")
BY BOLTON HALL
(American lawyer and single-taxer, born 1854)
They sheared the lamb twelve times a year, To get some money to buy some beer; The lamb thought this was extremely queer-- Poor little snow-white lamb!--OLD SONG.
"God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb," said the deacon.
"I will shut the gate of the field so as to keep him warm," said the philanthropist.
"If you give me the tags of wool," said the charity clipper, "I'll let the poor creature have half."
"The lambs we have always with us," said the wool broker.
"Lambs must always be shorn," said the business man; "hand me the shears."
"We should leave him enough wool to make him a coat," said the profit sharer.
"His condition is improving," said the land owner, "for his fleece will be longer next year."
"We should prohibit cutting his flesh when we shear," said the legislator.
"But I intend," said the radical, "to stop this shearing."
The others united to throw him out; then they divided the wool.
Penguin Island
BY ANATOLE FRANCE
(French man of letters, born 1844. In this masterpiece of social satire the aged and half-blind Saint Maël has by mistake baptized a flock of penguins. After a consultation of the heavenly powers, the penguins are turned into human beings)
Now one autumn morning, as the blessed Maël was walking in the valley of Clange in company with a monk of Yvern called Bulloch, he saw bands of fierce-looking men loaded with stones passing along the roads. At the same time he heard in all directions cries and complaints mounting up from the valley towards the tranquil sky.
And he said to Bulloch:
"I notice with sadness, my son, that since they became men the inhabitants of this island act with less wisdom than formerly. When they were birds they only quarrelled during the season of their love affairs. But now they dispute all the time; they pick quarrels with each other in summer as well as in winter. How greatly have they fallen from that peaceful majesty which made the assembly of the penguins look like the senate of a wise republic!
"Look towards Surelle, Bulloch, my son. In yonder pleasant valley a dozen men penguins are busy knocking each other down with the spades and picks that they might employ better in tilling the ground. The women, still more cruel than the men, are tearing their opponents' faces with their nails. Alas! Bulloch, my son, why are they murdering each other in this way?"
"From a spirit of fellowship, father, and through forethought for the future," answered Bulloch. "For man is essentially provident and sociable. Such is his character, and it is impossible to imagine it apart from a certain appropriation of things. Those penguins whom you see are dividing the ground among themselves."
"Could they not divide it with less violence?" asked the aged man. "As they fight they exchange invectives and threats. I do not distinguish their words, but they are angry ones, judging from the tone."
"They are accusing one another of theft and encroachment," answered Bulloch. "That is the general sense of their speech."
At that moment the holy Maël clasped his hands and sighed deeply.
"Do you see, my son," he exclaimed, "that madman who with his teeth is biting the nose of the adversary he has overthrown, and that other one who is pounding a woman's head with a huge stone?"
"I see them," said Bulloch. "They are creating law; they are founding property; they are establishing the principles of civilization, the basis of society, and the foundations of the State."
"How is that?" asked old Maël.
"By setting bounds to their fields. That is the origin of all government. Your penguins, O Master, are performing the most august of functions. Throughout the ages their work will be consecrated by lawyers, and magistrates will confirm it."
"Mr. Dooley" on Success
BY FINLEY PETER DUNNE
(American humorist and social philosopher, born 1867)
Th' millyionaire starts in as a foreman in a can facthry. By an' by, he larns that wan iv th' men wurrukin' f'r him has invinted a top that ye can opin with a pair iv scissors, an' he throws him down an' takes it away fr'm him. He's a robber, says ye? He is while he's got th' other man down. But whin he gets up he's a magnate.
Diomedes the Pirate to Alexander
BY FRANÇOIS VILLON
(French poet and vagabond, 1431-1484)
The Emperor reasoned with him: "Why should you desire to be a pirate?" And the other replied: "Why call me a pirate? Because you see me going about in a little galley? If I could arm myself like you, like you I would be an emperor."
The Leisure Classes
ANONYMOUS
There was a little beggar maid Who wed a king long, long ago; Of course the taste that he displayed Was criticised by folks who know Just what formalities and things Are due to beggar maids and kings.
But straight the monarch made reply: "There is small difference, as I live, Between our stations! She and I Subsist on what the people give. We do not toil with strength and skill, And, pleasing Heaven, never will."
The Influence of Servants
(From "The Reign of Gilt")
BY DAVID GRAHAM PHILLIPS
(American novelist of radical sympathies, 1867-1911)
There is a woman in one of our big cities who is now a leader of fashion, very "classy" indeed, most glib on the subject of the "traditions of people of our station." Her father was an excellent peddler, her mother a farmer's daughter who could be induced to "help out" a neighbor in the rush of the harvest time. This typical American woman behaved very sensibly so long as her sensible father and mother were alive and until the craze for English households arose. She fell into line. But the haughty servants were most trying at first. For instance, she loved bread spread with molasses. She ate it before the butler once; his face told her what a hideous "break" she had made. She tried to conquer this low taste--never did weak woman fight harder against the gnawings of sinful appetite. At last she gave way, and in secret and in stealth indulged. She was not caught and, encouraged, she proceeded to add one low common habit to another until she was leading a double life. It had its terrors; it had its compensating joys. But before she had gone too far she was happily saved. One morning her maid caught her, and the whole household was agog. The miseries endured in the few following weeks completely cured her. She is now in private, as well as in public, as sound a snob as ever reveled in "exclusiveness."
