'What makes you think that?'

'Why shouldn't I? You seem to think it taught you one.'

'That is nothing to the point. I am not a fool.'

'I see. Were they fools?'

'They were human beings.'

'Is it the same thing?'

'Why do you ask? You know it yourself. As regards his health--and the

rest of the things--the average man is what his environment and his

superstitions have made him; and their function is to make him an ass.

He can't add up three or four new circumstances together and perceive

what they mean; it is beyond him. He is not capable of observing for

himself; he has to get everything at second-hand. If what are miscalled

the lower animals were as silly as man is, they would all perish from the

earth in a year.'

'Those passengers learned no lesson, then?'

'Not a sign of it. They went to their regular meals in the English ship,

and pretty soon they were nibbling again--nibbling, appetiteless,

disgusted with the food, moody, miserable, half hungry, their outraged

stomachs cursing and swearing and whining and supplicating all day long.

And in vain, for they were the stomachs of fools.'

'Then, as I understand it, your scheme is--'

'Quite simple. Don't eat until you are hungry. If the food fails to

taste good, fails to satisfy you, rejoice you, comfort you, don't eat

again until you are very hungry. Then it will rejoice you--and do you

good, too.'

'And I am to observe no regularity, as to hours?'

'When you are conquering a bad appetite--no. After it is conquered,

regularity is no harm, so long as the appetite remains good. As soon as

the appetite wavers, apply the corrective again--which is starvation,

long or short according to the needs of the case.'

'The best diet, I suppose--I mean the wholesomest--'

'All diets are wholesome. Some are wholesomer than others, but all the

ordinary diets are wholesome enough for the people who use them. Whether

the food be fine or coarse it will taste good and it will nourish if a

watch be kept upon the appetite and a little starvation introduced every

time it weakens. Nansen was used to fine fare, but when his meals were

restricted to bear-meat months at a time he suffered no damage and no

discomfort, because his appetite was kept at par through the difficulty

of getting his bear-meat regularly.'

'But doctors arrange carefully considered and delicate diets for

invalids.'

'They can't help it. The invalid is full of inherited superstitions and

won't starve himself. He believes it would certainly kill him.'

'It would weaken him, wouldn't it?'

'Nothing to hurt. Look at the invalids in our shipwreck. They lived

fifteen days on pinches of raw ham, a suck at sailor-boots, and general

starvation. It weakened them, but it didn't hurt them. It put them in

fine shape to eat heartily of hearty food and build themselves up to a

condition of robust health. But they did not know enough to profit by

that; they lost their opportunity; they remained invalids; it served them

right. Do you know the trick that the health-resort doctors play?'

'What is it?'

'My system disguised--covert starvation. Grape-cure, bath-cure,

mud-cure--it is all the same. The grape and the bath and the mud make a

show and do a trifle of the work--the real work is done by the

surreptitious starvation. The patient accustomed to four meals and late

hours--at both ends of the day--now consider what he has to do at a

health resort. He gets up at 6 in the morning. Eats one egg. Tramps up

and down a promenade two hours with the other fools. Eats a butterfly.

Slowly drinks a glass of filtered sewage that smells like a buzzard's

breath. Promenades another two hours, but alone; if you speak to him he

says anxiously, "My water!--I am walking off my water!--please don't

interrupt," and goes stumping along again. Eats a candied roseleaf. Lies

at rest in the silence and solitude of his room for hours; mustn't read,

mustn't smoke. The doctor comes and feels of his heart, now, and his

pulse, and thumps his breast and his back and his stomach, and listens

for results through a penny flageolet; then orders the man's bath--half a

degree, Reaumur, cooler than yesterday. After the bath another egg. A

glass of sewage at three or four in the afternoon, and promenade solemnly

with the other freaks. Dinner at 6--half a doughnut and a cup of tea.

Walk again. Half-past 8, supper--more butterfly; at 9, to bed. Six

weeks of this regime--think of it. It starves a man out and puts him in

splendid condition. It would have the same effect in London, New York,

Jericho--anywhere.'

'How long does it take to put a person in condition here?'

'It ought to take but a day or two; but in fact it takes from one to six

weeks, according to the character and mentality of the patient.'

'How is that?'

'Do you see that crowd of women playing football, and boxing, and jumping

fences yonder? They have been here six or seven weeks. They were

spectral poor weaklings when they came. They were accustomed to nibbling

at dainties and delicacies at set hours four times a day, and they had no

appetite for anything. I questioned them, and then locked them into

their rooms--the frailest ones to starve nine or ten hours, the others

twelve or fifteen. Before long they began to beg; and indeed they

suffered a good deal. They complained of nausea, headache, and so on.

It was good to see them eat when the time was up. They could not

remember when the devouring of a meal had afforded them such rapture

--that was their word. Now, then, that ought to have ended their cure, but

it didn't. They were free to go to any meals in the house, and they

chose their accustomed four. Within a day or two I had to interfere.

Their appetites were weakening. I made them knock out a meal. That set

them up again. Then they resumed the four. I begged them to learn to

knock out a meal themselves, without waiting for me. Up to a fortnight

ago they couldn't; they really hadn't manhood enough; but they were

gaining it, and now I think they are safe. They drop out a meal every

now and then of their own accord. They are in fine condition now, and

they might safely go home, I think, but their confidence is not quite

perfect yet, so they are waiting awhile.'

'Other cases are different?'

'Oh yes. Sometimes a man learns the whole trick in a week. Learns to

regulate his appetite and keep it in perfect order. Learns to drop out a

meal with frequency and not mind it.'

'But why drop the entire meal out? Why not a part of it?'

'It's a poor device, and inadequate. If the stomach doesn't call

vigorously--with a shout, as you may say--it is better not to pester it

but just give it a real rest. Some people can eat more meals than

others, and still thrive. There are all sorts of people, and all sorts

of appetites. I will show you a man presently who was accustomed to

nibble at eight meals a day. It was beyond the proper gait of his

appetite by two. I have got him down to six a day, now, and he is all

right, and enjoys life. How many meals to you affect per day?'

'Formerly--for twenty-two years--a meal and a half; during the past two

years, two and a half: coffee and a roll at 9, luncheon at 1, dinner at

7.30 or 8.'

'Formerly a meal and a half--that is, coffee and a roll at 9, dinner in

the evening, nothing between--is that it?

'Yes.'

'Why did you add a meal?'

'It was the family's idea. They were uneasy. They thought I was killing

myself.'

'You found a meal and a half per day enough, all through the twenty-two

years?'

'Plenty.'

'Your present poor condition is due to the extra meal. Drop it out. You

are trying to eat oftener than your stomach demands. You don't gain, you

lose. You eat less food now, in a day, on two and a half meals, than you

formerly ate on one and a half.'

'True--a good deal less; for in those olds days my dinner was a very

sizeable thing.'

'Put yourself on a single meal a day, now--dinner--for a few days, till

you secure a good, sound, regular, trustworthy appetite, then take to

your one and a half permanently, and don't listen to the family any more.

When you have any ordinary ailment, particularly of a feverish sort, eat

nothing at all during twenty-four hours. That will cure it. It will

cure the stubbornest cold in the head, too. No cold in the head can

survive twenty-four hours' unmodified starvation.'

I know it. I have proved it many a time.

CONCERNING THE JEWS

Some months ago I published a magazine article[1] descriptive of a

remarkable scene in the Imperial Parliament in Vienna. Since then I have

received from Jews in America several letters of inquiry. They were

difficult letters to answer, for they were not very definite. But at

last I have received a definite one. It is from a lawyer, and he really

asks the questions which the other writers probably believed they were

asking. By help of this text I will do the best I can to publicly answer

this correspondent, and also the others--at the same time apologising for

having failed to reply privately. The lawyer's letter reads as follows:

'I have read "Stirring Times in Austria." One point in particular

is of vital import to not a few thousand people, including myself,

being a point about which I have often wanted to address a question

to some disinterested person. The show of military force in the

Austrian Parliament, which precipitated the riots, was not

introduced by any Jew. No Jew was a member of that body. No Jewish

question was involved in the Ausgleich or in the language

proposition. No Jew was insulting anybody. In short, no Jew was

doing any mischief toward anybody whatsoever. In fact, the Jews

were the only ones of the nineteen different races in Austria which

did not have a party--they are absolute non-participants. Yet in

your article you say that in the rioting which followed, all classes

of people were unanimous only on one thing, viz., in being against

the Jews. Now, will you kindly tell me why, in your judgment, the

Jews have thus ever been, and are even now, in these days of

supposed intelligence, the butt of baseless, vicious animosities?

I dare say that for centuries there has been no more quiet,

undisturbing, and well-behaving citizen, as a class, than that same

Jew. It seems to me that ignorance and fanaticism cannot alone

account for these horrible and unjust persecutions.

'Tell me, therefore, from your vantage point of cold view, what in

your mind is the cause. Can American Jews do anything to correct it

either in America or abroad? Will it ever come to an end? Will a

Jew be permitted to live honestly, decently, and peaceably like the

rest of mankind? What has become of the Golden Rule?'

I will begin by saying that if I thought myself prejudiced against the

Jew, I should hold it fairest to leave this subject to a person not

crippled in that way. But I think I have no such prejudice. A few years

ago a Jew observed to me that there was no uncourteous reference to his

people in my books, and asked how it happened. It happened because the

disposition was lacking. I am quite sure that (bar one) I have no race

prejudices, and I think I have no colour prejudices nor caste prejudices

nor creed prejudices. Indeed, I know it. I can stand any society. All

that I care to know is that a man is a human being--that is enough for

me; he can't be any worse. I have no special regard for Satan; but I can

at least claim that I have no prejudice against him. It may even be that

I lean a little his way, on account of his not having a fair show. All

religions issue Bibles against him, and say the most injurious things

about him, but we never hear his side. We have none but the evidence for

the prosecution, and yet we have rendered the verdict. To my mind, this

is irregular. It is un-English; it is un-American; it is French.

Without this precedent Dreyfus could not have been condemned. Of course

Satan has some kind of a case, it goes without saying. It may be a poor

one, but that is nothing; that can be said about any of us. As soon as I

can get at the facts I will undertake his rehabilitation myself, if I can

find an unpolitic publisher. It is a thing which we ought to be willing

to do for any one who is under a cloud. We may not pay Satan reverence,

for that would be indiscreet, but we can at least respect his talents.

A person who has during all time maintained the imposing position of

spiritual head of four-fifths of the human race, and political head of

the whole of it, must be granted the possession of executive abilities of

the loftiest order. In his large presence the other popes and

politicians shrink to midges for the microscope. I would like to see

him. I would rather see him and shake him by the tail than any other

member of the European Concert. In the present paper I shall allow

myself to use the word Jew as if it stood for both religion and race. It

is handy; and, besides, that is what the term means to the general world.

In the above letter one notes these points:

1. The Jew is a well-behaved citizen.

2. Can ignorance and fanaticism alone account for his unjust treatment?

3. Can Jews do anything to improve the situation?

4. The Jews have no party; they are non-participants.

5. Will the persecution ever come to an end?

6. What has become of the Golden Rule?

Point No. 1.--We must grant proposition No. 1, for several sufficient

reasons. The Jew is not a disturber of the peace of any country. Even

his enemies will concede that. He is not a loafer, he is not a sot, he

is not noisy, he is not a brawler nor a rioter, he is not quarrelsome.

In the statistics of crime his presence is conspicuously rare--in all

countries. With murder and other crimes of violence he has but little to

do: he is a stranger to the hangman. In the police court's daily long

roll of 'assaults' and 'drunk and disorderlies' his name seldom appears.

That the Jewish home is a home in the truest sense is a fact which no one

will dispute. The family is knitted together by the strongest

affections; its members show each other every due respect; and reverence

for the elders is an inviolate law of the house. The Jew is not a burden

on the charities of the state nor of the city; these could cease from

their functions without affecting him. When he is well enough, he works;

when he is incapacitated, his own people take care of him. And not in a

poor and stingy way, but with a fine and large benevolence. His race is

entitled to be called the most benevolent of all the races of men. A

Jewish beggar is not impossible, perhaps; such a thing may exist, but

there are few men that can say they have seen that spectacle. The Jew

has been staged in many uncomplimentary forms, but, so far as I know, no

dramatist has done him the injustice to stage him as a beggar. Whenever

a Jew has real need to beg, his people save him from the necessity of

doing it. The charitable institutions of the Jews are supported by

Jewish money, and amply. The Jews make no noise about it; it is done

quietly; they do not nag and pester and harass us for contributions; they

give us peace, and set us an example--an example which he have not found

ourselves able to follow; for by nature we are not free givers, and have

to be patiently and persistently hunted down in the interest of the

unfortunate.

