Oh, Missouri!
The tragedy occurred near Pierce City, down in the southwestern corner
of the state. On a Sunday afternoon a young white woman who had started
alone from church was found murdered. For there are churches there; in
my time religion was more general, more pervasive, in the South than it
was in the North, and more virile and earnest, too, I think; I have some
reason to believe that this is still the case. The young woman was found
murdered. Although it was a region of churches and schools the people
rose, lynched three negroes--two of them very aged ones--burned out five
negro households, and drove thirty negro families into the woods.
I do not dwell upon the provocation which moved the people to these
crimes, for that has nothing to do with the matter; the only question
is, does the assassin _take the law into his own hands_? It is very
simple, and very just. If the assassin be proved to have usurped the
law’s prerogative in righting his wrongs, that ends the matter; a
thousand provocations are no defense. The Pierce City people had bitter
provocation--indeed, as revealed by certain of the particulars, the
bitterest of all provocations--but no matter, they took the law into
their own hands, when by the terms of their statutes their victim would
certainly hang if the law had been allowed to take its course, for there
are but few negroes in that region and they are without authority and
without influence in overawing juries.
Why has lynching, with various barbaric accompaniments, become a
favorite regulator in cases of “the usual crime” in several parts of the
country? Is it because men think a lurid and terrible punishment a more
forcible object lesson and a more effective deterrent than a sober and
colorless hanging done privately in a jail would be? Surely sane men do
not think that. Even the average child should know better. It should
know that any strange and much-talked-of event is always followed by
imitations, the world being so well supplied with excitable people who
only need a little stirring up to make them lose what is left of their
heads and do mad things which they would not have thought of ordinarily.
It should know that if a man jump off Brooklyn Bridge another will
imitate him; that if a person venture down Niagara Whirlpool in a barrel
another will imitate him; that if a Jack the Ripper make notoriety by
slaughtering women in dark alleys he will be imitated; that if a man
attempt a king’s life and the newspapers carry the noise of it around
the globe, regicides will crop up all around. The child should know that
one much-talked-of outrage and murder committed by a negro will upset
the disturbed intellects of several other negroes and produce a series
of the very tragedies the community would so strenuously wish to
prevent; that each of these crimes will produce another series, and year
by year steadily increase the tale of these disasters instead of
diminishing it; that, in a word, the lynchers are themselves the worst
enemies of their women. The child should also know that by a law of our
make, communities, as well as individuals, are imitators; and that a
much-talked-of lynching will infallibly produce other lynchings here and
there and yonder, and that in time these will breed a mania, a fashion;
a fashion which will spread wide and wider, year by year, covering state
after state, as with an advancing disease. Lynching has reached
Colorado, it has reached California, it has reached Indiana--and now
Missouri! I may live to see a negro burned in Union Square, New York,
with fifty thousand people present, and not a sheriff visible, not a
governor, not a constable, not a colonel, not a clergyman, not a
law-and-order representative of any sort.
_Increase in Lynching._--In 1900 there were eight more cases than in
1899, and probably this year there will be more than there were last
year. The year is little more than half gone, and yet there are
eighty-eight cases as compared with one hundred and fifteen for all of
last year. The four Southern states, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and
Mississippi are the worst offenders. Last year there were eight cases
in Alabama, sixteen in Georgia, twenty in Louisiana, and twenty in
Mississippi--over one-half the total. This year to date there have
been nine in Alabama, twelve in Georgia, eleven in Louisiana, and
thirteen in Mississippi--again more than one-half the total number in
the whole United States.--Chicago _Tribune_.
It must be that the increase comes of the inborn human instinct to
imitate--that and man’s commonest weakness, his aversion to being
unpleasantly conspicuous, pointed at, shunned, as being on the unpopular
side. Its other name is Moral Cowardice, and is the commanding feature
of the make-up of 9,999 men in the 10,000. I am not offering this as a
discovery; privately the dullest of us knows it to be true. History will
not allow us to forget or ignore this supreme trait of our character. It
persistently and sardonically reminds us that from the beginning of the
world no revolt against a public infamy or oppression has ever been
begun but by the one daring man in the 10,000, the rest timidly waiting,
and slowly and reluctantly joining, under the influence of that man and
his fellows from the other ten thousands. The abolitionists remember.
Privately the public feeling was with them early, but each man was
afraid to speak out until he got some hint that his neighbor was
privately feeling as he privately felt himself. Then the boom followed.
It always does. It will occur in New York, some day; and even in
Pennsylvania.
It has been supposed--and said--that the people at a lynching enjoy the
spectacle and are glad of a chance to see it. It cannot be true; all
experience is against it. The people in the South are made like the
people in the North--the vast majority of whom are right-hearted and
compassionate, and would be cruelly pained by such a spectacle--and
_would attend it_, and let on to be pleased with it, if the public
approval seemed to require it. We are made like that, and we cannot help
it. The other animals are not so, but we cannot help that, either. They
lack the Moral Sense; we have no way of trading ours off, for a nickel
or some other thing above its value. The Moral Sense teaches us what is
right, and how to avoid it--when unpopular.
It is thought, as I have said, that a lynching crowd enjoys a lynching.