A Gentleman and His Boots
(From "A Traveler from Altruria")
BY WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
(The "dean of American novelists," 1837-1919, here gently satirizes his country. "A Traveler from Altruria" comes to America expecting to find democracy; at a summer hotel he makes the mistake of helping the porter to black boots. For this he is rebuked by a friend.)
"There are a great many things we are willing to do for ourselves that we are not willing to do for others. But even on that principle, which I think false and illogical, you could not be justified. A gentleman is not willing to black his own boots. It is offensive to his feelings, to his self-respect; it is something he will not do if he can get anybody else to do it for him."
"Then, in America," said the Altrurian, "it is not offensive to the feelings of a gentleman to let another do for him what he would not do for himself?"
"Certainly not."
"Ah," he returned, "then we understand something altogether different by the word gentleman in Altruria."
Song of the Lower Classes
BY ERNEST JONES
(Chartist leader and poet, 1819-1869; sentenced in 1848 to two years imprisonment)
We plow and sow, we're so very, very low, That we delve in the dirty clay; Till we bless the plain with the golden grain, And the vale with the fragrant hay. Our place we know, we're so very, very low, 'Tis down at the landlord's feet; We're not too low the grain to grow, But too low the bread to eat.
Down, down we go, we're so very, very low, To the hell of the deep-sunk mines; But we gather the proudest gems that glow, When the crown of the despot shines; And when'er he lacks, upon our backs Fresh loads he deigns to lay; We're far too low to vote the tax, But not too low to pay.
We're low, we're low--we're very, very low,-- And yet from our fingers glide The silken floss and the robes that glow Round the limbs of the sons of pride; And what we get, and what we give, We know, and we know our share; We're not too low the cloth to weave, But too low the cloth to wear.
We're low, we're low, we're very, very low, And yet when the trumpets ring, The thrust of a poor man's arm will go Through the heart of the proudest king. We're low, we're low--mere rabble, we know-- We're only the rank and the file; We're not too low to kill the foe, But too low to share the spoil.
Tom Dunstan: or, the Politician
("How Long, O Lord, How Long?")
BY ROBERT BUCHANAN
(See pages 367, 412)
Cross-legg'd on the board we sat, Like spiders spinning, Stitching and sweating, while fat Old Moses, with eyes like a cat, Sat greasily grinning; And here Tom said his say, And prophesied Tyranny's death; And the tallow burned all day, And we stitch'd and stitch'd away In the thick smoke of our breath. Poor worn-out slops were we, With hearts as heavy as lead; But "Patience! she's coming!" said he; "Courage, boys! wait and see! Freedom's ahead!" ...
But Tom was little and weak, The hard hours shook him; Hollower grew his cheek, And when he began to speak The coughing took him. And at last the cheery sound Of his voice among us ceased, And we made a purse, all round, That he mightn't starve, at least. His pain was awful to see, Yet there, on his poor sick-bed, "She's coming, in spite of me! Courage, and wait!" cried he; "Freedom's ahead!"
Ay, now Tom Dunstan's cold, All life seems duller; There's a blight on young and old, And our talk has lost the bold Red-republican color. But we see a figure gray, And we hear a voice of death, And the tallow burns all day, And we stitch and stitch away In the thick smoke of our breath; Ay, while in the dark sit we, Tom seems to call from the dead-- "She's coming! she's coming!" says he; "Courage, boys! wait and see! Freedom's ahead!"
Lines
BY STEPHEN CRANE
(See page 217)
"Have you ever made a just man?" "Oh, I have made three," answered God, "But two of them are dead, And the third-- Listen! listen, And you will hear the thud of his defeat...."
The Memoirs of Li Hung Chang
(See page 196)
A poor man is ever at a disadvantage in matters of public concern. When he rises to speak, or writes a letter to his superiors, they ask: Who is this fellow that offers advice? And when it is known that he is without coin they spit their hands at him, and use his letters in the cooks' fires. But if it be a man of wealth who would speak, or write, or denounce, even though he have the brain of a yearling dromedary, or a spine as crooked and unseemly, the whole city listens to his words and declares them wise.
FROM ECCLESIASTICUS
A rich man speaketh, and all keep silence; and what he saith they extol to the clouds: A poor man speaketh, and they say, Who is this? and if he stumble, they will help to overthrow him.
The Pauper's Drive
BY T. NOEL
(English poet of the Chartist period)
There's a grim one-horse hearse in a jolly round trot; To the churchyard a pauper is going, I wot; The road it is rough, and the hearse has no springs, And hark to the dirge that the sad driver sings:-- "Rattle his bones over the stones; He's only a pauper, whom nobody owns!"
Oh, where are the mourners? alas! there are none; He has left not a gap in the world now he's gone, Not a tear in the eye of child, woman, or man-- To the grave with his carcase as fast as you can. "Rattle his bones over the stones; He's only a pauper, whom nobody owns!"
What a jolting and creaking, and splashing and din; The whip how it cracks! and the wheels how they spin! How the dirt, right and left, o'er the hedges is hurled! The pauper at length makes a noise in the world. "Rattle his bones over the stones; He's only a pauper, whom nobody owns!" ...
You bumpkin, who stare at your brother conveyed; Behold what respect to a cloddy is paid, And be joyful to think, when by death you're laid low You've a chance to the grave like a gemman to go. "Rattle his bones over the stones; He's only a pauper, whom nobody owns!"
