six thousand miles of railroad each. These companies have taken in a
large number of small lines; and many connecting lines of tracks have
been built. Competition over vast sections of country has been
practically obliterated, and this has been done so quietly that few
people are aware of the change. Only one general result of this
consolidation of management has been felt, and that it is better
service at less expense. No captain of any great industrial enterprise
dares now to say, "The public be damned," even if he ever said it--which
I much doubt. The pathway to success lies in serving the public, not in
affronting it. In no other way is success possible, and this truth is so
plain and patent that even very simple folk are able to recognize it.
You can only help yourself by helping others.
Thirty years ago, when P. T. Barnum said, "The public delights in being
humbugged," he knew that it was not true, for he never attempted to put
the axiom in practice. He amused the public by telling it a lie, but P.
T. Barnum never tried anything so risky as deception. Even when he lied
we were not deceived; truth can be stated by indirection. "When my love
tells me she is made of truth, I do believe her, though I know she
lies." Barnum always gave more than he advertised; and going over and
over the same territory he continued to amuse and instruct the public
for nearly forty years.
This tendency to coöperate is seen in such splendid features as the
Saint Louis Union Station, for instance, where just twenty great
railroad companies lay aside envy, prejudice, rivalry and whim, and use
one terminal. If competition were really the life of trade, each
railroad that enters Saint Louis would have a station of its own, and
the public would be put to the worry, trouble, expense and endless delay
of finding where it wanted to go and how to get there. As it is now, the
entire aim and end of the scheme is to reduce friction, worry and
expense, and give the public the greatest accommodation--the best
possible service--to make travel easy and life secure. Servants in
uniform meet you as you alight, and answer your every question--speeding
you courteously and kindly on your way. There are women to take care of
women, and nurses to take care of children, and wheel chairs for such as
may be infirm or lame. The intent is to serve--not to pull you this way
and that, and sell you a ticket over a certain road. You are free to
choose your route and you are free to utilize as your own this great
institution that cost a million dollars, and that requires the presence
of two hundred people to maintain. All is for you. It is for the public
and was only made possible by a oneness of aim and desire--that is to
say coöperation. Before coöperation comes in any line, there is always
competition pushed to a point that threatens destruction and promises
chaos; then to divert ruin, men devise a better way, a plan that
conserves and economizes, and behold, it is found in coöperation.
Civilization is an evolution.
Civilization is not a thing separate and apart, any more than art is.
Art is the beautiful way of doing things. Civilization is the
expeditious way of doing things. And as haste is often waste--the more
hurry the less speed--civilization is the best way of doing things.
As mankind multiplies in number, the problem of supplying people what
they need is the important question of Earth. And mankind has ever held
out offers of reward in fame and money--both being forms of power--to
those who would supply it better things.
Teachers are those who educate the people to appreciate the things they
need.
The man who studies mankind, and finds out what men really want, and
then supplies them this, whether it be an Idea or a Thing, is the man
who is crowned with the laurel wreath of honor and clothed with riches.
What people need and what they want may be very different.
To undertake to supply people a thing you think they need but which they
do not want, is to have your head elevated on a pike, and your bones
buried in Potter's Field.
But wait, and the world will yet want the thing that it needs, and your
bones will then become sacred relics.
This change in desire on the part of mankind is the result of the growth
of intellect.
It is Progress, and Progress is Evolution, and Evolution is Progress.
There are men who are continually trying to push Progress along: we call
these individuals "Reformers."
Then there are others who always oppose the Reformer--the mildest name
we have for them is "Conservative."
The Reformer is either a Savior or a Rebel, all depending on whether he
succeeds or fails, and your point of view. He is what he is, regardless
of what other men think of him. The man who is indicted and executed as
a rebel, often afterward has the word "Savior" carved on his tomb; and
sometimes men who are hailed as saviors in their day are afterward found
to be sham saviors--to wit, charlatans. Conservation is a plan of
Nature. To keep the good is to conserve. A Conservative is a man who
puts on the brakes when he thinks Progress is going to land Civilization
in the ditch and wreck the whole concern.