These facts are all on the credit side of the proposition that the Jew is

a good and orderly citizen. Summed up, they certify that he is quiet,

peaceable, industrious, unaddicted to high crimes and brutal

dispositions; that his family life is commendable; that he is not a

burden upon public charities; that he is not a beggar; that in

benevolence he is above the reach of competition. These are the very

quintessentials of good citizenship. If you can add that he is as honest

as the average of his neighbours--But I think that question is

affirmatively answered by the fact that he is a successful business man.

The basis of successful business is honesty; a business cannot thrive

where the parties to it cannot trust each other. In the matter of

numbers the Jew counts for little in the overwhelming population of New

York; but that his honest counts for much is guaranteed by the fact that

the immense wholesale business of Broadway, from the Battery to Union

Square, is substantially in his hands.

I suppose that the most picturesque example in history of a trader's

trust in his fellow-trader was one where it was not Christian trusting

Christian, but Christian trusting Jew. That Hessian Duke who used to

sell his subjects to George III. to fight George Washington with got rich

at it; and by-and-by, when the wars engendered by the French Revolution

made his throne too warm for him, he was obliged to fly the country. He

was in a hurry, and had to leave his earnings behind--$9,000,000. He had

to risk the money with some one without security. He did not select a

Christian, but a Jew--a Jew of only modest means, but of high character;

a character so high that it left him lonesome--Rothschild of Frankfort.

Thirty years later, when Europe had become quiet and safe again, the Duke

came back from overseas, and the Jew returned the loan, with interest

added.[2]

The Jew has his other side. He has some discreditable ways, though he

has not a monopoly of them, because he cannot get entirely rid of

vexatious Christian competition. We have seen that he seldom

transgresses the laws against crimes of violence. Indeed, his dealings

with courts are almost restricted to matters connected with commerce. He

has a reputation for various small forms of cheating, and for practising

oppressive usury, and for burning himself out to get the insurance, and

for arranging cunning contracts which leave him an exit but lock the

other man in, and for smart evasions which find him safe and comfortable

just within the strict letter of the law, when court and jury know very

well that he has violated the spirit of it. He is a frequent and

faithful and capable officer in the civil service, but he is charged with

an unpatriotic disinclination to stand by the flag as a soldier--like the

Christian Quaker.

Now if you offset these discreditable features by the creditable ones

summarised in a preceding paragraph beginning with the words, 'These

facts are all on the credit side,' and strike a balance, what must the

verdict be? This, I think: that, the merits and demerits being fairly

weighed and measured on both sides, the Christian can claim no

superiority over the Jew in the matter of good citizenship.

Yet in all countries, from the dawn of history, the Jew has been

persistently and implacably hated, and with frequency persecuted.

Point No. 2.--'Can fanaticism alone account for this?'

Years ago I used to think that it was responsible for nearly all of it,

but latterly I have come to think that this was an error. Indeed, it is

now my conviction that it is responsible for hardly any of it.

In this connection I call to mind Genesis, chapter xlvii.

We have all thoughtfully--or unthoughtfully--read the pathetic story of

the years of plenty and the years of famine in Egypt, and how Joseph,

with that opportunity, made a corner in broken hearts, and the crusts of

the poor, and human liberty--a corner whereby he took a nation's money

all away, to the last penny; took a nation's live stock all away, to the

last hoof; took a nation's land away, to the last acre; then took the

nation itself, buying it for bread, man by man, woman by woman, child by

child, till all were slaves; a corner which took everything, left

nothing; a corner so stupendous that, by comparison with it, the most

gigantic corners in subsequent history are but baby things, for it dealt

in hundreds of millions of bushels, and its profits were reckonable by

hundreds of millions of dollars, and it was a disaster so crushing that

its effects have not wholly disappeared from Egypt to-day, more than

three thousand years after the event.

Is it presumably that the eye of Egypt was upon Joseph the foreign Jew

all this time? I think it likely. Was it friendly? We must doubt it.

Was Joseph establishing a character for his race which would survive long

in Egypt? and in time would his name come to be familiarly used to

express that character--like Shylock's? It is hardly to be doubted. Let

us remember that this was centuries before the Crucifixion?

I wish to come down eighteen hundred years later and refer to a remark

made by one of the Latin historians. I read it in a translation many

years ago, and it comes back to me now with force. It was alluding to a

time when people were still living who could have seen the Saviour in the

flesh. Christianity was so new that the people of Rome had hardly heard

of it, and had but confused notions of what it was. The substance of the

remark was this: Some Christians were persecuted in Rome through error,

they being 'mistaken for Jews.'

The meaning seems plain. These pagans had nothing against Christians,

but they were quite ready to persecute Jews. For some reason or other

they hated a Jew before they even knew what a Christian was. May I not

assume, then, that the persecution of Jews is a thing which antedates

Christianity and was not born of Christianity? I think so. What was the

origin of the feeling?

When I was a boy, in the back settlements of the Mississippi Valley,

where a gracious and beautiful Sunday school simplicity and practicality

prevailed, the 'Yankee' (citizen of the New England States) was hated

with a splendid energy. But religion had nothing to do with it. In a

trade, the Yankee was held to be about five times the match of the

Westerner. His shrewdness, his insight, his judgment, his knowledge, his

enterprise, and his formidable cleverness in applying these forces were

frankly confessed, and most competently cursed.

In the cotton States, after the war, the simple and ignorant Negroes made

the crops for the white planter on shares. The Jew came down in force,

set up shop on the plantation, supplied all the negro's wants on credit,

and at the end of the season was proprietor of the negro's share of the

present crop and of part of his share of the next one. Before long, the

whites detested the Jew, and it is doubtful if the negro loved him.

The Jew is begin legislated out of Russia. The reason is not concealed.

The movement was instituted because the Christian peasant and villager

stood no chance against his commercial abilities. He was always ready to

lend money on a crop, and sell vodka and other necessities of life on

credit while the crop was growing. When settlement day came he owned the

crop; and next year or year after he owned the farm, like Joseph.

In the dull and ignorant English of John's time everybody got into debt

to the Jew. He gathered all lucrative enterprises into his hands; he was

the king of commerce; he was ready to be helpful in all profitable ways;

he even financed crusades for the rescue of the Sepulchre. To wipe out

his account with the nation and restore business to its natural and

incompetent channels he had to be banished the realm.

For the like reasons Spain had to banish him four hundred years ago, and

Austria about a couple of centuries later.

In all the ages Christian Europe has been oblige to curtail his

activities. If he entered upon a mechanical trade, the Christian had to

retire from it. If he set up as a doctor, he was the best one, and he

took the business. If he exploited agriculture, the other farmers had to

get at something else. Since there was no way to successfully compete

with him in any vocation, the law had to step in and save the Christian

from the poor-house. Trade after trade was taken away from the Jew by

statute till practically none was left. He was forbidden to engage in

agriculture; he was forbidden to practise law; he was forbidden to

practise medicine, except among Jews; he was forbidden the handicrafts.

Even the seats of learning and the schools of science had to be closed

against this tremendous antagonist. Still, almost bereft of employments,

he found ways to make money, even ways to get rich. Also ways to invest

his takings well, for usury was not denied him. In the hard conditions

suggested, the Jew without brains could not survive, and the Jew with

brains had to keep them in good training and well sharpened up, or

starve. Ages of restriction to the one tool which the law was not able

to take from him--his brain--have made that tool singularly competent;

ages of compulsory disuse of his hands have atrophied them, and he never

uses them now. This history has a very, very commercial look, a most

sordid and practical commercial look, the business aspect of a Chinese

cheap-labour crusade. Religious prejudices may account for one part of

it, but not for the other nine.

Protestants have persecuted Catholics, but they did not take their

livelihoods away from them. The Catholics have persecuted the

Protestants with bloody and awful bitterness, but they never closed

agriculture and the handicrafts against them. Why was that? That has

the candid look of genuine religious persecution, not a trade-union

boycott in a religious dispute.

The Jews are harried and obstructed in Austria and Germany, and lately in

France; but England and America give them an open field and yet survive.

Scotland offers them an unembarrassed field too, but there are not many

takers. There are a few Jews in Glasgow, and one in Aberdeen; but that

is because they can't earn enough to get away. The Scotch pay themselves

that compliment, but it is authentic.

I feel convinced that the Crucifixion has not much to do with the world's

attitude toward the Jew; that the reasons for it are older than that

event, as suggested by Egypt's experience and by Rome's regret for having

persecuted an unknown quantity called a Christian, under the mistaken

impression that she was merely persecuting a Jew. Merely a Jew--a

skinned eel who was used to it, presumably. I am persuaded that in

Russia, Austria, and Germany nine-tenths of the hostility to the Jew

comes from the average Christian's inability to compete successfully with

the average Jew in business--in either straight business or the

questionable sort.

In Berlin, a few years ago, I read a speech which frankly urged the

expulsion of the Jews from Germany; and the agitator's reason was as

frank as his proposition. It was this: that eighty-five percent of the

successful lawyers of Berlin were Jews, and that about the same

percentage of the great and lucrative businesses of all sorts in Germany

were in the hands of the Jewish race! Isn't it an amazing confession?

It was but another way of saying that in a population of 48,000,000, of

whom only 500,000 were registered as Jews, eighty-five per cent of the

brains and honesty of the whole was lodged in the Jews. I must insist

upon the honesty--it is an essential of successful business, taken by and

large. Of course it does not rule out rascals entirely, even among

Christians, but it is a good working rule, nevertheless. The speaker's

figures may have been inexact, but the motive of persecution stands out

as clear as day.

The man claimed that in Berlin the banks, the newspapers, the theatres,

the great mercantile, shipping, mining, and manufacturing interests, the

big army and city contracts, the tramways, and pretty much all other

properties of high value, and also the small businesses, were in the

hands of the Jews. He said the Jew was pushing the Christian to the wall

all along the line; that it was all a Christian could do to scrape

together a living; and that the Jew must be banished, and soon--there was

no other way of saving the Christian. Here in Vienna, last autumn,

an agitator said that all these disastrous details were true of

Austria-Hungary also; and in fierce language he demanded the expulsion of

the Jews. When politicians come out without a blush and read the baby

act in this frank way, unrebuked, it is a very good indication that they

have a market back of them, and know where to fish for votes.

You note the crucial point of the mentioned agitation; the argument is

that the Christian cannot compete with the Jew, and that hence his very

bread is in peril. To human beings this is a much more hate-inspiring

thing than is any detail connected with religion. With most people, of a

necessity, bread and meat take first rank, religion second. I am

convinced that the persecution of the Jew is not due in any large degree

to religious prejudice.

No, the Jew is a money-getter; and in getting his money he is a very

serious obstruction to less capable neighbours who are on the same quest.

I think that that is the trouble. In estimating worldly values the Jew

is not shallow, but deep. With precocious wisdom he found out in the

morning of time that some men worship rank, some worship heroes, some

worship power, some worship God, and that over these ideals they dispute

and cannot unite--but that they all worship money; so he made it the end

and aim of his life to get it. He was at it in Egypt thirty-six

centuries ago; he was at it in Rome when that Christian got persecuted by

mistake for him; he has been at it ever since. The cost to him has been

heavy; his success has made the whole human race his enemy--but it has

paid, for it has brought him envy, and that is the only thing which

men will sell both soul and body to get. He long ago observed

that a millionaire commands respect, a two-millionaire homage,

a multi-millionaire the deepest deeps of adoration. We all know that

feeling; we have seen it express itself. We have noticed that when the

average man mentions the name of a multi-millionaire he does it with that

mixture in his voice of awe and reverence and lust which burns in a

Frenchman's eye when it falls on another man's centime.

Point No. 4--'The Jews have no party; they are non-participants.'

Perhaps you have let the secret out and given yourself away. It seems

hardly a credit to the race that it is able to say that; or to you, sir,

that you can say it without remorse; more, that you should offer it as a

plea against maltreatment, injustice, and oppression. Who gives the Jew

the right, who gives any race the right, to sit still in a free country,

and let somebody else look after its safety? The oppressed Jew was

entitled to all pity in the former times under brutal autocracies, for he

was weak and friendless, and had no way to help his case. But he has

ways now, and he has had them for a century, but I do not see that he has

tried to make serious use of then. When the Revolution set him free in

France it was an act of grace--the grace of other people; he does not

appear in it as a helper. I do not know that he helped when England set

him free. Among the Twelve Sane Men of France who have stepped forward

with great Zola at their head to fight (and win, I hope and believe[3])

the battle for the most infamously misused Jew of modern times, do you

find a great or rich or illustrious Jew helping? In the United States he

was created free in the beginning--he did not need to help, of course.