But a truce to this strain--for my soul it is sad, To think that a heart in humanity clad Should make, like the brutes, such a desolate end, And depart from the light without leaving a friend. Bear softly his bones over the stones; Though a pauper, he's one whom his Maker yet owns.
Complaint to My Empty Purse
BY GEOFFREY CHAUCER
(See page 423)
To you, my purse, and to none other wight Complain I, for ye be my lady dear! I am so sorry, now that ye be light; For certès, but ye make me heavy cheer, Me were as lief be laid upon my bier; For which unto your mercy thus I cry: Be heavy again, or elles might I die!
Now voucheth safe this day, or it be night, That I of you the blissful sound may hear, Or see your colour like the sun bright That of yellowness had never a peer. Ye be my life, ye be my hertes stere, Queen of comfort and of good company: Be heavy again, or elles might I die!
"Mr. Dooley" on Poverty
(See page 683)
Wan iv th' sthrangest things about life is that th' poor, who need th' money th' most, ar-re th' very wans that niver have it.
Don Quixote
BY MIGUEL DE CERVANTES
(Sancho Panza, the servant of the half-crazed knight, has accompanied him upon the promise of being promoted to a high station)
"Troth, wife," quoth Sancho, "were not I in hopes to see myself, ere it be long, governor of an island, on my conscience I should drop down dead on the spot." "Not so, my chicken," quoth the wife, "'let the hen live, though it be with pip'; do thou live, and let all the governments in the world go to the Devil. Thou camest out of thy mother's belly without government, and thou mayest be carried to thy long home without government, when it shall please the Lord. How many people in this world live without government yet do well enough, and are well looked upon? There is no sauce in the world like hunger; and as the poor never want that, they always eat with a good stomach."
The Freebooter's Prayer
(Scotland, 1405)
Thou That willed us naked-born, Send us meat against the morn-- Got with right or got with wrong So we fast not overlong. Prosper "Snaffle, Spur and Spear!" Grant us booty, horse and gear; Save our necks from hempen thrall, Bless the souls of them that fall.
A Modern Version
(U. S. A., 1905)
BY ARTHUR GUITERMAN
(Contemporary American poet)
Thou, Whom rich and poor adore, Grant me fifty millions more, Earned or pilfered, foul or pure; From man's law hold me secure. So, when I have gained of gold All my coffers well can hold, I may give, O Lord, for Thee, One-sixteenth in Charity.
Zadig
BY VOLTAIRE
(See page 674)
The lord of the castle was one of those Arabians who are commonly called robbers; but he now and then performed some good actions amidst a multitude of bad ones. He robbed with furious rapacity, and granted favors with great generosity.
"May I take the liberty of asking thee," said Zadig, "how long thou hast followed this noble profession?"
"From my most tender youth," replied the lord. "I was servant to a petty, good-natured Arabian, but could not endure the hardships of my situation. I was vexed to find that fate had given me no share of the earth which equally belongs to all men. I imparted the cause of my uneasiness to an old Arabian, who said to me:
"'My son, do not despair; there was once a grain of sand that lamented that it was no more than a neglected atom in the deserts; at the end of a few years it became a diamond, and it is now the brightest ornament in the crown of the king of the Indies.'
"This discourse made a deep impression on my mind. I was the grain of sand, and I resolved to become the diamond. I began by stealing two horses. I soon got a party of companions. I put myself in a condition to rob small caravans; and thus, by degrees, I destroyed the difference which had formerly subsisted between me and other men. I had my share of the good things of this world; and was even recompensed with usury for the hardships I had suffered. I was greatly respected, and became the captain of a band of robbers. I seized this castle by force. The satrap of Syria had a mind to dispossess me of it; but I was too rich to have anything to fear. I gave the satrap a handsome present, by which I preserved my castle, and increased my possessions. He even appointed me treasurer of the tributes which Arabia Petraea pays to the king of kings. I perform my office of receiver with great punctuality; but I take the freedom to dispense with that of paymaster."
For the Other 365 Days
BY FRANKLIN P. ADAMS
(Contemporary American humorist)
Christmas is over. Uncork your ambition! Back to the battle! Come on, competition! Down with all sentiment, can scrupulosity! Commerce has nothing to gain by jocosity; Money is all that is worth all your labors; Crowd your competitors, nix on your neighbors! Push 'em aside in a passionate hurry, Argue and bustle and bargain and worry! Frenzy yourself into sickness and dizziness-- Christmas is over and Business is Business.
The Road to Success
(From "Random Reminiscences of Men and Events")
BY JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
(See page 487)
If I were to give advice to a young man starting out in life, I should say to him: If you aim for a large, broad-gauged success, do not begin your business career, whether you sell your labor or are an independent producer, with the idea of getting from the world by hook or crook all you can. In the choice of your profession or your business employment, let your first thought be: Where can I fit in so that I may be most effective in the work of the world? Where can I lend a hand in a way most effective to advance the general interests? Enter life in such a spirit, choose your vocation in that way, and you have taken the first step on the highest road to a large success. Investigation will show that the great fortunes which have been made in this country, and the same is probably true of other lands, have come to men who have performed great and far-reaching economic services--men who, with great faith in the future of their country, have done most for the development of its resources. The man will be most successful who confers the greatest service on the world.
