CHAPTER XI

Almost a month had passed since Gerry landed on his Lethean shore, and

it had served him well. But that night on the balcony woke him up.

The world seemed to have time-servers in small regard. First Alix and

now this consul chap. Gerry began to think of his mother. He strolled

over to the cable station. The offices were undergoing repairs. The

ground floor was unfurnished save for a table and one chair. In the

chair sat a chocolate-colored employee with a long bamboo on the floor

beside him. Gerry’s curiosity was aroused. He went in and wrote his

message to his mother, just a few words telling her he was all right.

The chocolate gentleman folded the message, slipped it into the split

end of the bamboo, and stuck it up through a hole in the ceiling to the

floor above.

[Illustration: Loaned by George Inness, Jr. Color-Tone, engraved for

~The Century~ by H. Davidson

SUNSET ON THE MARSHES

FROM THE PAINTING BY GEORGE INNES]

Gerry went out and rambled over the city. Night came on. He was

restless. He wished he had not sent the message. It was forming itself

into a link. He dined badly at a restaurant, and then wandered back to

the quay. Arriving steamers were posted on a blackboard under a street

lamp. The mail from New York was due to-morrow. The consul’s papers

would be full of the latest New York society scandal--his scandal.

A long, raking craft was taking on its meager provisions. Gerry engaged

its captain in a pantomime parley. The boat was bound for Penedo to

take on cotton. Gerry decided to go to Penedo. Two of the crew went

back with him to get his baggage. The hotel was closed. Gerry was the

only guest, and he had his key. He had paid his weekly bill that day,

so there was no need to wake any one up. In half an hour he and his

belongings were stowed on the deck of the _Josephina_, and she was

drifting slowly down to the bar.

Four days later they were off the mouth of the San Francisco. They

doubled in, and tacked their way up to Penedo. There was no life in

Penedo. It was desolate and lonely compared with the Hôtel d’Europe and

the lively quay; so when a funny little stern-wheeler started up the

river on its weekly trip to Piranhas, Gerry went with it.

Gerry chartered a ponderous canoe. At first he had a man to paddle

him up and down and sometimes across the wide half-mile of water; but

before long he learned to handle the thing himself. The heavy work

soon trimmed his splendid muscles into shape. He supplied the hostelry

with a variety of fish.

One morning he woke earlier than usual. The wave of life was running

high in his veins. He sprang up and, still in his pajamas, hurried out

for his morning swim. The break of day was gloriously chilly. A cool

breeze, hurrying up from sea, was steadily banking up the mist that

hung over the river. Gerry sprang into his canoe and pushed off. He

drove its heavy length up-stream, not in the teeth of the current, for

no man could do that, but skirting the shore, seizing on the help of

every eddy, and keeping an eye out for the green, swirling mound that

meant a pinnacle of rock just short of the surface. He went farther up

the river than ever before. His muscles were keyed to the struggle.

He passed the last jutting bend that the best boatmen on the river

could master, and found himself in a bay protected by a spit of sand,

rock-tipped and foam-tossed where it reached the river’s channel.

Gerry ran the canoe upon the shore and stepped on to the spit of sand.

In that moment just to live was enough. Then the sun broke out, and

helped the wind clear the last bank of mist from the river. As he

looked, a sharp cry broke on his astonished ears.

Almost at the end of the tongue of sand stood a girl. Her hair was

blowing about her slim shoulders. Over one of them she gazed, startled,

at Gerry. He drew back, mumbling apologies that she could not have

understood even if she could have heard them. Then she plunged with a

clean, long dive into the river. But before she plunged she laughed.

Gerry heard the laugh. With an answering call he threw himself into the

water, and swam as he never swam before.

(To be continued)

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

THE PROGRESSIVE PARTY[1]

BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT

The National Progressive Party was born in Chicago, August 5, 1912,

at a convention which nominated Roosevelt for the presidency.

Since that time, though defeated in the national election, it has

figured more and more in the legislative and political activities

of State and Nation. In fact progressivism is the one altogether

incalculable element in the political situation of this country

at a time when all men are peering, puzzled and anxious, into

the mists of the future. At ~The Century’s~ request Mr.

Roosevelt prepared the following paper for the thoughtful attention

of the people of this land. It is crowded with suggestion.--~The

Editor.~

Fundamentally the reason for the existence of the Progressive party is

found in two facts: first, the absence of real distinctions between

the old parties which correspond to those parties and, second, the

determined refusal of the men in control of both parties to use the

party organizations and their control of the Government for the purpose

of dealing with the problems really vital to our people.

As to the first fact, it is hardly necessary to point out that the

two old parties to-day no longer deal in any real sense with the

issues of fifty and sixty years ago. At that time there was a very

genuine division-line between the Republicans and the Democrats. The

Republicans of those years stood for a combination of all that was

best in the political philosophies of both Jefferson and Hamilton; and

under Lincoln they represented the extreme democratic movement which

was headed by Jefferson and also that insistence upon national union

and governmental efficiency which were Hamilton’s great contributions

to our political life in the formative period of the republic. The

Republicanism of that day was something real and vital, and the

Republican party under Lincoln was the radical party of the country,

abhorred and distrusted by the reactionaries and ultraconservatives,

especially in the great financial centers, precisely as is now true of

the Progressives. The Democratic party of that day, on the contrary,

was no longer the party either of Jefferson or of Jackson, whose points

of unlikeness were at least as striking as their points of likeness,

and in the world of politics stood for slavery and for such development

of the extreme particularistic doctrine euphoniously known as “States’

rights,” as to mean, when carried to its logical extreme, total

paralysis of governmental functions and ultimately disunion.

The outbreak of the Civil War and its successful conclusion forced the

majority of the conservative class of the North into the Republican

ranks; for when national dissolution is an issue, or even when any

serious disaster is threatened, all other issues sink out of sight when

compared with the vital need of sustaining the National Government.

There is no possibility of even approximating to social and industrial

justice if the National Government shows itself impotent to deal with

malice domestic and foreign levy.

On the other hand, after the Civil War, the Democratic party found its

position one of mere negation or mere antagonism to the Republican

party. The Democrats in the Northern States had very different

principles in the East and the West, and both in the East and the West

alike they had nothing in common with the Democrats of the South save

the bond of hatred to Republicanism.

OLD PARTIES AND NEW ISSUES

Under such conditions it was inevitable that after the issues raised by

the war were settled, and as year by year they tended more and more to

become nebulous memories, the new issues which arose should divide the

parties each within itself rather than serve as a basis for true party

division. The bonds were those of name, custom, and tradition rather

than of principle. Each party could pride itself on fervent fixity of

opinion as regards the issues that were dead, but each party showed

complete indecision of purpose in dealing with the problems that were

living. A party which alternately nominated Mr. Bryan and Mr. Parker

for President, and a party wherein Messrs. Penrose, La Follette, and

Smoot stand as the three brothers of leadership, can by no possibility

supply the need of this country for efficient and coherent governmental

action as regards the really vital questions of the day. Each party

contains within its leadership and membership men who are hopelessly

sundered by whatever convictions they really hold and who act together

simply for reasons of personal or party expediency. It is impossible to

secure the highest service for the people from any party which, like

the Democracy, is wedded to States’ rights, as against those peoples’

rights which can be obtained only by the exercise of the full power of

the National Government. On the other hand it is utterly hopeless to

expect any sincerity of devotion to any principle of concern to the

people as a whole from a party the machinery of which is usurped and

held by the powers that prey, in the political and business world; and

this has been the case with the Republican party since the bosses in

June, 1912, at Chicago stole from the rank and file their right to make

their own platform and nominate their own candidates.

So much for the incongruous jumble of conflicting principles and

policies within each party and the lack of real points of difference

between them. Their showing on this point is so bad that by sheer force

of habit our people have grown to accept as a matter of course and

without surprise the situations to which it gives rise. For instance,

in New York State there was very little genuine surprise among the

people as a whole when in the legislature the Republican adherents of

the Republican boss and the Democratic adherents of the Democratic

boss, after deliberate caucus and conference, repudiated their

preëlection pledges as to primary legislation, and joined with hearty

good will to defeat the measure which both had promised to support. It

would be difficult to imagine a better instance of the way in which

our present party conditions insure the absolute powerlessness of the

people when faced by a bipartizan combine of the two boss-ridden party

machines, whose hostility each to the other is only nominal compared to

the hostility of both to the people at large.

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CHANGES

The second fundamental fact of the situation partly depends upon this

first fact. Where neither party ventures to have any real convictions

upon the vital issues of the day it is normally impossible to use

either as an instrument for meeting these vital issues. Most of these

issues, at least in their present form, have become such during the

lifetime of the present generation. There are, of course, issues of

which this is not true. The need of fortifying the Panama Canal and of

building and maintaining a thoroughly efficient navy of adequate size,

find their justification in the policy of Washington, for instance,

and neither policy can be antagonized save by those who are the

heirs of Washington’s bitterest and most insidious opponents. Again,

the questions arising in connection with our international relations

must to-day, as always, be settled exactly along the lines of general

policy laid down by Washington, under penalty of risking grave national

discredit and disgrace.

But most of the issues which nine times out of ten most concern the

average man and average woman of our republic have reached their

present form only within the lifetime of the men who are now of

middle age. They are due to the profound social and economic changes

of the last half-century, to the exhaustion of the soil and of our

natural resources, to the rapid growth of manufacturing towns and

great trading cities, and to the relative lowering of the level of

life in many country districts, both from the standpoint of interest

and the standpoint of profit. Whether we approach the problem having

in view only the interests of the wage-worker or of the farmer or of

the small business man, or having in view the interests of the public

as a whole, we are obliged to face certain new facts. One is that in

their actual workings the old doctrines of extreme individualism and

of a purely competitive industrial system have completely broken down.

Another is that if we are to grapple efficiently with the evils of

to-day, it will be necessary to invoke the use of governmental power

to a degree hitherto unknown in this country, and, in the interest of

the democracy, to apply principles which the purely individualistic

democracy of a century ago would not have recognized as democratic.

It is utterly useless to try to meet our needs by recreating the

vanished conditions which rendered it possible for this vanished

individualistic democracy to preach and practise what it did, and

which preaching and practising of an extreme individualism, be it

remembered, laid the corner of the very conditions against which we

are in revolt to-day. The present-day need of our people is to achieve

the purpose our predecessors in the democratic movement had at heart,

even though it be necessary to abandon or reverse the methods by which

they in their day sought to realize, and indeed often did realize, that

purpose. The Progressive party is the only political instrumentality

in existence to-day which recognizes the need of achieving this purpose

by the new methods which under the changed industrial and social

conditions are alone effective.

COLLECTIVE ACTION AND THE INDIVIDUAL

This means increased efficiency of governmental action. It does not

mean in the slightest degree any impairment or weakening of individual

character. The combination of efficient collective action and of

individual ability and initiative is essential to the success of the

modern state. It is in civil life as it is in military life. No amount

of personal prowess will make soldiers collectively formidable unless

they possess also the trained ability to act in common for a common

end. On the other hand, no perfection of military organization will

atone for the lack of the fighting edge in the man in the ranks. The

same principle applies in civil life. We not merely recognize but

insist upon the fact that in the life career of any man or any woman

the prime factor as regards success or failure must be his or her

possession of that bundle of qualities and attributes which in their

aggregate we denominate as character; and yet that, in addition, there

must be proper social conditions surrounding him or her.