Brakemen are necessary, but in the language of Koheleth, there is a time
to apply the brake and there is a time to abstain from applying the
brake. To clog the wheels continually is to stand still, and to stand
still is to retreat. Progress has need of the brakeman, but the brakeman
should not occupy all of his time putting on the brakes.
The Conservative is just as necessary as the Radical. The Conservative
keeps the Reformer from going too fast, and plucking the fruit before it
is ripe. Governments are only good where there is strong Opposition,
just as the planets are held in place by the opposition of forces. And
so civilization goes forward by stops and starts--pushed by the
Reformers and held back by the Conservatives. One is necessary to the
other, and they often shift places. But forward and forward Civilization
forever goes--ascertaining the best way of doing things.
In commerce we have had the Individual Worker, the Partnership, the
Corporation, and now we have the Trust.
The Trust is simply Corporations forming a partnership. The thing is all
an Evolution--a moving forward. It is all for man and it is all done by
man. It is all done with the consent, aye, and approval of man.
The Trusts were made by the People, and the People can and will unmake
them, should they ever prove an engine of oppression. They exist only
during good behavior, and like men, they are living under a sentence of
death, with an indefinite reprieve.
The Trusts are good things because they are economizers of energy. They
cut off waste, increase the production, and make a panic practically
impossible.
The Trusts are here in spite of the men who think they originated them,
and in spite of the Reformers who turned Conservatives and
opposed them.
The next move of Evolution will be the age of Socialism. Socialism means
the operation of all industries by the people, and for the people.
Socialism is coöperation instead of competition. Competition has been so
general that economists mistook it for a law of nature, when it was only
an incident.
Competition is no more a law of nature than is hate. Hate was once so
thoroughly believed in that we gave it personality and called it
the Devil.
We have banished the Devil by educating people to know that he who works
has no time to hate and no need to fear, and by this same means,
education, will the people be prepared for the age of Socialism.
The Trusts are now getting things ready for Socialism.
Socialism is a Trust of Trusts.
Humanity is growing in intellect, in patience, in kindness--in love. And
when the time is ripe, the people will step in and take peaceful
possession of their own, and the Coöperative Commonwealth will give to
each one his due.
Sympathy, Knowledge and Poise
Sympathy, Knowledge and Poise seem to be the three ingredients that are
most needed in forming the Gentle Man. I place these elements according
to their value. No man is great who does not have Sympathy plus, and the
greatness of men can be safely gauged by their sympathies. Sympathy and
imagination are twin sisters. Your heart must go out to all men, the
high, the low, the rich, the poor, the learned, the unlearned, the good,
the bad, the wise and the foolish--it is necessary to be one with them
all, else you can never comprehend them. Sympathy!--it is the touchstone
to every secret, the key to all knowledge, the open sesame of all
hearts. Put yourself in the other man's place and then you will know why
he thinks certain things and does certain deeds. Put yourself in his
place and your blame will dissolve itself into pity, and your tears will
wipe out the record of his misdeeds. The saviors of the world have
simply been men with wondrous sympathy.
But Knowledge must go with Sympathy, else the emotions will become
maudlin and pity may be wasted on a poodle instead of a child; on a
field-mouse instead of a human soul. Knowledge in use is wisdom, and
wisdom implies a sense of values--you know a big thing from a little
one, a valuable fact from a trivial one. Tragedy and comedy are simply
questions of value: a little misfit in life makes us laugh, a great one
is tragedy and cause for expression of grief.
Poise is the strength of body and strength of mind to control your
Sympathy and your Knowledge. Unless you control your emotions they run
over and you stand in the mire. Sympathy must not run riot, or it is
valueless and tokens weakness instead of strength. In every hospital for
nervous disorders are to be found many instances of this loss of
control. The individual has Sympathy but not Poise, and therefore his
life is worthless to himself and to the world.