It certainly is not true; it is impossible of belief. It is freely
asserted--you have seen it in print many times of late--that the
lynching impulse has been misinterpreted; that it is _not_ the outcome
of a spirit of revenge, but of a “mere atrocious hunger _to look upon
human suffering_.” If that were so, the crowds that saw the Windsor
Hotel burn down would have enjoyed the horrors that fell under their
eyes. Did they? No one will think that of them, no one will make that
charge. Many risked their lives to save the men and women who were in
peril. Why did they do that? Because _none would disapprove_. There was
no restraint; they could follow their natural impulse. Why does a crowd
of the same kind of people in Texas, Colorado, Indiana, stand by,
smitten to the heart and miserable, and by ostentatious outward signs
pretend to enjoy a lynching? Why does it lift no hand or voice in
protest? Only because it would be unpopular to do it, I think; each man
is afraid of his neighbor’s disapproval--a thing which, to the general
run of the race, is more dreaded than wounds and death. When there is to
be a lynching the people hitch up and come miles to see it, bringing
their wives and children. Really to see it? No--they come only because
they are afraid to stay at home, lest it be noticed and offensively
commented upon. We may believe this, for we all know how _we_ feel about
such spectacles--also, how we would act under the like pressure. We are
not any better nor any braver than anybody else, and we must not try to
creep out of it.
A Savonarola can quell and scatter a mob of lynchers with a mere glance
of his eye: so can a Merrill[7] or a Beloat.[8] For no mob has any sand
in the presence of a man known to be splendidly brave. Besides, a
lynching mob would _like_ to be scattered, for of a certainty there are
never ten men in it who would not prefer to be somewhere else--and would
be, if they but had the courage to go. When I was a boy I saw a brave
gentleman deride and insult a mob and drive it away; and afterward, in
Nevada, I saw a noted desperado make two hundred men sit still, with the
house burning under them, until he gave them permission to retire. A
plucky man can rob a whole passenger train by himself; and the half of a
brave man can hold up a stagecoach and strip its occupants.
Then perhaps the remedy for lynchings comes to this: station a brave man
in each affected community to encourage, support, and bring to light the
deep disapproval of lynching hidden in the secret places of its
heart--for it is there, beyond question. Then those communities will
find something better to imitate--of course, being human, they must
imitate something. Where shall these brave men be found? That is indeed
a difficulty; there are not three hundred of them in the earth. If
merely _physically_ brave men would do, then it were easy; they could be
furnished by the cargo. When Hobson called for seven volunteers to go
with him to what promised to be certain death, four thousand men
responded--the whole fleet, in fact. Because _all the world would
approve_. They knew that; but if Hobson’s project had been charged with
the scoffs and jeers of the friends and associates, whose good opinion
and approval the sailors valued, he could not have got his seven.
No, upon reflection, the scheme will not work. There are not enough
morally brave men in stock. We are out of moral-courage material; we are
in a condition of profound poverty. We have those two sheriffs down
South who--but never mind, it is not enough to go around; they have to
stay and take care of their own communities.
But if we only _could_ have three or four more sheriffs of that great
breed! Would it help? I think so. For we are all imitators: other brave
sheriffs would follow; to be a dauntless sheriff would come to be
recognized as the correct and only thing, and the dreaded disapproval
would fall to the share of the other kind; courage in this office would
become custom, the absence of it a dishonor, just as courage presently
replaces the timidity of the new soldier; then the mobs and the
lynchings would disappear, and----
However. It can never be done without some starters, and where are we to
get the starters? Advertise? Very well, then, let us advertise.
In the meantime, there is another plan. Let us import American
missionaries from China, and send them into the lynching field. With
1,511 of them out there converting two Chinamen apiece per annum against
an uphill birth rate of 33,000 pagans per day,[9] it will take upward of
a million years to make the conversions balance the output and bring the
Christianizing of the country in sight to the naked eye; therefore, if
we can offer our missionaries as rich a field at home at lighter expense
and quite satisfactory in the matter of danger, why shouldn’t they find
it fair and right to come back and give us a trial? The Chinese are
universally conceded to be excellent people, honest, honorable,
industrious, trustworthy, kind-hearted, and all that--leave them alone,
they are plenty good enough just as they are; and besides, almost every
convert runs a risk of catching our civilization. We ought to be
careful. We ought to think twice before we encourage a risk like that;
for, _once civilized, China can never be uncivilized again_. We have not
been thinking of that. Very well, we ought to think of it now. Our
missionaries will find that we have a field for them--and not only for
the 1,511, but for 15,011. Let them look at the following telegram and
see if they have anything in China that is more appetizing. It is from
Texas:
The negro was taken to a tree and swung in the air. Wood and fodder
were piled beneath his body and a hot fire was made. _Then it was
suggested that the man ought not to die too quickly, and he was let
down to the ground while a party went to Dexter, about two miles
distant, to procure coal oil._ This was thrown on the flames and the
work completed.
We implore them to come back and help us in our need. Patriotism imposes
this duty on them. Our country is worse off than China; they are our
countrymen, their motherland supplicates their aid in this her hour of
deep distress. They are competent; our people are not. They are used to
scoffs, sneers, revilings, danger; our people are not. They have the
martyr spirit; nothing but the martyr spirit can brave a lynching mob,
and cow it and scatter it. They can save their country, we beseech them
to come home and do it. We ask them to read that telegram again, and yet
again, and picture the scene in their minds, and soberly ponder it; then
multiply it by 115, add 88; place the 203 in a row, allowing 600 feet of
space for each human torch, so that there may be viewing room around it
for 5,000 Christian American men, women, and children, youths and
maidens; make it night, for grim effect; have the show in a gradually
rising plain, and let the course of the stakes be uphill; the eye can
then take in the whole line of twenty-four miles of blood-and-flesh
bonfires unbroken, whereas if it occupied level ground the ends of the
line would bend down and be hidden from view by the curvature of the
earth. All being ready, now, and the darkness opaque, the stillness
impressive--for there should be no sound but the soft moaning of the
night wind and the muffled sobbing of the sacrifices--let all the far
stretch of kerosened pyres be touched off simultaneously and the glare
and the shrieks and the agonies burst heavenward to the Throne.