Recognition of and insistence upon either fact must never be permitted

to mean failure to recognize the other and complementary fact. The

character of the individual is vital, and yet, in order to give it fair

expression, it must be supplemented by collective action through the

agencies of government. Our critics speak as if we were striving to

weaken the strength of individual initiative. Yet these critics, who

for the most part are either men of wealth who do not think deeply on

subjects unconnected with the acquisition of wealth, or else men of a

cloistered intellectualism, are themselves in practice the very men

who are most ready to demand the exercise of collective power in its

broadest manifestation; that is, through the police force, when there

is danger of disorder or violence.

[Illustration: ROOSEVELT

FROM A PHOTOGRAPH COPYRIGHT BY PACH BROS.

COLOR-TONE ENGRAVED FOR THE CENTURY BY H. DAVIDSON]

The growth in the complexity of community life means the partial

substitution of collectivism for individualism, not to destroy, but

to save individualism. A very primitive country community hardly

needs a constable at all. As it changes into a village and then into

a city, it becomes necessary to organize a police force, and this not

because the average man has deteriorated in individual initiative and

prowess, but because social conditions have so changed as to make

collective action necessary. When New York was a little village, a

watchman with a lantern and a stave was able to grapple with the only

type of law-breaker that had yet been developed. Nowadays, in place of

this baggy-breeched, stave-and-lantern carrier, we have the complex

machinery of our police department, with a personnel ranging from

a plain-clothes detective to a khaki-clad mounted officer with an

automatic-repeating pistol. As the complexity of life has grown, as

criminals have become more efficient and possessed of a greater power

of combined action, it has been necessary for the government to keep

the peace by the development of the efficient use of its own police

powers. It is just the same with many matters wholly unconnected with

criminality. The government has been forced to take the place of the

individual in a hundred different ways; in, for instance, such matters

as the prevention of fires, the construction of drainage systems, the

supply of water, light, and transportation. In a primitive community

every man or family looks after his or its interest in all these

matters. In a city it would be an absurdity either to expect every

man to continue to do this, or to say that he had lost the power of

individual initiative because he relegated any or all of these matters

to the province of those public officers whose usefulness consists in

expressing the collective activities of all the people.

THE SOCIAL GOAL

In other words, the multiplication of activities in a highly civilized

and complex community is such that the enormous increase in collective

activity is really obtained not as a substitute for, but as an

addition to, an almost similar increase in the sphere of individual

initiative and activity. There are, of course, cases of substitution;

but, speaking roughly and on the whole, the statement as above made

is accurate. The increase of collective activity for social and

industrial purposes does not mean in any shape or way a deadening

of individual character and initiative such as would follow on the

effort virtually to apply the doctrines of the Marxian socialists;

for “socialist” is a term so vague, and includes so many men working

wisely for justice, that it is necessary to qualify it in order to

define it. We are striving in good faith to produce conditions in

which there shall be a more general division of material well-being,

to produce conditions under which it shall be difficult for the

very rich to become so very rich, and easier for the men without

capital, but with the right type of character, to lead a life of

self-respecting and hard-working well-being. The goal is a long way

off, but we are striving toward it; and the goal is not socialism, but

so much of socialism as will best permit the building thereon of a

sanely altruistic individualism, an individualism where self-respect

is combined with a lively sense of consideration for and duty toward

others, and where full recognition of the increased need of collective

action goes hand in hand with a developed instead of an atrophied power

of individual action.

Now, it is fairly easy to gain a more or less half-hearted acceptance

of these views as right in the abstract. All that the Progressive party

is endeavoring to do is to apply them in the concrete.

THE REPUBLICAN DIFFERENCE

We are sundered from the men who now control and manage the Republican

party by the gulf of their actual practices and of the openly avowed

or secretly held principles which rendered it necessary for them to

resort to these practices. The rank and file of the Republicans, as

was shown in the spring primaries of 1912, are with us; but they have

no real power against the bosses, and the channels of information are

so choked that they are kept in ignorance of what is really happening.

The doctrines laid down by Mr. Taft as law professor at Yale give the

theoretical justification for the practical action of Mr. Penrose and

Mr. Smoot. The doctrines promulgated by Mr. Nicholas Murray Butler,

when he writes Mr. Barnes’s platform, serve to salve the consciences

of those who, although they object to bossism on esthetic grounds,

yet sincerely feel that governmental corruption is preferable to the

genuine exercise of popular power. This acquiescence in wrong-doing

as the necessary means of preventing popular action is not a new

position. It was the position of many upright and well-meaning Tories

who antagonized the Declaration of Independence and the movement which

made us a nation. It was the position of a portion of the very useful

Federalist party, which at the close of the eighteenth century insisted

upon the vital need of national union and governmental efficiency, but

which was exceedingly anxious to devise methods for making believe to

give the people full power while really putting them under the control

of a propertied political oligarchy.

The control of the Republican National Convention in June, 1912, in

the interest of Mr. Taft was achieved by methods full of as corrupt

menace to popular government as ballot-box stuffing or any species of

fraud or violence at the polls. Yet it was condoned by multitudes of

respectable men of wealth and respectable men of cultivation because

in their hearts they regarded genuine control by what they called “the

mob”--that is, the people--as an evil so great that compared with

it corruption and fraud became meritorious. The Republican party of

to-day has given absolute control of its destinies into the hands of

a National Committee composed of fifty-three irresponsible and on the

whole obscure politicians. It has specifically provided that these men,

who have no responsibility whatever to the public, can override the

lawfully expressed will of the majority in any state primary. It has

perpetuated a system of representation at national conventions which

gives a third of the delegates to communities where there is no real

Republican vote, where no delegation for or against any man really

represents anything, and where, in consequence, the National Committee

can plausibly seat any delegates it chooses without exciting popular

indignation. In sum, these fifty-three politicians have the absolute

and unchallenged control of the National Convention. They do not have

to allow the rank and file of the party any representation in that

convention whatever, and, as has been shown in actual practice, they

surrender to them any control whatever, on the occasion when they deem

it imperatively necessary, merely as a matter of expediency and favor,

and not as a matter of right or principle.

It is difficult to understand how under these conditions

self-respecting men who in good faith uphold popular government can

continue in the party. But it is entirely obvious why those in control

of the party and its main supporters in the political, financial,

and newspaper worlds advocate the system. They do it from precisely

the same motives that actuate them in opposing direct primaries, in

opposing the initiative and the referendum, in opposing the right of

the people to control their own officials, in opposing the right of

the people as against the right of the judges to determine what the

Constitution, the fundamental law of the land, shall permit in the

way of legislation for social and industrial justice. All persons who

sincerely disbelieve in the right and the capacity of the people for

self-rule naturally, and from their point of view properly, uphold a

system of party government like that which obtains under the Republican

National Committee. For precisely similar reasons they antagonize

every proposal to give the people command of their own governmental

machinery. For precisely similar reasons they uphold the divine right

of the judiciary to determine what the people shall be permitted to

do with their own government in the way of helping the multitudes of

hard-working men and women of whose vital needs these well-meaning

judges are entirely ignorant.

THE DEMOCRATIC DIFFERENCE

From the Democratic party as at present constituted we are radically

divided both because of the utter incoherence within that party

itself, and because the doctrines to which it is at present committed

are either fundamentally false or else set forth with a rhetorical

vagueness which makes it utterly futile to attempt to reduce them to

practice. The Democratic party can accomplish nothing of good unless it

deliberately repudiates its campaign pledges--unless it deliberately

breaks the promises it solemnly made in order to acquire power. Such

repudiation necessarily means an intellectual dishonesty so great

that no skill in rhetorical dialectics can cover or atone for it.

To win power by definite promises, and then seek to retain it by the

repudiation of those promises, would show a moral unfitness such as

not to warrant further trust of any kind. Therefore we must proceed

upon the assumption that the leaders of the Democracy meant what they

said when they were seeking to obtain office. Their only performance so

far, at the time that this article is written, is in connection with

the tariff and with a discreditable impotence in foreign affairs. As

a means of helping to solve great industrial and social problems, the

tariff is merely a red herring dragged across the trail to divert our

people from the real issues. The present tariff bill has been handled

by precisely the same improper methods by which the Payne-Aldrich

law was enacted. The only safe way of treating the tariff, that of

a permanent non-partizan, expert tariff commission, providing for

a schedule by schedule reunion, was deliberately repudiated. The

Payne-Aldrich tariff was a thoroughly bad bill; and therefore I am all

the more sorry to see the principles of evil tariff-making which it

crystallized repeated in the Underwood-Wilson bill.

The Democratic party specifically asserted that by correcting the

evils of the tariff they would reduce the cost of living, help the

wage-worker and farmer, and take the most important step necessary

to the solution of the trust problem. So far, there has not been the

smallest evidence that these results will follow their action; and

unless such results do follow from it, the Democratic tariff policy

will be proved an empty sham.

I have read with care Mr. Wilson’s chapter in the “New Freedom”

in which he professes to set forth his attitude as regards the

trusts. The chapter does not contain, as far as I can find, one

specific proposal for affirmative action. It does contain repeated,

detailed, and specific misrepresentations of the Progressive

position--misrepresentations so gross that all that is necessary in

order to refute them is to challenge Mr. Wilson to produce a single

line from the Progressive National platform, or from the speeches of

the men who stood on that platform, which will bear out his assertions.

Aside from these specific misrepresentations, there are various

well-phrased general statements implying, approval of morality in

the abstract, but no concrete proposal for affirmative action. A

patient and sincere effort to find out what Mr. Wilson means by the

“New Freedom” leaves me in some doubt whether it has any meaning at

all. But if there is any meaning, the phrase means and can mean only

freedom for the big man to prey unchecked on the little man, freedom

for unscrupulous exploiters of the public and of labor to continue

unchecked in a career of cutthroat commercialism, wringing their

profits out of the laborers whom they oppress and the business rivals

and the public whom they outwit. This is the only possible meaning that

the phrase can have if reduced to action. It is, however, not probable

that it has any meaning at all. It certainly can have no meaning of

practical value if its coiner will not translate it out of the realm of

magniloquent rhetoric into specific propositions affecting the intimate

concerns of our social and industrial life to-day. To discriminate

against a very few big men because of their efficiency, without regard

to whether their efficiency is used in a social or anti-social manner,

may perhaps be included in Mr. Wilson’s meaning; but this would be

absolutely useless from every aspect, and harmful from many aspects,

while all the other big unscrupulous men were left free to work their

wicked will. The line should be drawn on conduct, not on size. The

man who behaves badly should be brought to book, whether he is big or

little; but there should be no discrimination against efficiency, if

the results of the efficiency are beneficial to the wage-earners and

the public.