In Austria and Germany and France he has a vote, but of what considerable

use is it to him? He doesn't seem to know how to apply it to the best

effect. With all his splendid capacities and all his fat wealth he is

to-day not politically important in any country. In America, as early as

1854, the ignorant Irish hod-carrier, who had a spirit of his own and a

way of exposing it to the weather, made it apparent to all that he must

be politically reckoned with; yet fifteen years before that we hardly

knew what an Irishman looked like. As an intelligent force and

numerically, he has always been away down, but he has governed the

country just the same. It was because he was organised. It made his

vote valuable--in fact, essential.

You will say the Jew is everywhere numerically feeble. That is nothing

to the point--with the Irishman's history for an object-lesson. But I am

coming to your numerical feebleness presently. In all parliamentary

countries you could no doubt elect Jews to the legislatures--and even one

member in such a body is sometimes a force which counts. How deeply have

you concerned yourselves about this in Austria, France, and Germany? Or

even in America, for that matter? You remark that the Jews were not to

blame for the riots in this Reichsrath here, and you add with

satisfaction that there wasn't one in that body. That is not strictly

correct; if it were, would it not be in order for you to explain it and

apologise for it, not try to make a merit of it? But I think that the

Jew was by no means in as large force there as he ought to have been,

with his chances. Austria opens the suffrage to him on fairly liberal

terms, and it must surely be his own fault that he is so much in the

background politically.

As to your numerical weakness. I mentioned some figures awhile ago

--500,00--as the Jewish population of Germany. I will add some more

--6,000,000 in Russia, 5,000,000 in Austria, 250,000 in the United States.

I take them from memory; I read them in the 'Encyclopaedia Brittannica'

ten or twelve years ago. Still, I am entirely sure of them. If those

statistics are correct, my argument is not as strong as it ought to be as

concerns America, but it still has strength. It is plenty strong enough

as concerns Austria, for ten years ago 5,000,000 was nine per cent of the

empire's population. The Irish would govern the Kingdom of Heaven if

they had a strength there like that.

I have some suspicions; I got them at second-hand, but they have remained

with me these ten or twelve years. When I read in the 'E.B.' that the

Jewish population of the United States was 250,000 I wrote the editor,

and explained to him that I was personally acquainted with more Jews than

that in my country, and that his figures were without a doubt a misprint

for 25,000,000. I also added that I was personally acquainted with that

many there; but that was only to raise his confidence in me, for it was

not true. His answer miscarried, and I never got it; but I went around

talking about the matter, and people told me they had reason to suspect

that for business reasons many Jews whose dealings were mainly with the

Christians did not report themselves as Jews in the census. It looked

plausible; it looks plausible yet. Look at the city of New York; and

look at Boston, and Philadelphia, and New Orleans, and Chicago, and

Cincinnati, and San Francisco--how your race swarms in those places!--and

everywhere else in America, down to the least little village. Read the

signs on the marts of commerce and on the shops; Goldstein (gold stone),

Edelstein (precious stone), Blumenthal (flower-vale), Rosenthal

(rose-vale), Veilchenduft (violent odour), Singvogel (song-bird),

Rosenzweig (rose branch), and all the amazing list of beautiful and

enviable names which Prussia and Austria glorified you with so long ago.

It is another instance of Europe's coarse and cruel persecution of your

race; not that it was coarse and cruel to outfit it with pretty and

poetical names like those, but it was coarse and cruel to make it pay for

them or else take such hideous and often indecent names that to-day their

owners never use them; or, if they do, only on official papers. And it

was the many, not the few, who got the odious names, they being too poor

to bribe the officials to grant them better ones.

Now why was the race renamed? I have been told that in Prussia it was

given to using fictitious names, and often changing them, so as to beat

the tax-gatherer, escape military service, and so on; and that finally

the idea was hit upon of furnishing all the inmates of a house with one

and the same surname, and then holding the house responsible right along

for those inmates, and accountable for any disappearances that might

occur; it made the Jews keep track of each other, for self-interest's

sake, and saved the Government the trouble[4].

If that explanation of how the Jews of Prussia came to be renamed is

correct, if it is true that they fictitiously registered themselves to

gain certain advantages, it may possible be true that in America they

refrain from registered themselves as Jews to fend off the damaging

prejudices of the Christian customer. I have no way of knowing whether

this notion is well founded or not. There may be other and better ways

of explaining why only that poor little 250,000 of our Jews got into the

'Encyclopaedia'. I may, of course, be mistaken, but I am strongly of the

opinion that we have an immense Jewish population in America.

Point No. 3--'Can Jews do anything to improve the situation?'

I think so. If I may make a suggestion without seeming to be trying to

teach my grandmother to suck eggs, I will offer it. In our days we have

learned the value of combination. We apply it everywhere--in railway

systems, in trusts, in trade unions, in Salvation Armies, in minor

politics, in major politics, in European Concerts. Whatever our strength

may be, big or little, we organise it. We have found out that that is

the only way to get the most out of it that is in it. We know the

weakness of individual sticks, and the strength of the concentrated

faggot. Suppose you try a scheme like this, for instance. In England

and America put every Jew on the census-book as a Jew (in case you have

not been doing that). Get up volunteer regiments composed of Jews

solely, and when the drum beats, fall in and go to the front, so as to

remove the reproach that you have few Massenas among you, and that you

feed on a country but don't like to fight for it. Next, in politics,

organise your strength, band together, and deliver the casting-vote where

you can, and, where you can't, compel as good terms as possible. You

huddle to yourselves already in all countries, but you huddle to no

sufficient purpose, politically speaking. You do not seem to be

organised, except for your charities. There you are omnipotent; there

you compel your due of recognition--you do not have to beg for it. It

shows what you can do when you band together for a definite purpose.

And then from America and England you can encourage your race in Austria,

France, and Germany, and materially help it. It was a pathetic tale that

was told by a poor Jew a fortnight ago during the riots, after he had

been raided by the Christian peasantry and despoiled of everything he

had. He said his vote was of no value to him, and he wished he could be

excused from casting it, for indeed, casting it was a sure damage to him,

since, no matter which party he voted for, the other party would come

straight and take its revenge out of him. Nine per cent of the

population, these Jews, and apparently they cannot put a plank into any

candidate's platform! If you will send our Irish lads over here I think

they will organise your race and change the aspect of the Reichsrath.

You seem to think that the Jews take no hand in politics here, that they

are 'absolutely non-participants.' I am assured by men competent to

speak that this is a very large error, that the Jews are exceedingly

active in politics all over the empire, but that they scatter their work

and their votes among the numerous parties, and thus lose the advantages

to be had by concentration. I think that in America they scatter too,

but you know more about that than I do.

Speaking of concentration, Dr. Herzl has a clear insight into the value

of that. Have you heard of his plan? He wishes to gather the Jews of

the world together in Palestine, with a government of their own--under

the suzerainty of the Sultan, I suppose. At the Convention of Berne,

last year, there were delegates from everywhere, and the proposal was

received with decided favour. I am not the Sultan, and I am not

objecting; but if that concentration of the cunningest brains in the

world were going to be made in a free country (bar Scotland), I think it

would be politic to stop it. It will not be well to let that race find

out its strength. If the horses knew theirs, we should not ride any

more.

Point No. 5.--'Will the persecution of the Jews ever come to an end?'

On the score of religion, I think it has already come to an end. On the

score of race prejudice and trade, I have the idea that it will continue.

That is, here and there in spots about the world, where a barbarous

ignorance and a sort of mere animal civilisation prevail; but I do not

think that elsewhere the Jew need now stand in any fear of being robbed

and raided. Among the high civilisations he seems to be very comfortably

situated indeed, and to have more than his proportionate share of the

prosperities going. It has that look in Vienna. I suppose the race

prejudice cannot be removed; but he can stand that; it is no particular

matter. By his make and ways he is substantially a foreigner wherever he

may be, and even the angels dislike a foreigner. I am using this word

foreigner in the German sense--stranger. Nearly all of us have an

antipathy to a stranger, even of our own nationality. We pile grip-sacks

in a vacant seat to keep him from getting it; and a dog goes further, and

does as a savage would--challenges him on the spot. The German

dictionary seems to make no distinction between a stranger and a

foreigner; in its view a stranger is a foreigner--a sound position,

I think. You will always be by ways and habits and predilections

substantially strangers--foreigners--wherever you are, and that will

probably keep the race prejudice against you alive.

But you were the favourites of Heaven originally, and your manifold and

unfair prosperities convince me that you have crowded back into that snug

place again. Here is an incident that is significant. Last week in

Vienna a hailstorm struck the prodigious Central Cemetery and made

wasteful destruction there. In the Christian part of it, according to

the official figures, 621 window-panes were broken; more than 900

singing-birds were killed; five great trees and many small ones were torn

to shreds and the shreds scattered far and wide by the wind; the

ornamental plants and other decorations of the graces were ruined, and

more than a hundred tomb-lanterns shattered; and it took the cemetery's

whole force of 300 labourers more than three days to clear away the

storm's wreckage. In the report occurs this remark--and in its italics

you can hear it grit its Christian teeth: '...lediglich die israelitische

Abtheilung des Friedhofes vom Hagelwetter ganzlich verschont worden war.'

Not a hailstone hit the Jewish reservation! Such nepotism makes me

tired.

Point No. 6.--'What has become of the Golden Rule?'

It exists, it continues to sparkle, and is well taken care of. It is

Exhibit A in the Church's assets, and we pull it out every Sunday and

give it an airing. But you are not permitted to try to smuggle it into

this discussion, where it is irrelevant and would not feel at home.

It is strictly religious furniture, like an acolyte, or a

contribution-plate, or any of those things. It has never intruded into

business; and Jewish persecution is not a religious passion, it is a

business passion.

To conclude.--If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one

per cent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star-dust

lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly to be

heard of; but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as

prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial

importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his

bulk. His contributions to the world's list of great names in

literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning

are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has

made a marvellous fight in this world, in all the ages; and has done it

with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be

excused for it. The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose,

filled the planet with sound and splendour, then faded to dream-stuff and

passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and

they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for

a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have

vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always

was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his

parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive

mind. All things are mortal to the Jew; all other forces pass, but he

remains. What is the secret of his immortality?

Postscript--THE JEW AS SOLDIER

When I published the above article in 'Harper's Monthly,' I was ignorant

--like the rest of the Christian world--of the fact that the Jew had a

record as a soldier. I have since seen the official statistics, and I

find that he furnished soldiers and high officers to the Revolution, the

War of 1812, and the Mexican War. In the Civil War he was represented in

the armies and navies of both the North and the South by 10 per cent of

his numerical strength--the same percentage that was furnished by the

Christian populations of the two sections. This large fact means more

than it seems to mean; for it means that the Jew's patriotism was not

merely level with the Christian's, but overpassed it. When the Christian

volunteer arrived in camp he got a welcome and applause, but as a rule

the Jew got a snub. His company was not desired, and he was made to feel

it. That he nevertheless conquered his wounded pride and sacrificed both

that and his blood for his flag raises the average and quality of his

patriotism above the Christian's. His record for capacity, for fidelity,

and for gallant soldiership in the field is as good as any one's. This

is true of the Jewish private soldiers and of the Jewish generals alike.

Major-General O. O. Howard speaks of one of his Jewish staff officers as

being 'of the bravest and best;' of another--killed at Chancellorsville

--as being 'a true friend and a brave officer;' he highly praises two of

his Jewish brigadier-generals; finally, he uses these strong words:

'Intrinsically there are no more patriotic men to be found in the country

than those who claim to be of Hebrew descent, and who served with me in

parallel commands or more directly under my instructions.'

Fourteen Jewish Confederate and Union families contributed, between them,

fifty-one soldiers to the war. Among these, a father and three sons; and

another, a father and four sons.

In the above article I was neither able to endorse nor repel the common

approach that the Jew is willing to feed upon a country but not to fight

for it, because I did not know whether it was true or false. I supposed

it to be true, but it is not allowable to endorse wandering maxims upon

supposition--except when one is trying to make out a case. That slur

upon the Jew cannot hold up its head in presence of the figures of the

War Department. It has done its work, and done it long and faithfully,

and with high approval: it ought to be pensioned off now, and retired

from active service.

[1] See 'Stirring Times in Austria,' in this volume.

[2] Here is another piece of picturesque history; and it reminds us that

shabbiness and dishonesty are not the monopoly of any race or creed, but

are merely human:

'Congress has passed a bill to pay $379.56 to Moses Pendergrass, of

Libertyville, Missouri. The story of the reason of this liberality is

pathetically interesting, and shows the sort of pickle that an honest man

may get into who undertakes to do an honest job of work for Uncle Sam.