There are more than a million persons present; the light from the fires
flushes into vague outline against the night the spires of five thousand
churches. O kind missionary, O compassionate missionary, leave China!
come home and convert these Christians!
I believe that if anything can stop this epidemic of bloody insanities
it is martial personalities that can face mobs without flinching; and as
such personalities are developed only by familiarity with danger and by
the training and seasoning which come of resisting it, the likeliest
place to find them must be among the missionaries who have been under
tuition in China during the past year or two. We have abundance of work
for them, and for hundreds and thousands more, and the field is daily
growing and spreading. Shall we find them? We can try. In 75,000,000
there must be other Merrills and Beloats; and it is the law of our make
that each example shall wake up drowsing chevaliers of the same great
knighthood and bring them to the front.
-----
Footnote 7:
Sheriff of Carroll County, Georgia.
Footnote 8:
Sheriff, Princeton, Indiana. By that formidable power which lies in an
established reputation for cold pluck they faced lynching mobs and
securely held the field against them.
Footnote 9:
These figures are not fanciful; all of them are genuine and authentic.
They are from official missionary records in China. See Doctor
Morrison’s book on his pedestrian journey across China; he quotes them
and gives his authorities. For several years he has been the London
_Times’s_ representative in Peking, and was there through the siege.
TO THE PERSON SITTING IN DARKNESS
(_North American Review_, 1901)
See introduction to this volume for some account of this and the
following article.
Christmas will dawn in the United States over a people full of hope
and aspiration and good cheer. Such a condition means contentment and
happiness. The carping grumbler who may here and there go forth will
find few to listen to him. The majority will wonder what is the matter
with him and pass on.--New York _Tribune_, on Christmas Eve.
From the _Sun_, of New York:
The purpose of this article is not to describe the terrible offenses
against humanity committed in the name of Politics in some of the most
notorious East Side districts. _They could not be described, even
verbally._ But it is the intention to let the great mass of more or
less careless citizens of this beautiful metropolis of the New World
get some conception of the havoc and ruin wrought to man, woman, and
child in the most densely populated and least-known section of the
city. Name, date, and place can be supplied to those of little
faith--or to any man who feels himself aggrieved. It is a plain
statement of record and observation, written without license and
without garnish.
Imagine, if you can, a section of the city territory completely
dominated by one man, without whose permission neither legitimate nor
illegitimate business can be conducted; _where illegitimate business
is encouraged and legitimate business discouraged_; where the
respectable residents have to fasten their doors and windows summer
nights and sit in their rooms with asphyxiating air and 100-degree
temperature, rather than try to catch the faint whiff of breeze in
their natural breathing places, the stoops of their homes; _where
naked women dance by night in the streets, and unsexed men prowl like
vultures through the darkness on “business”_ not only permitted but
encouraged by the police; _where the education of infants begins with
the knowledge of prostitution_ and the training of little girls is
training in the arts of Phryne; where _American_ girls brought up with
the refinements of _American_ homes are imported from small towns
up-state, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey, and kept as
virtually prisoners as if they were locked up behind jail bars until
they have lost all semblance of womanhood; _where small boys are
taught to solicit for the women of disorderly houses_; where there is
an organized society of young men _whose sole business in life is to
corrupt young girls and turn them over to bawdy houses_; where men
walking with their wives along the street are openly insulted; _where
children that have adult diseases are the chief patrons of the
hospitals and dispensaries_; where it is the rule, rather than the
exception, that _murder, rape, robbery, and theft go unpunished_--in
short where the Premium of the most awful forms of Vice is the Profit
of the politicians.
The following news from China appeared in the _Sun_, of New York, on
Christmas Eve. The italics are mine:
The Rev. Mr. Ament, of the American Board of Foreign Missions, has
returned from a trip which he made for the purpose of collecting
indemnities for damages done by Boxers. _Everywhere he went he
compelled the Chinese to pay._ He says that all his native Christians
are now provided for. He had 700 of them under his charge, and 300
were killed. He has _collected 300 taels for each_ of these murders,
and has _compelled full payment for all the property belonging to
Christians_ that was destroyed. He also assessed _fines_ amounting to
THIRTEEN TIMES the amount of the indemnity. _This money will be used
for the propagation of the Gospel._
Mr. Ament declares that the compensation he has collected is
_moderate_ when compared with the amount secured by the Catholics, who
demand, in addition to money, _head for head_. They collect 500 taels
for each murder of a Catholic. In the Wenchiu country, 680 Catholics
were killed, and for this the European Catholics here demand 750,000
strings of cash and 680 _heads_.
In the course of a conversation, Mr. Ament referred to the attitude of
the missionaries toward the Chinese. He said:
“I deny emphatically that the missionaries are _vindictive_, that they
_generally_ looted, or that they have done anything _since_ the siege
that _the circumstances did not demand_. I criticize the Americans.
_The soft hand of the Americans is not as good as the mailed fist of
the Germans._ If you deal with the Chinese with a soft hand they will
take advantage of it.
“The statement that the French government will return the loot taken
by the French soldiers is the source of the greatest amusement here.