THE PEOPLE’S RIGHTS

We have waited for a year to see such propositions made, and until

they are made and put into actual practice, and until we see how they

work, the phrase “New Freedom” must stand as any empty flourish of

rhetoric, having no greater and no smaller value than all the similar

flourishes invented by clever phrase-makers whose concern is with

diction and not action. The problems connected with the trusts, the

problems connected with child labor, and all similar matters, can be

solved only by affirmative national action. No party is progressive

which does not set the authority of the National Government as supreme

in these matters. No party is progressive which does not give to the

people the right to determine for themselves, after due opportunity

for deliberation, but without endless difficulty and delay, what the

standards of social and industrial justice shall be; and, furthermore,

the right to insist upon the servants of the people, legislative and

judicial alike, paying heed to the wishes of the people as to what the

law of the land shall be. The Progressive party believes with Thomas

Jefferson, with Andrew Jackson, with Abraham Lincoln, that this is a

government of the people, to be used for the people so as to better the

condition of the average man and average woman of the nation in the

intimate and homely concerns of their daily lives; and thus to use the

government means that it must be used after the manner of Hamilton and

Lincoln to serve the purposes of Jefferson and Lincoln.

We are for the people’s rights. Where these rights can best be obtained

by exercise of the powers of the State, there we are for States’

rights. Where they can best be obtained by the exercise of the powers

of the National Government, there we are for national rights. We are

not interested in this as an abstract doctrine; we are interested in

it concretely. Wisconsin possesses advanced laws in the interest of

labor. There are other States in this respect more backward, where

wage-workers, and especially women and child wage-workers, are left

at the mercy of greedy and unscrupulous capitalists. Wherever this

operates unjustly to favor the capitalists of other less advanced

States at the expense of Wisconsin, and therefore for business reasons

to make state legislatures fearful of passing laws for the proper

safeguarding of the life, health, and liberty of the wage-workers, then

we believe that the National Government should step in and by national

action secure in the interest of the wage-workers uniform conditions

throughout the Union. We hold it to be the duty of the National

Government to put all the governmental resources of our people,

national and state, behind the movement for the wise and sane uplifting

of the men and women whose lives are hardest.

We believe in the principle of a living wage. We hold that it is

ruinous for all our people, if some of our people are forced to subsist

on a wage such that body and soul alike are stunted. We believe in

safeguarding the body of the wage-worker, and in providing for his

widow and children if he falls a victim to industrial accident. We

believe in shortening the labor day to the point that will tell most

for the laborer’s efficiency both as wage-worker and as citizen. In the

Progressive National platform we inserted the following plank:

SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL JUSTICE

The supreme duty of the nation is the conservation of human

resources through an enlightened measure of social and industrial

justice. We pledge ourselves to work unceasingly in state and

nation for:--

Effective legislation looking to the prevention of industrial

accidents, occupational diseases, overwork, involuntary

unemployment, and other injurious effects incident to modern

industry;

The fixing of minimum safety and health standards for the various

occupations, and the exercise of the public authority of state and

nation, including the federal control over interstate commerce and

the taxing power, to maintain such standards;

The prohibition of child labor;

Minimum wage standards for working women, to provide a living scale

in all industrial occupations;

The prohibition of night work for women and the establishment of an

eight-hour day for women and young persons;

One day’s rest in seven for all wage workers;

The eight-hour day in continuous twenty-four-hour industries;

The abolition of the convict contract labor system; substituting

a system of prison production for governmental consumption only;

and the application of prisoners’ earnings to the support of their

dependent families;

Publicity as to wages, hours and conditions of labor; full reports

upon industrial accidents and diseases, and the opening to public

inspection of all tallies, weights, measures and check systems on

labor products;

Standards of compensation for death by industrial accident and

injury and trade diseases which will transfer the burden of lost

earnings from the families of working people to the industry, and

thus to the community;

The protection of home life against the hazards of sickness,

irregular employment and old age through the adoption of a system

of social insurance adapted to American use;

The development of the creative labor power of America by lifting

the last load of illiteracy from American youth and establishing

continuation schools for industrial education under public control

and encouraging agricultural education and demonstration in rural

schools;

The establishment of industrial research laboratories to put the

methods and discoveries of science at the service of American

producers.

We favor the organization of the workers, men and women, as a means

of protecting their interests and of promoting their progress.

These propositions are definite and concrete. They represent for the

first time in our political history the specific and reasoned purpose

of a great party to use the resources of the government in sane fashion

for industrial betterment.

COUNTRY PROBLEMS

We do not believe in confining governmental activity to the city. We

believe that the problem of life in the open country is well nigh the

gravest problem before this nation. The eyes and thoughts of those

working for social and industrial reform have been turned almost

exclusively toward the great cities, and toward the solution of the

questions presented by their teeming myriads of people and by the

immense complexity of their life. Yet nothing is more certain than

that there can be no permanent prosperity unless the men and women who

live in the open country prosper. The problems of the farm, of the

village, of the country church, and the country school, the problems of

getting most value out of and keeping most value in the soil, and of

securing healthy and happy and well-rounded lives for those who live

upon it, are fundamental to our national welfare. The first step ever

taken toward the solution of these problems was taken by the Country

Life Commission appointed by me, opposed with venomous hostility by

the foolish reactionaries in Congress, and abandoned by my successor.

Congress would not even print the report of this commission, and it

was the public-spirited, far-sighted action of the Spokane Chamber of

Commerce which alone secured the publication of the report. The farmers

must organize as business men and wage-workers have organized, and the

Government must help them organize.

THE BUSINESS WORLD

In dealing with business, the Progressive party is the only party which

has put forth a rational and comprehensive plan. We believe that the

business world must change from a competitive to a coöperate basis. We

absolutely repudiate the theory that any good whatever can come from

confining ourselves solely to the effort to reproduce the dead-and-gone

conditions of sixty years ago--conditions of uncontrolled competition

between competitors most of whom were small and weak. The reason that

the trusts have grown to such enormous size is to be found primarily in

the fact that we relied upon the competitive principle and the absence

of governmental interference to solve the problems of industry. Their

growth is specifically and precisely due to the practice of the archaic

doctrines advocated by President Wilson under the pleasingly delusive

title of the “New Freedom.”

We hold that all such efforts to reproduce dead-and-gone conditions

are bound to result in failure or worse than failure. The breaking-up

of the Standard Oil Trust, for example, has not produced the very

smallest benefit. It has merely resulted in enormously increasing

the already excessive profits of a small number of persons. Not the

smallest benefit would accrue--on the contrary, harm would result--if

in dealing with the Steel Corporation we merely substituted for one

such big corporation four or five smaller corporations of the stamp of

the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company. The “Survey” published a study of the

conditions of life and labor among the wage-workers of this company

which it is not too much to describe as appalling. The effort to

remedy conditions in connection with the trusts by the establishment,

instead of one big company, of four such companies engaged in cutthroat

competition, cannot work the smallest betterment, and would probably

work appreciable harm. That kind of “new” freedom is nothing whatever

but the old, old license for the powerful to prey on the feeble.

COMPETITION AND CORPORATIONS

There is a very real need of governmental action, but it should be

action along a totally different line. The result of the unlimited

action of the competition system is seen at this moment in the

bituminous coal-mines of West Virginia, where the independent

operators, in the ferocity of their unregulated competition, and partly

because they are forbidden to combine even for useful purposes, seek

their profit in the merciless exploitation of the wage-workers who

toil for them. The law, in the strict spirit of the “new freedom,”

forbids them to combine for a useful purpose, and yet offers no check

upon their dealing with their employees in a spirit of brutal greed.

What is needed is thoroughgoing, efficient, and, if necessary, drastic

supervision and control of the great corporations doing an interstate

business, by means of a Federal administrative body akin in its

functions to the Interstate Commerce Commission. This body should have

power not only to enforce publicity, but to secure justice and fair

treatment to investors, wage-workers, business rivals, consumers, and

the general public alike.

Such an industrial commission should do as the Interstate Commerce

Commission should do, that is, remember always its dual duty, the

duty to the corporation and individual controlled no less than to the

public. It is an absolute necessity that the investors, the owners, of

an honest, useful, and decently managed concern, should have reasonable

profit. It is impossible to run business unless this is done. Unless

the business man prospers, there will be no prosperity for the rest of

the community to share. He must have certainty of law and opportunity

for honest and reasonable profit under the law.

Experience has proved that we cannot afford to leave the great

corporations to determine for themselves without governmental

supervision how they shall treat their employees, their rivals, their

customers, and the general public. But experience has no less shown

that it is as fatal for the agents of government to be unjust to the

corporation as to fail to secure justice from them. In dealing with

railways, for example, it is just as important that rates should not

be too low as that they should not be too high. The living wage and

the living rate are interdependent. In dealing with useful, honestly

organized, and honestly managed railways, rates must be kept high

enough to permit of proper wages and proper hours of labor for the men

on the railroad, and to permit the company to pay compensation for the

lives and limbs of those employees who suffer in doing its business;

and at the same time to secure a reasonable reward to the investors--a

reward sufficient to make them desirous to continue in this type

of investment. Precisely the same course of action which should be

followed in dealing with the railroads should also be followed by the

Interstate Industrial Commission in dealing with the great industrial

corporations engaged in interstate business.

TAXATION

We believe that great fortunes, even when accumulated by the man

himself, are of limited benefit to the country, and that they are

detrimental rather than beneficial when secured through inheritance.

We therefore believe in a heavily progressive inheritance tax--a tax

which shall bear very lightly on small or ordinary inheritances, but

which shall bear very heavily upon all inheritances of colossal size.

We believe in a heavily graded income tax, along the same lines, but

discriminating sharply in favor of earned, as compared with unearned,

incomes.

It would be needless and burdensome to set forth in detail all the

matters, national, state, and municipal, to which we would apply

our principles. We believe that municipalities should have complete

self-government as regards all the affairs that are exclusively their

own, including the important matter of taxation, and that the burden

of municipal taxation should be so shifted as to put the weight of

land taxation upon the unearned rise in value of the land itself

rather than upon the improvements, the buildings; the effort being to

prevent the undue rise of rent. We regard it as peculiarly the province

of the government to supervise tenement-houses, to secure proper

living conditions, and to erect parks and playgrounds in the congested

districts, and to use the schools as social centers.

THE PEOPLE AND THE LAWS

We hold that all the agencies of government belong to the people, that

the Constitution is theirs, and that the courts are theirs. The people

should exercise their power, not to overthrow either the Constitution

or the courts, but to overthrow those who would pervert them into

agents against the popular welfare. We believe that where a public

servant misrepresents the people, the people should have the right

to remove him from office, and that where the legislature enacts a

law which it should not enact or fails to enact a law which it should

enact, the people should have the right on their own initiative to

supply the omission. We do not believe that either power should be

loosely or wantonly used, and we would provide for its exercise in a

way which would make its exercise safe; but the power is necessary, and

it should be provided.

We hold, moreover, with the utmost emphasis, that the people themselves

should have the right to decide for themselves after due deliberation

what laws are to be placed upon the statute-books and what construction

is to be placed upon the constitutions, national and state, by the

courts, so far as concerns all laws for social and industrial justice.