In 1886 Moses Pendergrass put in a bid for the contract to carry the mail

on the route from Knob Lick to Libertyville and Coffman, thirty miles a

day, from July 1, 1887, for one years. He got the postmaster at Knob

Lick to write the letter for him, and while Moses intended that his bid

should be $400, his scribe carelessly made it $4. Moses got the

contract, and did not find out about the mistake until the end of the

first quarter, when he got his first pay. When he found at what rate he

was working he was sorely cast down, and opened communication with the

Post Office Department. The department informed his that he must either

carry out his contract or throw it up, and that if he threw it up his

bondsman would have the pay the Government $1,459.85 damages. So Moses

carried out his contract, walked thirty miles every week-day for a year,

and carried the mail, and received for his labour $4, or, to be accurate,

$6.84; for, the route being extended after his bid was accepted, his pay

was proportionately increased. Now, after ten years, a bill was finally

passed to pay to Moses the difference between what he earned in that

unlucky year and what he received.'

The 'Sun,' which tells the above story, says that bills were introduced

in three or four Congresses for Moses' relief, and that committees

repeatedly investigated his claim.

It took six Congresses, containing in their persons the compressed

virtues of 70,000,000 of people, and cautiously and carefully giving

expression to those virtues in the fear of God and the next election,

eleven years to find out some way to cheat a fellow Christian out of

about $13 on his honestly executed contract, and out of nearly $300 due

him on its enlarged terms. And they succeeded. During the same time

they paid out $1,000,000,000 in pensions--a third of it unearned and

undeserved. This indicates a splendid all-round competency in theft, for

it starts with farthings, and works its industries all the way up to

ship-loads. It may be possible that the Jews can beat this, but the man

that bets on it is taking chances.

[3] The article was written in the summer of 1898.

[4] In Austria the renaming was merely done because the Jews in some

newly-acquired regions had no surnames, but were mostly named Abraham and

Moses, and therefore the tax-gatherer could tell t'other from which, and

was likely to lose his reason over the matter. The renaming was put into

the hands of the War Department, and a charming mess the graceless young

lieutenants made of it. To them a Jew was of no sort of consequence, and

they labelled the race in a way to make the angels weep. As an example,

take these two: Abraham Bellyache and Schmul Godbedamned--Culled from

'Namens Studien,' by Karl Emil Fransos.

FROM THE 'LONDON TIMES' OF 1904

Correspondence of the 'London Times'

Chicago, April 1, 1904

I resume by cable-telephone where I left off yesterday. For many hours

now, this vast city--along with the rest of the globe, of course--has

talked of nothing but the extraordinary episode mentioned in my last

report. In accordance with your instructions, I will now trace the

romance from its beginnings down to the culmination of yesterday--or

today; call it which you like. By an odd chance, I was a personal actor

in a part of this drama myself. The opening scene plays in Vienna.

Date, one o'clock in the morning, March 31, 1898. I had spent the

evening at a social entertainment. About midnight I went away, in

company with the military attaches of the British, Italian, and American

embassies, to finish with a late smoke. This function had been appointed

to take place in the house of Lieutenant Hillyer, the third attache

mentioned in the above list. When we arrived there we found several

visitors in the room; young Szczepanik;[1] Mr. K., his financial backer;

Mr. W., the latter's secretary; and Lieutenant Clayton, of the United

States Army. War was at that time threatening between Spain and our

country, and Lieutenant Clayton had been sent to Europe on military

business. I was well acquainted with young Szczepanik and his two

friends, and I knew Mr. Clayton slightly. I had met him at West Point

years before, when he was a cadet. It was when General Merritt was

superintendent. He had the reputation of being an able officer, and also

of being quick-tempered and plain-spoken.

This smoking-party had been gathered together partly for business. This

business was to consider the availability of the telelectroscope for

military service. It sounds oddly enough now, but it is nevertheless

true that at that time the invention was not taken seriously by any one

except its inventor. Even his financial support regarded it merely as a

curious and interesting toy. Indeed, he was so convinced of this that he

had actually postponed its use by the general world to the end of the

dying century by granting a two years' exclusive lease of it to a

syndicate, whose intent was to exploit it at the Paris World's Fair.

When we entered the smoking-room we found Lieutenant Clayton and

Szczepanik engaged in a warm talk over the telelectroscope in the German

tongue. Clayton was saying:

'Well, you know my opinion of it, anyway!' and he brought his fist down

with emphasis upon the table.

'And I do not value it,' retorted the young inventor, with provoking

calmness of tone and manner.

Clayton turned to Mr. K., and said:

'I cannot see why you are wasting money on this toy. In my opinion, the

day will never come when it will do a farthing's worth of real service

for any human being.'

'That may be; yes, that may be; still, I have put the money in it, and am

content. I think, myself, that it is only a toy; but Szczepanik claims

more for it, and I know him well enough to believe that he can see father

than I can--either with his telelectroscope or without it.'

The soft answer did not cool Clayton down; it seemed only to irritate him

the more; and he repeated and emphasised his conviction that the

invention would never do any man a farthing's worth of real service. He

even made it a 'brass' farthing, this time. Then he laid an English

farthing on the table, and added:

'Take that, Mr. K., and put it away; and if ever the telelectroscope does

any man an actual service--mind, a real service--please mail it to me as

a reminder, and I will take back what I have been saying. Will you?'

'I will,' and Mr. K. put the coin in his pocket.

Mr. Clayton now turned toward Szczepanik, and began with a taunt--a taunt

which did not reach a finish; Szczepanik interrupted it with a hardy

retort, and followed this with a blow. There was a brisk fight for a

moment or two; then the attaches separated the men.

The scene now changes to Chicago. Time, the autumn of 1901. As soon as

the Paris contract released the telelectroscope, it was delivered to

public use, and was soon connected with the telephonic systems of the

whole world. The improved 'limitless-distance' telephone was presently

introduced, and the daily doings of the globe made visible to everybody,

and audibly discussible, too, by witnesses separated by any number of

leagues.

By-and-by Szczepanik arrived in Chicago. Clayton (now captain) was

serving in that military department at the time. The two men resumed the

Viennese quarrel of 1898. On three different occasions they quarrelled,

and were separated by witnesses. Then came an interval of two months,

during which time Szczepanik was not seen by any of his friends, and it

was at first supposed that he had gone off on a sight seeing tour and

would soon be heard from. But no; no word came from him. Then it was

supposed that he had returned to Europe. Still, time drifted on, and he

was not heard from. Nobody was troubled, for he was like most inventors

and other kinds of poets, and went and came in a capricious way, and

often without notice.

Now comes the tragedy. On December 29, in a dark and unused compartment

of the cellar under Captain Clayton's house, a corpse was discovered by

one of Clayton's maid-servants. Friends of deceased identified it as

Szczepanik's. The man had died by violence. Clayton was arrested,

indicted, and brought to trial, charged with this murder. The evidence

against him was perfect in every detail, and absolutely unassailable.

Clayton admitted this himself. He said that a reasonable man could not

examine this testimony with a dispassionate mind and not be convinced by

it; yet the man would be in error, nevertheless. Clayton swore that he

did not commit the murder, and that he had had nothing to do with it.

As your readers will remember, he was condemned to death. He had

numerous and powerful friends, and they worked hard to save him, for none

of them doubted the truth of his assertion. I did what little I could to

help, for I had long since become a close friend of his, and thought I

knew that it was not in his character to inveigle an enemy into a corner

and assassinate him. During 1902 and 1903 he was several times reprieved

by the governor; he was reprieved once more in the beginning of the

present year, and the execution day postponed to March 31.

The governor's situation has been embarrassing, from the day of the

condemnation, because of the fact that Clayton's wife is the governor's

niece. The marriage took place in 1899, when Clayton was thirty-four and

the girl twenty-three, and has been a happy one. There is one child, a

little girl three years old. Pity for the poor mother and child kept the

mouths of grumblers closed at first; but this could not last for ever

--for in America politics has a hand in everything--and by-and-by the

governor's political opponents began to call attention to his delay in

allowing the law to take its course. These hints have grown more and

more frequent of late, and more and more pronounced. As a natural

result, his own part grew nervous. Its leaders began to visit

Springfield and hold long private conferences with him. He was now

between two fires. On the one hand, his niece was imploring him to

pardon her husband; on the other were the leaders, insisting that he

stand to his plain duty as chief magistrate of the State, and place no

further bar to Clayton's execution. Duty won in the struggle, and the

Governor gave his word that he would not again respite the condemned man.

This was two weeks ago. Mrs. Clayton now said:

'Now that you have given your word, my last hope is gone, for I know you

will never go back from it. But you have done the best you could for

John, and I have no reproaches for you. You love him, and you love me,

and we know that if you could honourable save him, you would do it. I

will go to him now, and be what help I can to him, and get what comfort I

may out of the few days that are left to us before the night comes which

will have no end for me in life. You will be with me that day? You will

not let me bear it alone?'

'I will take you to him myself, poor child, and I will be near you to the

last.'

By the governor's command, Clayton was now allowed every indulgence he

might ask for which could interest his mind and soften the hardships of

his imprisonment. His wife and child spent the days with him; I was his

companion by night. He was removed from the narrow cell which he had

occupied during such a dreary stretch of time, and given the chief

warden's roomy and comfortable quarters. His mind was always busy with

the catastrophe of his life, and with the slaughtered inventor, and he

now took the fancy that he would like to have the telelectroscope and

divert his mind with it. He had his wish. The connection was made with

the international telephone-station, and day by day, and night by night,

he called up one corner of the globe after another, and looked upon its

life, and studied its strange sights, and spoke with its people, and

realised that by grace of this marvellous instrument he was almost as

free as the birds of the air, although a prisoner under locks and bars.

He seldom spoke, and I never interrupted him when he was absorbed in this

amusement. I sat in his parlour and read, and smoked, and the nights

were very quiet and reposefully sociable, and I found them pleasant. Now

and then I would her him say 'Give me Yedo;' next, 'Give me Hong-Kong;'

next, 'Give me Melbourne.' And I smoked on, and read in comfort, while

he wandered about the remote underworld, where the sun was shining in the

sky, and the people were at their daily work. Sometimes the talk that

came from those far regions through the microphone attachment interested

me, and I listened.

Yesterday--I keep calling it yesterday, which is quite natural, for

certain reasons--the instrument remained unused, and that also was

natural, for it was the eve of the execution day. It was spent in tears

and lamentations and farewells. The governor and the wife and child

remained until a quarter-past eleven at night, and the scenes I witnessed

were pitiful to see. The execution was to take place at four in the

morning. A little after eleven a sound of hammering broke out upon the

still night, and there was a glare of light, and the child cried out,

'What is that, papa?' and ran to the window before she could be stopped

and clapped her small hands and said, 'Oh, come and see, mamma--such a

pretty thing they are making!' The mother knew--and fainted. It was the

gallows!

She was carried away to her lodging, poor woman, and Clayton and I were

alone--alone, and thinking, brooding, dreaming. We might have been

statues, we sat so motionless and still. It was a wild night, for winter

was come again for a moment, after the habit of this region in the early

spring. The sky was starless and black, and a strong wind was blowing

from the lake. The silence in the room was so deep that all outside

sounds seemed exaggerated by contrast with it. These sounds were fitting

ones: they harmonised with the situation and the conditions: the boom and

thunder of sudden storm-gusts among the roofs and chimneys, then the

dying down into moanings and wailings about the eaves and angles; now and

then a gnashing and lashing rush of sleet along the window-panes; and

always the muffled and uncanny hammering of the gallows-builders in the

court-yard. After an age of this, another sound--far off, and coming

smothered and faint through the riot of the tempest--a bell tolling

twelve! Another age, and it was tolled again. By-and-by, again. A

dreary long interval after this, then the spectral sound floated to us

once more--one, two three; and this time we caught our breath; sixty

minutes of life left!

Clayton rose, and stood by the window, and looked up into the black sky,

and listened to the thrashing sleet and the piping wind; then he said:

'That a dying man's last of earth should be--this!' After a little he

said: 'I must see the sun again--the sun!' and the next moment he was

feverishly calling: 'China! Give me China--Peking!'

I was strangely stirred, and said to myself: 'To think that it is a mere

human being who does this unimaginable miracle--turns winter into summer,

night into day, storm into calm, gives the freedom of the great globe to

a prisoner in his cell, and the sun in his naked splendour to a man dying

in Egyptian darkness.'

I was listening.

'What light! what brilliancy! what radiance!... This is Peking?'

'Yes.'

'The time?'

'Mid-afternoon.'

'What is the great crowd for, and in such gorgeous costumes? What masses

and masses of rich colour and barbaric magnificence! And how they flash

and glow and burn in the flooding sunlight! What is the occasion of it

all?'

'The coronation of our new emperor--the Czar.'

'But I thought that that was to take place yesterday.'

'This is yesterday--to you.'

'Certainly it is. But my mind is confused, these days: there are reasons

for it.... Is this the beginning of the procession?'

'Oh, no; it began to move an hour ago.'

'Is there much more of it still to come?'

'Two hours of it. Why do you sigh?'