The Latest Decalogue
BY ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH
(See page 488)
Thou shalt have one God only; who Would be at the expense of two? No graven images may be Worshipped, except the currency. Swear not at all; for, for thy curse Thine enemy is none the worse. At church on Sunday to attend Will serve to keep the world thy friend. Honor thy parents; that is, all From whom advancement may befall. Thou shalt not kill; but need'st not strive Officiously to keep alive. Do not adultery commit; Advantage rarely comes of it. Thou shalt not steal; an empty feat, When it's so lucrative to cheat. Bear not false witness; let the lie Have time on its own wings to fly. Thou shalt not covet, but tradition Approves all forms of competition.
"Mr. Dooley" on the Trusts
(See pages 683, 692)
"Mind ye, Jawn, I've no wurrud to say again thim that sets back in their own house an' lot an' makes th' food iv th' people dear. They're good men, good men. Whin they tilt the price iv beef to where wan pound iv it costs as much as many th' man in this Ar-rchey Road 'd wurruk from th' risin' to th' settin' iv th' sun to get, they have no thought iv th' likes iv you an' me. 'Tis aisy come, aisy go with thim; an' ivry cint a pound manes a new art musoom or a new church, to take th' edge off hunger. They're all right, thim la-ads with their own porkchops delivered free at th' door. 'Tis, 'Will ye have a new spring dress, me dear? Willum, ring thim up, an' tell thim to hist the price iv beef. If we had a few more pitchers an' statoos in th' musoom 'twud ilivate th' people a sthory or two. Willum, afther this steak 'll be twinty cints a pound.' Oh, they're all right, on'y I was thinkin' iv th' Connock man's fam'ly back iv th' dumps."
"For a man that was gay a little while ago, it looks to me as if you'd grown mighty solemn-like," said Mr. McKenna.
"Mebbe so," said Mr. Dooley. "Mebbe so. What th' 'ell, annyhow. Mebbe 'tis as bad to take champagne out iv wan man's mouth as round steak out iv another's. Lent is near over. I seen Doherty out shinin' up his pipe that's been behind th' clock since Ash Winsdah. Th' girls 'll be layin' lilies on th' altar in a day or two. The springs come on. Th' grass is growin' good; an', if th' Connock man's children back iv th' dumps can't get meat, they can eat hay."
What the Moon Saw
BY VACHEL LINDSAY
(See pages 335, 599, 672)
Two statesmen met by moonlight. Their ease was partly feigned. They glanced about the prairie, Their faces were constrained. In various ways aforetime They had misled the state, Yet did it so politely Their henchmen thought them great. They sat beneath a hedge and spake No word, but had a smoke. A satchel passed from hand to hand. Next day the deadlock broke.
Portrait of a Supreme Court Judge
BY LOUIS UNTERMEYER
(See pages 42, 418, 515)
How well this figure represents the Law-- This pose of neuter Justice, sterile Cant; This Roman Emperor with the iron jaw, Wrapped in the black silk of a maiden-aunt.
The Furred Law-Cats
(From "Pantagruel")
FRANÇOIS RABELAIS
(French satirist of the middle ages, 1483-1553)
The Furred Law-Cats are most terrible and dreadful monsters; they devour little children, and trample over marble stones. Pray tell me, noble topers, do they not deserve to have their snouts slit? The hair of their hides doesn't lie outward, but inwards, and every mother's son of them for his device wears a gaping pouch, but not all in the same manner; for some wear it tied to their neck scarfwise, others upon the breech, some on the side, and all for a cause, with reason and mystery. They have claws so very strong, long, and sharp that nothing can get from 'em what is once fast between their clutches. Sometimes they cover their heads with mortar-like caps, at other times with mortified caparisons.
Examine well the countenance of these stout props and pillars of this catch-coin law and iniquity; and pray observe, that if you live but six olympiads, and the age of two dogs more, you'll see these Furred Law-cats lords of all Europe, and in peaceful possession of all the estates and domains belonging to it; unless, by divine providence, what's got over the devil's back is spent under his belly, or the goods which they unjustly get perish with their prodigal heirs. Take this from an honest beggar!
Among 'em reigns the sixth essence; by the means of which they gripe all, devour all, conskite all, burn all, draw all, hang all, quarter all, behead all, murder all, imprison all, waste all, and ruin all, without the least notice of right and wrong; for among them vice is called virtue; wickedness, piety; treason, loyalty; robbery, justice. Plunder is their motto, and when acted by them is approved by all men, except the heretics; and all this they do because they dare; their authority is sovereign and irrefragable. Should all their villany be once displayed in its true colours and exposed to the people, there never was, is, nor will be any spokesman could save 'em; nor any magistrate so powerful as to hinder their being burnt alive in their coney-burrows without mercy. Even their own furred kittlings, friends and relations would abominate 'em.
The Gentleman Inside
BY DAMON RUNYON
(Contemporary American writer)
They's a banker that's a trusty workin' on the warden's books; I kin see him from the rock pile where I'm sittin', An' on his case I'm basin' this advice to feller crooks: You'd better git a plenty while yer gittin'. Now, this guy wrecked a county an' he copped his neighbor's dough; He got six hundred thousand, which is some change, as you know; They give him one or two years, an' the softest job here--Oh It pays to git a plenty while yer gittin'.