This proposal has nothing whatever to do with any ordinary case at

law. It has nothing to do with the exercise by the judge of judicial

functions, or with his decision in any issue merely between man and

man. It has to do only with the exercise by the court of political

and legislative functions. We believe that it is wise to continue the

American practice of using the courts as a check upon the legislature

in this manner, but only so long as it is possible, in the event of

conflict between the legislature and the court, to call in as arbiter

the people who are the masters of both legislature and court, and whose

own vital interests are at issue. The court and the legislature alike

are the servants of the people, and they are dealing with the interests

of the people; and the people, the masters of both, have the right to

decide between them when their own most intimate concerns are at stake.

The present process of constitutional amendment is too long, too

cumbrous, and too uncertain to afford an adequate remedy, and,

moreover, after the amendment has been carried, the law must once more

be submitted to the same court which was, perhaps, originally at fault,

in order to decide whether the new law comes within the amendment.

Provision should be made by which, after due deliberation, the people

should be given the right themselves to decide whether or not a

given law passed in the exercise of the police power for social or

industrial betterment and declared by the court to be unconstitutional,

shall, notwithstanding this, become part of the law of the land. This

proposal has caused genuine alarm and been treated as revolutionary;

but opposition to it can proceed only from complete misunderstanding

both of the proposal and of the needs of the situation. Of course,

however, the selfish opposition of the great corporation lawyers and

of their clients is entirely intelligent; for these men alone are the

beneficiaries of the present reign of hidden, of invisible, government,

and they rely primarily on well-meaning but reactionary courts to

thwart the forward movement.

NO DIVINE RIGHT OF JUDGES

Concretely to illustrate just what we mean, our assertion is that the

people have the right to decide for themselves whether or not they

desire a workmen’s compensation law, or a law limiting the number of

hours of women in industry, or deciding whether in unhealthy bakeshops

wage-workers shall be employed more than a certain length of time per

day, or providing for the safeguarding of dangerous machinery, or

insisting upon the payment of wages in cash, or assuming and exercising

full power over the conduct of corporations--the power denied by the

court in connection with the Knight Sugar Case, but finally secured to

the people by the decision in the Northern securities case. Every one

of these laws has been denied to the people, again and again, both by

national and by state judges in various parts of the Union.

We hold emphatically that these matters are not properly matters for

final judicial decision. The judges have no special opportunity and no

special ability to determine the justice or injustice, the desirability

or undesirability, of legislation of such a character. Indeed, in most

cases, although not in all, the judges in the higher courts are so out

of touch with the conditions of life affected by social and industrial

legislation on behalf of the humble that they are peculiarly unfit to

say whether the legislation is wise or the reverse. Moreover, whether

they are fit or unfit, it is not their province to decide what the

people ought or ought not to desire in matters of this kind. They are

not law-makers; they were not elected or appointed for such purpose.

They are not censors of the public in this matter. We do not purpose to

exalt the legislature at their expense. We do not accept the view so

common in other countries that the legislature should be the supreme

source of power. On the contrary, our experience has been that the

legislature is quite as apt to act unwisely as any other governmental

body; and it is because of this fact that the experiment of so-called

commission government in cities is being so widely tried. We respect

the judges, we think that they are more apt on the whole to be good

public servants than any other men in office; but we as emphatically

refuse to subscribe to the doctrine of the divine right of judges as

to the doctrine of the divine right of kings. We are not specially

concerned with the question as to which of two public servants, the

court or the legislature, shall have the upper hand of the other; but

we are vitally concerned in seeing that the people have the upper hand

over both. Any argument against our position on this point is merely

an argument against democracy.

THE KEYSTONE OF PROGRESSIVISM

Moreover, any professed adherence to our other doctrines, while at the

same time this doctrine is repudiated, means nothing. During the last

forty years the beneficiaries of reaction have found in the courts

their main allies; and this condition, so unfortunate for the courts,

no less than for the people, has been due to our governmental failure

to furnish methods by which an appeal can be taken directly to the

people when, in any such case as the cases I have above enumerated,

there is an issue between the court and the legislature. It is idle to

profess devotion to our Progressive proposals for social and industrial

betterment if at the same time there is opposition to the one

additional proposal by which they can be made effective. It is useless

to advocate the passing of laws for social justice if we permit these

laws to be annulled with impunity by the courts, or by any one else,

after they have been passed. This proposition is a vital point in the

Progressive program.

To sum up, then, our position is, after all, simple. We believe that

the government should concern itself chiefly with the matters that are

of most importance to the average man and average woman, and that it

should be its special province to aid in making the conditions of life

easier for these ordinary men and ordinary women, who compose the great

bulk of our people. To this end we believe that the people should have

direct control over their own governmental agencies; and that when this

control has been secured, it should be used with resolution, but with

sanity and self-restraint, in the effort to make conditions of life and

labor a little easier, a little fairer and better for the men and women

of the nation.

[1] Copyright, 1913, by The Century Co. All rights reserved. The

republication of this article, either in whole or in part, is

expressly prohibited, except through special arrangement with The

Century Co.

[Illustration: Half-tone plate engraved by C. W. Chadwick

ALPHONSE DAUDET

A PORTRAIT SKETCH, DRAWN FROM THE LIFE, BY JOHN ALEXANDER]

“DEY AIN’T NO GHOSTS”

BY ELLIS PARKER BUTLER

Author of “Pigs is Pigs,” “Long Sam ’Takes Out,’” etc.

WITH PICTURES BY CHARLES SARKA

Once ’pon a time dey was a li’l’ black boy whut he name was Mose.

An’ whin he come erlong to be ’bout knee-high to a mewel, he ’gin to

git powerful ’fraid ob ghosts, ’ca’se dat am sure a mighty ghostly

location whut he lib’ in, ’ca’se dey’s a grabeyard in de hollow, an’ a

buryin’-ground on de hill, an’ a cemuntary in betwixt an’ between, an’

dey ain’t nuffin’ but trees nowhar excipt in de clearin’ by de shanty

an’ down de hollow whar de pumpkin-patch am.

An’ whin de night come’ erlong, dey ain’t no sounds _at_ all whut

kin be heard in dat locality but de rain-doves, whut mourn out,

“Oo-_oo_-o-o-o!” jes dat trembulous _an’_ scary, an’ de owls, whut

mourn out, “Whut-_whoo_-o-o-o!” more trembulous an’ scary dan dat, an’

de wind, whut mourn out, “You-_you_-o-o-o!” mos’ scandalous’ trembulous

an’ scary ob all. Dat a powerful onpleasant locality for a li’l’ black

boy whut he name was Mose.

’Ca’se dat li’l’ black boy he so specially black he can’t be seen in de

dark _at_ all ’cept by de whites ob he eyes. So whin he go’ outen de

house _at_ night, he ain’t dast shut he eyes, ’ca’se den ain’t nobody

can see him in de least. He jes as invidsible as nuffin’. An’ who

know’ but whut a great, big ghost bump right into him ’ca’se it can’t

see him? An’ dat shore w’u’d scare dat li’l’ black boy powerful’ bad,

’ca’se yever’body knows whut a cold, damp pussonality a ghost is.

So whin dat li’l’ black Mose go’ outen de shanty at night, he keep’

he eyes wide open, you may be shore. By day he eyes ’bout de size ob

butter-pats, an’ come sundown he eyes ’bout de size ob saucers; but

whin he go’ outen de shanty at night, he eyes am de size ob de white

chiny plate whut set on de mantel; an’ it powerful’ hard to keep eyes

whut am de size oh dat from a-winkin’ an’ a-blinkin’.

So whin Hallowe’en come’ erlong, dat li’l’ black Mose he jes mek’

up he mind he ain’t gwine outen he shack _at_ all. He cogitate’ he

gwine stay right snug in de shack wid he pa an’ he ma, ’ca’se de

rain-doves tek notice dat de ghosts are philanderin’ roun’ de country,

’ca’se dey mourn out, “Oo-_oo_-o-o-o!” an’ de owls dey mourn out,

“Whut-_whoo_-o-o-o!” an’ de wind mourn out, “You-_you_-o-o-o!” De eyes

ob dat li’l’ black Mose dey as big as de white chiny plate whut set on

de mantel by side de clock, an’ de sun jes a-settin’.

So dat all right. Li’l’ black Mose he scrooge’ back in de corner by

de fireplace, an’ he ’low’ he gwine stay dere till he gwine _to_ bed.

But byme-by Sally Ann, whut live’ up de road, draps in, an’ Mistah

Sally Ann, whut is her husban’, he draps in, an’ Zack Badget an’ de

school-teacher whut board’ at Unc’ Silas Diggs’s house drap in, an’ a

powerful lot ob folks drap in. An’ li’l’ black Mose he seen dat gwine

be one s’prise-party, an’ he right down cheerful ’bout dat.

So all dem folks shake dere hands an’ ’low “Howdy,” an’ some ob dem

say: “Why, dere’s li’l’ Mose! Howdy, li’l’ Mose!” An’ he so please’

he jes grin’ an’ grin’, ’ca’se he ain’t reckon whut gwine happen. So

byme-by Sally Ann, whut live up de road, she say’, “Ain’t no sort o’

Hallowe’en lest we got a jack-o’-lantern.” An’ de school-teacher,

whut board at Unc’ Silas Diggs’s house, she ’low’, “Hallowe’en jes no

Hallowe’en _at_ all ’thout we got a jack-o’-lantern.” An’ li’l’ black

Mose he stop’ a-grinnin’, an’ he scrooge’ so far back in de corner he

’mos’ scrooge frough de wall. But dat ain’t no use, ’ca’se he ma say’,

“Mose, go on down to de pumpkin-patch an’ fotch a pumpkin.”

“I ain’t want to go,” say’ li’l’ black Mose.

“Go on erlong wid yo’,” say’ he ma, right commandin’.

“I ain’t want to go,” say’ Mose ag’in.

“Why ain’t yo’ want to go?” he ma ask’.

[Illustration: Drawn by Charles Sarka

“‘WHUT YO’ WANT TO SAY UNTO ME?’ _IN_QUIRE’ LI’L’ BLACK MOSE”]

“’Ca’se I’s afraid ob de ghosts,” say’ li’l’ black Mose, an’ dat de

particular truth an’ no mistake.

“Dey ain’t no ghosts,” say’ de school-teacher, whut board at Unc’ Silas

Diggs’s house, right peart.

“’Ca’se dey ain’t no ghosts,” say’ Zack Badget, whut dat ’fear’d

ob ghosts he ain’t dar’ come to li’l’ black Mose’s house ef de

school-teacher ain’t ercompany him.

“Go ’long wid your ghosts!” say’ li’l’ black Mose’s ma.

“Wha’ yo’ pick up dat nomsense?” say’ he pa. “Dey ain’t no ghosts.”

An’ dat whut all dat s’prise-party ’low: dey ain’t no ghosts. An’ dey

’low dey mus’ hab a jack-o’-lantern or de fun all sp’iled. So dat li’l’

black boy whut he name is Mose he done got to fotch a pumpkin from de

pumpkin-patch down de hollow. So he step’ outen de shanty an’ he stan’

on de door-step twell he get’ he eyes pried open as big as de bottom ob

he ma’s wash-tub, mostly, an’ he say’, “Dey ain’t no ghosts.” An’ he

put’ one foot on de ground, an’ dat was de fust step.

An’ de rain-dove say’, “Oo-_oo_-o-o-o!”