'Because I should like to see it all.'

'And why can't you?'

'I have to go--presently.'

'You have an engagement?'

After a pause, softly: 'Yes.' After another pause: 'Who are these in the

splendid pavilion?'

'The imperial family, and visiting royalties from here and there and

yonder in the earth.'

'And who are those in the adjoining pavilions to the right and left?'

'Ambassadors and their families and suites to the right; unofficial

foreigners to the left.'

'If you will be so good, I--'

Boom! That distant bell again, tolling the half-hour faintly through the

tempest of wind and sleet. The door opened, and the governor and the

mother and child entered--the woman in widow's weeds! She fell upon her

husband's breast in a passion of sobs, and I--I could not stay; I could

not bear it. I went into the bedchamber, and closed the door. I sat

there waiting--waiting--waiting, and listening to the rattling sashes and

the blustering of the storm. After what seemed a long, long time, I

heard a rustle and movement in the parlour, and knew that the clergyman

and the sheriff and the guard were come. There was some low-voiced

talking; then a hush; then a prayer, with a sound of sobbing; presently,

footfalls--the departure for the gallows; then the child's happy voice:

'Don't cry now, mamma, when we've got papa again, and taking him home.'

The door closed; they were gone. I was ashamed: I was the only friend of

the dying man that had no spirit, no courage. I stepped into the room,

and said I would be a man and would follow. But we are made as we are

made, and we cannot help it. I did not go.

I fidgeted about the room nervously, and presently went to the window and

softly raised it--drawn by that dread fascination which the terrible and

the awful exert--and looked down upon the court-yard. By the garish

light of the electric lamps I saw the little group of privileged

witnesses, the wife crying on her uncle's breast, the condemned man

standing on the scaffold with the halter around his neck, his arms

strapped to his body, the black cap on his head, the sheriff at his side

with his hand on the drop, the clergyman in front of him with bare head

and his book in his hand.

'I am the resurrection and the life--'

I turned away. I could not listen; I could not look. I did not know

whither to go or what to do. Mechanically and without knowing it, I put

my eye to that strange instrument, and there was Peking and the Czar's

procession! The next moment I was leaning out of the window, gasping,

suffocating, trying to speak, but dumb from the very imminence of the

necessity of speaking. The preacher could speak, but I, who had such

need of words--'And may God have mercy upon your soul. Amen.'

The sheriff drew down the black cap, and laid his hand upon the lever. I

got my voice.

'Stop, for God's sake! The man is innocent. Come here and see

Szczepanik face to face!'

Hardly three minutes later the governor had my place at the window, and

was saying:

'Strike off his bonds and set him free!'

Three minutes later all were in the parlour again. The reader will

imagine the scene; I have no need to describe it. It was a sort of mad

orgy of joy.

A messenger carried word to Szczepanik in the pavilion, and one could see

the distressed amazement in his face as he listened to the tale. Then he

came to his end of the line, and talked with Clayton and the governor and

the others; and the wife poured out her gratitude upon him for saving her

husband's life, and in her deep thankfulness she kissed him at twelve

thousand miles' range.

The telelectroscopes of the world were put to service now, and for many

hours the kinds and queens of many realms (with here and there a

reporter) talked with Szczepanik, and praised him; and the few scientific

societies which had not already made him an honorary member conferred

that grace upon him.

How had he come to disappear from among us? It was easily explained.

HE had not grown used to being a world-famous person, and had been forced

to break away from the lionising that was robbing him of all privacy and

repose. So he grew a beard, put on coloured glasses, disguised himself a

little in other ways, then took a fictitious name, and went off to wander

about the earth in peace.

Such is the tale of the drama which began with an inconsequential quarrel

in Vienna in the spring of 1898, and came near ending as a tragedy in the

spring of 1904.

II

Correspondence of the 'London Times'

Chicago, April 5, 1904

To-day, by a clipper of the Electric Line, and the latter's Electric

Railway connections, arrived an envelope from Vienna, for Captain

Clayton, containing an English farthing. The receiver of it was a good

deal moved. He called up Vienna, and stood face to face with Mr. K., and

said:

'I do not need to say anything: you can see it all in my face. My wife

has the farthing. Do not be afraid--she will not throw it away.'

III

Correspondence of the 'London Times'

Chicago, April 23, 1904

Now that the after developments of the Clayton case have run their course

and reached a finish, I will sum them up. Clayton's romantic escape from

a shameful death stepped all this region in an enchantment of wonder and

joy--during the proverbial nine days. Then the sobering process

followed, and men began to take thought, and to say: 'But a man was

killed, and Clayton killed him.' Others replied: 'That is true: we have

been overlooking that important detail; we have been led away by

excitement.'

The telling soon became general that Clayton ought to be tried again.

Measures were taken accordingly, and the proper representations conveyed

to Washington; for in America under the new paragraph added to the

Constitution in 1889, second trials are not State affairs, but national,

and must be tried by the most august body in the land--the Supreme Court

of the United States. The justices were therefore summoned to sit in

Chicago. The session was held day before yesterday, and was opened with

the usual impressive formalities, the nine judges appearing in their

black robes, and the new chief justice (Lemaitre) presiding. In opening

the case the chief justice said:

'It is my opinion that this matter is quite simple. The prisoner at the

bar was charged with murdering the man Szczepanik; he was tried for

murdering the man Szczepanik; he was fairly tried and justly condemned

and sentenced to death for murdering the man Szczepanik. It turns out

that the man Szczepanik was not murdered at all. By the decision of the

French courts in the Dreyfus matter, it is established beyond cavil or

question that the decisions of courts and permanent and cannot be

revised. We are obliged to respect and adopt this precedent. It is upon

precedents that the enduring edifice of jurisprudence is reared. The

prisoner at the bar has been fairly and righteously condemned to death

for the murder of the man Szczepanik, and, in my opinion, there is but

one course to pursue in the matter: he must be hanged.'

Mr. Justice Crawford said:

'But, your Excellency, he was pardoned on the scaffold for that.'

'The pardon is not valid, and cannot stand, because he was pardoned for

killing Szczepanik, a man whom he had not killed. A man cannot be

pardoned for a crime which he has not committed; it would be an

absurdity.'

'But, your Excellency, he did kill a man.'

'That is an extraneous detail; we have nothing to do with it. The court

cannot take up this crime until the prisoner has expiated the other one.'

Mr. Justice Halleck said:

'If we order his execution, your Excellency, we shall bring about a

miscarriage of justice, for the governor will pardon him again.'

'He will not have the power. He cannot pardon a man for a crime which he

has not committed. As I observed before, it would be an absurdity.'

After a consultation, Mr. Justice Wadsworth said:

'Several of us have arrived at the conclusion, your Excellency, that it

would be an error to hang the prisoner for killing Szczepanik, instead of

for killing the other man, since it is proven that he did not kill

Szczepanik.'

'On the contrary, it is proven that he did kill Szczepanik. By the

French precedent, it is plain that we must abide by the finding of the

court.'

'But Szczepanik is still alive.'

'So is Dreyfus.'

In the end it was found impossible to ignore or get around the French

precedent. There could be but one result: Clayton was delivered over for

the execution. It made an immense excitement; the State rose as one man

and clamored for Clayton's pardon and retrial. The governor issued the

pardon, but the Supreme Court was in duty bound to annul it, and did so,

and poor Clayton was hanged yesterday. The city is draped in black, and,

indeed, the like may be said of the State. All America is vocal with

scorn of 'French justice,' and of the malignant little soldiers who

invented it and inflicted it upon the other Christian lands.

[1] Pronounced (approximately) Shepannik.

ABOUT PLAY-ACTING

I

I have a project to suggest. But first I will write a chapter of

introduction.

I have just been witnessing a remarkable play, here at the Burg Theatre

in Vienna. I do not know of any play that much resembles it. In fact,

it is such a departure from the common laws of the drama that the name

'play' doesn't seem to fit it quite snugly. However, whatever else it

may be, it is in any case a great and stately metaphysical poem, and

deeply fascinating. 'Deeply fascinating' is the right term: for the

audience sat four hours and five minutes without thrice breaking into

applause, except at the close of each act; sat rapt and silent

--fascinated. This piece is 'The Master of Palmyra.' It is twenty years

old; yet I doubt if you have ever heard of it. It is by Wilbrandt, and

is his masterpiece and the work which is to make his name permanent in

German literature. It has never been played anywhere except in Berlin

and in the great Burg Theatre in Vienna. Yet whenever it is put on the

stage it packs the house, and the free list is suspended. I know people

who have seem it ten times; they know the most of it by heart; they do

not tire of it; and they say they shall still be quite willing to go and

sit under its spell whenever they get the opportunity.

There is a dash of metempsychosis in it--and it is the strength of the

piece. The play gave me the sense of the passage of a dimly connected

procession of dream-pictures. The scene of it is Palmyra in Roman times.

It covers a wide stretch of time--I don't know how many years--and in the

course of it the chief actress is reincarnated several times: four times

she is a more or less young woman, and once she is a lad. In the first

act she is Zoe--a Christian girl who has wandered across the desert from

Damascus to try to Christianise the Zeus-worshipping pagans of Palmyra.

In this character she is wholly spiritual, a religious enthusiast, a

devotee who covets martyrdom--and gets it.

After many years she appears in the second act as Phoebe, a graceful and

beautiful young light-o'-love from Rome, whose soul is all for the shows

and luxuries and delights of this life--a dainty and capricious

feather-head, a creature of shower and sunshine, a spoiled child, but a

charming one. In the third act, after an interval of many years, she

reappears as Persida, mother of a daughter who is in the fresh bloom of

youth. She is now a sort of combination of her two earlier selves: in

religious loyalty and subjection she is Zoe: in triviality of character

and shallowness of judgement--together with a touch of vanity in dress

--she is Phoebe.

After a lapse of years she appears in the fourth act as Nymphas, a

beautiful boy, in whose character the previous incarnations are

engagingly mixed.

And after another stretch of years all these heredities are joined in the

Zenobia of the fifth act--a person of gravity, dignity, sweetness, with a

heart filled with compassion for all who suffer, and a hand prompt to put

into practical form the heart's benignant impulses.

There are a number of curious and interesting features in this piece.

For instance, its hero, Appelles, young, handsome, vigorous, in the first

act, remains so all through the long flight of years covered by the five

acts. Other men, young in the firs act, are touched with gray in the

second, are old and racked with infirmities in the third; in the fourth,

all but one are gone to their long home, and this one is a blind and

helpless hulk of ninety or a hundred years. It indicates that the

stretch of time covered by the piece is seventy years or more. The

scenery undergoes decay, too--the decay of age assisted and perfected by

a conflagration. The fine new temples and palaces of the second act are

by-and-by a wreck of crumbled walls and prostrate columns, mouldy,

grass-grown, and desolate; but their former selves are still recognisable

in their ruins. The ageing men and the ageing scenery together convey a

profound illusion of that long lapse of time: they make you live it

yourself! You leave the theatre with the weight of a century upon you.

Another strong effect: Death, in person, walks about the stage in every

act. So far as I could make out, he was supposably not visible to any

excepting two persons--the one he came for and Appelles. He used various

costumes: but there was always more black about them than any other tint;

and so they were always sombre. Also they were always deeply impressive

and, indeed, awe-inspiring. The face was not subjected to changes, but

remained the same first and last--a ghastly white. To me he was always

welcome, he seemed so real--the actual Death, not a play-acting

artificiality. He was of a solemn and stately carriage; and he had a

deep voice, and used it with a noble dignity. Wherever there was a

turmoil of merry-making or fighting or feasting or chaffing or

quarreling, or a gilded pageant, or other manifestation of our trivial

and fleeting life, into it drifted that black figure with the

corpse-face, and looked its fateful look and passed on; leaving its

victim shuddering and smitten. And always its coming made the fussy

human pack seem infinitely pitiful and shabby, and hardly worth the

attention of either saving or damning.

In the beginning of the first act the young girl Zoe appears by some

great rocks in the desert, and sits down exhausted, to rest. Presently

arrive a pauper couple stricken with age and infirmities; and they begin

to mumble and pray to the Spirit of Life, who is said to inhabit that

spot. The Spirit of Life appears; also Death--uninvited. They are

(supposably) invisible. Death, tall, black-robed, corpse-faced, stands

motionless and waits. The aged couple pray to the Spirit of Life for a

means to prop up their existence and continue it. Their prayer fails.

The Spirit of Life prophesies Zoe's martyrdom; it will take place before

night. Soon Appelles arrives, young and vigorous and full of enthusiasm:

he has led a host against the Persians and won the battle; he is the pet

of fortune, rich, honoured, believed, 'Master of Palmyra'. He has heard

that whoever stretches himself out on one of those rocks there and asks

for a deathless life can have his wish. He laughs at the tradition, but

wants to make the trial anyway. The invisible Spirit of Life warns him!

