It is not my intention to give a full descriptive account of my peculiar
journey around the world with Arletta, nor to recount the many strange
things witnessed. Suffice it to mention that we visited nearly every
country on the globe through the power of mind sight, and I was enabled
to see any terrestrial occurrence as well as if having been on the spot
in person. In fact, being under the direct influence of Arletta's
perception, conditions appeared much more comprehensive to me than ever
before and I felt like some great judge looking down upon the earth and
its inhabitants with an impartial eye. And somehow these inhabitants did
not seem to impress me as being in such a high state of intelligence as
I had formerly been led to believe they were. Everywhere human beings
were fighting and snarling amongst themselves like ferocious beasts.
Their universal law granted the right of the strong to victimize the
weak either through the power of physical or mental force. In fact it
was considered a divine right for men of superior intellects to receive
more of the fruits of the earth than those of smaller mental capacity.
One-half of the world was over-fed while the other half was under-fed.
Aside from a slight difference in political and religious theories, the
characteristics of all the peoples of the world were the same; the
predominant features being greed, vanity, egotism, intemperance,
gluttony, fraud, theft, bribery, deceit, brutality, murder, superstition
and filth. Even America, the much boasted land of the free, the country
which God in his infinite wisdom had taken from the bad English and
given to the good Americans, contained people with these traits, and the
so-called great men of this country appeared like a lot of silly little
pigmies engaged in an eternal quarrel over a few trinkets. Few of them
could see further than their own noses unless it was to see something
that would increase their own selfish desires. Equality, of which these
people boasted so much, existed merely in their imaginations. The actual
meaning of equality, as the Americans understood it, was that the
physical and mental gladiators and weaklings alike were put into one
great prize ring and given an opportunity to fight for their lives and
nature's gifts. Those who were capable of battering down and trampling
upon their adversaries were legally entitled to all the luxuries the
earth provided and more than they could use, but those who were
unfortunate enough to have been born weaklings and were unfit to cope
successfully with the huge monsters in the ring, were crushed in the
struggle.
Fraud was the slogan of the government officials and nearly all of them
practiced it, from the highest to the lowest functionary. Money was the
power behind the curtain and he who had the largest bank account was
catered to like an over-grown hog surrounded by a lot of suckling pigs.
"God helps those who help themselves" was their accepted motto. In other
words, God helps the strong and not the weak. If the Creator gives any
of His attention to the innumerable bickerings of these earthly microbes
He must feel greatly flattered by having this splendid motto thrust upon
Him, for according to it, one was supposed to go to the assistance of
the man who could swim, while he who could not, must be left to drown.
A certain so-called great American, one Mr. Moundbuilder by name,
expressed great faith in this doctrine. By employing thousands of his
fellow men to do the hard work while he sat in an easy chair and
confiscated the difference between what they earned and what he paid
them, he accumulated several hundred million dollars for his own use.
About the time he was ready to die he learned to his great sorrow that
it was necessary to leave all this wealth behind. So he decided to
bequeath it to only those who were sufficiently strong and willing to
continue his policy of crushing the weak and incidentally erect some
monuments to his own memory. After much consideration as to how the
strong would derive the most benefit from his ill-gotten goods, he
concluded that the weak-minded and sickly creatures who were bred from
the system he abetted and the over-worked and under-fed laborer would
have no opportunity to read books, so he established hundreds of
Moundbuilder libraries and Moundbuilder universities in all parts of the
world. To those who were already strong enough to reach a position where
they could enter a university and did not really need his aid, the idea
was a grand one, as it would help to increase their strength, thereby
making it much easier for them to confiscate what the weaklings could
produce in the future. Thus the plan to make the strong stronger, the
weak weaker, and Moundbuilder immortal, would be perpetuated. But the
cherished hopes of Mr. Moundbuilder in this respect will never be
realized, for the day is not far distant when earthly mortals will be
able to reason and then he will be recognized simply as a vain-glorious
old humbug.