An’ li’l’ black Mose he tuck anudder step.

An’ de owl mourn’ out, “Whut-_whoo_-o-o-o!”

An’ li’l’ black Mose he tuck anudder step.

An’ de wind sob’ out, “You-_you_-o-o-o!”

An’ li’l’ black Mose he tuck one look ober he shoulder, an’ he shut he

eyes so tight dey hurt round de aidges, an’ he pick’ up he foots an’

run. Yas, sah, he run’ right peart fast. An’ he say’: “Dey ain’t no

ghosts. Dey ain’t no ghosts.” An’ he run’ erlong de paff whut lead’

by de buryin’-ground on de hill, ’ca’se dey ain’t no fince eround dat

buryin’-ground _at_ all.

No fince; jes de big trees whut de owls an’ de rain-doves sot in an’

mourn an’ sob, an’ whut de wind sigh an’ cry frough. An’ byme-by

somefin’ jes _brush’_ li’l’ Mose on de arm, which mek’ him run jes

a bit more faster. An’ byme-by somefin’ jes _brush’_ li’l’ Mose on

de cheek, which mek’ him run erbout as fast as he can. An’ byme-by

somefin’ _grab’_ li’l’ Mose by de aidge of he coat, an’ he fight’ an’

struggle’ an’ cry’ out: “Dey ain’t no ghosts. Dey ain’t no ghosts.”

An’ dat ain’t nuffin’ but de wild brier whut grab’ him, an’ dat ain’t

nuffin’ but de leaf ob a tree whut brush’ he cheek, an’ dat ain’t

nuffin’ but de branch ob a hazel-bush whut brush’ he arm. But he

downright scared jes de same, an’ he ain’t lose no time, ’ca’se de wind

an’ de owls an’ de rain-doves dey signerfy whut ain’t no good. So he

scoot’ past dat buryin’-ground whut on de hill, an’ dat cemuntary whut

betwixt an’ between, an’ dat grabeyard in de hollow, twell he come’

to de pumpkin-patch, an’ he rotch’ down an’ tek’ erhold ob de bestest

pumpkin whut in de patch. An’ he right smart scared. He jes de mostest

scared li’l’ black boy whut yever was. He ain’t gwine open he eyes

fo’ nuffin’, ’ca’se de wind go, “You-_you_-o-o-o!” an’ de owls go,

“Whut-_whoo_-o-o-o!” an’ de rain-doves go, “Oo-_oo_-o-o-o!”

He jes speculate’, “Dey ain’t no ghosts,” an’ wish’ he hair don’t stand

on ind dat way. An’ he jes cogitate’, “Dey ain’t no ghosts,” an’ wish’

he goose-pimples don’t rise up dat way. An’ he jes ’low’, “Dey ain’t no

ghosts,” an’ wish’ he backbone ain’t all trembulous wid chills dat way.

So he rotch’ down, an’ he rotch’ down, twell he git’ a good hold on dat

pricklesome stem of dat bestest pumpkin whut in de patch, an’ he jes

yank’ dat stem wid all he might.

“_Let loosen my head!_” say’ a big voice all on a suddent.

Dat li’l’ black boy whut he name is Mose he jump’ ’most outen he skin.

He open’ he eyes, an’ he ’gin’ to shake like de aspen-tree, ’ca’se whut

dat a-standin’ right dar behint him but a ’mendjous big ghost! Yas,

sah, dat de bigges’, whites’ ghost whut yever was. An’ it ain’t got no

head. Ain’t got no head _at_ all! Li’l’ black Mose he jes drap’ on he

knees an’ he beg’ an’ pray’:

“Oh, ’scuse me! ’Scuse me, Mistah Ghost!” he beg’. “Ah ain’t mean no

harm _at_ all.”

“Whut for you try to take my head?” ask’ de ghost in dat fearsome voice

whut like de damp wind outen de cellar.

“’Scuse me! ’Scuse me!” beg’ li’l’ Mose. “Ah ain’t know dat was yo’

head, an’ I ain’t know you was dar _at_ all. ’Scuse me!”

“Ah ’scuse you ef you do me dis favor,” say’ de ghost. “Ah got

somefin’ powerful _im_portant to say unto you, an’ Ah can’t say hit

’ca’se Ah ain’t got no head; an’ whin Ah ain’t got no head, Ah ain’t

got no mouf, an’ whin Ah ain’t got no mouf, Ah can’t talk _at_ all.”

An’ dat right logical fo’ shore. Can’t nobody talk whin he ain’t got no

mouf, an’ can’t nobody have no mouf whin he ain’t got no head, an’ whin

li’l’ black Mose he look’, he see’ dat ghost ain’t got no head _at_

all. Nary head.

So de ghost say’:

“Ah come on down yere fo’ to git a pumpkin fo’ a head, an’ Ah pick’ dat

_ix_act pumpkin whut yo’ gwine tek, an’ Ah don’t like dat one bit. No,

sah. Ah feel like Ah pick yo’ up an’ carry yo’ away, an’ nobody see you

no more for yever. But Ah got somefin’ powerful _im_portant to say unto

yo’, an’ if yo’ pick up dat pumpkin an’ sot it on de place whar my head

ought to be, Ah let you off dis time, ’ca’se Ah ain’t been able to talk

fo’ so long Ah right hongry to say somefin’.”

So li’l’ black Mose he heft up dat pumpkin, an’ de ghost he bend’ down,

an’ li’l’ black Mose he sot dat pumpkin on dat ghostses neck. An’ right

off dat pumpkin head ’gin’ to wink an’ blink like a jack-o’-lantern,

an’ right off dat pumpkin head ’gin’ to glimmer an’ glow frough de mouf

like a jack-o’-lantern, an’ right off dat ghost start’ to speak. Yas,

sah, dass so.

“Whut yo’ want to say unto me?” _in_quire’ li’l’ black Mose.

“Ah want to tell yo’,” say’ de ghost, “dat yo’ ain’t need yever be

skeered of ghosts, ’ca’se dey ain’t no ghosts.”

An’ whin he say dat, de ghost jes vanish’ away like de smoke in July.

He ain’t even linger round dat locality like de smoke in Yoctober. He

jes dissipate’ outen de air, an’ he gone _in_tirely.

So li’l’ Mose he grab’ up de nex’ bestest pumpkin an’ he scoot’. An’

whin he come’ to de grabeyard in de hollow, he goin’ erlong same as

yever, on’y faster, whin he reckon’ he’ll pick up a club _in_ case he

gwine have trouble. An’ he rotch’ down an rotch’ down an’ tek’ hold of

a likely appearin’ hunk o’ wood what right dar. An’ whin he grab’ dat

hunk of wood--

“_Let loosen my leg!_” say’ a big voice all on a suddent.

Dat li’l’ black boy ’most jump’ outen he skin, ’ca’se right dar in de

paff is six ’mendjus big ghostes, an’ de bigges’ ain’t got but one

leg. So li’l’ black Mose jes natchully handed dat hunk of wood to dat

bigges’ ghost, an’ he say’:

“’Scuse me, Mistah Ghost; Ah ain’t know dis your leg.”

An’ whut dem six ghostes do but stand round an’ confabulate? Yas, sah,

dass so. An’ whin dey do so, one say’:

“’Pears like dis a mighty likely li’l’ black boy. Whut we gwine do fo’

to _re_ward him fo’ politeness?”

An’ anudder say’:

“Tell him whut de truth is ’bout ghostes.”

So de bigges’ ghost he say’:

“Ah gwine tell yo’ somefin’ _im_portant whut yever’body don’t know: Dey

_ain’t_ no ghosts.”

An’ whin he say’ dat, de ghostes jes natchully vanish away, an’ li’l’

black Mose he proceed’ up de paff. He so scared he hair jes yank’

at de roots, an’ whin de wind go’, “Oo-_oo_-o-o-o!” an de owl go’,

“Whut-_whoo_-o-o-o!” an’ de rain-doves go, “You-_you_-o-o-o!” he jes

tremble’ an’ shake’. An’ byme-by he come’ to de cemuntary whut betwixt

an’ between, an’ he shore is mighty skeered, ’ca’se dey is a whole

comp’ny of ghostes lined up along de road, an’ he ’low’ he ain’t gwine

spind no more time palaverin’ wid ghostes. So he step’ offen de road

fo’ to go round erbout, an’ he step’ on a pine-stump whut lay right dar.

“_Git offen my chest!_” say’ a big voice all on a suddent, ’ca’se dat

stump am been selected by de captain ob de ghostes for to be he chest,

’ca’se he ain’t got no chest betwixt he shoulders an’ he legs. An’

li’l’ black Mose he hop’ offen dat stump right peart. Yes, _sah_; right

peart.

“’Scuse me! ’Scuse me!” dat li’l’ black Mose beg’ an’ plead’, an’ de

ghostes ain’t know whuther to eat him all up or not, ’ca’se he step’

on de boss ghostes’s chest dat a-way. But byme-by they ’low they let

him go ’ca’se dat was an accident, an’ de captain ghost he say’, “Mose,

you Mose, Ah gwine let you off dis time, ’ca’se you ain’t nuffin’ but a

misabul li’l’ tremblin’ nigger; but Ah want you should _re_mimber one

thing mos’ particular’.”

“Ya-yas, sah,” say’ dat li’l’ black boy; “Ah, ’ll remimber. Whut is dat

Ah got to remimber?”

De captain ghost he swell’ up, an’ he swell’ up, twell he as big as a

house, an’ he say’ in a voice whut shake’ de ground:

“Dey ain’t no ghosts.”

So li’l’ black Mose he bound to remimber dat, an’ he rise’ up an’ mek’

a bow, an’ he proceed’ toward home right libely. He do, indeed.

An’ he gwine along jes as fast as he kin, whin he come’ to de aidge

ob de buryin’-ground whut on de hill, an’ right dar he bound to

stop, ’ca’se de kentry round about am so populate’ he ain’t able to

go frough. Yas, sah, seem’ like all de ghostes in de world habin’ a

conferince right dar. Seem’ like all de ghosteses whut yever was am

havin’ a convintion on dat spot. An’ dat li’l’ black Mose so skeered he

jes fall’ down on a’ old log whut dar an’ screech’ an’ moan’. An’ all

on a suddent de log up and spoke:

“_Get offen me! Get offen me!_” yell’ dat log.

So li’l’ black Mose he git’ offen dat log, an’ no mistake.

An’ soon as he git’ offen de log, de log uprise, an’ li’l’ black Mose

he see’ dat dat log am de king ob all de ghostes. An’ whin de king

uprise, all de congergation crowd round li’l’ black Mose, an’ dey am

about leben millium an’ a few lift over. Yas, sah; dat de reg’lar

annyul Hallowe’en convintion whut li’l’ black Mose interrup’. Right dar

am all de sperits in de world, an’ all de ha’nts in de world, an’ all

de hobgoblins in de world, an’ all de ghouls in de world, an’ all de

spicters in de world, an’ all de ghostes in de world. An’ whin dey see

li’l’ black Mose, dey all gnash dey teef an’ grin’ ’ca’se it gettin’

erlong toward dey-all’s lunch-time. So de king, whut he name old

Skull-an’-Bones, he step’ on top ob li’l’ Mose’s head, an’ he say’:

“Gin’l’min, de convintion will come to order. De sicretary please note

who is prisint. De firs’ business whut come’ before de convintion am:

whut we gwine do to a li’l’ black boy whut stip’ on de king an’ maul’

all ober de king an’ treat’ de king dat disrespictful’.”