'Life without end can be regret without end.' But he persists: let him

keep his youth, his strength, and his mental faculties unimpaired, and he

will take all the risks. He has his desire.

From this time forth, act after act, the troubles and sorrows and

misfortunes and humiliations of life beat upon him without pity or

respite; but he will not give up, he will not confess his mistake.

Whenever he meets Death he still furiously defies him--but Death

patiently waits. He, the healer of sorrows, is man's best friend: the

recognition of this will come. As the years drag on, and on, and on, the

friends of the Master's youth grow old; and one by one they totter to the

grave: he goes on with his proud fight, and will not yield. At length he

is wholly alone in the world; all his friends are dead; last of all, his

darling of darlings, his son, the lad Nymphas, who dies in his arms. His

pride is broken now; and he would welcome Death, if Death would come, if

Death would hear his prayers and give him peace. The closing act is fine

and pathetic. Appelles meets Zenobia, the helper of all who suffer, and

tells her his story, which moves her pity. By common report she is

endowed with more than earthly powers; and since he cannot have the boon

of death, he appeals to her to drown his memory in forgetfulness of his

griefs--forgetfulness 'which is death's equivalent'. She says (roughly

translated), in an exaltation of compassion:

'Come to me!

Kneel; and may the power be granted me

To cool the fires of this poor tortured brain,

And bring it peace and healing.'

He kneels. From her hand, which she lays upon his head, a mysterious

influence steals through him; and he sinks into a dreamy tranquility.

'Oh, if I could but so drift

Through this soft twilight into the night of peace,

Never to wake again!

(Raising his hand, as if in benediction.)

O mother earth, farewell!

Gracious thou were to me. Farewell!

Appelles goes to rest.'

Death appears behind him and encloses the uplifted hand in his. Appelles

shudders, wearily and slowly turns, and recognises his life-long

adversary. He smiles and puts all his gratitude into one simple and

touching sentence, 'Ich danke dir,' and dies.

Nothing, I think, could be more moving, more beautiful, than this close.

This piece is just one long, soulful, sardonic laugh at human life. Its

title might properly be 'Is Life a Failure?' and leave the five acts to

play with the answer. I am not at all sure that the author meant to

laugh at life. I only notice that he has done it. Without putting into

words any ungracious or discourteous things about life, the episodes in

the piece seem to be saying all the time, inarticulately: 'Note what a

silly poor thing human life is; how childish its ambitions, how

ridiculous its pomps, how trivial its dignities, how cheap its heroisms,

how capricious its course, how brief its flight, how stingy in

happinesses, how opulent in miseries, how few its prides, how

multitudinous its humiliations, how comic its tragedies, how tragic its

comedies, how wearisome and monotonous its repetition of its stupid

history through the ages, with never the introduction of a new detail;

how hard it has tried, from the Creation down, to play itself upon its

possessor as a boon and has never proved its case in a single instance!'

Take note of some of the details of the piece. Each of the five acts

contains an independent tragedy of its own. In each act someone's

edifice of hope, or of ambition, or of happiness, goes down in ruins.

Even Appelles' perennial youth is only a long tragedy, and his life a

failure. There are two martyrdoms in the piece; and they are curiously

and sarcastically contrasted. In the first act the pagans persecute Zoe,

the Christian girl, and a pagan mob slaughters her. In the fourth act

those same pagans--now very old and zealous--are become Christians, and

they persecute the pagans; a mob of them slaughters the pagan youth,

Nymphas, who is standing up for the old gods of his fathers. No remark

is made about this picturesque failure of civilisation; but there it

stands, as an unworded suggestion that civilisation, even when

Christianised, was not able wholly to subdue the natural man in that old

day--just as in our day the spectacle of a shipwrecked French crew

clubbing women and children who tried to climb into the lifeboats

suggests that civilisation has not succeeded in entirely obliterating the

natural man even yet. Common sailors a year ago, in Paris, at a fire,

the aristocracy of the same nation clubbed girls and women out of the way

to save themselves. Civilisation tested at top and bottom both, you see.

And in still another panic of fright we have this same tough civilisation

saving its honour by condemning an innocent man to multiform death, and

hugging and whitewashing the guilty one.

In the second act a grand Roman official is not above trying to blast

Appelles' reputation by falsely charging him with misappropriating public

moneys. Appelles, who is too proud to endure even the suspicion of

irregularity, strips himself to naked poverty to square the unfair

account, and his troubles begin: the blight which is to continue and

spread strikes his life; for the frivolous, pretty creature whom he

brought from Rome has no taste for poverty and agrees to elope with a

more competent candidate. Her presence in the house has previously

brought down the pride and broken the heart of Appelles' poor old mother;

and her life is a failure. Death comes for her, but is willing to trade

her for the Roman girl; so the bargain is struck with Appelles, and the

mother is spared for the present.

No one's life escapes the blight. Timoleus, the gay satirist of the

first two acts, who scoffed at the pious hypocrisies and money-grubbing

ways of the great Roman lords, is grown old and fat and blear-eyed and

racked with disease in the third, has lost his stately purities, and

watered the acid of his wit. His life has suffered defeat. Unthinkingly

he swears by Zeus--from ancient habit--and then quakes with fright; for a

fellow-communicant is passing by. Reproached by a pagan friend of his

youth for his apostasy, he confesses that principle, when unsupported by

an assenting stomach, has to climb down. One must have bread; and 'the

bread is Christian now.' Then the poor old wreck, once so proud of his

iron rectitude, hobbles away, coughing and barking.

In that same act Appelles give his sweet young Christian daughter and her

fine young pagan lover his consent and blessing, and makes them utterly

happy--for five minutes. Then the priest and the mob come, to tear them

apart and put the girl in a nunnery; for marriage between the sects is

forbidden. Appelles' wife could dissolve the rule; and she wants to do

it; but under priestly pressure she wavers; then, fearing that in

providing happiness for her child she would be committing a sin dangerous

to her own, she goes over to the opposition, and throws the casting vote

for the nunnery. The blight has fallen upon the young couple, and their

life is a failure.

In the fourth act, Longinus, who made such a prosperous and enviable

start in the first act, is left alone in the desert, sick, blind,

helpless, incredibly old, to die: not a friend left in the world--another

ruined life. And in that act, also, Appelles' worshipped boy, Nymphas,

done to death by the mob, breathes out his last sigh in his father's

arms--one more failure. In the fifth act, Appelles himself dies, and is

glad to do it; he who so ignorantly rejoiced, only four acts before, over

the splendid present of an earthly immortality--the very worst failure of

the lot!

II

Now I approach my project. Here is the theatre list for Saturday, May 7,

1898, cut from the advertising columns of a New York paper:

[graphic here]

Now I arrive at my project, and make my suggestion. From the look of

this lightsome feast, I conclude that what you need is a tonic. Send for

'The Master of Palmyra.' You are trying to make yourself believe that

life is a comedy, that its sole business is fun, that there is nothing

serious in it. You are ignoring the skeleton in your closet. Send for

'The Master of Palmyra.' You are neglecting a valuable side of your

life; presently it will be atrophied. You are eating too much mental

sugar; you will bring on Bright's disease of the intellect. You need a

tonic; you need it very much. Send for 'The Master of Palmyra.' You

will not need to translate it; its story is as plain as a procession of

pictures.

I have made my suggestion. Now I wish to put an annex to it. And that

is this: It is right and wholesome to have those light comedies and

entertaining shows; and I shouldn't wish to see them diminished. But

none of us is always in the comedy spirit; we have our graver moods; they

come to us all; the lightest of us cannot escape them. These moods have

their appetites--healthy and legitimate appetites--and there ought to be

some way of satisfying them. It seems to me that New York ought to have

one theatre devoted to tragedy. With her three millions of population,

and seventy outside millions to draw upon, she can afford it, she can

support it. America devotes more time, labour, money and attention to

distributing literary and musical culture among the general public than

does any other nation, perhaps; yet here you find her neglecting what is

possibly the most effective of all the breeders and nurses and

disseminators of high literary taste and lofty emotion--the tragic stage.

To leave that powerful agency out is to haul the culture-wagon with a

crippled team. Nowadays, when a mood comes which only Shakespeare can

set to music, what must we do? Read Shakespeare ourselves! Isn't it

pitiful? It is playing an organ solo on a jew's-harp. We can't read.

None but the Booths can do it.

Thirty years ago Edwin Booth played 'Hamlet' a hundred nights in New

York. With three times the population, how often is 'Hamlet' played now

in a year? If Booth were back now in his prime, how often could he play

it in New York? Some will say twenty-five nights. I will say three

hundred, and say it with confidence. The tragedians are dead; but I

think that the taste and intelligence which made their market are not.

What has come over us English-speaking people? During the first half of

this century tragedies and great tragedians were as common with us as

farce and comedy; and it was the same in England. Now we have not a

tragedian, I believe, and London, with her fifty shows and theatres, has

but three, I think. It is an astonishing thing, when you come to

consider it. Vienna remains upon the ancient basis: there has been no

change. She sticks to the former proportions: a number of rollicking

comedies, admirably played, every night; and also every night at the Burg

Theatre--that wonder of the world for grace and beauty and richness and

splendour and costliness--a majestic drama of depth and seriousness, or a

standard old tragedy. It is only within the last dozen years that men

have learned to do miracles on the stage in the way of grand and

enchanting scenic effects; and it is at such a time as this that we have

reduced our scenery mainly to different breeds of parlours and varying

aspects of furniture and rugs. I think we must have a Burg in New York,

and Burg scenery, and a great company like the Burg company. Then, with

a tragedy-tonic once or twice a month, we shall enjoy the comedies all

the better. Comedy keeps the heart sweet; but we all know that there is

wholesome refreshment for both mind and heart in an occasional climb

among the solemn pomps of the intellectual snow-summits built by

Shakespeare and those others. Do I seem to be preaching? It is out of

my life: I only do it because the rest of the clergy seem to be on

vacation.

TRAVELLING WITH A REFORMER

Last spring I went out to Chicago to see the Fair, and although I did not

see it my trip was not wholly lost--there were compensations. In New

York I was introduced to a Major in the regular army who said he was

going to the Fair, and we agreed to go together. I had to go to Boston

first, but that did not interfere; he said he would go along and put in

the time. He was a handsome man and built like a gladiator. But his

ways were gentle, and his speech was soft and persuasive. He was

companionable, but exceedingly reposeful. Yes, and wholly destitute of

the sense of humour. He was full of interest in everything that went on

around him, but his serenity was indestructible; nothing disturbed him,

nothing excited him.

But before the day was done I found that deep down in him somewhere he

had a passion, quiet as he was--a passion for reforming petty public

abuses. He stood for citizenship--it was his hobby. His idea was that

every citizen of the republic ought to consider himself an unofficial

policeman, and keep unsalaried watch and ward over the laws and their

execution. He thought that the only effective way of preserving and

protecting public rights was for each citizen to do his share in

preventing or punishing such infringements of them as came under his

personal notice.

It was a good scheme, but I thought it would keep a body in trouble all

the time; it seemed to me that one would be always trying to get

offending little officials discharged, and perhaps getting laughed at for

all reward. But he said no, I had the wrong idea: that there was no

occasion to get anybody discharged; that in fact you mustn't get anybody

discharged; that that would itself be a failure; no, one must reform the

man--reform him and make him useful where he was.

'Must one report the offender and then beg his superior not to discharge

him, but reprimand him and keep him?'

'No, that is not the idea; you don't report him at all, for then you risk

his bread and butter. You can act as if you are going to report him

--when nothing else will answer. But that's an extreme case. That is a

sort of force, and force is bad. Diplomacy is the effective thing. Now

if a man has tact--if a man will exercise diplomacy--'

For two minutes we had been standing at a telegraph wicket, and during

all this time the Major had been trying to get the attention of one of

the young operators, but they were all busy skylarking. The Major spoke

now, and asked one of them to take his telegram. He got for reply:

'I reckon you can wait a minute, can't you?' And the skylarking went on.

The Major said yes, he was not in a hurry. Then he wrote another

telegram:

'President Western Union Tel. Co.:

'Come and dine with me this evening. I can tell you how business is

conducted in one of your branches.'

Presently the young fellow who had spoken so pertly a little before

reached out and took the telegram, and when he read it he lost colour and

began to apologise and explain. He said he would lose his place if this

deadly telegram was sent, and he might never get another. If he could be

let off this time he would give no cause of complaint again. The

compromise was accepted.

As we walked away, the Major said:

'Now, you see, that was diplomacy--and you see how it worked. It

wouldn't do any good to bluster, the way people are always doing. That

boy can always give you as good as you send, and you'll come out defeated

and ashamed of yourself pretty nearly always. But you see he stands no

chance against diplomacy. Gentle words and diplomacy--those are the

tools to work with.'

