SON AND FATHER
When the Colonel had greeted Elena at breakfast next morning he
quietly asked:
"You met Norman?"
"Yes."
"I shall be glad to see him when he comes."
Elena threw her arms impulsively around his neck.
"Now you're a darling! Now you're big and strong and good and great
again--and I love you."
The Colonel stroked her hair slowly, and asked with a smile:
"What time is he coming?"
"He's not coming." Elena laughed.
"Not coming?" the colonel repeated blankly.
"No. You're going to see him."
"Indeed!"
"You see, Guardie, he is a chip off the old block."
"It begins to look like he's the whole block," the Colonel remarked,
dryly.
"Can you blame him after the way you acted?"
"I can't say I do, much. I like a boy of spirit----"
"And individuality--that's your own pet idea Guardie."
The Colonel was silent a moment.
"Yes. I like his grit. Where will I find him?"
"At his desk at work in the newspaper office."
"I'll call him up and make an appointment."
The Colonel seized the telephone, called the newspaper office, and
asked for Norman. He waited for several minutes before any one reached
the 'phone. He scarcely recognized the short, sharp business accent of
Norman's voice:
"Well, well, what is it?"
The Colonel cleared his throat.
"Here! Here! Get a move on you--what's the matter--I'm in a hurry!"
"This is your father, Norman----"
"Get off the wire or quit your kiddin'--what do you want?"
His father laughed.
"I beg your pardon, Governor, honestly I didn't recognize your voice
until you laughed. I'm awfully glad to hear it again. What can I do
for you?"
"Well, I must say I like your impudence. What can _you_ do for me? I
want to see you right away. Shall I call at your office?"
A pause ensued, followed by audible smiles at both ends of the wire.
"Of course not, sir. It seems a long time since I left home but I've
not forgotten the way. I'll come over as soon as I can leave my desk."
Two hours later he entered the library with a boyish laugh and grasped
his father's hand.
The Colonel pressed it with deep tenderness.
"You must forgive me, boy. I wasn't fair to you the other day."
Norman tried to laugh, and stammered awkwardly:
"Well, when I hear a man of your age and experience say a thing like
that, Governor, I begin to fear I'm not quite as big as I thought I
was."
"Then we're both in the right mind now, to begin all over again, are
we not?"
"It's with you, sir," was the quick reply.
"Suppose I can convince you that you have entered on a mistaken
mission--that your programme is foolish, impossible, and dangerous?"
"Do it, and I'll join you in trying to put an end to Socialism."
"Before I begin, let me ask you a very personal question."
"As many as you like, Governor," was the frank response.
"Are you mixed up in any way personally with the young woman who spoke
here that day?"
"We're comrades in the cause of humanity--that's all."
"You're sure that it is not her personal influence over you that has
made you a Socialist?"
"Only in so far as she has made me think and feel."
"You have not made love to her?"
"Certainly not. I'm engaged to Elena."
"Then it ought to be easy for us to understand each other. Come down
out of the clouds of theory now, and tell me exactly how you are going
to save humanity, and let's see if we can't work together for the same
end. A great purpose like yours ought not to separate father and
son--you can't defend such platitudes as this, for example, which one
of your orators got off last night--listen!"
The Colonel took the morning paper from the table and read:
"Remember in this supreme hour that capitalism has you and your loved
ones by the throats, is stealing your substance, draining your veins,
and reducing you inch by inch to the potter's field. Every sweating
den cries out to you as from the depths of hell to gird up your loins
and march forth in one solid phalanx to strike the blow that shall
sound the knell of capitalistic despotism, and set the star of hope in
the skies of the despairing and dying thousands of your class who are
at the mercy of the vampires of soulless wealth. How long shall
capitalism be allowed to work its devastation, spread its blighting
curse, destroy manhood, debauch womanhood, and grind the flesh and
blood and bone of childhood into food for Mammon?"
The Colonel paused.
"Such appeals to passion can only end in riot, bloodshed, and prison
bars. You don't write such rot as that yourself, and yet the men you
are following preach it."
"I'm not following just now, Governor--I'm trying to direct this
tremendous impulse, this enthusiasm for humanity, called Socialism,
into a practical experiment that will demonstrate the truths of their
faith, and from this white city of a glorified human life send out our
missionaries to conquer the world. Give me ten thousand earnest men
and women on the island of Ventura, isolated from contact with the
corruption of the outside, and I'll show you a miracle more wonderful
than if they had risen from the dead."
