III.

The good American is, as a rule, pretty hard upon roguery, but he

atones for his austerity by an amiable toleration of rogues. His

only requirement is that he must personally know the rogues. We all

"denounce" thieves loudly enough, if we have not the honor of their

acquaintance. If we have, why, that is different--unless they have the

actual odor of the prison about them. We may know them guilty, but we

meet them, shake hands with them, drink with them, and if they happen to

be wealthy or otherwise great invite them to our houses, and deem it an

honor to frequent theirs. We do not "approve their methods"--let that be

understood; and thereby they are sufficiently punished. The notion that

a knave cares a pin what is thought of his ways by one who is civil and

friendly to himself appears to have been invented by a humorist. On the

vaudeville stage of Mars it would probably have made his fortune.

If warrants of arrest were out for every man in this country who is

conscious of having repeatedly shaken hands with persons whom he knew to

be knaves there would be no guiltless person to serve them.

I know men standing high in journalism who today will "expose" and

bitterly "denounce" a certain rascality and tomorrow will be hobnobbing

with the rascals whom they have named. I know legislators of renown who

habitually in "the halls of legislation" raise their voices against the

dishonest schemes of some "trust magnate," and are habitually seen in

familiar conversation with him. Indubitably these be hypocrites all.

Between the head and the heart of such a man is a wall of adamant, and

neither organ knows what the other is doing.

If social recognition were denied to rogues they would be fewer by many.

Some would only the more diligently cover their tracks along the devious

paths of unrighteousness, but others would do so much violence to their

consciences as to renounce the disadvantages of rascality for those

of an honest life. An unworthy person dreads nothing so much as the

withholding of an honest hand, the slow inevitable stroke of an ignoring

eye.

For one having knowledge of Mr. John D. Rockefeller's social life and

connections it would be easy to name a dozen men and women who by a

conspiracy of conscription could profoundly affect the plans and profits

of the Standard Oil Company. I have been asked: "If John D. Rockefeller

were introduced to you by a friend, would you refuse to take his hand?"

I certainly should--and if ever thereafter I took the hand of that hardy

"friend" it would be after his repentance and promise to reform his

ways. We have Rockefellers and Morgans because we have "respectable"

persons who are not ashamed to take them by the hand, to be seen with

them, to say that they know them. In such it is treachery to censure

them; to cry out when robbed by them is to turn State's evidence.

One may smile upon a rascal (most of us do so many times a day) if one

does not know him to be a rascal, and has not said he is; but

knowing him to be, or having said he is, to smile upon him is to be a

hypocrite--just a plain hypocrite or a sycophantic hypocrite, according

to the station in life of the rascal smiled upon. There are more plain

hypocrites than sycophantic ones, for there are more rascals of no

consequence than rich and distinguished ones, though they get fewer

smiles each. The American people will be plundered as long as the

American character is what it is; as long as it is tolerant of

successful knavery; as long as American ingenuity draws an imaginary

distinction between a man's public character and his private--his

commercial and his personal In brief, the American people will be

plundered as long as they deserve to be plundered. No human law can stop

it, none ought to stop it, for that would abrogate a higher and more

salutary law: "As ye sow ye shall reap."

In a sermon by the Rev. Dr. Parkhurst is the following: "The story of

all our Lord's dealings with sinners leaves upon the mind the invariable

impression, if only the story be read sympathetically and earnestly,

that He always felt kindly towards the transgressor, but could have

no tenderness of regard toward the transgression. There is no safe and

successful dealing with sin of any kind save as that distinction is

appreciated and made a continual factor in our feelings and efforts."

With all due respect for Dr. Parkhurst, that is nonsense. If he will

read his New Testament more understandingly he will observe that

Christ's kindly feeling to transgressors was not to be counted on by

sinners of every kind, and it was not always in evidence; for example,

when he flogged the money-changers out of the temple. Nor is Dr.

Parkhurst himself any too amiably disposed toward the children of

darkness. It is not by mild words and gentle means that he has hurled

the mighty from their seats and exalted them of low degree. Such

revolutions as he set afoot are not made with spiritual rose-water;

there must be the contagion of a noble indignation fueled with harder

wood than abstractions. The people can not be collected and incited to

take sides by the spectacle of a man fighting something that does

not fight back. It is men that Dr. Parkhurst is trouncing--not their

crimes--not Crime. He may fancy himself "dowered with the hate of hate,

the scorn of scorn," but in reality he does not hate hate but hates the

hateful, and scorns, not scorn, but the scornworthy.

It is singular with what tenacity that amusing though mischievous

superstition keeps its hold upon the human mind--that grave _bona

fide_ personification of abstractions and the funny delusion that it is

possible to hate or love them. Sin is not a thing; there is no existing

object corresponding to any of the mere counter-words that are properly

named abstract nouns. One can no more hate sin or love virtue than

one can hate a vacuum (which Nature--itself imaginary--was once by the

scientists of the period solemnly held to do) or love one of the three

dimensions. We may think that while loving a sinner we hate the sin,

but that is not so; if anything is hated it is other sinners of the same

kind, who are not quite so close to us.

"But," says Citizen Goodheart, who thinks with difficulty, "shall I

throw over my friend when he is in trouble?" Yes, when you are convinced

that he deserves to be in trouble; throw him all the harder and the

further because he is your friend. In addition to his particular offense

against society he has disgraced _you_. If there are to be lenity and

charity let them go to the criminal who has foreborne to involve you

in his shame. It were a pretty state of affairs if an undetected scamp,

fearing exposure, could make you a co-defendant by so easy a precaution

as securing your acquaintance and regard. Don't throw the first stone,

of course, but when convinced that your friend is a proper target, heave

away with a right hearty good-will, and let the stone be of serviceable

dimensions, scabrous, textured flintwise and delivered with a good aim.

The French have a saying to the effect that to know all is to pardon

all; and doubtless with an omniscient insight into the causes of

character we should find the field of moral responsibility pretty

thickly strewn with extenuating circumstances very suitable indeed for

consideration by a god who has had a hand in besetting "with pitfall

and with gin" the road we are to wander in. But I submit that universal

forgiveness would hardly do as a working principle. Even those who are

most apt and facile with the incident of the woman taken in adultery

commonly cherish a secret respect for the doctrine of eternal damnation;

and some of them are known to pin their faith to the penal code of their

state. Moreover there is some reason to believe that the sinning woman,

being "taken," was penitent--they usually are when found out.

I care nothing about principles--they are lumber and rubbish. What

concerns our happiness and welfare, as affectible by our fellowmen, is

conduct "Principles, not men," is a rogue's cry; rascality's counsel to

stupidity, the noise of the duper duping on his dupe. He shouts it most

loudly and with the keenest sense of its advantage who most desires

inattention to his own conduct, or to that forecast of it, his

character. As to sin, that has an abundance of expounders and is already

universally known to be wicked. What more can be said against it, and

why go on repeating that? The thing is a trifle wordworn, whereas the

sinner cometh up as a flower every day, fresh, ingenious and inviting.

Sin is not at all dangerous to society; it is the sinner that does all

the mischief. Sin has no arms to thrust into the public treasury and

the private; no hands with which to cut a throat; no tongue to wreck

a reputation withal. I would no more attack it than I would attack an

isosceles triangle, a vacuum, or Hume's "phantasm floating in a void."

My chosen enemy must be something that has a skin for my switch, a head

for my cudgel--something that can smart and ache and, if so minded,

fight back. I have no quarrel with abstractions; so far as I know they

are all good citizens.