'Yes, I see: but everybody wouldn't have had your opportunity. It isn't

everybody that is on those familiar terms with the President of the

Western Union.'

'Oh, you misunderstand. I don't know the President--I only use him

diplomatically. It is for his good and for the public good. There's no

harm in it.'

I said with hesitation and diffidence:

'But is it ever right or noble to tell a lie?'

He took no note of the delicate self-righteousness of the question, but

answered with undisturbed gravity and simplicity:

'Yes, sometimes. Lies told to injure a person and lies told to profit

yourself are not justifiable, but lies told to help another person, and

lies told in the public interest--oh, well, that is quite another matter.

Anybody knows that. But never mind about the methods: you see the

result. That youth is going to be useful now, and well-behaved. He had

a good face. He was worth saving. Why, he was worth saving on his

mother's account if not his own. Of course, he has a mother--sisters,

too. Damn these people who are always forgetting that! Do you know,

I've never fought a duel in my life--never once--and yet have been

challenged, like other people. I could always see the other man's

unoffending women folks or his little children standing between him and

me. They hadn't done anything--I couldn't break their hearts, you know.'

He corrected a good many little abuses in the course of the day, and

always without friction--always with a fine and dainty 'diplomacy' which

left no sting behind; and he got such happiness and such contentment out

of these performances that I was obliged to envy him his trade--and

perhaps would have adopted it if I could have managed the necessary

deflections from fact as confidently with my mouth as I believe I could

with a pen, behind the shelter of print, after a little practice.

Away late that night we were coming up-town in a horse-car when three

boisterous roughs got aboard, and began to fling hilarious obscenities

and profanities right and left among the timid passengers, some of whom

were women and children. Nobody resisted or retorted; the conductor

tried soothing words and moral suasion, but the toughs only called him

names and laughed at him. Very soon I saw that the Major realised that

this was a matter which was in his line; evidently he was turning over

his stock of diplomacy in his mind and getting ready. I felt that the

first diplomatic remark he made in this place would bring down a

landslide of ridicule upon him, and maybe something worse; but before I

could whisper to him and check him he had begun, and it was too late. He

said, in a level and dispassionate tone:

'Conductor, you must put these swine out. I will help you.'

I was not looking for that. In a flash the three roughs plunged at him.

But none of them arrived. He delivered three such blows as one could not

expect to encounter outside the prize-ring, and neither of the men had

life enough left in him to get up from where he fell. The Major dragged

them out and threw them off the car, and we got under way again.

I was astonished: astonished to see a lamb act so; astonished at the

strength displayed, and the clean and comprehensive result; astonished at

the brisk and business-like style of the whole thing. The situation had

a humorous side to it, considering how much I had been hearing about mild

persuasion and gentle diplomacy all day from this pile-driver, and I

would have liked to call his attention to that feature and do some

sarcasms about it; but when I looked at him I saw that it would be of no

use--his placid and contented face had no ray of humour in it; he would

not have understood. When we left the car, I said:

'That was a good stroke of diplomacy--three good strokes of diplomacy, in

fact.'

'That? That wasn't diplomacy. You are quite in the wrong. Diplomacy is

a wholly different thing. One cannot apply it to that sort; they would

not understand it. No, that was not diplomacy; it was force.'

'Now that you mention it, I--yes, I think perhaps you are right.'

'Right? Of course I am right. It was just force.'

'I think, myself, it had the outside aspect of it. Do you often have to

reform people in that way?'

'Far from it. It hardly ever happens. Not oftener than once in half a

year, at the outside.'

'Those men will get well?'

'Get well? Why, certainly they will. They are not in any danger. I

know how to hit and where to hit. You noticed that I did not hit them

under the jaw. That would have killed them.'

I believed that. I remarked--rather wittily, as I thought--that he had

been a lamb all day, but now had all of a sudden developed into a ram

--battering-ram; but with dulcet frankness and simplicity he said no, a

battering-ram was quite a different thing, and not in use now. This was

maddening, and I came near bursting out and saying he had no more

appreciation of wit than a jackass--in fact, I had it right on my tongue,

but did not say it, knowing there was no hurry and I could say it just as

well some other time over the telephone.

We started to Boston the next afternoon. The smoking compartment in the

parlour-car was full, and he went into the regular smoker. Across the

aisle in the front seat sat a meek, farmer-looking old man with a sickly

pallor in his face, and he was holding the door open with his foot to get

the air. Presently a big brakeman came rushing through, and when he got

to the door he stopped, gave the farmer an ugly scowl, then wrenched the

door to with such energy as to almost snatch the old man's boot off.

Then on he plunged about his business. Several passengers laughed, and

the old gentleman looked pathetically shamed and grieved.

After a little the conductor passed along, and the Major stopped him and

asked him a question in his habitually courteous way:

'Conductor, where does one report the misconduct of a brakeman? Does one

report to you?'

'You can report him at New Haven if you want to. What has he been

doing?'

The Major told the story. The conductor seemed amused. He said, with

just a touch of sarcasm in his bland tones:

'As I understand you, the brakeman didn't say anything?'

'No, he didn't say anything.'

'But he scowled, you say?'

'Yes.'

'And snatched the door loose in a rough way?'

'Yes.'

'That's the whole business, is it?'

'Yes, that is the whole of it.'

The conductor smiled pleasantly, and said:

'Well, if you want to report him, all right, but I don't quite make out

what it's going to amount to. You'll say--as I understand you--that the

brakeman insulted this old gentleman. They'll ask you what he said.

You'll say he didn't say anything at all. I reckon they'll say, How are

you going to make out an insult when you acknowledge yourself that he

didn't say a word?'

There was a murmur of applause at the conductor's compact reasoning, and

it gave him pleasure--you could see it in his face. But the Major was

not disturbed. He said:

'There--now you have touched upon a crying defect in the complaint

system. The railway officials--as the public think and as you also seem

to think--are not aware that there are any insults except spoken ones.

So nobody goes to headquarters and reports insults of manner, insults of

gesture, look, and so forth; and yet these are sometimes harder to bear

than any words. They are bitter hard to bear because there is nothing

tangible to take hold of; and the insulter can always say, if called

before the railway officials, that he never dreamed of intending any

offence. It seems to me that the officials ought to specially and

urgently request the public to report unworded affronts and

incivilities.'

The conductor laughed, and said:

'Well, that would be trimming it pretty fine, sure!'

'But not too fine, I think. I will report this matter at New Haven, and

I have an idea that I'll be thanked for it.'

The conductor's face lost something of its complacency; in fact, it

settled to a quite sober cast as the owner of it moved away. I said:

'You are not really going to bother with that trifle, are you?'

'It isn't a trifle. Such things ought always to be reported. It is a

public duty and no citizen has a right to shirk it. But I sha'n't' have

to report this case.'

'Why?'

'It won't be necessary. Diplomacy will do the business. You'll see.'

Presently the conductor came on his rounds again, and when he reached the

Major he leaned over and said:

'That's all right. You needn't report him. He's responsible to me, and

if he does it again I'll give him a talking to.'

The Major's response was cordial:

'Now that is what I like! You mustn't think that I was moved by any

vengeful spirit, for that wasn't the case. It was duty--just a sense of

duty, that was all. My brother-in-law is one of the directors of the

road, and when he learns that you are going to reason with your brakeman

the very next time he brutally insults an unoffending old man it will

please him, you may be sure of that.'

The conductor did not look as joyous as one might have thought he would,

but on the contrary looked sickly and uncomfortable. He stood around a

little; then said:

'I think something ought to be done to him now. I'll discharge him.'

'Discharge him! What good would that do? Don't you think it would be

better wisdom to teach him better ways and keep him?'

'Well, there's something in that. What would you suggest?'

'He insulted the old gentleman in presence of all these people. How

would it do to have him come and apologise in their presence?'

'I'll have him here right off. And I want to say this: If people would

do as you've done, and report such things to me instead of keeping mum

and going off and blackguarding the road, you'd see a different state of

things pretty soon. I'm much obliged to you.'

The brakeman came and apologised. After he was gone the Major said:

'Now you see how simple and easy that was. The ordinary citizen would

have accomplished nothing--the brother-in-law of a directory can

accomplish anything he wants to.'

'But are you really the brother-in-law of a director?'

'Always. Always when the public interests require it. I have a

brother-in-law on all the boards--everywhere. It saves me a world of

trouble.'

'It is a good wide relationship.'

'Yes. I have over three hundred of them.'

'Is the relationship never doubted by a conductor?'

'I have never met with a case. It is the honest truth--I never have.'

'Why didn't you let him go ahead and discharge the brakeman, in spite of

your favourite policy. You know he deserved it.'

The Major answered with something which really had a sort of distant

resemblance to impatience:

'If you would stop and think a moment you wouldn't ask such a question as

that. Is a brakeman a dog, that nothing but dogs' methods will do for

him? He is a man and has a man's fight for life. And he always has a

sister, or a mother, or wife and children to support. Always--there are

no exceptions. When you take his living away from him you take theirs

away too--and what have they done to you? Nothing. And where is the

profit in discharging an uncourteous brakeman and hiring another just

like him? It's unwisdom. Don't you see that the rational thing to do is

to reform the brakeman and keep him? Of course it is.'

Then he quoted with admiration the conduct of a certain division

superintendent of the Consolidated road, in a case where a switchman of

two years' experience was negligent once and threw a train off the track

and killed several people. Citizens came in a passion to urge the man's

dismissal, but the superintendent said:

'No, you are wrong. He has learned his lesson, he will throw no more

trains off the track. He is twice as valuable as he was before. I shall

keep him.'

We had only one more adventure on the train. Between Hartford and

Springfield the train-boy came shouting with an armful of literature, and

dropped a sample into a slumbering gentleman's lap, and the man woke up

with a start. He was very angry, and he and a couple of friends

discussed the outrage with much heat. They sent for the parlour-car

conductor and described the matter, and were determined to have the boy

expelled from his situation. The three complainants were wealthy Holyoke

merchants, and it was evident that the conductor stood in some awe of

them. He tried to pacify them, and explained that the boy was not under

his authority, but under that of one of the news companies; but he

accomplished nothing.

Then the Major volunteered some testimony for the defence. He said:

'I saw it all. You gentlemen have not meant to exaggerate the

circumstances, but still that is what you have done. The boy has done

nothing more than all train-boys do. If you want to get his ways

softened down and his manners reformed, I am with you and ready to help,

but it isn't fair to get him discharged without giving him a chance.'

But they were angry, and would hear of no compromise. They were well

acquainted with the President of the Boston and Albany, they said, and

would put everything aside next day and go up to Boston and fix that boy.

The Major said he would be on hand too, and would do what he could to

save the boy. One of the gentlemen looked him over and said:

'Apparently it is going to be a matter of who can wield the most

influence with the President. Do you know Mr. Bliss personally?'

The Major said, with composure:

'Yes; he is my uncle.'

The effect was satisfactory. There was an awkward silence for a minute

or more; then the hedging and the half-confessions of over-haste and

exaggerated resentment began, and soon everything was smooth and friendly

and sociable, and it was resolved to drop the matter and leave the boy's

bread and butter unmolested.

It turned out as I had expected: the President of the road was not the

Major's uncle at all--except by adoption, and for this day and train

only.

We got into no episodes on the return journey. Probably it was because

we took a night train and slept all the way.

We left New York Saturday night by the Pennsylvania road. After

breakfast the next morning we went into the parlour-car, but found it a

dull place and dreary. There were but few people in it and nothing going

on. Then we went into the little smoking compartment of the same car and

found three gentlemen in there. Two of them were grumbling over one of

the rules of the road--a rule which forbade card-playing on the trains on

Sunday. They had started an innocent game of high-low-jack and had been

stopped. The Major was interested. He said to the third gentleman:

'Did you object to the game?'

'Not at all. I am a Yale professor and a religious man, but my

prejudices are not extensive.'

Then the Major said to the others:

'You are at perfect liberty to resume your game, gentlemen; no one here

objects.'

One of them declined the risk, but the other one said he would like to

begin again if the Major would join him. So they spread an overcoat over

their knees and the game proceeded. Pretty soon the parlour-car

conductor arrived, and said, brusquely:

'There, there, gentlemen, that won't do. Put up the cards--it's not

allowed.'

The Major was shuffling. He continued to shuffle, and said:

'By whose order is it forbidden?'

'It's my order. I forbid it.'

The dealing began. The Major asked:

'Did you invent the idea?'

'What idea?'

'The idea of forbidding card-playing on Sunday.'

'No--of course not.'

'Who did?'

'The company.'

'Then it isn't your order, after all, but the company's. Is that it?'

'Yes. But you don't stop playing! I have to require you to stop playing

immediately.'