"And what are the foundations on which you propose to build this
heaven on earth?"
"Squarely on these principles: From every man according to his
ability; to every man according to his needs; and to every child born
the right to laugh and play and grow to a strong manhood and
womanhood. We are not civilized so long as there is one child sobbing
to be freed from the tomb of the modern workshop, so long as there is
one man willing to work and not able to find it, so long as there is
one soul striving upward who is crushed to earth, so long as one man
lives in idleness and luxury while his neighbour starves, so long as
there's one spot of this earth on which a man lives by tearing the
bread from the lips of another."
"Hasn't your imagination been caught by beautiful phrases, my boy?"
asked the father. "In your new State of Ventura you will give to each
man according to his needs?"
"Yes."
"And who will decide how much each one needs--the man who feels the
need or the state?"
"The state, in the last resort."
"Exactly. And who will determine how large the service required of
each man? Who will decide the question of ability?"
"The state, of course."
"Are you not cutting out a pretty big job for the state, remembering
that the state is nothing more or less than a lot of ordinary
second-rate politicians named Tom, Dick, and Harry, who individually
or collectively haven't as much sense as you or I?"
"In the new world it will be different."
"Then you are going to import a new breed of men and women?"
"No, we will simply give the God in man a chance to be."
"But how about the beast that's in man--the elemental instinct to
fight and kill--to take the woman he desires by the force of his hands
and muscle?"
"When man is free and strong and happy he can have no motive to kill
or play the beast."
"That remains to be seen, my boy! Your assertion does not change the
nature of man. Another problem in your scheme I can't solve is wages."
"We will abolish wage slavery."
"Yes, yes, I know; but man must work--all men must work in your new
state?"
"Certainly."
"And the man who refuses to work?"
"Will be made to work according to his ability."
"Just so. We live under the wage system now--the system of free
contract by which labourer and employer agree. Under your system
contract would be abolished, and men would do what they are _told_ to
do--a system of _command_ instead of _contract_--is it not so?"
"I should say just the opposite. Men are forced to work now at tasks
they loathe and for pay that is insufficient. Under our state they
would be free to choose the work for which they are fitted."
"And suppose they all choose one job?"
"The state would assign their work in the last resort."
"There you are, once more, bowing down to the same Tom, Dick, and
Harry. And you cannot see that Socialism would impose on man the most
colossal system of slavery, the most merciless because the most
impersonal, the world ever saw?"
"No, I cannot. Give me a chance on one spot of earth free from the
corruption of your present system, and I'll show you that man is a
child of God, that deep in every human soul is planted the sense of
brotherhood, justice, and human fellowship."
"And you will abolish private property?"
"Except what each man earns or makes for himself."
The Colonel laughed aloud.
"Can he earn a wife, or make one for himself?"
"No; nor own one as a slave."
"You can never abolish private property, my boy, so long as any man
has the right to say, 'This woman is mine.' The home is the basis of
modern civilization. If you destroy it the home will not survive. If
the home survives it will kill Socialism. The two things can't mix."
Norman laughed.
"And you think capitalism is building ideal homes with its drudgery
that kills woman--its poverty that starves the man and drives the girl
to a life of shame?"
"Our conditions are not ideal, my son. But they are growing better
with each generation. Because all homes are not ideal, you propose to
abolish the institution. There are ten million homes in America.
Perhaps a million of them are unhappy. Can we mend matters by
destroying them all?"
"Socialism proposes to build the highest ideal of home ever seen on
earth, founded on love--and only love."
The Colonel smiled sadly.
"I see I'm too late. You've got it bad. Socialism is a contagious
disease, imported from the old world--a brain disease, the result of
centuries of wrong and oppression. Its reasons for existence in this
country are purely imaginary. If it were possible for you to build the
new State of Ventura of which you dream----"
"Dream! We are going to do it, I tell you, Governor! We have a hundred
thousand dollars already pledged. We hold to-morrow night a great
mass-meeting at which five thousand Socialists will be present. Four
hundred thousand dollars more will buy the island and give a capital
of three hundred thousand with which to begin."
"Then I can't persuade you to give up this madness?" the Colonel
asked, tenderly.
"It's my life," Norman answered firmly.
The father slipped his arm around the tall, strong figure.
"All right! Remember now, from this moment on, one thing is settled
for good and all. My boy's my boy, right or wrong, good or bad, wise
or foolish----"
The Colonel's voice broke, and his grip tightened.
Norman looked out of the window, blinked his eyes, and said in low
tones:
"I understand, sir!"