The French soldiers were more systematic looters than the Germans, and
it is a fact that to-day _Catholic Christians_, carrying French flags
and armed with modern guns, _are looting villages_ in the Province of
Chili.”
By happy luck, we get all these glad tidings on Christmas Eve--just in
time enable us to celebrate the day with proper gayety and enthusiasm.
Our spirits soar, and we find we can even make jokes: Taels, I win,
Heads you lose.
Our Reverend Ament is the right man in the right place. What we want of
our missionaries out there is, not that they shall merely represent in
their acts and persons the grace and gentleness and charity and
loving-kindness of our religion, but that they shall also represent the
American spirit. The oldest Americans are the Pawnees. Macallum’s
History says:
When a white Boxer kills a Pawnee and destroys his property, the other
Pawnees do not trouble to seek _him_ out, they kill any white person
that comes along; also, they make some white village pay deceased’s
heirs the full cash value of deceased, together with full cash value
of the property destroyed; they also make the village pay, in
addition, _thirteen times_ the value of that property into a fund for
the dissemination of the Pawnee religion, which they regard as the
best of all religions for the softening and humanizing of the heart of
man. It is their idea that it is only fair and right that the innocent
should be made to suffer for the guilty, and that it is better that
ninety and nine innocent should suffer than that one guilty person
should escape.
Our Reverend Ament is justifiably jealous of those enterprising
Catholics, who not only get big money for each lost convert, but get
“head for head” besides. But he should soothe himself with the
reflections that the entirety of their exactions are for their own
pockets, whereas he, less selfishly, devotes only 300 taels per head to
that service, and gives the whole vast thirteen repetitions of the
property-indemnity to the service of propagating the Gospel. His
magnanimity has won him the approval of his nation, and will get him a
monument. Let him be content with these rewards. We all hold him dear
for manfully defending his fellow missionaries from exaggerated charges
which were beginning to distress us, but which his testimony has so
considerably modified that we can now contemplate them without
noticeable pain. For now we know that, even before the siege, the
missionaries were not “generally” out looting, and that, “since the
siege,” they have acted quite handsomely, except when “circumstances”
crowded them. I am arranging for the monument. Subscriptions for it can
be sent to the American Board; designs for it can be sent to me. Designs
must allegorically set forth the Thirteen Reduplications of the
Indemnity, and the Object for which they were exacted; as Ornaments, the
designs must exhibit 680 Heads, so disposed as to give a pleasing and
pretty effect; for the Catholics have done nicely, and are entitled to
notice in the monument. Mottoes may be suggested, if any shall be
discovered that will satisfactorily cover the ground.
Mr. Ament’s financial feat of squeezing a thirteenfold indemnity out of
the pauper peasants to square other people’s offenses, thus condemning
them and their women and innocent little children to inevitable
starvation and lingering death, in order that the blood money so
acquired might be “_used for the propagation of the Gospel_,” does not
flutter my serenity; although the act and the words, taken together,
concrete a blasphemy so hideous and so colossal that, without doubt, its
mate is not findable in the history of this or of any other age. Yet, if
a layman had done that thing and justified it with those words, I should
have shuddered, I know. Or, if I had done the thing and said the words
myself--However, the thought is unthinkable, irreverent as some
imperfectly informed people think me. Sometimes an ordained minister
sets out to be blasphemous. When this happens, the layman is out of the
running; he stands no chance.
We have Mr. Ament’s impassioned assurance that the missionaries are not
“vindictive.” Let us hope and pray that they will never become so, but
will remain in the almost morbidly fair and just and gentle temper which
is affording so much satisfaction to their brother and champion to-day.
The following is from the New York _Tribune_ of Christmas Eve. It comes
from that journal’s Tokyo correspondent. It has a strange and impudent
sound, but the Japanese are but partially civilized as yet. When they
become wholly civilized they will not talk so:
The missionary question, of course, occupies a foremost place in the
discussion. It is now felt as essential that the Western Powers take
cognizance of the sentiment here, that religious invasions of Oriental
countries by powerful Western organizations are tantamount to
filibustering expeditions, and should not only be discountenanced, but
that stern measures should be adopted for their suppression. The
feeling here is that the missionary organizations constitute a
constant menace to peaceful international relations.
_Shall we?_ That is, shall we go on conferring our Civilization upon the
peoples that sit in darkness, or shall we give those poor things a rest?
Shall we bang right ahead in our old-time, loud, pious way, and commit
the new century to the game; or shall we sober up and sit down and think
it over first? Would it not be prudent to get our Civilization tools
together, and see how much stock is left on hand in the way of Glass
Beads and Theology, and Maxim Guns and Hymn Books, and Trade Gin and
Torches of Progress and Enlightenment (patent adjustable ones, good to
fire villages with, upon occasion), and balance the books, and arrive at
the profit and loss, so that we may intelligently decide whether to
continue the business or sell out the property and start a new
Civilization Scheme on the proceeds?
Extending the Blessings of Civilization to our Brother who Sits in
Darkness has been a good trade and has paid well, on the whole; and
there is money in it yet, if carefully worked--but not enough, in my
judgment, to make any considerable risk advisable. The People that Sit
in Darkness are getting to be too scarce--too scarce and too shy. And
such darkness as is now left is really of but an indifferent quality,
and not dark enough for the game. The most of those People that Sit in
Darkness have been furnished with more light than was good for them or
profitable for us. We have been injudicious.