Wit' me little flask o' nitro an' me bar o' laundry soap, I blew a safe, an' then, as was befittin', I took me ten years smilin', glad I didn't get the rope!-- But the next time! Oh, a plenty while I'm gittin'! For this guy tore off half a state an' shook the other half; He robbed his friends an' neighbors an' he handed both the laugh-- But you oughta heard him holler at that one or two year gaff. You'd better git a plenty while yer gittin'!
An' so he's here a trusty, while I wear a ball an' chain-- (They say he beat most every statoot written.) He's got a fortune planted an' all I've got's a pain; You'd better git a plenty while yer gittin'! He cost the state a million bucks before they put him here; He had ten lawyers for his trial, w'ich lasted most a year; An' the jedge who had to sentence him pronounced it wit' a tear-- It pays to git a plenty while yer gittin'!
The Memoirs of Li Hung Chang
(See pages 196, 689)
They showed me a beautifully shaped old bell, which is in Independence Hall, and is called the Bell of Liberty; which means that at its ringing all men within sound of its voice know they are free. But they do not ring it any more because it is cracked. Is Liberty cracked also?
Penguin Island
BY ANATOLE FRANCE
(See page 681. In the following passage one of the most learned of the Penguins pays a visit to America)
After a voyage of fifteen days his steamer entered, during the night, the harbor of Titanport, where thousands of ships were anchored. An iron bridge thrown across the water and shining with lights, stretched between two piers so far apart that Professor Obnubile imagined he was sailing on the seas of Saturn, and that he saw the marvellous ring which girds the planet of the Old Man. And this immense conduit bore upon it more than a quarter of the wealth of the world. The learned Penguin, having disembarked, was waited on by automatons in a hotel forty-eight stories high. Then he took the great railway that led to Gigantopolis, the capital of New Atlantic. In the train there were restaurants, gaming-rooms, athletic arenas, telegraphic, commercial, and financial offices, a Protestant Church, and the printing-office of a great newspaper, which latter the doctor was unable to read, as he did not know the language of the New Atlantans. The train passed along the banks of great rivers, through manufacturing cities which concealed the sky with the smoke from their chimneys, towns black in the day, towns red at night, full of noise by day and full of noise also by night.
"Here," thought the doctor, "is a people far too much engaged in industry and trade to make war. I am already certain that the New Atlantans pursue a policy of peace. For it is an axiom admitted by all economists that peace without and peace within are necessary for the progress of commerce and industry."
As he surveyed Gigantopolis, he was confirmed in this opinion. People went through the streets so swiftly propelled by hurry that they knocked down all who were in their way. Obnubile was thrown down several times, but soon succeeded in learning how to demean himself better; after an hour's walking he himself knocked down an Atlantan.
Having reached a great square he saw the portico of a palace in the classic style, whose Corinthian columns reared their capitals of arborescent acanthus seventy metres above the stylobate.
As he stood with his head thrown back admiring the building, a man of modest appearance approached him and said in Penguin:
"I see by your dress that you are from Penguinia. I know your language; I am a sworn interpreter. This is the Parliament palace. At the present moment the representatives of the States are in deliberation. Would you like to be present at the sitting?"
The doctor was brought into the hall and cast his looks upon the crowd of legislators who were sitting on cane chairs with their feet upon their desks.
The president arose, and, in the midst of general inattention, muttered rather than spoke the following formulas which the interpreter immediately translated to the doctor.
"The war for the opening of the Mongol markets being ended to the satisfaction of the States, I propose that the accounts be laid before the finance committee...."
"Is there any opposition?..."
"The proposal is carried."
"The war for the opening of the markets of Third-Zealand being ended to the satisfaction of the States, I propose that the accounts be laid before the finance committee...."
"Is there any opposition?..."
"The proposal is carried."
"Have I heard aright?" asked Professor Obnubile. "What? you an industrial people and engaged in all these wars!"
"Certainly," answered the interpreter, "these are industrial wars. Peoples who have neither commerce nor industry are not obliged to make war, but a business people is forced to adopt a policy of conquest. The number of wars necessarily increases with our productive capacity. As soon as one of our industries fails to find a market for its products a war is necessary to open new outlets. It is in this way we have had a coal war, a copper war, and a cotton war. In Third-Zealand we have killed two-thirds of the inhabitants in order to compel the remainder to buy our umbrellas and braces."
At that moment a fat man who was sitting in the middle of the assembly ascended the tribune.
"I claim," said he, "a war against the Emerald Republic, which insolently contends with our pigs for the hegemony of hams and sauces in all the markets of the universe."
"Who is that legislator?" asked Doctor Obnubile.
"He is a pig merchant."
"Is there any opposition?" said the President. "I put the proposition to the vote."
The war against the Emerald Republic was voted with uplifted hands by a very large majority.
"What?" said Obnubile to the interpreter; "you have voted a war with that rapidity and that indifference!"
"Oh! it is an unimportant war which will hardly cost eight million dollars."
"And men...."
"The men are included in the eight million dollars."
Then Doctor Obnubile bent his head in bitter reflection.
"Since wealth and civilization admit of as many causes of poverty as war and barbarism, since the folly and wickedness of men are incurable, there remains but one good action to be done. The wise man will collect enough dynamite to blow up this planet. When its fragments fly through space an imperceptible amelioration will be accomplished in the universe and a satisfaction will be given to the universal conscience. Moreover, this universal conscience does not exist."
"Mr. Dooley" on the Tariff
(See pages 683, 692, 698)
"Well," said Mr. Hennessy, "what diff'rence does it make? Th' foreigner pays th' tax annyhow."