He symbols inefficiency and not helpfulness. Poise reveals itself more
in voice than it does in words; more in thought than in action; more in
atmosphere than in conscious life. It is a spiritual quality, and is
felt more than it is seen. It is not a matter of bodily size, nor of
bodily attitude, nor attire, nor of personal comeliness: it is a state
of inward being, and of knowing your cause is just. And so you see it is
a great and profound subject after all, great in its ramifications,
limitless in extent, implying the entire science of right living. I once
met a man who was deformed in body and little more than a dwarf, but who
had such Spiritual Gravity--such Poise--that to enter a room where he
was, was to feel his presence and acknowledge his superiority. To allow
Sympathy to waste itself on unworthy objects is to deplete one's life
forces. To conserve is the part of wisdom, and reserve is a necessary
element in all good literature, as well as in everything else.
Poise being the control of our Sympathy and Knowledge, it implies a
possession of these attributes, for without having Sympathy and
Knowledge you have nothing to control but your physical body. To
practise Poise as a mere gymnastic exercise, or study in etiquette, is
to be self-conscious, stiff, preposterous and ridiculous. Those who cut
such fantastic tricks before high heaven as make angels weep, are men
void of Sympathy and Knowledge trying to cultivate Poise. Their science
is a mere matter of what to do with arms and legs. Poise is a question
of spirit controlling flesh, heart controlling attitude.
Get Knowledge by coming close to Nature. That man is the greatest who
best serves his kind. Sympathy and Knowledge are for use--you acquire
that you may give out; you accumulate that you may bestow. And as God
has given unto you the sublime blessings of Sympathy and Knowledge,
there will come to you the wish to reveal your gratitude by giving them
out again; for the wise man is aware that we retain spiritual qualities
only as we give them away. Let your light shine. To him that hath shall
be given. The exercise of wisdom brings wisdom; and at the last the
infinitesimal quantity of man's knowledge, compared with the Infinite,
and the smallness of man's Sympathy when compared with the source from
which ours is absorbed, will evolve an abnegation and a humility that
will lend a perfect Poise. The Gentleman is a man with perfect Sympathy,
Knowledge, and Poise.
Love and Faith
No woman is worthy to be a wife who on the day of her marriage is not
lost absolutely and entirely in an atmosphere of love and perfect trust;
the supreme sacredness of the relation is the only thing which, at the
time, should possess her soul. Is she a bawd that she should bargain?
Women should not "obey" men anymore than men should obey women. There
are six requisites in every happy marriage; the first is Faith, and the
remaining five are Confidence. Nothing so compliments a man as for a
woman to believe in him--nothing so pleases a woman as for a man to
place confidence in her.
Obey? God help me! Yes, if I loved a woman, my whole heart's desire
would be to obey her slightest wish. And how could I love her unless I
had perfect confidence that she would only aspire to what was beautiful,
true and right? And to enable her to realize this ideal, her wish would
be to me a sacred command; and her attitude of mind toward me I know
would be the same. And the only rivalry between us would be as to who
could love the most; and the desire to obey would be the one controlling
impulse of our lives.
We gain freedom by giving it, and he who bestows faith gets it back with
interest. To bargain and stipulate in love is to lose.
The woman who stops the marriage ceremony and requests the minister to
omit the word "obey," is sowing the first seed of doubt and distrust
that later may come to fruition in the divorce court.
The haggling and bickerings of settlements and dowries that usually
precede the marriage of "blood" and "dollars" are the unheeded warnings
that misery, heartache, suffering, and disgrace await the principals.
Perfect faith implies perfect love; and perfect love casteth out fear.
It is always the fear of imposition, and a lurking intent to rule, that
causes the woman to haggle over a word--it is absence of love, a
limitation, an incapacity. The price of a perfect love is an absolute
and complete surrender.
Keep back part of the price and yours will be the fate of Ananias and
Sapphira. Your doom is swift and sure. To win all we must give all.
Giving Something for Nothing
To give a man something for nothing tends to make the individual
dissatisfied with himself.
Your enemies are the ones you have helped.
And when an individual is dissatisfied with himself he is dissatisfied
with the whole world--and with you.
A man's quarrel with the world is only a quarrel with himself. But so
strong is this inclination to lay blame elsewhere and take credit to
ourselves, that when we are unhappy we say it is the fault of this woman
or that man. Especially do women attribute their misery to That Man.
And often the trouble is he has given her too much for nothing.
This truth is a reversible, back-action one, well lubricated by use,
working both ways--as the case may be.