The Blessings-of-Civilization Trust, wisely and cautiously administered,
is a Daisy. There is more money in it, more territory, more sovereignty,
and other kinds of emolument, than there is in any other game that is
played. But Christendom has been playing it badly of late years, and
must certainly suffer by it, in my opinion. She has been so eager to get
every stake that appeared on the green cloth, that the People who Sit in
Darkness have noticed it--they have noticed it, and have begun to show
alarm. They have become suspicious of the Blessings of Civilization.
More--they have begun to examine them. This is not well. The Blessings
of Civilization are all right, and a good commercial property; there
could not be a better, in a dim light. In the right kind of a light, and
at a proper distance, with the goods a little out of focus, they furnish
this desirable exhibit to the Gentlemen who Sit in Darkness:
LOVE, LAW AND ORDER,
JUSTICE, LIBERTY,
GENTLENESS, EQUALITY,
CHRISTIANITY, HONORABLE DEALING,
PROTECTION TO THE WEAK, MERCY,
TEMPERANCE, EDUCATION,
--and so on.
There. Is it good? Sir, it is pie. It will bring into camp any idiot
that sits in darkness anywhere. But not if we adulterate it. It is
proper to be emphatic upon that point. This brand is strictly for
Export--apparently. _Apparently._ Privately and confidentially, it is
nothing of the kind. Privately and confidentially, it is merely an
outside cover, gay and pretty and attractive, displaying the special
patterns of our Civilization which we reserve for Home Consumption,
while _inside_ the bale is the Actual Thing that the Customer Sitting in
Darkness buys with his blood and tears and land and liberty. That Actual
Thing is, indeed, Civilization, but it is only for Export. Is there a
difference between the two brands? In some of the details, yes.
We all know that the Business is being ruined. The reason is not far to
seek. It is because our Mr. McKinley, and Mr. Chamberlain, and the
Kaiser, and the Tsar and the French have been exporting the Actual Thing
_with the outside cover left off_. This is bad for the Game. It shows
that these new players of it are not sufficiently acquainted with it.
It is a distress to look on and note the mismoves, they are so strange
and so awkward. Mr. Chamberlain manufactures a war out of materials so
inadequate and so fanciful that they make the boxes grieve and the
gallery laugh, and he tries hard to persuade himself that it isn’t
purely a private raid for cash, but has a sort of dim, vague
respectability about it somewhere, if he could only find the spot; and
that, by and by, he can scour the flag clean again after he has finished
dragging it through the mud, and make it shine and flash in the vault of
heaven once more as it had shone and flashed there a thousand years in
the world’s respect until he laid his unfaithful hand upon it. It is bad
play--bad. For it exposes the Actual Thing to Them that Sit in Darkness,
and they say: “What! Christian against Christian? And only for money? Is
_this_ a case of magnanimity, forbearance, love, gentleness, mercy,
protection of the weak--this strange and overshowy onslaught of an
elephant upon a nest of field mice, on the pretext that the mice had
squeaked an insolence at him--conduct which “no self-respecting
government could allow to pass unavenged”? as Mr. Chamberlain said. Was
that a good pretext in a small case, when it had not been a good pretext
in a large one?--for only recently Russia had affronted the elephant
three times and survived alive and unsmitten. Is this Civilization and
Progress? Is it something better than we already possess? These
harryings and burnings and desert-makings in the Transvaal--is this an
improvement on our darkness? Is it, perhaps, possible that there are two
kinds of Civilization--one for home consumption and one for the heathen
market?”
Then They that Sit in Darkness are troubled, and shake their heads; and
they read this extract from a letter of a British private, recounting
his exploits in one of Methuen’s victories, some days before the affair
of Magersfontein, and they are troubled again:
We tore up the hill and into the intrenchments, and the Boers saw we
had them; so they dropped their guns and went down on their knees and
put up their hands clasped, and begged for mercy. And we gave it
them--_with the long spoon_.
The long spoon is the bayonet. See _Lloyd’s Weekly_, London, of those
days. The same number--and the same column--contained some quite
unconscious satire in the form of shocked and bitter upbraidings of the
Boers for their brutalities and inhumanities!
Next, to our heavy damage, the Kaiser went to playing the game without
first mastering it. He lost a couple of missionaries in a riot in
Shantung, and in his account he made an overcharge for them. China had
to pay a hundred thousand dollars apiece for them, in money; twelve
miles of territory, containing several millions of inhabitants and worth
twenty million dollars; and to build a monument, and also a Christian
church; whereas the people of China could have been depended upon to
remember the missionaries without the help of these expensive memorials.
This was all bad play. Bad, because it would not, and could not, and
will not now or ever, deceive the Person Sitting in Darkness. He knows
that it was an overcharge. He knows that a missionary is like any other
man: he is worth merely what you can supply his place for, and no more.
He is useful, but so is a doctor, so is a sheriff, so is an editor; but
a just Emperor does not charge war prices for such. A diligent,
intelligent, but obscure missionary, and a diligent, intelligent country
editor are worth much, and we know it; but they are not worth the earth.
We esteem such an editor, and we are sorry to see him go; but, when he
goes, we should consider twelve miles of territory, and a church, and a
fortune, overcompensation for his loss. I mean, if he was a Chinese
editor, and we had to settle for him. It is no proper figure for an
editor or a missionary; one can get shop-worn kings for less. It was bad
play on the Kaiser’s part. It got this property, true; but it _produced
the Chinese revolt_, the indignant uprising of China’s traduced
patriots, the Boxers. The results have been expensive to Germany, and to
the other Disseminators of Progress and the Blessings of Civilization.