"He does," said Mr. Dooley, "if he ain't turned back at Castle Garden."
The Preacher and the Slave
BY J. HILL
(Tune: "Sweet Bye and Bye")
(A sample of many parodies upon Christian hymns which are published by the Industrial Workers of the World, and sung by the migratory workers of the Far West in their camping-places, known as "jungles." While this selection and the one following can hardly be classed as literature, they have their interest as social documents. It was Napoleon who said that if he could write a country's songs, he would not care who wrote its laws.)
Long-haired preachers come out every night, Try to tell you what's wrong and what's right; But when asked how 'bout something to eat They will answer with voices so sweet:
CHORUS
You will eat, bye and bye, In that glorious land above the sky; Work and pray, live on hay, You'll get pie in the sky when you die.
And the Starvation Army they play, And they sing and they clap and they pray, Till they get all your coin on the drum, Then they'll tell you when you're on the bum: (Chorus)
If you fight hard for children and wife-- Try to get something good in this life-- You're a sinner and bad man, they tell, When you die you will sure go to hell. (Chorus)
Workingmen of all countries, unite, Side by side we for freedom will fight; When the world and its wealth we shall gain To the grafters we'll sing this refrain:
CHORUS
You will eat, bye and bye, When you've learned how to cook and to fry; Chop some wood, 'twill do you good, And you'll eat in the sweet bye and bye.
Work for All but Father
BY HENRY M. TICHENOR
(The poet of the Rip-Saw, a revolutionary paper of the middle West which has an immense circulation)
"Everybody works but father"--God, what a ghastly lay! "Everybody works but father"--he wants too much pay! Mother and Ann and Maggie, and tiny Tim and Bill, work like hell for a paltry wage in the sweatshop and the mill. "Everybody works but father"--he talks like a fool--he asks enough in wages to send the kids to school--he wants more for his daily toil than we pay the wife and brood--he says he ought to have enough to keep them all in food! "Everybody works but father"--for him we have no need--all we want of father is just to keep up the breed. The mother and the babies, that's all we require, the mother and the babies--those are the ones we hire. Just keep on breeding babies--that's the bull moose hunch--just keep on breeding babies, we can work the whole damn bunch!
Mr. "Dooley" on Industry
(See pages 683, 692, 698, 706)
'Tis a sthrange thing whin we come to think iv it that th' less money a man gets f'r his wurruk, th' more nicissary it is to th' wurruld that he shud go on wurrukin'. Ye'er boss can go to Paris on a combination wedding an' divoorce thrip an' no wan bothers his head about him. But if ye shud go to Paris--excuse me f'r laughin' mesilf black in th' face--th' industhrees iv the counthry pines away.
Lines to a Pomeranian Puppy Valued at $3,500
BY LOUIS UNTERMEYER
(See pages 42, 418, 515, 699)
Often as I strain and stew, Digging in these dirty ditches, I have dared to think of you-- You and all your riches.
Lackeys help you on and off; And the bed is silk you lie in; You have doctors when you cough, Priests when you are dying.
Wrapt in soft and costly furs, All sewed up with careful stitches, You consort with proper curs And with perfumed bitches....
You don't sweat to struggle free, Work in rags and rotting breeches-- Puppy, have a laugh at me Digging in the ditches!
Labor and Capital Are One
(From The "Game of Life")
BY BOLTON HALL
(See page 680)
"Times are hard," said the Picked Chicken.
"Why," said the Rat, "this is an era of prosperity; see how I have feathered my nest."
"But," said the Picked Chicken, "you have gotten my feathers."
"You must not think," said the Rat, "that because I get more comfort you get poorer."
"But," said the Chicken, "you produce no feathers, and I keep none--"
"If you would use your teeth"--interrupted the Rat.
"If--" said the Picked Chicken.
"You could lay--"
"I--" said the Picked Chicken.
"--up as much as I do," concluded the Rat.
"Excuse me for living," said the Picked Chicken, "but--"
"Without consumers like me," said the Rat, "there would be no demand for the feathers which you produce."
"I shall vote for a change," said the Picked Chicken.
"Only those who have feathers should have the Privilege of voting," remarked the Rat.
"Mr. Dooley" on Prosperity
(See pages 683, 692, 698, 706, 709)
Yes, Prosperity has come hollerin' an' screamin'. To read th' papers, it seems to be a kind iv a vagrancy law. No wan can loaf anny more. Th' end iv vacation has gone f'r manny a happy lad that has spint six months ridin' through th' counthry, dodgin' wurruk, or loafin' under his own vine or hat-three. Prosperity grabs ivry man be th' neck, an' sets him shovellin' slag or coke or runnin' up an' down a ladder with a hod iv mortar. It won't let th' wurruld rest.... It goes around like a polisman givin' th' hot fut to happy people that are snoozin' in th' sun. 'Get up,' says Prosperity. 'Get up, an' hustle over to th' rollin' mills: there's a man over there wants ye to carry a ton iv coal on ye'er back.' 'But I don't want to wurruk,' says th' lad. 'I'm very comfortable th' way I am.' 'It makes no difference,' says Prosperity. 'Ye've got to do ye'er lick. Wurruk, f'r th' night is comin'. Get out, an' hustle. Wurruk, or ye can't be unhappy; an', if th' wurruld isn't unhappy, they'se no such a thing as Prosperity."