'Nothing is gained by hurry, and often much is lost. Who authorised the

company to issue such an order?'

'My dear sir, that is a matter of no consequence to me, and--'

'But you forget that you are not the only person concerned. It may be a

matter of consequence to me. It is, indeed, a matter of very great

importance to me. I cannot violate a legal requirement of my country

without dishonouring myself; I cannot allow any man or corporation to

hamper my liberties with illegal rules--a thing which railway companies

are always trying to do--without dishonouring my citizenship. So I come

back to that question: By whose authority has the company issued this

order?'

'I don't know. That's their affair.'

'Mine, too. I doubt if the company has any right to issue such a rule.

This road runs through several States. Do you know what State we are in

now, and what its laws are in matters of this kind?'

'Its laws do not concern me, but the company's orders do. It is my duty

to stop this game, gentlemen, and it must be stopped.'

'Possibly; but still there is no hurry. In hotels they post certain

rules in the rooms, but they always quote passages from the State law as

authority for these requirements. I see nothing posted here of this

sort. Please produce your authority and let us arrive at a decision, for

you see yourself that you are marring the game.'

'I have nothing of the kind, but I have my orders, and that is

sufficient. They must be obeyed.'

'Let us not jump to conclusions. It will be better all around to examine

into the matter without heat or haste, and see just where we stand before

either of us makes a mistake--for the curtailing of the liberties of a

citizen of the United States is a much more serious matter than you and

the railroads seem to think, and it cannot be done in my person until the

curtailer proves his right to do so. Now--'

'My dear sir, will you put down those cards?'

'All in good time, perhaps. It depends. You say this order must be

obeyed. Must. It is a strong word. You see yourself how strong it is.

A wise company would not arm you with so drastic an order as this, of

course, without appointing a penalty for its infringement. Otherwise it

runs the risk of being a dead letter and a thing to laugh at. What is

the appointed penalty for an infringement of this law?'

'Penalty? I never heard of any.'

'Unquestionably you must be mistaken. Your company orders you to come

here and rudely break up an innocent amusement, and furnishes you no way

to enforce the order! Don't you see that that is nonsense? What do you

do when people refuse to obey this order? Do you take the cards away

from them?'

'No.'

'Do you put the offender off at the next station?'

'Well, no--of course we couldn't if he had a ticket.'

'Do you have him up before a court?'

The conductor was silent and apparently troubled. The Major started a

new deal, and said:

'You see that you are helpless, and that the company has placed you in a

foolish position. You are furnished with an arrogant order, and you

deliver it in a blustering way, and when you come to look into the matter

you find you haven't any way of enforcing obedience.'

The conductor said, with chill dignity:

'Gentlemen, you have heard the order, and my duty is ended. As to

obeying it or not, you will do as you think fit.' And he turned to

leave.

'But wait. The matter is not yet finished. I think you are mistaken

about your duty being ended; but if it really is, I myself have a duty to

perform yet.'

'How do you mean?'

'Are you going to report my disobedience at headquarters in Pittsburg?'

'No. What good would that do?'

'You must report me, or I will report you.'

'Report me for what?'

'For disobeying the company's orders in not stopping this game. As a

citizen it is my duty to help the railway companies keep their servants

to their work.'

'Are you in earnest?'

'Yes, I am in earnest. I have nothing against you as a man, but I have

this against you as an officer--that you have not carried out that order,

and if you do not report me I must report you. And I will.'

The conductor looked puzzled, and was thoughtful a moment; then he burst

out with:

'I seem to be getting myself into a scrape! It's all a muddle; I can't

make head or tail of it; it never happened before; they always knocked

under and never said a word, and so I never saw how ridiculous that

stupid order with no penalty is. I don't want to report anybody, and I

don't want to be reported--why, it might do me no end of harm! No do go

on with the game--play the whole day if you want to--and don't let's have

any more trouble about it!'

'No, I only sat down here to establish this gentleman's rights--he can

have his place now. But before won't you tell me what you think the

company made this rule for? Can you imagine an excuse for it? I mean a

rational one--an excuse that is not on its face silly, and the invention

of an idiot?'

'Why, surely I can. The reason it was made is plain enough. It is to

save the feelings of the other passengers--the religious ones among them,

I mean. They would not like it to have the Sabbath desecrated by

card-playing on the train.'

'I just thought as much. They are willing to desecrate it themselves by

travelling on Sunday, but they are not willing that other people--'

'By gracious, you've hit it! I never thought of that before. The fact

is, it is a silly rule when you come to look into it.'

At this point the train conductor arrived, and was going to shut down the

game in a very high-handed fashion, but the parlour-car conductor stopped

him, and took him aside to explain. Nothing more was heard of the

matter.

I was ill in bed eleven days in Chicago and got no glimpse of the Fair,

for I was obliged to return East as soon as I was able to travel. The

Major secured and paid for a state-room in a sleeper the day before we

left, so that I could have plenty of room and be comfortable; but when we

arrived at the station a mistake had been made and our car had not been

put on. The conductor had reserved a section for us--it was the best he

could do, he said. But Major said we were not in a hurry, and would wait

for the car to be put on. The conductor responded, with pleasant irony:

'It may be that you are not in a hurry, just as you say, but we are.

Come, get aboard, gentlemen, get aboard--don't keep us waiting.'

But the Major would not get aboard himself nor allow me to do it. He

wanted his car, and said he must have it. This made the hurried and

perspiring conductor impatient, and he said:

'It's the best we can do--we can't do impossibilities. You will take the

section or go without. A mistake has been made and can't be rectified at

this late hour. It's a thing that happens now and then, and there is

nothing for it but to put up with it and make the best of it. Other

people do.'

'Ah, that is just it, you see. If they had stuck to their rights and

enforced them you wouldn't be trying to trample mine underfoot in this

bland way now. I haven't any disposition to give you unnecessary

trouble, but it is my duty to protect the next man from this kind of

imposition. So I must have my car. Otherwise I will wait in Chicago and

sue the company for violating its contract.'

'Sue the company?--for a thing like that!'

'Certainly.'

'Do you really mean that?'

'Indeed, I do.'

The conductor looked the Major over wonderingly, and then said:

'It beats me--it's bran-new--I've never struck the mate to it before.

But I swear I think you'd do it. Look here, I'll send for the

station-master.'

When the station-master came he was a good deal annoyed--at the Major,

not at the person who had made the mistake. He was rather brusque, and

took the same position which the conductor had taken in the beginning;

but he failed to move the soft-spoken artilleryman, who still insisted

that he must have his car. However, it was plain that there was only one

strong side in this case, and that that side was the Major's. The

station-master banished his annoyed manner, and became pleasant and even

half-apologetic. This made a good opening for a compromise, and the

Major made a concession. He said he would give up the engaged

state-room, but he must have a state-room. After a deal of ransacking,

one was found whose owner was persuadable; he exchanged it for our

section, and we got away at last. The conductor called on us in the

evening, and was kind and courteous and obliging, and we had a long talk

and got to be good friends. He said he wished the public would make

trouble oftener--it would have a good effect. He said that the

railroads could not be expected to do their whole duty by the traveller

unless the traveller would take some interest in the matter himself.

I hoped that we were done reforming for the trip now, but it was not so.

In the hotel car, in the morning, the Major called for broiled chicken.

The waiter said:

'It's not in the bill of fare, sir; we do not serve anything but what is

in the bill.'

'That gentleman yonder is eating a broiled chicken.'

'Yes, but that is different. He is one of the superintendents of the

road.'

'Then all the more must I have broiled chicken. I do not like these

discriminations. Please hurry--bring me a broiled chicken.'

The waiter brought the steward, who explained in a low and polite voice

that the thing was impossible--it was against the rule, and the rule was

rigid.

'Very well, then, you must either apply it impartially or break it

impartially. You must take that gentleman's chicken away from him or

bring me one.'

The steward was puzzled, and did not quite know what to do. He began an

incoherent argument, but the conductor came along just then, and asked

what the difficulty was. The steward explained that here was a gentleman

who was insisting on having a chicken when it was dead against the rule

and not in the bill. The conductor said:

'Stick by your rules--you haven't any option. Wait a moment--is this the

gentleman?' Then he laughed and said: 'Never mind your rules--it's my

advice, and sound: give him anything he wants--don't get him started on

his rights. Give him whatever he asks for; and it you haven't got it,

stop the train and get it.'

The Major ate the chicken, but said he did it from a sense of duty and to

establish a principle, for he did not like chicken.

I missed the Fair it is true, but I picked up some diplomatic tricks

which I and the reader may find handy and useful as we go along.

DIPLOMATIC PAY AND CLOTHES

VIENNA, January 5--I find in this morning's papers the statement that the

Government of the United States has paid to the two members of the Peace

Commission entitled to receive money for their services 100,000 dollars

each for their six weeks' work in Paris.

I hope that this is true. I will allow myself the satisfaction of

considering that it is true, and of treating it as a thing finished and

settled.

It is a precedent; and ought to be a welcome one to our country. A

precedent always has a chance to be valuable (as well as the other way);

and its best chance to be valuable (or the other way) is when it takes

such a striking form as to fix a whole nation's attention upon it. If it

come justified out of the discussion which will follow, it will find a

career ready and waiting for it.

We realise that the edifice of public justice is built of precedents,

from the ground upward; but we do not always realise that all the other

details of our civilisation are likewise built of precedents. The

changes also which they undergo are due to the intrusion of new

precedents, which hold their ground against opposition, and keep their

place. A precedent may die at birth, or it may live--it is mainly a

matter of luck. If it be imitated once, it has a chance; if twice a

better chance; if three times it is reaching a point where account must

be taken of it; if four, five, or six times, it has probably come to

stay--for a whole century, possibly. If a town start a new bow, or a new

dance, or a new temperance project, or a new kind of hat, and can get the

precedent adopted in the next town, the career of that precedent is

begun; and it will be unsafe to bet as to where the end of its journey is

going to be. It may not get this start at all, and may have no career;

but, if a crown prince introduce the precedent, it will attract vast

attention, and its chances for a career are so great as to amount almost

to a certainty.

For a long time we have been reaping damage from a couple of disastrous

precedents. One is the precedent of shabby pay to public servants

standing for the power and dignity of the Republic in foreign lands; the

other is a precedent condemning them to exhibit themselves officially in

clothes which are not only without grace or dignity, but are a pretty

loud and pious rebuke to the vain and frivolous costumes worn by the

other officials. To our day an American ambassador's official costume

remains under the reproach of these defects. At a public function in a

European court all foreign representatives except ours wear clothes which

in some way distinguish them from the unofficial throng, and mark them as

standing for their countries. But our representative appears in a plain

black swallow-tail, which stands for neither country, nor people. It has

no nationality. It is found in all countries; it is as international as

a night-shirt. It has no particular meaning; but our Government tries to

give it one; it tries to make it stand for Republican Simplicity, modesty

and unpretentiousness. Tries, and without doubt fails, for it is not

conceivable that this loud ostentation of simplicity deceives any one.

The statue that advertises its modesty with a fig-leaf really brings its

modesty under suspicion. Worn officially, our nonconforming swallow-tail

is a declaration of ungracious independence in the matter of manners, and

is uncourteous. It says to all around: 'In Rome we do not choose to do

as Rome does; we refuse to respect your tastes and your traditions; we

make no sacrifices to anyone's customs and prejudices; we yield no jot to

the courtesies of life; we prefer our manners, and intrude them here.'

That is not the true American spirit, and those clothes misrepresent us.

When a foreigner comes among us and trespasses against our customs and

our code of manners, we are offended, and justly so; but our Government

commands our ambassadors to wear abroad an official dress which is an

offence against foreign manners and customers; and the discredit of it

falls upon the nation.

We did not dress our public functionaries in undistinguished raiment

before Franklin's time; and the change would not have come if he had been

an obscurity. But he was such a colossal figure in the world that

whatever he did of an unusual nature attracted the world's attention,

and became a precedent. In the case of clothes, the next representative

after him, and the next, had to imitate it. After that, the thing was

custom; and custom is a petrifaction: nothing but dynamite can dislodge

it for a century. We imagine that our queer official costumery was

deliberately devised to symbolise our Republican Simplicity--a quality

which we have never possessed, and are too old to acquire now, if we had

any use for it or any leaning toward it. But it is not so; there was

nothing deliberate about it; it grew naturally and heedlessly out of the

precedent set by Franklin.

If it had been an intentional thing, and based upon a principle, it would

not have stopped where it did: we should have applied it further.

Instead of clothing our admirals and generals, for courts-martial and

other public functions, in superb dress uniforms blazing with colour and

gold, the Government would put them in swallow-tails and white cravats,

and make them look like ambassadors and lackeys. If I am wrong in making

Franklin the father of our curious official clothes, it is no matter--he

will be able to stand it.