THE HIGH PRIEST OF DEMETER
The affidavits read before the court by both sides brought out the facts
of the case in a manner to leave no doubt in a reasonable mind as to
Chairo's guilt. It was true that the person who actually forced the gate
of the cloister and overpowered the janitor remained unknown, but Chairo
had been arrested in the act of flight and in the company of Lydia,
whose capture was the only possible motive for the act. Then, too, on
the evening that preceded the capture a typewritten message had been
received by the high priest of the cult informing him that Chairo's
carriage would that night break down upon a certain road, and that the
cult would have an interest in watching the event. Clearly, therefore,
the capture had been planned by Chairo. Then, too, for every affidavit
read by Ariston to prove that the attack on the House of Detention had
been arranged as well as executed by Balbus a dozen affidavits were read
by the other side showing the preparations for violence that had been
made by Chairo prior to the carrying off of Lydia. The only question
that the court had to decide was, whether Chairo's immunity from
imprisonment as a member of the legislature applied to his case;
obviously he was an accessory to the crime after as well as before the
fact, even though he were not guilty of the crime itself; and he was
caught in the very act of carrying out the object for which the crime
was committed--that is to say, the placing of Lydia beyond the reach of
the cult. But Ariston argued that there was no obligation upon the court
to hold Chairo; the matter under the peculiar conditions which presented
themselves was practically left to their discretion; and he appealed to
them to liberate Chairo lest he should use his imprisonment as an
argument before the higher tribunal of public opinion, to which the
question must ultimately be referred. The court adjourned without
rendering a decision; and it was later arranged that Lydia be removed
from New York and Chairo released on parole not to leave the city limits
until the trial of his case.
Lydia, therefore, was taken to the Pater's farm at Tyringham; and I
gladly accepted an invitation to join the party there, which included
Ariston, Anna of Ann, the high priest of the cult, and a few others.
* * * * *
I was much interested to learn there the particular form of Collectivism
which prevailed in the country districts of New England. The land, it is
true, technically belonged to the state, but the enjoyment of it had
never been taken from those farmers who were able and willing to pay to
the state the amount of produce exacted by it. Assessors periodically
visited every district to determine what crops the land was best fitted
to produce, and what amount of the designated crop the occupying farmer
should pay the state. The farmer was not bound to grow the particular
crop designated, unless a shortage in a preceding year obliged the state
to require a quota of the designated crop. He was free to furnish the
state some other crop according to a fixed scale, the bushel of wheat
constituting the standard--a bushel of wheat being equivalent to so much
hay, so many pounds of potatoes, etc. But the farmer generally grew
enough of the particular crop designated to furnish the amount required.
The state suggested the best rotation of crops and the farmer was left a
certain choice.
The working of the system was to eliminate all the incapable farmers,
leaving upon the land only the most capable. The eliminated were put to
other employments. The surviving fit generally enjoyed an enviable
existence; for the exactions of the state were not exorbitant, and it
had become a rule that no farmer should ever be deprived of a farm so
long as he paid the state contribution; thus, the state contribution was
practically nothing more nor less than a state tax.
The Pater had succeeded to his farm from his father, who himself had
succeeded to his, so that the same land had remained in the same family
since our day. There was no limitation of hours of work on the farm. The
occupation was regarded as so desirable that farm laborers willingly
gave their whole time; for during the summer their life was enlivened by
the arrival of city dwellers, who occupied the colony buildings adjacent
in the neighborhood; and in the depth of the winter, when the sporting
season was over, every farm laborer had his two or three months in town.
The owner of the farm, for so every farmer was still called, supported
his own laborers and supplied them with money for their annual city
vacation. His own wants, including the wages paid to the laborer, were
supplied by the sale to the state of the farm produce over and above
that required by the state for rent. The essential Collectivist feature
of the system consisted in the fact that no man was obliged by the
necessity of earning wages to work upon a farm. He could always refuse
to work for a farmer by taking work from the state. Only those farmers
who knew how to make their farms not only prosperous but attractive,
could secure laborers, the relation between a farmer and his hands being
that of man to man rather than that of employer to employee. Indeed, it
was the security every man and woman had of employment by the state that
had caused pauperism and prostitution to disappear; and with them the
dependence of one class upon another. In agriculture, as in manufacture,
employment of one individual by another was a matter of inclination, not
of compulsion; and under these circumstances every employer took care to
make his employment agreeable and to share equitably with his
fellow-workers the product of their joint labors.
As soon as the hearing of habeas corpus proceedings were concluded and
Lydia was transported to Tyringham she rapidly gained health. Chairo
wrote to her daily the progress of his preparations for the legislature,
which was to meet in a few days. He was assured of Masters's support in
favor of a bill of amnesty to all engaged in the carrying off of Lydia
and the attack on the House of Detention, and this bill would constitute
the first business to be brought before the Assembly. An identical bill
would be introduced in the Senate, and efforts were being made at once
to secure the approval of the governor.
Meanwhile we often had leisure at Tyringham for the discussion of the
Demetrian cult, which had given rise to so great a tumult. The day that
the high priest received intelligence of the proposed amnesty bill I
asked him his views regarding it.
The high priest was a tall, aged man, closely shaven--as indeed were all
the priests--and very slow and distinct in his way of speaking. Though
he occupied the highest function in the cult he was by no means its
controlling will. On the contrary, the Demetrian council was composed
almost entirely of women, that is to say, priestesses; but it had passed
into a tradition that in order to avoid too great animosity on the part
of the men, these last should be permitted a representation on the
council and the presiding officer and the head of the cult should be a
man.