An’ li’l’ black Mose jes moan’ an’ sob’:

“’Scuse me! ’Scuse me, Mistah King! Ah ain’t mean no harm _at_ all.”

But nobody ain’t pay no _at_tintion to him _at_ all, ’ca’se yevery one

lookin’ at a monstrous big ha’nt whut name Bloody Bones, whut rose up

an’ spoke.

[Illustration: Drawn by Charles Sarka

“’YERE’S DE PUMPKIN’”]

“Your Honor, Mistah King, an’ gin’l’min _an’_ ladies,” he say’, “dis am

a right bad case ob _lazy majesty_, ’ca’se de king been step on. Whin

yivery li’l’ black boy whut choose’ gwine wander round _at_ night an’

stip on de king ob ghostes, it ain’t no time for to palaver, it ain’t

no time for to prevaricate, it ain’t no time for to cogitate, it ain’t

no time do nuffin’ but tell de truth, an’ de whole truth, an’ nuffin’

but de truth.”

An’ all dem ghostes sicond de motion, an’ dey confabulate out

loud erbout dat, an’ de noise soun’ like de rain-doves goin’,

“Oo-_oo_-o-o-o!” an’ de owls goin’, “Whut-_whoo_-o-o-o!” an’ de wind

goin’, “You-_you_-o-o-o!” So dat risolution am passed unanermous, an’

no mistake.

So de king ob de ghostes, whut name old Skull-an’-Bones, he place’ he

hand on de head ob li’l’ black Mose, an’ he hand feel like a wet rag,

an’ he say’:

“Dey ain’t no ghosts.”

An’ one ob de hairs whut on de head ob li’l’ black Mose turn’ white.

An’ de monstrous big ha’nt whut he name Bloody Bones he lay he hand on

de head ob li’l’ black Mose, an’ he hand feel like a toadstool in de

cool ob de day, an’ he say’:

“Dey ain’t no ghosts.”

An’ anudder ob de hairs whut on de head ob li’l’ black Mose turn’ white.

An’ a heejus sperit whut he name Moldy Pa’m place’ he hand on de head

ob li’l’ black Mose, an’ he hand feel like de yunner side ob a lizard,

an’ he say’:

“Dey ain’t no ghosts.”

An’ anudder ob de hairs whut on de head ob li’l’ black Mose turn’ white

_as_ snow.

An’ a perticklar bend-up hobgoblin he put’ he hand on de head ob li’l’

black Mose, an’ he mek’ dat same _re_mark, an’ dat whole convintion ob

ghostes an’ spicters an’ ha’nts an’ yiver’thing, which am more ’n a

millium, pass by so quick dey-all’s hands feel lak de wind whut blow

outen de cellar whin de day am hot, an’ dey-all say, “Dey ain’t no

ghosts.” Yas, sah, dey-all say dem wo’ds so fas’ it soun’ like de wind

whin it moan frough de turkentine-trees whut behind de cider-priss.

An’ yivery hair whut on li’l’ black Mose’s head turn’ white. Dat whut

happen’ whin a li’l’ black boy gwine meet a ghost convintion dat-a-way.

Dat’s so he ain’ gwine forgit to remimber dey ain’t no ghostes. ’Ca’se

ef a li’l’ black boy gwine imaginate dey _is_ ghostes, he gwine be

skeered in de dark. An’ dat a foolish thing for to imaginate.

So prisintly all de ghostes am whiff away, like de fog outen de holler

whin de wind blow’ on it, an’ li’l’ black Mose he ain’ see no ’ca’se

for to remain in dat locality no longer. He rotch’ down, an’ he raise’

up de pumpkin, an’ he perambulate’ right quick to he ma’s shack, an’ he

lift’ up de latch, an’ he open’ de do’, an’ he yenter’ in. An’ he say’:

“Yere’s de pumpkin.”

An’ he ma an’ he pa, an’ Sally Ann, whut live up de road, an’ Mistah

Sally Ann, whut her husban’, an’ Zack Badget, an’ de school-teacher

whut board at Unc’ Silas Diggs’s house, an’ all de powerful lot of

folks whut come to de doin’s, dey all scrooged back in de cornder

ob de shack, ’ca’se Zack Badget he been done tell a ghost-tale,

an’ de rain-doves gwine, “Oo-_oo_-o-o-o!” an’ de owls am gwine,

“Whut-_whoo_-o-o-o!” and de wind it gwine, “You-_you_-o-o-o!” an’

yiver’body powerful skeered. ’Ca’se li’l’ black Mose he come’

a-fumblin’ an’ a-rattlin’ at de do’ jes whin dat ghost-tale mos’

skeery, an’ yiver’body gwine imaginate dat he a ghost a-fumblin’ an’

a-rattlin’ at de do’. Yas, sah. So li’l’ black Mose he turn’ he white

head, an’ he look’ roun’ an’ peer’ roun’, an’ he say’:

“Whut you all skeered fo’?”

’Ca’se ef anybody skeered, he want’ to be skeered, too. Dat’s natural.

But de school-teacher, whut live at Unc’ Silas Diggs’s house, she say’:

“Fo’ de lan’s sake, we fought you was a ghost!”

So li’l’ black Mose he sort ob sniff an’ he sort ob sneer, an’ he ’low’:

“Huh! dey ain’t no ghosts.”

Den he ma she powerful took back dat li’l’ black Mose he gwine be so

uppetish an’ contrydict folks whut know ’rifmeticks an’ algebricks an’

gin’ral countin’ widout fingers, like de school-teacher whut board at

Unc’ Silas Diggs’s house knows, an’ she say’:

“Huh! whut you know ’bout ghosts, anner ways?”

An’ li’l’ black Mose he jes kinder stan’ on one foot, an’ he jes kinder

suck’ he thumb, an’ he jes kinder ’low’:

“I don’ know nuffin’ erbout ghosts, ’ca’se dey ain’t no ghosts.”

So he pa gwine whop him fo’ tellin’ a fib ’bout dey ain’ no ghosts whin

yiver’body know’ dey is ghosts; but de school-teacher, whut board at

Unc’ Silas Diggs’s house, she tek’ note de hair ob li’l’ black Mose’s

head am plumb white, an’ she tek’ note li’l’ black Mose’s face am de

color ob wood-ash, so she jes retch’ one arm round dat li’l’ black boy,

an’ she jes snuggle’ him up, an’ she say’:

“Honey lamb, don’t you be skeered; ain’ nobody gwine hurt you. How you

know dey ain’t no ghosts?”

An’ li’l’ black Mose he kinder lean’ up ’g’inst de school-teacher whut

board at Unc’ Silas Diggs’s house, an’ he ’low’:

“’Ca’se--’ca’se--’ca’se I met de cap’n ghost, an’ I met de gin’ral

ghost, an’ I met de king ghost, an’ I met all de ghostes whut yiver was

in de whole worl’, an’ yivery ghost say’ de same thing: ’Dey ain’t no

ghosts.’ An’ if de cap’n ghost an’ de gin’ral ghost an’ de king ghost

an’ all de ghostes in de whole worl’ don’ know ef dar am ghostes, who

does?”

“Das right; das right, honey lamb,” say’ de school-teacher. And she

say’: “I been s’picious dey ain’ no ghostes dis long whiles, an’ now I

know. Ef all de ghostes say dey ain’ no ghosts, dey _ain’_ no ghosts.”

So yiver’body ’low’ dat so ’cep’ Zack Badget, whut been tellin’ de

ghost-tale, an’ he ain’ gwine say “Yis” an’ he ain’ gwine say “No,”

’ca’se he right sweet on de school-teacher; but he know right well he

done seen plinty ghostes in he day. So he boun’ to be sure fust. So he

say’ to li’l’ black Mose:

“’T ain’ likely you met up wid a monstrous big ha’nt what live’ down de

lane whut he name Bloody Bones?”

“Yas,” say’ li’l’ black Mose; “I done met up wid him.”

“An’ did old Bloody Bones done tol’ you dey ain’ no ghosts?” say Zack

Badget.

“Yas,” say’ li’l’ black Mose, “he done tell me perzackly dat.”

“Well, if _he_ tol’ you dey ain’t no ghosts,” say’ Zack Badget, “I got

to ’low dey ain’t no ghosts, ’ca’se he ain’ gwine tell no lie erbout

it. I know dat Bloody Bones ghost sence I was a piccaninny, an’ I done

met up wif him a powerful lot o’ times, an’ he ain’ gwine tell no

lie erbout it. Ef dat perticklar ghost say’ dey ain’t no ghosts, dey

_ain’t_ no ghosts.”

So yiver’body say’:

“Das right; dey ain’ no ghosts.”

An’ dat mek’ li’l’ black Mose feel mighty good, ’ca’se he ain’ lak

ghostes. He reckon’ he gwine be a heap mo’ comfortable in he mind sence

he know’ dey ain’ no ghosts, an’ he reckon’ he ain’ gwine be skeered of

nuffin’ never no more. He ain’ gwine min’ de dark, an’ he ain’ gwine

min’ de rain-doves whut go’, “Oo-_oo_-o-o-o!” an’ he ain’ gwine min’

de owls whut go’, “Who-_whoo_-o-o-o!” an’ he ain’ gwine min’ de wind

whut go’, “You-_you_-o-o-o!” nor nuffin’, nohow. He gwine be brave as

a lion, sence he know’ fo’ sure dey ain’ no ghosts. So prisintly he ma

say’:

“Well, time fo’ a li’l’ black boy whut he name is Mose to be gwine up

de ladder to de loft to bed.”

An’ li’l’ black Mose he ’low’ he gwine wait a bit. He ’low’ he gwine

jes wait a li’l’ bit. He ’low’ he gwine be no trouble _at_ all ef he

jes been let wait twell he ma she gwine up de ladder to de loft to bed,

too. So he ma she say’:

“Git erlong wid yo’! Whut yo’ skeered ob whin dey ain’t no ghosts?”

An’ li’l’ black Mose he scrooge’, and he twist’, an’ he pucker’ up de

mouf, an’ he rub’ he eyes, an’ prisintly he say’ right low:

“I ain’ skeered ob ghosts whut am, ’ca’se dey ain’ no ghosts.”

“Den whut _am_ yo’ skeered ob?” ask he ma.

“Nuffin’,” say’ de li’l’ black boy whut he name is Mose; “but I jes

feel kinder oneasy ’bout de ghosts whut ain’t.”

Jes lak white folks! Jes lak white folks!