The Kaiser’s claim was paid, yet it was bad play, for it could not fail
to have an evil effect upon Persons Sitting in Darkness in China. They
would muse upon the event, and be likely to say: “Civilization is
gracious and beautiful, for such is its reputation; but can we afford
it? There are rich Chinamen, perhaps they can afford it; but this tax is
not laid upon them, it is laid upon the peasants of Shantung; it is they
that must pay this mighty sum, and their wages are but four cents a day.
Is this a better civilization than ours, and holier and higher and
nobler? Is not this rapacity? Is not this extortion? Would Germany
charge America two hundred thousand dollars for two missionaries, and
shake the mailed fist in her face, and send warships, and send soldiers,
and say: ‘Seize twelve miles of territory, worth twenty millions of
dollars, as additional pay for the missionaries; and make those peasants
build a monument to the missionaries, and a costly Christian church to
remember them by?’ And later would Germany say to her soldiers: ‘March
through America and slay, _giving no quarter_; make the German face
there, as has been our Hun-face here, a terror for a thousand years;
march through the Great Republic and slay, slay, slay, carving a road
for our offended religion through its heart and bowels?’ Would Germany
do like this to America, to England, to France, to Russia? Or only to
China, the helpless--imitating the elephant’s assault upon the field
mice? Had we better invest in this Civilization--this Civilization which
called Napoleon a buccaneer for carrying off Venice’s bronze horses, but
which steals our ancient astronomical instruments from our walls, and
goes looting like common bandits--that is, all the alien soldiers except
America’s; and (Americans again excepted) storms frightened villages and
cables the result to glad journals at home every day: ‘Chinese losses,
450 killed; ours, _one officer and two men wounded_. Shall proceed
against neighboring village to-morrow, where a _massacre_ is reported.’
Can we afford Civilization?”
And next Russia must go and play the game injudiciously. She affronts
England once or twice--with the Person Sitting in Darkness observing and
noting; by moral assistance of France and Germany, she robs Japan of her
hard-earned spoil, all swimming in Chinese blood--Port Arthur--with the
Person again observing and noting; then she seizes Manchuria, raids its
villages, and chokes its great river with the swollen corpses of
countless massacred peasants--that astonished Person still observing and
noting. And perhaps he is saying to himself: “It is yet _another_
Civilized Power, with its banner of the Prince of Peace in one hand and
its loot basket and its butcher knife in the other. Is there no
salvation for us but to adopt Civilization and lift ourselves down to
its level?”
And by and by comes America, and our Master of the Game plays it
badly--plays it as Mr. Chamberlain was playing it in South Africa. It
was a mistake to do that; also, it was one which was quite unlooked for
in a Master who was playing it so well in Cuba. In Cuba, he was playing
the usual and regular _American_ game, and it was winning, for there is
no way to beat it. The Master, contemplating Cuba, said: “Here is an
oppressed and friendless little nation which is willing to fight to be
free; we go partners, and put up the strength of seventy million
sympathizers and the resources of the United States: play!” Nothing but
Europe combined could call that hand: and Europe cannot combine on
anything. There, in Cuba, he was following our great traditions in a way
which made us very proud of him, and proud of the deep dissatisfaction
which his play was provoking in continental Europe. Moved by a high
inspiration, he threw out those stirring words which proclaimed that
forcible annexation would be “criminal aggression”; and in that
utterance fired another “shot heard round the world.” The memory of that
fine saying will be outlived by the remembrance of no act of his but
one--that he forgot it within the twelvemonth, and its honorable gospel
along with it.
For, presently, came the Philippine temptation. It was strong; it was
too strong, and he made that bad mistake: he played the European game,
the Chamberlain game. It was a pity; it was a great pity, that error;
that one grievous error, that irrevocable error. For it was the very
place and time to play the American game again. And at no cost. Rich
winnings to be gathered in, too; rich and permanent; indestructible; a
fortune transmissible forever to the children of the flag. Not land, not
money, not dominion--no, something worth many times more than that
dross: our share, the spectacle of a nation of long harassed and
persecuted slaves set free through our influence; our posterity’s share,
the golden memory of that fair deed. The game was in our hands. If it
had been played according to the American rules, Dewey would have sailed
away from Manila as soon as he had destroyed the Spanish fleet--after
putting up a sign on shore guaranteeing foreign property and life
against damage by the Filipinos, and warning the Powers that
interference with the emancipated patriots would be regarded as an act
unfriendly to the United States. The Powers cannot combine, in even a
bad cause, and the sign would not have been molested.
Dewey could have gone about his affairs elsewhere, and left the
competent Filipino army to starve out the little Spanish garrison and
send it home, and the Filipino citizens to set up the form of government
they might prefer, and deal with the friars and their doubtful
acquisitions according to Filipino ideas of fairness and justice--ideas
which have since been tested and found to be of as high an order as any
that prevail in Europe or America.
But we played the Chamberlain game, and lost the chance to add another
Cuba and another honorable deed to our good record.
The more we examine the mistake, the more clearly we perceive that it is
going to be bad for the Business. The Person Sitting in Darkness is
almost sure to say: “There is something curious about this--curious and
unaccountable. There must be two Americas: one that sets the captive
free, and one that takes a once-captive’s new freedom away from him, and
picks a quarrel with him with nothing to found it on; then kills him to
get his land.”