The high priest answered my question with his usual deliberation and
care:
"I cannot tell you what my own views regarding this matter are; the
subject will be discussed by the council and its argument presented in
due time by its representative in the legislature, but I can tell you
some of the things that occur to me in favor of this measure and against
it:
"In the first place, it is clear that whatever may be the merits of the
Demetrian cult it is bound sometimes to occasion misfortune; misfortune
is seldom distinguished from injustice, and so the cult is made to bear
the brunt of every disappointment that results from the working of the
system, whether it proceeds from unwisdom, caprice, or accident. Now
against caprice and accident the cult is powerless; but as regards
unwisdom, whether it be in the council or in those to whom the council
tenders the mission, the cult is responsible, and must be held
responsible. Whether the misfortune in this case results from unwisdom
or not is a question which I do not care to discuss; but obviously
something has occurred that can be used to discredit our cult, and it is
the part of wisdom to diminish the evil resulting therefrom to the
utmost possible.
"In the second place, there has been recourse to violence, and violence
is the greatest crime against social welfare which any man can commit.
Are the persons guilty of this crime to be left uncorrected and free to
frame new plots of violence against the state?
"In the third place, a trial of all the persons involved in this matter
is going to give rise to a great public scandal. The trial is
essentially of a political character, and no political trial can be
conducted impartially; the very fact that political prejudice enters
into it necessarily impairs the impartiality of the court; and even if a
fair court could be secured, the defeated political faction would surely
accuse the court of unfairness.
"All these things make the decision of this question complicated and
difficult."
"But," asked I, "does not the very fact that your cult raises these
difficulties put into question the wisdom of the cult itself?"
"Do you mean to say that in your opinion the mission of Demeter, with
the beauty of its sacrifice and the blessing it must eventually bring
upon the race, should be abandoned because in a single instance it has
crossed the passion of a Chairo?"
"In the first place," asked I, "is it sure to bring a sensible benefit
to the race? And in the second, is the sacrifice a beautiful one? Is it
not rather inhuman and repulsive?"
"I shall answer your questions in the order you put them: Plato was the
first philosopher on record who proposed applying to the breeding of men
the same art as we apply to the breeding of animals--and he did not
seriously propose it; his proposition was spurned, as you know, by all
so-called practical statesmen up to the day of Latona, not because the
evil attending the existing system was not recognized, but because the
remedy proposed seemed worse than the evil. And, indeed, if men and
women were to be obliged to mate or refrain from mating at the bidding
of the state, one may well ask whether life would not become intolerable
to the point of universal suicide. The evil, therefore, remained
unabated. Consumption, scrofula, cancer, and other unnamable diseases
became rooted in the race on the one hand, and no attempt was made to
compensate the evil by selecting according to art. Not only so, but the
pauper proved the most prolific, the cultured the least prolific; so
that the breeding of man--far more important to human happiness than the
breeding of sheep--seemed contrived so as to occasion the minimum of
good and the maximum of evil. There seemed to be only two ways to
mitigate this curse: one, to restore marriage to the sanctity it
theoretically had under the canons of the church; the other, to appeal
to the self-sacrifice of a few gifted women. As to the first, Latona
believed marriage to be degraded in great part through the inability of
young men and women to choose their mates with wisdom, and she
instituted therefore the system of provisional marriage, tolerable only
in youth, and though possible in later years, tolerated then only under
extraordinary circumstances. As to the second, Latona instituted the
mission of Demeter.
"It is not easy yet to draw any definite conclusion from the practical
working of the system, for it has not been working long enough.
Nevertheless, it would be impossible, I think, to find anywhere a more
hopeful band of youths than those to whose education Irene and her staff
are now devoting themselves. Indeed, wherever the cult is in operation
the girls and boys who proceed from the cloister are, to my judgment,
immeasurably superior in the average to any similar number drawn at
haphazard from the community at large. And, indeed, how could it be
otherwise? Heredity must in the long run count for a great deal; and by
securing to the Demetrian issue, not only the highest conceivable
education and parental care, but a sense that they owe something more to
themselves as regards standard of conduct because they owe so much to
the state, we create an environment which gives hereditary tendencies
the best possible opportunities for development.
"Now, as regards the last part of your question, my answer is a very
simple one: The mission is beautiful only when wisely tendered and
wisely accepted; when unwisely tendered or unwisely accepted it is
likely to be, as you say, inhuman and even repulsive."
"But how are you going to learn wisdom," asked I, "in a matter so
difficult?"
"Experience has already helped us, I think, to avoid serious mistakes
except in such exceptional cases as this of Lydia. For your attention
has perhaps not been called to a profound difference that exists in
women little recognized in your day. This difference can, I think, best
be defined as follows: some women are essentially wives, others are
essentially mothers. Love is the key that opens the heart of the one,
maternity the instinct that animates the other. You are a lawyer, are
you not? Did you ever have any divorce cases?"
"Many!"
"Ransack your brain, then, and see if you do not find there evidence of
what I have stated."
He paused; and there came back to me an interview with a woman who
complained that her husband did not wish her to have children; and as it
was children she wanted--so she said--the husband was almost immaterial.
There came to my mind also many women I had known for whom the husband
ceased to have importance the moment a child was born.
"Our art," continued he, "consists in selecting the women who combine
willingness to sacrifice themselves with this maternal instinct; and not
the maternal instinct alone--most women have this--but a maternal
instinct that preponderates every other. We have made a double mistake
in Lydia: her love for Chairo is the prepondering instinct; and though
she has undoubtedly a strongly developed religion of sacrifice, she is
also fond of pleasure. That pretty little tip-tilted nose of hers," he
added, smiling, "should have warned us of this!"