Why the Socialist Party Is Growing
(Dedicated to the School of Journalism)
BY FRANKLIN P. ADAMS
(See page 695)
"A story," the reporter said, "about commercial crime. A merchant's been convicted of selling phony stuff. The sentence is a thousand meg and seven years of time--" "A hundred words," the city Ed. replied, "will be enough."
"A story," the reporter said, "about a crimson dame Just landed from the steamer, wearing slippers that are red. She used to be the Dearest Friend of Emperor Wotsisname--" "Three columns and a layout!" cried the eager city Ed.
The Babble Machines
(From "When the Sleeper Wakes")
BY H. G. WELLS
(One of the writer's earlier romances, telling of a man who sleeps for two hundred years and wakens to find himself hailed as Master of the World--through the operation of a bequest of money which has been accumulating through that time. The power of this wealth is being wielded in his name by a cynical and unscrupulous oligarchy which has reduced the populace to a uniformed slave-caste, seething with futile revolt. The following portrays the newspapers of that new world of Capitalism triumphant)
Beyond this place they came into a closed hall, and Graham discovered the cause of the noise that had perplexed him. His attention was arrested by a violent, loud hoot, followed by a vast leathery voice. He stopped and, looking up, beheld a foolish trumpet face. This was the General Intelligence Machine. For a space it seemed to be gathering breath, and a regular throbbing from its cylindrical body was audible. Then it trumpeted "Galloop, Galloop," and broke out again.
"Paris is now pacified. All resistance is over. Galloop! The black police hold every position of importance in the city. They fought with great bravery, singing songs written in praise of their ancestors by the poet Kipling. Once or twice they got out of hand, and tortured and mutilated wounded and captured insurgents, men and women. Moral--don't go rebelling. Haha! Galloop, Galloop! They are lively fellows. Lively brave fellows. Let this be a lesson to the disorderly banderlog of this city. Yah! Banderlog! Filth of the earth! Galloop, Galloop!"
The voice ceased. There was a confused murmur of disapproval among the crowd. "Damned niggers." A man began to harangue near them. "Is this the Master's doing, brothers? Is this the Master's doing?"
"Black police!" said Graham. "What is that? You don't mean----"
His companion touched his arm and gave him a warning look, and forthwith another of these mechanisms screamed deafeningly and gave tongue in a shrill voice. "Yahaha! Yahah, Yap! Hear a live paper yelp! Live paper. Yaha! Shocking outrage in Paris. Yahahah! The Parisians exasperated by the black police to the pitch of assassination. Dreadful reprisals. Savage times come again. Blood! Blood! Yahah!" The nearer Babble Machine hooted stupendously, "Galloop, Galloop," drowned the end of the sentence, and proceeded in a rather flatter note than before with novel comments on the horrors of disorder. "Law and order must be maintained," said the nearer Babble Machine....
The Ballad of Kiplingson
BY ROBERT BUCHANAN
(An English poet and journalist, 1841-1901, who through his lifetime fought valiantly against militarism and imperialism. See pages 367, 412, 687)
There came a knock at the Heavenly Gate, where the good St. Peter sat,-- "Hi, open the door, you fellah there, to a British rat-tat-tat!"
The Saint sat up in his chair, rubbed eyes, and prick'd his holy ears, "Who's there?" he muttered, "a single man, or a regiment of Grenadiers?"
"A single man," the voice replied, "but one of prodigious size, Who claims by Jingo, his patron Saint, the entry to Paradise!"
The good St. Peter open'd the Gate, but blocking the entry scan'd The spectacled ghost of a little man, with an infant's flag in his hand....
"Wot! haven't you heard of Kiplingson? whose name and fame have spread As far as the Flag of England waves, and the Tory prints are read?
"I was raised in the lap of Jingo, sir, till I grew to the height of man, And a wonderful Literary Gent, I emerged upon Hindostan!...
"And rapid as light my glory spread, till thro' cockaigne it flew, And I grew the joy of the Cockney cliques, and the pet of the Jingo Jew!
"For the Lord my God was a Cockney Gawd, whose voice was a savage yell, A fust-rate Gawd who dropt, d'ye see, the 'h' in Heaven and Hell!...
"Oh I was a real Phenomenon," continued Kiplingson, "The only genius ever born who was Tory at twenty-one!"
"Alas! and alas!" the good Saint said, a tear in his eye serene, "A Tory at twenty-one! Good God! At fifty what would you have been?
"There's not a spirit now here in Heaven who wouldn't at twenty-one Have tried to upset the very Throne, and reform both Sire and Son!
"The saddest sight my eyes have seen, down yonder on earth or here, Is a brat that talks like a weary man, or a youth with a cynic's leer.
"Try lower down, young man," he cried, and began to close the Gate-- "Hi, here, old fellah," said Kiplingson, "by Jingo! just you wait--
"I've heaps of Criticisms here, to show my claims are true, That I'm 'cute in almost everything, and have probed Creation through!"
"And what have you found?" the Saint inquired, a frown on his face benign-- "The Flag of England!" cried Kiplingson, "and the thin black penny-a-line!
"Wherever the Flag of England waves, down go all other flags; Wherever the thin black line is spread, the Bulldog bites and brags!...
"O Gawd, beware of the Jingo's wrath! the Journals of Earth are mine! Across the plains of the earth still creeps the thin black penny-a-line!