Nobody but a beggar has really definite ideas concerning his rights.
People who give much--who love much--do not haggle.
That form of affection which drives sharp bargains and makes demands,
gets a check on the bank in which there is no balance.
There is nothing so costly as something you get for nothing.
My friend Tom Lowry, Magnate in Ordinary, of Minneapolis and the east
side of Wall Street, has recently had a little experience that proves
my point.
A sturdy beggar-man, a specimen of decayed gentility, once called on
Tammas with a hard-luck story and a Family Bible, and asked for a small
loan on the Good Book.
To be compelled to soak the Family Bible would surely melt the heart of
gneiss!
Tom was melted.
Tom made the loan but refused the collateral, stating he had no use for
it.
Which was God's truth for once.
In a few weeks the man came back, and tried to tell Tom his hard-luck
story concerning the Cold Ingratitude of a Cruel World.
Tom said, "Spare me the slow music and the recital--I have troubles of
my own. I need mirth and good cheer--take this dollar, and peace be
with you."
"Peace be multiplied unto thee," said the beggar, and departed. The
next month the man returned, and began to tell Tom a tale of Cruelty,
Injustice and Ingratitude.
Tom was riled--he had his magnate business to attend to, and he made a
remark in italics. The beggar said, "Mr. Lowry, if you had your business
a little better systematized, I would not have to trouble you
personally--why don't you just speak to your cashier?" And the great
man, who once took a party of friends out for a tally-ho ride, and
through mental habit collected five cents from each guest, was so
pleased at the thought of relief that he pressed the buzzer. The cashier
came, and Tom said, "Put this man Grabheimer on your pay-roll, give him
two dollars now and the same the first of every month."
Then turning to the beggar-man, Tom said, "Now get out of here--hurry,
vamose, hike--and be damned to you!"
"The same to you and many of them," said His Effluvia politely, and
withdrew.
All this happened two years ago. The beggar got his money regularly for
a year, and then in auditing accounts Tom found the name on the
pay-roll, and as Tom could not remember how the name got there, he at
first thought the pay-roll was being stuffed. Anyway he ordered the
beggar's name stricken off the roster, and the elevator man was
instructed to enforce the edict against beggars.
Not being allowed to see his man, the beggar wrote him
letters--denunciatory, scandalous, abusive, threatening. Finally the
beggar laid the matter before an obese limb o' the Law, Jaggers, of the
firm of Jaggers & Jaggers, who took the case on a contingent fee.
The case came to trial, and Jaggers proved his case se
offendendo--argal: it was shown by the defendant's books that His
Bacteria had been on the pay-roll and his name had been stricken off
without suggestion, request, cause, reason or fault of his own.
His Crabship proved the contract, and Tom got it in the mazzard.
Judgment for plaintiff, with costs. The beggar got the money and
Minneapolis Tom got the experience. Tom said the man would lose the
money, but he himself has gotten the part that will be his for
ninety-nine years. Surely the spirit of justice does not sleep and there
is a beneficent and wise Providence that watches over magnates.
Work and Waste
These truths I hold to be self-evident: That man was made to be happy;
that happiness is only attainable through useful effort; that the very
best way to help ourselves is to help others, and often the best way to
help others is to mind our own business; that useful effort means the
proper exercise of all our faculties; that we grow only through
exercise; that education should continue through life, and the joys of
mental endeavor should be, especially, the solace of the old; that where
men alternate work, play and study in right proportion, the organs of
the mind are the last to fail, and death for such has no terrors.
That the possession of wealth can never make a man exempt from useful
manual labor; that if all would work a little, no one would then be
overworked; that if no one wasted, all would have enough; that if none
were overfed, none would be underfed; that the rich and "educated" need
education quite as much as the poor and illiterate; that the presence of
a serving class is an indictment and a disgrace to our civilization;
that the disadvantage of having a serving class falls most upon those
who are served, and not upon those who serve--just as the real curse of
slavery fell upon the slave-owners.
That people who are waited on by a serving class cannot have a right
consideration for the rights of others, and they waste both time and
substance, both of which are lost forever, and can only seemingly be
made good by additional human effort.
