I used to recall, during the early and acute phase of this discussion,
an incident that occurred in the old Springfield days in Loami, down
in the Sangamon country. The little village in those days could boast
an institution unlike any, perhaps, in the land, unless it were to
be found in some small hamlet in the South. In the public square, on
a space worn smooth and hard as asphalt, a great circle was drawn,
and here, every day when the weather was fine, a company of old
men gathered and played marbles. What the game was I do not know;
some development of one of the boys’ games, no doubt, but with what
improvements and embellishments only the old men who understood and
played it could say. Its enthralled votaries played with large marbles,
which spun from their gnarled and horny knuckles all day long, with a
shifting crowd of onlookers gaping at their prowess. The players were
old and dignified, and took their sport seriously. There were to be
seen, about that big ring, sages who had sat on juries and been swayed
by the arguments of Lincoln; there were gray veterans who had gone with
Sherman to the sea and had been with Grant at Appomattox; and now, in
their declining years, they found pleasure and a mildly stimulating
excitement in this exercise. The skill they developed in the game is
said by those who have studied the subject on the ground to have been
considerable; some testify that these elders had raised their sport to
the point of scientific dignity, and that the ability they displayed
ranked them as the equals of golfers or of billiardists.
The exciting tournaments went on for years, the old gentlemen were
happy, the little village was peaceful and contented, when suddenly
the town was shocked by a new sensation. Loami elected a reform
administration. How it came about I do not know; some local muckraker
may have practiced his regenerating art, or perhaps some little rivulet
of the reform wave just then inundating the larger world outside
may have trickled down into Loami. What privilege in the town was
menaced I do not know; what portion of eminent respectability felt
its perquisites in danger I cannot say; but Privilege seems to have
done what it always does when pursued--namely, it began to cry for the
reformation of persons instead of conditions. The new reform mayor,
like many another mayor, was influenced; and, looking about for someone
to reform, his eye wandered out of the window of the town hall one May
morning and lighted on the grizzled marble-players, and he ordered the
constable into action.
Upon what legal grounds he based his edict I cannot say. It is not
vital for, as there were about sixteen thousand laws then running in
his jurisdiction, it would not have been difficult to justify his
action on legal grounds. It will be remembered that the old men were
playing in the public square; perhaps they played “for keeps,” and
it may have been that there were certain little understandings of a
speculative nature on the side. Above all, the old men were enjoying
themselves, and if this were not a sufficient offense what could be?
And if a constable’s highest duty were not to interfere with the
enjoyment of other folks what would become of the constitution and the
law?
At any rate the old men were forbidden to play, their game was rudely
interrupted, their ring obliterated, their marbles confiscated. There
was, of course, resistance; some skirmishing and scrimmaging; a heated,
acrimonious proceeding in the mayor’s court, and afterward hatred and
strife and bad feeling, the formation of factions, and other conditions
catalogued under law and order. But at length the space worn so smooth
under the trees near the bandstand was sodded, and the old fellows
might gather in silent contemplation of a new sign, “Keep off the
Grass,” and reflect upon this supreme vindication of authority.
But Loami is a democracy, or as much of a democracy as the state will
permit it to be, and when the next election rolled around the old men
were alert, and after an exciting contest they elected a mayor of their
own, a liberal. The reform mayor was relegated to the political limbo
of one-termers, the privileged few preserved their privileges, and
the old men, skinning the sod off that portion of the public square,
drew anew their huge bull-ring, resumed their game, and everybody was
happy and unreformed except, of course, the reformers; though perhaps
they were happy, too, in their restored misery of having something to
complain about and to wag their heads over.
In relating this veracious little tale of the lid of Loami, perhaps
I have not sufficiently revealed that attitude of moral sympathy
toward the good characters in the story which Tolstoy insists a writer
should always assume and maintain. But this has not been due to any
want of that sympathy. In the shadows of the scene the figure of the
mayor, for instance, has ever been present--the keenest sufferer, the
most unhappy man of them all. He was the one of all of them who was
burdened with official responsibility; the marble-playing faction was
happy in that it had no responsibility save of that light, artificial
sort imposed by the rules of its game; its conscience, indeed, was
untroubled. The other faction--the goo-goos, or whatever they were
called in Loami--felt responsible primarily for the short-comings of
others; their consciences were troubled only by the sins of other
people, the easiest and most comfortable, because it is the most
normal, position that the human conscience can assume. But the mayor
was held responsible for everything and everybody, and in seeking to
do his duty he found that difficulty which must everywhere increase
in a society and a civilization which, in casting off some of its old
moorings, recognizes less the responsibility of parent and teacher, not
to mention personal responsibility, and is more and more disposed to
look to the law and its administrators as the regulators and mentors of
conduct.