[Illustration]

[Illustration: A GLIMPSE OF THE GABLED HOUSETOPS OF NEMOURS]

NEMOURS: A TYPICAL FRENCH PROVINCIAL TOWN

BY ROGER BOUTET DE MONVEL

WITH PICTURES BY BERNARD B. DE MONVEL

It is only a little provincial town, like many others in France. It has

no famous monument, and the immediate neighborhood is neither imposing

nor celebrated. And yet this little town, with its quiet streets, its

modest houses, its limpid river, and its Champs de Mars, where in

fine weather the prominent citizens come to discuss the events of the

day, has a tranquil and intimate charm of its own, and the country

thereabouts is so rich in smiling, changing views,--moist fields along

the water’s-edge, wild heaths, and villages bathed in sunlight,--that

the whole makes a picture that wins one’s heart at first sight.

Nemours lies in the department of Seine-et-Marne, that old part of

France which used to be called La Brie, on the road leading from

Fontainebleau to Montargis. As you approach the outlying houses,

you come upon the first bridge that crosses the canal, on the

sluggish waters of which glide unwieldy boats, heavily laden with

wood, blocks of stone, or fine sand, and towed by mules or donkeys.

Once over the bridge, to the right lies the main street, the Rue de

Paris--naturally, for what town of the provinces is without its Rue

de Paris? And what Rue de Paris has not, on one side, a window with

a tempting display of delicacies, and on the other, the shops of the

haberdasher, the grain-seller, the ironmonger, the harness-maker, and

the barber, who, in his shirt-sleeves, stands at his door waiting for

customers; and last, the Café du Progrès, where, gathered about little

tables, the men drink, and hold forth on the future of France. Then you

cross a second stream, bordered with old lime-trees and overshadowed

by the high walls of the convent. Here is the Hôtel de l’Ecu, which

still has the royal arms on its worn façade, and in front of which the

mail-coaches used to stop; here is the market-place; the church, which

dates from the thirteenth century; and, before the church, the statue

of the great man of the neighborhood, Etienne Bezout, the distinguished

mathematician.

If the truth must be told, Etienne Bezout’s fame is hardly world-wide;

but since, in the matter of celebrities, one takes what one can get,

for many long years the townspeople have been glad to have this old

worthy--with his eighteenth-century wig, and his finger pointing

heavenward in an attitude of wisdom and abstraction--preside over their

weekly markets and the meetings of their fire-company, as well as at

their outpourings from mass, from funerals, weddings, and christenings.

Beyond the market-place there is yet a third bridge, the great bridge

overlooking the river Loing. A few steps farther, and you are amused

by the droll sight of the washerwomen as they beat out their linen,

gossiping and shrieking on the bank, like so many frogs at the edge of

a marsh. Over there is the old pond, where the cows linger, and farther

still stands the feudal castle, with its square tower. Beyond this we

look down on the garden of M. le Curé, the tanneries, the convent, the

town mill, and, last of all, on the river, which, though choked with

weeds, is charmingly picturesque by reason of its tiny islands, its

bubbling waterfalls, and its Normandy poplars. Just across the bridge

lie the suburbs of the little town, with its working-men’s houses,

quaint roofs, and farm-yards; and then again the open country and the

green fields.

[Illustration: THE CANAL AT NEMOURS WITH ITS BORDER OF NORMANDY

POPLARS]

[Illustration: “AFTER ALL, EACH MAN ENJOYS LIFE IN HIS OWN WAY”]

But to see Nemours as it should be seen, to catch the peculiar charm

of this little corner of the provinces which Balzac has made famous

in his “Ursule Mirouet,” we must retrace our steps. We must wander

through certain fascinating old streets, with rough cobblestones and

irregular sidewalks; the Rue du Prieuré, for instance, where the

booths of the sabot-makers stand side by side with the tiny shops of

the chair-caners; the Rue de l’Hospice, where old women in caps sit in

their doorways knitting, and where the little orphan children march,

two by two, under the guidance of the sisters of charity. We must

glance at the gabled houses in the Place au Blé and the Place St.-Jean,

or follow the Quai des Fosses, with its rows of flower-beds, where the

trees make green arches along the edge of the river. Now we will steal

into the courtyard of the old castle, which during the crusades was the

fortress of the “great and mighty lords” of that part of the country,

afterward the dwelling-place of the dukes of Nemours. Later, it was

the bailiff’s court down to the time of the Revolution; since when it

has gradually been transformed into a theater and dancing-hall, where

nowadays traveling companies of actors stop to play “The Two Orphans”

or “A Woman’s Punishment.” To-day the castle has a museum, for, just

as any self-respecting town must have a “great man,” it must also have

a museum, whether there is anything to put in it or not. Hence, it was

an important day when the mayor of Nemours, adorned with his tricolored

scarf, surrounded by the town councilors, and preceded by a flourish of

trumpets, instituted this indispensable glory.

As we said before, the little town of Nemours has not been the scene of

any startling event, but, like most of our provincial towns, it belongs

to our past and is a part of our history. Its old walls have looked on

some imposing ceremonies and have witnessed the arrival and departure

of some celebrated personages. Did not Louis XIV himself condescend to

enter Nemours in November, 1696? Later, in 1773, did not the Comtesse

d’Artois choose it as a meeting-place with her sister, the Comtesse de

Provence? One can imagine the militia of Nemours forming in line in

the streets, the windows ablaze with lights, the thundering of cannon,

the waving of flags, the sheriffs in their uniforms of state, and the

townspeople, on bended knees, offering to these great personages their

homage and the freedom of the city.

Indeed, this meeting between the sisters must still stand as the most

memorable incident in the annals or Nemours, for although in our day

politics play a more important part than formerly, we must yet admit

that official ceremonies have lost much of their old-time grandeur.

[Illustration: A FRENCH COUNTRY CART RETURNING HOME ON MARKET-DAY FROM

MARKET]

If we wish to understand the charm of the tranquil life of the

provinces, we must visit some of the townspeople of Nemours, and see

them at their daily tasks in the privacy of their own homes. In common

with the most important world capitals, this tiny town has its own

manner of living, its own customs and traditions. We should follow

yonder stout gentleman as, umbrella in hand, he takes his daily walk

with deliberate steps along the quay; we should say “Good afternoon” to

M. le Curé, whose cassock we see among the trees of his quiet garden;

we should also have a chat with the shoemaker at the corner; and, above

all, we should not fail to have our beard trimmed by the barber in the

Rue Neuve. He is such a kindly fellow, this barber.

[Illustration: “THE ONE NOISY TIME IN THE WEEK IS MARKET-DAY”]

Just beyond the barber’s shop is the hatter’s, and he too seems well

content with his lot. Not that his shop is spacious or his customers

abundant. One wonders how many hats he sells in a week, for, in the

memory of man, no one has ever seen two customers at the same time

in his shop. Nevertheless, whenever you go into the Chappellerie des

Elégants, you are certain to find M. Baudoin at his post behind the

counter, alert and smiling, eager to show you all the novelties of

the season. Above all things, do not venture to hint that his hats

are not the very latest creations as to shape and style, as you would

only surprise him, and inflict pain without standing a chance of

convincing him. M. Baudoin is confident that he can compete with the

most fashionable hatters in Paris, for has he not the best hats that

are made? Besides, can Paris compare with Nemours? You would never make

him believe it. He is proud of his native town, and despite his varied

experience with men and things, he has never seen a finer city. This is

the true provincial spirit.

M. Baudoin is no longer young. A few years more, and he will sell out

his business, and with the proceeds of that sale, combined with his

savings (for, like all good Frenchmen, he has been thrifty), will be

able to end his peaceful life in ease and comfort. A little house in

the suburbs, very new and very white; a tiny garden, with three or

four fruit-trees, flower-beds with trim borders, and the inevitable

fountain--this is M. Baudoin’s dream of an ideal old age.

This is, likewise, the dream of M. Robichon, the clock-maker; of M.

Troufleau, the tailor; and of M. Camus, the grain-merchant, all of whom

have spent their lives quietly in their little shops, selling from time

to time a hat, a watch, or a bag of grain. For the most part, they

have been happy. Their sons will have a modest inheritance, and will

carry on the trade of their fathers, unless one, fired with unusual

ambition, should some day become a country doctor or lawyer’s clerk.

[Illustration: Color-Tone, engraved for ~The Century~ by H.

Davidson

“THE LITTLE ORPHAN CHILDREN MARCH TWO BY TWO”

DRAWN BY BERNARD B. DE MONVEL]

Such are the people, born in the little town or its immediate vicinity.

In addition to this native population, there is a colony of residents

who have come from Paris or elsewhere and, attracted by the charm of

the place, have bought country houses in the neighborhood.

Although only two hours’ distance by rail from Paris, Nemours is a

typical corner of the provinces, where members of the lower middle

class, and even persons of independent means, come in search of rest

and quiet; merchants who have retired from business, army officers on

half-pay, professors grown gray in service, and, oddly enough, a large

number of artists, painters, sculptors, and actors. Some come for the

summer only; others live in or near Nemours all the year round.

It is not every French provincial town that can rival Nemours in one

respect: beside one of the new and dreadful houses its owner has seen

fit to erect a kind of ruin, an imitation in miniature of an old

fortified castle, with simulated remains of battlements, sham doors of

the middle ages, barred windows, etc. He has even taken the trouble

to have a real bullet embedded in the wall of his precious ruin--a

bullet fired, it is said, by the Prussians during their campaign in

France! Above the bullet, the date of the memorable event is placed in

large letters--1814! The bullet looks not unlike a tennis-ball; the

ruin itself seems to be made of papier-mâché; and, with the new house

by the side of the sham ruin, the _tout ensemble_ of this delightful

little property is a triumph of the grotesque. It is certain that it is

not this new and expensive quarter which lends to Nemours its strange

charm, any more than in other French towns, or in Paris itself, where

the modern attempts at architecture are veritable eyesores.

After all, each man enjoys life in his own way; and so M. Chevillard,

a retired lawyer, who does not own any ruins, and who, strange to say,

does not desire any, has a passion of an entirely different kind.

M. Chevillard’s passion is fishing. He has chosen Nemours as his

abiding-place simply because its three watercourses abound in pike and

roach; but that fact does not imply that M. Chevillard catches many

of them. Nevertheless, every day we may see him seated placidly on

his camp-stool, on the bank of the river, near the bridge, wearing an

enormous straw hat, which the suns of many summers have tanned a rich

golden-brown, the shade of well-toasted bread. He holds a fishing-rod

in his hand; the line falls into the water, and its tiny red cork

moves gently to and fro with the current. When this red cork drifts

toward the dark shadows under the bridge, M. Chevillard jerks his rod

up quickly, and we hear the line whistle in the air; then, in the

twinkling of an eye, the cork falls back on the surface of the water,

and the game begins again; and so it goes on all day and every day.

The strange thing is, however, that nearly every one in Nemours has

this same passion for fishing. All along the river, the canal, and the

smaller stream, we see rows of yellow hats, and, under them, any number

of kindly men and women of all ages, who sit calmly from morning till

night, watching their lines.

In addition to this large body of fishermen, there are sportsmen;

but do not imagine that they are any more successful. Formerly, this

part of the country abounded in game; but of late years, owing to

the increasing number of these sportsmen, the pheasants have rapidly

diminished. As the cost of a hunting license in France is moderate, the

humblest grocer may have the privilege of stringing a cartridge-case

across his chest, and, attired in brown linen, with his grandfather’s

old gun on his shoulder, may revel in the joys of the chase. It is not

the humble grocer alone, however, who is responsible for the terrible

slaughter of birds. All the other grocers, his friends and neighbors,

would feel themselves disgraced if they did not follow his example; so,

along with the grocers come the ironmongers, the harness-makers, and

the innkeepers, in such overwhelming numbers that within a week after

the opening of the shooting season not a hair or a feather is left to

tell the tale.