The truth is, the Person Sitting in Darkness _is_ saying things like
that; and for the sake of the Business we must persuade him to look at
the Philippine matter in another and healthier way. We must arrange his
opinions for him. I believe it can be done; for Mr. Chamberlain has
arranged England’s opinion of the South African matter, and done it most
cleverly and successfully. He presented the facts--some of the
facts--and showed those confiding people what the facts meant. He did it
statistically, which is a good way. He used the formula: “Twice 2 are
14, and 2 from 9 leaves 35.” Figures are effective; figures will
convince the elect.
Now, my plan is a still bolder one than Mr. Chamberlain’s, though
apparently a copy of it. Let us be franker than Mr. Chamberlain; let us
audaciously present the whole of the facts, shirking none, then explain
them according to Mr. Chamberlain’s formula. This daring truthfulness
will astonish and dazzle the Person Sitting in Darkness, and he will
take the Explanation down before his mental vision has had time to get
back into focus. Let us say to him:
“Our case is simple. On the 1st of May, Dewey destroyed the Spanish
fleet. This left the Archipelago in the hands of its proper and rightful
owners, the Filipino nation. Their army numbered 30,000 men, and they
were competent to whip out or starve out the little Spanish garrison;
then the people could set up a government of their own devising. Our
traditions required that Dewey should now set up his warning sign, and
go away. But the Master of the Game happened to think of another
plan--the European plan. He acted upon it. This was, to send out an
army--ostensibly to help the native patriots put the finishing touch
upon their long and plucky struggle for independence, but really to take
their land away from them and keep it. That is, in the interest of
Progress and Civilization. The plan developed, stage by stage, and quite
satisfactorily. We entered into a military alliance with the trusting
Filipinos, and they hemmed in Manila on the land side, and by their
valuable help the place, with its garrison of 8,000 or 10,000 Spaniards,
was captured--a thing which we could not have accomplished unaided at
that time. We got their help by--by ingenuity. We knew they were
fighting for their independence, and that they had been at it for two
years. We knew they supposed that we also were fighting in their worthy
cause--just as we had helped the Cubans fight for Cuban
independence--and we allowed them to go on thinking so. _Until Manila
was ours and we could get along without them._ Then we showed our hand.
Of course, they were surprised--that was natural; surprised and
disappointed; disappointed and grieved. To them it looked un-American;
uncharacteristic; foreign to our established traditions. And this was
natural, too; for we were only playing the American Game in public--in
private it was the European. It was neatly done, very neatly, and it
bewildered them. They could not understand it; for we had been so
friendly--so affectionate, even--with those simple-minded patriots! We,
our own selves, had brought back out of exile their leader, their hero,
their hope, their Washington--Aguinaldo; brought him in a warship, in
high honor, under the sacred shelter and hospitality of the flag;
brought him back and restored him to his people, and got their moving
and eloquent gratitude for it. Yes, we had been so friendly to them, and
had heartened them up in so many ways! We had lent them guns and
ammunition; advised with them; exchanged pleasant courtesies with them;
placed our sick and wounded in their kindly care; intrusted our Spanish
prisoners to their humane and honest hands; fought shoulder to shoulder
with them against “the common enemy” (our own phrase); praised their
courage, praised their gallantry, praised their mercifulness, praised
their fine and honorable conduct; borrowed their trenches, borrowed
strong positions which they had previously captured from the Spaniards;
petted them, lied to them--officially proclaiming that our land and
naval forces came to give them their freedom and displace the bad
Spanish Government--fooled them, used them until we needed them no
longer; then derided the sucked orange and threw it away. We kept the
positions which we had beguiled them of; by and by, we moved a force
forward and overlapped patriot ground--a clever thought, for we needed
trouble, and this would produce it. A Filipino soldier, crossing the
ground, where no one had a right to forbid him, was shot by our sentry.
The badgered patriots resented this with arms, without waiting to know
whether Aguinaldo, who was absent, would approve or not. Aguinaldo did
not approve; but that availed nothing. What we wanted, in the interest
of Progress and Civilization, was the Archipelago, unencumbered by
patriots struggling for independence; and War was what we needed. We
clinched our opportunity. It is Mr. Chamberlain’s case over again--at
least in its motive and intention; and we played the game as adroitly as
he played it himself.”
At this point in our frank statement of fact to the Person Sitting in
Darkness, we should throw in a little trade taffy about the Blessings of
Civilization--for a change, and for the refreshment of his spirit--then
go on with our tale:
“We and the patriots having captured Manila, Spain’s ownership
of the Archipelago and her sovereignty over it were at an
end--obliterated--annihilated--not a rag or shred of either remaining
behind. It was then that we conceived the divinely humorous idea of
_buying_ both of these specters from Spain! [It is quite safe to confess
this to the Person Sitting in Darkness, since neither he nor any other
sane person will believe it.] In buying those ghosts for twenty
millions, we also contracted to take care of the friars and their
accumulations. I think we also agreed to propagate leprosy and smallpox,
but as to this there is doubt. But it is not important; persons
afflicted with the friars do not mind other diseases.
“With our Treaty ratified, Manila subdued, and our Ghosts secured, we
had no further use for Aguinaldo and the owners of the Archipelago. We
forced a war, and we have been hunting America’s guest and ally through
the woods and swamps ever since.”