That the person who lives on the labor of others, not giving himself in
return to the best of his ability, is really a consumer of human life
and therefore must be considered no better than a cannibal.
That each one living naturally will do the thing he can do best, but
that in useful service there is no high nor low.
That to set apart one day in seven as "holy" is really absurd and serves
only to loosen our grasp on the tangible present.
That all duties, offices and things which are useful and necessary to
humanity are sacred, and that nothing else is or can be sacred.
The Law of Obedience
The very first item in the creed of common sense is _Obedience_.
Perform your work with a whole heart.
Revolt may be sometimes necessary, but the man who tries to mix revolt
and obedience is doomed to disappoint himself and everybody with whom he
has dealings. To flavor work with protest is to fail absolutely.
When you revolt, why revolt--climb, hike, get out, defy--tell everybody
and everything to go to hades! That disposes of the case. You thus
separate yourself entirely from those you have served--no one
misunderstands you--you have declared yourself.
The man who quits in disgust when ordered to perform a task which he
considers menial or unjust may be a pretty good fellow, but in the wrong
environment, but the malcontent who takes your order with a smile and
then secretly disobeys, is a dangerous proposition. To pretend to obey,
and yet carry in your heart the spirit of revolt is to do half-hearted,
slipshod work. If revolt and obedience are equal in power, your engine
will then stop on the center and you benefit no one, not even yourself.
The spirit of obedience is the controlling impulse that dominates the
receptive mind and the hospitable heart. There are boats that mind the
helm and there are boats that do not. Those that do not, get holes
knocked in them sooner or later.
To keep off the rocks, obey the rudder.
Obedience is not to slavishly obey this man or that, but it is that
cheerful mental state which responds to the necessity of the case, and
does the thing without any back talk--unuttered or expressed.
Obedience to the institution--loyalty! The man who has not learned to
obey has trouble ahead of him every step of the way. The world has it in
for him continually, because he has it in for the world.
The man who does not know how to receive orders is not fit to issue them
to others. But the individual who knows how to execute the orders given
him is preparing the way to issue orders, and better still--to have
them obeyed.
Society's Saviors
All adown the ages society has made the mistake of nailing its Saviors
to the cross between thieves.
That is to say, society has recognized in the Savior a very dangerous
quality--something about him akin to a thief, and his career has been
suddenly cut short.
We have telephones and trolly cars, yet we have not traveled far into
the realm of spirit, and our X-ray has given us no insight into the
heart of things.
Society is so dull and dense, so lacking in spiritual vision, so dumb
and so beast-like that it does not know the difference between a thief
and the only Begotten Son. In a frantic effort to forget its hollowness
it takes to ping-pong, parchesi and progressive euchre, and seeks to
lose itself and find solace and consolation in tiddle-dy-winks.
We are told in glaring head-lines and accurate photographic
reproductions of a conference held by leaders in society to settle a
matter of grave import. Was it to build technical schools and provide a
means for practical and useful education? Was it a plan of building
modern tenement houses along scientific and sanitary lines? Was it
called to provide funds for scientific research of various kinds that
would add to human knowledge and prove a benefit to mankind? No, it was
none of these. This body met to determine whether the crook in a certain
bulldog's tail was natural or had been produced artificially.
Should the Savior come to-day and preach the same gospel that He taught
before, society would see that His experience was repeated. Now and then
it blinks stupidly and cries, "Away with Him!" or it stops its game long
enough to pass gall and vinegar on a spear to One it has thrust
beyond the pale.
For the woman who has loved much society has but one verdict: crucify
her! The best and the worst are hanged on one tree.
In the abandon of a great love there exists a godlike quality which
places a woman very close to the holy of holies, yet such a one, not
having complied with the edicts of society, is thrust unceremoniously
forth, and society, Pilate-like, washes its hands in innocency.
Preparing for Old Age
Socrates was once asked by a pupil, this question: "What kind of people
shall we be when we reach Elysium?"
And the answer was this: "We shall be the same kind of people that we
were here."
If there is a life after this, we are preparing for it now, just as I am
to-day preparing for my life to-morrow.