"For wherever the Flag of England waves"--but here, we grieve to state, His voice was drown'd in a thunder-crash, for the Saint bang'd-to the Gate!
Militancy
BY ISRAEL ZANGWILL
(See page 136)
Heckling became a fine art, and even a joyous: for, despite all the suffering it cost them, they carried it through with such inexhaustible spirit and invention as to restore a touch of chic and bravado to our drab life and add to the gaiety of nations. Miss Pankhurst even managed to badger Cabinet Ministers in the witness-box.... There was no meeting, however guarded, to which, by hook or crook, organ-pipe or drain-pipe, she did not gain admission, padlocking herself against easy expulsion; while, even were her bodily presence averted, always, like the horns of Elfland faintly blowing, came from some well-placed megaphone that inevitable and implacable slogan "Votes for Women." Chalked on pavement or scrawled on walls or blazoned on sky-signs, it became a universal, ubiquitous obsession. Streamers carried it under the terrace of Parliament or balloons suspended it from above. Cabinet Ministers were dogged to their privatest haunts, for the leakages of information were everywhere. Since Christianity no such force has arisen to divide families. No household, however Philistine, was safe from a jail-bird. If Lady Anon asked Lady Alamode when her daughter was coming out, it no longer referred to the young lady's début. The most obstinate autocrat since Pharaoh, Mr. Asquith, has been shown similar signs and wonders. "We are the appointed plagues," said Mrs. Pankhurst, with a rare touch of humor. And nothing has plagued British society more than that outbreak of religion which brought disgrace upon so many respectable homes. Incidentally, the prisons and the courts were improved by receiving critics instead of criminals. "We do not care for ourselves," cried Christabel Pankhurst at the London Police Court, "because prison is nothing to us. But the injustice done here to thousands of helpless creatures is too terrible to contemplate." Warders and wardresses, too, profited by the society of their new prisoners. It was like a rise in the social scale to them. Nor was even the Bench immune from education.
"Boyle!" called the magistrate. "Miss Boyle" corrected the prisoner. "We always call our prisoners by their surnames," explained the magistrate. "We are here to teach you better manners" said the Suffragette.
"Mr. Dooley" on Woman Suffrage
(See pages 683, 692, 698, 706, 709, 711)
Don't ask f'r rights. Take thim. An' don't let anny wan give thim to ye. A right that is handed to ye f'r nawthin' has somethin' the matther with it. It's more than likely it's on'y a wrong turned inside out.
Heloise sans Abelard
(A Modern Scholar on a Mediæval Nun)
BY JOEL ELIAS SPINGARN
(A professor in America's most prosperous university was discharged for his protests against commercialized education. In the following poem he has paid his respects to his colleagues, likening them to nuns in a convent, and himself to Heloise, who ran away)
In the cool, calm palace of prayer She sought her haven of dreams; She gave up her dower of air, Of stars, and cities, and streams.
On the cold, sweet steps of prayer She sought what young girls seek; She laid her bosom bare, And asked for the stones to speak.
Who wonders she could not hear What silence and stones belie? Who wonders where love may steer? Not I, not I, not I!
O passionate Heloise, I, too, have lived under the ban, With seven hundred professors, And not a single man.
In the Shadows: the Priest
BY ARTHUR UPSON
(American poet, 1877-1908)
How long is it now, I wonder-- A thousand years, at least, Here the dark vault under, Feet to the East, Supposed to be Paradise-walking, a purgèd priest! Well, none of them see me, thank heaven, As they pass me here on the hill-- So long as they live they're shriven, And when they come here--they are still.
Thinking
BY ANATOLE FRANCE
(See pages 681, 703)
'Tis a great infirmity to think. God preserve you from it, my son, as He has preserved His greatest saints, and the souls whom He loves with especial tenderness and destines to eternal felicity.
The Tail of the World
BY JOHN AMID
(Contemporary American poet)
The world is a beast with a long fur tail, With an angry tooth, and a biting nail; And she's headed the way that she ought not to go For the Lord he designed and decreed her so.
The point of the game is to drag the beast While she's headed sou-west, toward the nor-nor-east; God made the beast, and he drew the plan, And he left the bulk of the haul to man.
So primitive man dug a brace for his sandal. Took hold of the tail, as the logical handle; Got a last good drink, and a bite of bread, And pulled till the blood ran into his head.
At first he gained till it looked like a cinch, But then the beast crawled back an inch; And ever since then it's been Nip and Tuck, Sometimes moving, but oftener stuck.
Most of the gains have been made by the crowd-- Sweating nobly, and swearing aloud. Yet sometimes a single man could land A good rough jerk, or a hand-over-hand.
They say Confucius made her come-- Homer and Dante--they each pulled some! Bill Schopenhauer's foot slipped, rank, While Shakespeare, he fetched her a horrible yank.
The beast has hollered and frequently spit, Often scratched, and sometimes bit, And the men who were mauled, or laid out cold, Were the very ones with the strangle hold.
Why he did it, I don't know; But the Lord he designed and decreed it so. Of course he knew that the game was no cinch, So he gave man some trifles to help in a pinch.
One was an instinct, that might be read: "Lay hold of something, and pull till you're dead!" Another, that can't be translated as well, Was, "Le' go my tail--and go to Hell!"
But the strongest card in the whole blame pack Was the fine sensation that paid man back; For the finest feeling that's been unfurled Is the feel of the fur on the tail of the world!