Greatly disturbed by this state of affairs, the sportsmen of Nemours

decided to found a society for the protection of game. Alas! within a

few months serious differences arose in the society, which was promptly

divided into two rival factions. Each faction had its own territory;

and from that moment bird-shooting was forgotten by both parties in

their eagerness to chase each other. The chief idea of each faction

was to guard jealously its own territory; and fierce injunctions were

sent to those imprudent sportsmen who ventured to trespass on forbidden

ground. As the respective shooting territories grow smaller each year,

and the two societies show no signs of being reconciled, there is grave

reason to fear that some fine day, not knowing how else to utilize

their powder and shot, the sportsmen of Nemours may be forced to fire

at one another!

For my own part, I do not imagine that these gentlemen have as yet any

idea of resorting to such extreme measures; but, peaceful and serene

as the little town is, it has its own private quarrels. Just as there

are two sportsmen’s societies, so there are two clubs--two rival clubs,

known, quite properly, as the Union Club and the Peace Club, where

every evening, before dinner, the half-pay captains and the retired

merchants come to play whist at a penny a point. The members are

kindly men, honest and peaceful; but there is not one of them who is

not firmly convinced that any other club but his own is the resort of

ill-bred fellows, not fit associates for himself or his friends. There

is an abundance of gossip in this little town, and gossip travels fast

at card-tables as well as tea-tables. However, only a certain set among

the residents care to lend an ear to the local small-talk.

During the summer, many artists come in quest of rest or an industrious

solitude. They are the ones who really enjoy and appreciate more

than any one else the strange, sweet charm of this little provincial

town, where every house has its garden, and every garden its flowers;

where the peaceful days go by with a slow and regular rhythm, and the

silence is broken only by the sound of the angelus or the ring of the

blacksmith’s anvil.

The one noisy time in the week is market-day, when the throngs of

covered wagons, drawn by strong cart-horses, the peasant women in

their white caps and the men in their blue blouses bringing in cattle,

poultry, fruit, and vegetables, make a lively and attractive scene;

when the air is full of the crack of whips and the tinkle of bells,

and gay with songs, cries, and laughter. But it may not be long before

the country carts will give way to automobiles, the white caps to

beflowered hats, and the blouses to jackets of the latest cut.

THE AUTO-COMRADE

BY ROBERT HAVEN SCHAUFFLER

Author of “Romantic Germany,” “Romantic America,” etc.

Human nature abhors a vacuum, especially a vacuum inside itself. Offer

the ordinary man a week’s vacation all alone, and he will look as

though you were offering him a cell in Sing Sing.

“There are a great many people,” says that wise and popular oracle,

Ruth Cameron, “to whom there is no prospect more terrifying than that

of a few hours with only their own selves for company. To escape that

terrible catastrophe, they will make friends with the most fearful bore

or read the most stupid story.... If such people are marooned a few

hours, not only without human companionship, but even without a book or

magazine with which to screen their own stupidity from themselves, they

are fairly frantic.”

If any one hates to be alone with himself, the chances are that he has

not much of any self to be alone with. He is in as desolate a condition

as a certain Mr. Pease of Oberlin, who, having lost his wife and

children, set up his own tombstone and chiseled upon it this epitaph:

“Here lies the pod.

The Pease are shelled and gone to God.”

Now, pod-like people are always solitary wherever other people are

not; and there is, of course, nothing much more distressing than

solitariness. These people, however, through sheer ignorance, fall into

a confusion of thought. They suppose that solitude and solitariness

are the same thing. To the artist in life there is just one difference

between these two: it is the difference between heaven and its

antipodes. For, to the artist in life, solitude is solitariness plus

the Auto-comrade.

As it is the Auto-comrade who makes all the difference, I shall try to

describe his appearance. His eyes are the most arresting part of him.

They never peer stupidly through great, thick spectacles of others’

making. They are scarcely ever closed in sleep, and sometimes make

their happiest discoveries during the small hours. Indeed, these hours

are probably called small because the Auto-comrade often turns his eyes

into the lenses of a moving-picture machine that is so entertaining

that it compresses the hours to seconds. These eyes, through constant,

alert use, have become sharp. They can pierce through the rinds of the

toughest personalities, and even penetrate on occasion into the future.

They can also take in whole panoramas of the past in one sweeping

look. For they are of that “inner” variety through which Wordsworth,

winter after winter, used to survey his daffodil-fields. “The bliss of

solitude,” he called them.

The Auto-comrade has an adjustable brow. It can be raised high enough

to hold and reverberate and add rich overtones to the grandest chords

of thought ever struck by a Plato, a Buddha, or a Kant. The next

instant it may easily be lowered to the point where Hy Mayer’s latest

cartoon or the tiny cachinnation of a machine-made Chesterton paradox

will not ring entirely hollow. As for his voice, it can at times be

more musical than Melba’s or Caruso’s. Without being raised above a

whisper, it can girdle the globe. It can barely breathe some delicious

new melody; yet the thing will float forth not only undiminished, but

gathering beauty, significance, and incisiveness in every land it

passes through.

The Auto-comrade is an erect, wiry young figure of an athlete. As he

trades at the Seven-League Boot and Shoe Concern, it never bothers him

to accompany you on the longest tramps. His feet simply cannot be tired

out. As for his hands, they are always alert to give you a lift up the

rough places on the mountain-side. He has remarkable presence of body.

In any emergency he is usually the best man on the spot.

A popular saw asserts that “looks do not count.” But in this case

they do count. For the Auto-comrade looks exactly like himself. He

is at once seer, creator, accomplisher, and present help in time of

trouble. But his every-day occupation is that of entertainer. He is the

joy-bringer--the Prometheus of pleasure. In his vicinity there is no

such thing as ennui or lonesomeness. Emerson wrote:

“When I would spend a lonely day

Sun and moon are in my way.”

But for pals of the Auto-comrade, not only sun, moon, etc., are in the

way, but all of his own unlimited resources. For every time and season

he has a fittingly varied repertory of entertainment.

Now and again he startles you with the legerdemain feat of snatching

brand-new ideas out of the blue, like rabbits out of a hat. While you

stand at the port-hole of your cabin and watch the rollers rushing

back to the beloved home-land you are quitting, he marshals your

friends and acquaintances into a long line for a word of greeting or

a rapid-fire chat, just as though you were some idol of the people,

and were steaming past the Statue of Liberty on your way home from

lion-slaughter in Africa, and the Auto-comrade were the factotum at

your elbow who asks, “What name, please?”

After the friends and acquaintances, he even brings up your _bêtes

noires_ and dearest enemies for inspection and comment. Strangely

enough, viewed in this way, these persons no longer seem so

contemptible or pernicious or devilish as they once did. At this point

your factotum rubs your eye-glasses bright with the handkerchief he

always carries about for slate-cleaning purposes, and, lo! you even

begin to discover hitherto unsuspected good points about the chaps.

Then there are always your million and one favorite melodies which

nobody but that all-around musical amateur, the Auto-comrade, can so

exquisitely whistle, hum, strum, fiddle, blat, or roar. There is also

a universeful of new ones for him to improvise. And he is the jolliest

sort of fellow-musician, because, when you play or sing a duet with

him, you can combine with the exciting give-and-take and reciprocal

stimulation of the duet the godlike autocracy of the solo, with its

opportunity for uninterrupted, uncoerced, wide self-expression.

Sometimes, however, in the first flush of escape with him to the wilds,

you are fain to clap your hand over his mouth in order the better

to taste the essentially folkless savor of solitude. For music is a

curiously social art, and Browning was right when he said, “Who hears

music, feels his solitude peopled at once.”

Perhaps you can find your entertainer a small lump of clay or

modeling-wax to thumb into bad caricatures of those you love and

good ones of those you hate, until increasing facility impels him to

try and model not a Tanagra figurine, for that would be unlike his

original fancy, but a Hoboken figurine, say, or a sketch for some Elgin

(Illinois) marbles.

If you care anything for poetry and can find him a stub of pencil and

an unoccupied cuff, he will be most completely in his element; for

if there is any one occupation more closely identified with him than

another, it is that of poet. And though all Auto-comrades are not

poets, all poets are Auto-comrades. Every poem which has ever thrilled

this world or another has been written by the Auto-comrade of some

so-called poet. This is one reason why the so-called poets think so

much of their great companions. “Allons! after the great companions!”

cried old Walt to his fellow-poets. If he had not overtaken, and

held fast to, his, we should never have heard the “Leaves of Grass”

whispering “one or two indicative words for the future.” The bards

have always obeyed this call. And they have known how to value their

Auto-comrades, too. See, for example, what Keats thought of his:

Though the most beautiful Creature were waiting for me at the

end of a Journey or a Walk; though the Carpet were of Silk, the

Curtains of the morning Clouds; the chairs and Sofa stuffed with

Cygnet’s down; the food Manna, the Wine beyond Claret, the Window

opening on Winander mere, I should not feel--or rather my Happiness

would not be so fine, as my Solitude is sublime. Then instead of

what I have described, there is a sublimity to welcome me home--The

roaring of the wind is my wife and the Stars through the window

pane are my Children.... I feel more and more every day, as my

imagination strengthens, that I do not live in this world alone

but in a thousand worlds--No sooner am I alone than shapes of epic

greatness are stationed around me, and serve my Spirit the office

which is equivalent to a King’s body-guard.... I live more out of

England than in it. The Mountains of Tartary are a favorite lounge,

if I happen to miss the Alleghany ridge, or have no whim for Savoy.

This last sentence not only reveals the fact that the Auto-comrade,

equipped as he is with a wishing-mat, is the very best cicerone in the

world, but also that he is the ideal tramping companion. Suppose you

are mountain-climbing. As you start up into “nature’s observatory,” he

kneels in the dust and fastens wings upon your feet. He conveniently

adjusts a microscope to your hat-brim, and hangs about your neck an

excellent telescope. He has enough sense, as well, to keep his mouth

shut. For, like Hazlitt, he “can see no wit in walking and talking.”

The joy of existence, you find, rarely tastes more cool and sweet and

sparkling than when you and your Auto-comrade make a picnic thus,

swinging in a basket between you a real, live thought for lunch. On

such an occasion you come to believe that Keats, on another occasion,

must have had his Auto-comrade in mind when he remarked to his friend

Solitude that

“... it sure must be

Almost the highest bliss of human-kind,

When to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee.”

The Auto-comrade can sit down with you in thick weather on a barren

lighthouse rock and give you a breathless day by hanging upon the walls

of fog the mellow screeds of old philosophies, and causing to march

and countermarch over against them the scarlet and purple pageants of

history. Hour by hour, too, he will linger with you in the metropolis,

that breeder of the densest solitudes,--in market or morgue, subway,

library, or lobby,--and hour by hour unlock you those chained books of

the soul to which the human countenance offers the master key.