Another celebrated American who was classed among the great men of the
day was a certain Mr. Porkpacker. This individual conducted an
establishment where thousands of animals, bred for the purpose, were
slaughtered daily. He had accumulated millions of blood-stained dollars
in this way, and was generally conceded to be a man of great business
ability. He was pointed out to the rising generation as one of the most
successful men in the country whose example should be followed. Just
pause a moment and think of it. Here was a man who directed a business
where thousands of living things were murdered daily, set forth as a
good example to follow just because he had secured millions of dollars
by the operation. Oh, ye mortals! Man considers the wolf a blood-thirsty
beast because he kills and eats the flesh of human beings for
subsistence. What kind of a bestial monster would the wolf consider man
if it saw him in his slaughter-house killing thousands of innocent beef,
sheep and hogs daily? Or what would it think of civilized man if it saw
him shooting myriads of tame and harmless pigeons for amusement, or
broiling lobsters alive to satisfy his gormandizing desires? Perhaps the
wolf would set man below its grade, if interrogated upon the subject.
But tyrannical man, intoxicated by his own egotism and clinging to an
elastic religion which allows him to act as he pleases, feels that his
god created all these things for his special benefit. If the wolf could
be questioned about the matter, it too might claim that its god
permitted the killing and eating of man. Mr. Porkpacker was considered
both great and good by his fellow beings, for each year he gave
thousands of dollars for the erection and maintenance of the church and
likewise contributed largely toward his pastor's salary. Would it be
good policy then for the pastor to believe that it was wrong to kill
sheep, when one of the large contributors was earning money in that
business? No, no. So the church upheld the slaughter-houses and proved
by the scriptures that they were simply doing what the savages had done
thousands of years previously according to divine right.
Once I listened to my father preach a sermon on the beautiful innocence
and purity of the lamb. For an hour he spoke feelingly of the many
virtues contained by this gentle little creature and after he was
through he immediately went home and filled his stomach with roasted
lamb for dinner. Good Christians are anxious to know when the time will
arrive that the lion and lamb will lie down together in peace and
harmony. Possibly the lamb would like to know if the time will ever come
when its carcass will not be utilized to appease the voracious appetite
of the Christian.
In looking over the so-called great business men and financial swindlers
of America they certainly presented a motley collection of physical and
mental monstrosities. They spent so much of their time in the mad rush
for dollars and how to spend them, that physical and mental improvement
received very little attention. Their brains became stagnant for the
want of proper training and their bodies were allowed to rot and become
useless for the need of exercise. Some were so fat they could not walk,
while others were too lean to stand. A great many of them used either
canes or crutches as an aid to hobble along or vehicles to convey them
from place to place. Nearly all were cripples, more or less; rheumatism,
gout, paralysis and numerous other ailments being the cause of their
helplessness. Few of them seemed able to understand that all these
infirmities were directly caused by the want of proper exercise and from
the gluttonous habit of overloading their stomachs with foods of many
kinds and meat especially. Apparently it was beyond their comprehension
that nature commanded them to improve their physiques for the benefit of
coming generations. Men who professed to be athletes when they were past
the age of thirty were considered childish, while the exponents of
physical culture were generally looked upon as cranks. Eating, drinking
and smoking were adapted as the best modes of recreation, while fishing
and shooting pigeons, quail, squirrels and other harmless living things
were regarded as good, healthy amusements. Of all the brutal methods of
diversion ever adopted by man, fishing is perhaps the most cruel. If the
reader does not think so, just stop for a moment and imagine yourself
being hooked to a great line by the mouth and your body being drawn far
up into space and into another atmosphere, there to strangle slowly to
death. You would not like it, would you? Then why should the fish be
treated so? Do you not suppose that the fish have feelings like
yourself? Oh, if all my fellowmen could only have taken that trip around
the world with Arletta and seen things as I saw them, cruelty in all its
various forms would be a thing of the past. That trip and my subsequent
experience with her proved to be the best education I could have
received from any source. It taught me the real meaning of the word
kindness, without which, not only toward human beings, but toward all
living things, man will never rise above the savage state.