At this point in the tale, it will be well to boast a little of our war
work and our heroisms in the field, so as to make our performance look
as fine as England’s in South Africa; but I believe it will not be best
to emphasize this too much. We must be cautious. Of course, we must read
the war telegrams to the Person, in order to keep up our frankness; but
we can throw an air of humorousness over them, and that will modify
their grim eloquence a little, and their rather indiscret exhibitions of
gory exultation. Before reading to him the following display heads of
the dispatches of November 18, 1900, it will be well to practice on them
in private first, so as to get the right tang of lightness and gayety
into them:
“ADMINISTRATION WEARY OF
PROTRACTED HOSTILITIES!”
“REAL WAR AHEAD FOR FILIPINO
REBELS!”[10]
“WILL SHOW NO MERCY!”
“KITCHENER’S PLAN ADOPTED!”
Kitchener knows how to handle disagreeable people who are fighting for
their homes and their liberties, and we must let on that we are merely
imitating Kitchener, and have no national interest in the matter,
further than to get ourselves admired by the Great Family of Nations, in
which august company our Master of the Game has bought a place for us in
the back row.
Of course, we must not venture to ignore our General MacArthur’s
reports--oh, why do they keep on printing those embarrassing things?--we
must drop them trippingly from the tongue and take the chances:
During the last ten months our losses have been 268 killed and 750
wounded; Filipino loss, _three thousand two hundred and twenty-seven
killed_, and 694 wounded.
We must stand ready to grab the Person Sitting in Darkness, for he will
swoon away at this confession, saying: “Good God! those ‘niggers’ spare
their wounded, and the Americans massacre theirs!”
We must bring him to, and coax him and coddle him, and assure him that
the ways of Providence are best, and that it would not become us to find
fault with them; and then, to show him that we are only imitators, not
originators, we must read the following passage from the letter of an
American soldier lad in the Philippines to his mother, published in
_Public Opinion_, of Decorah, Iowa, describing the finish of a
victorious battle:
“WE NEVER LEFT ONE ALIVE. IF ONE WAS WOUNDED, WE WOULD RUN OUR BAYONETS
THROUGH HIM.”
Having now laid all the historical facts before the Person Sitting in
Darkness, we should bring him to again, and explain them to him. We
should say to him:
“They look doubtful, but in reality they are not. There have been lies;
yes, but they were told in a good cause. We have been treacherous; but
that was only in order that real good might come out of apparent evil.
True, we have crushed a deceived and confiding people; we have turned
against the weak and the friendless who trusted us; we have stamped out
a just and intelligent and well-ordered republic; we have stabbed an
ally in the back and slapped the face of a guest; we have bought a
Shadow from an enemy that hadn’t it to sell; we have robbed a trusting
friend of his land and his liberty; we have invited our clean young men
to shoulder a discredited musket and do bandits’ work under a flag which
bandits have been accustomed to fear, not to follow; we have debauched
America’s honor and blackened her face before the world; but each detail
was for the best. We know this. The Head of every State and Sovereignty
in Christendom and 90 per cent of every legislative body in Christendom,
including our Congress and our fifty state legislatures, are members not
only of the church, but also of the Blessings-of-Civilization Trust.
This world-girdling accumulation of trained morals, high principles, and
justice cannot do an unright thing, an unfair thing, an ungenerous
thing, an unclean thing. It knows what it is about. Give yourself no
uneasiness; it is all right.”
Now then, that will convince the Person. You will see. It will restore
the Business. Also, it will elect the Master of the Game to the vacant
place in the Trinity of our national gods; and there on their high
thrones the Three will sit, age after age, in the people’s sight, each
bearing the Emblem of his service: Washington, the Sword of the
Liberator; Lincoln, the Slave’s Broken Chains; the Master, the Chains
Repaired.
It will give the Business a splendid new start. You will see.
Everything is prosperous, now; everything is just as we should wish it.
We have got the Archipelago, and we shall never give it up. Also, we
have every reason to hope that we shall have an opportunity before very
long to slip out of our congressional contract with Cuba and give her
something better in the place of it. It is a rich country, and many of
us are already beginning to see that the contract was a sentimental
mistake. But now--right now--is the best time to do some profitable
rehabilitating work--work that will set us up and make us comfortable,
and discourage gossip. We cannot conceal from ourselves that, privately,
we are a little troubled about our uniform. It is one of our prides; it
is acquainted with honor; it is familiar with great deeds and noble; we
love it, we revere it; and so this errand it is on makes us uneasy. And
our flag--another pride of ours, our chiefest! We have worshiped it so;
and when we have seen it in far lands--glimpsing it unexpectedly in that
strange sky, waving its welcome and benediction to us--we have caught
our breaths, and uncovered our heads, and couldn’t speak, for a moment,
for the thought of what it was to us and the great ideals it stood for.
Indeed, we _must_ do something about these things; it is easily managed.
We can have a special one--our states do it: we can have just our usual
flag, with the white stripes painted black and the stars replaced by the
skull and crossbones.
And we do not need that Civil Commission out there. Having no powers, it
has to invent them, and that kind of work cannot be effectively done by
just anybody; an expert is required. Mr. Croker can be spared. We do not
want the United States represented there, but only the Game.
By help of these suggested amendments, Progress and Civilization in that
country can have a boom, and it will take in the Persons who are Sitting
in Darkness, and we can resume Business at the old stand.
-----
Footnote 10:
“Rebels!” Mumble that funny word--don’t let the Person catch it
distinctly.
TO MY MISSIONARY CRITICS
(_North American Review_, 1901)
I have received many newspaper cuttings; also letters from several
clergymen; also a note from the Rev. Dr. Judson Smith, Corresponding
Secretary of the American Board of Foreign Missions--all of a like
tenor; all saying, substantially, what is said in the cutting here
copied: