“Happy peace and goodly government.”
“Shut that door!” thundered the baron from over the washbowl in a
Pullman car, as he stood half-dressed in a small apartment, taking his
morning bath.
“Who are you addressin’?” answered a pale-faced young man—who was
passing—from under a broad, stiff-brimmed hat, the crown of which was
encircled with the skin of a huge rattlesnake. “I reckon you want your
nose set back about an inch anyhow, and I’m the man that can perform
that little blacksmithin’ job right here.”
The baron glanced at the gray-clad figure, with its gleaming silk
’kerchief knotted carelessly, and arms akimbo, then down at the high
boots with their fair-leather tops, behind which gleamed the ebony and
silver handle of a bowie knife, and then, meeting the steady, mild blue
eyes of the Arizona cowboy, said apologetically:—
“Beg pardon. I thought it was the madam. She just left the compartment.”
“You did, did you?” said the youth. “That’s what I allowed, en that’s
why I tuk an interest in ye. Look a yer. That woman ain’t no slouch, and
Gila monsters like you ain’t popular nohow, yearabouts, so you jest keep
a civil tongue in your mutton head, an’ it’ll be all right.” And with
the movement of a leopard, he glided quietly away, while the baron,
after softly closing the door, sank into the nearest sofa, and awaited
the return of his wife.
“Benson,” shouted the keen-eyed brakeman. “Change cars for Tombstone,
Nogales, Hermosillo, Guaymas, and all points on the Gulf of California.
Passengers for Tucson, Phoenix, Yuma, San Diego, Los Angeles, and San
Francisco remain in the car.”
The baron’s party consisted of the baroness and her maid, Professor and
Mrs. Thornton, Doctor Eustace, who had accompanied the Von Eulaws from
Europe, and Miss Winters, an old friend of the baroness and a graduate
of a woman’s law school, who had left a thriving practice in Denver
rather than sacrifice her life in the pursuit of a profession for which
no woman is really fitted either mentally or physically. The party was
_en route_ to Coronado Beach—the baron as one of a score of
representatives selected by the emperor of Germany to attend the
“dynamic exposition,” as it was generally designated.
Six weeks or less before the Prime Minister of every recognized
civilized power had received a letter couched in the following phrase.
OFFICES OF DAVID MORNING, }
39 Broadway, N.Y., January 1, 1896. }
To ................
I respectfully invite your government to appoint so many
representatives, not exceeding twenty in number, as it may desire, to
be present in San Diego, California, during the first week of April
_proximo_, to observe and report upon experiments which will then be
made in aerial and submarine navigation, and use of the new explosive
“potentite.” It is my hope to demonstrate that hereafter international
differences should be submitted for adjustment to a Congress or Court
of Nations, and that land and naval warfare—as at present
conducted—must come to an end.
The gentlemen who may be credentialed by you will be my guests upon
their arrival in San Diego—if they will so honor me—and I beg to be
informed at your early convenience, by cable, of the names of those
who may be expected.
I take the liberty of inclosing exchange on London for twenty thousand
pounds, to defray such expenses as your government may incur in
complying with my request.
I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
DAVID MORNING.
The fame of Morning, as the greatest wealth owner in the world, was now
coextensive with civilization, and his invitation had been promptly and
generally accepted. The Emperor Wilhelm II. chose for the German
delegation, five of his most distinguished field marshals, five high
officials of the German navy, five great civil engineers, and five
members of the diplomatic corps. Among the latter was the Baron Von
Eulaw, who was indebted for his appointment—although he did not know
it-to an urgent unofficial representation made by the American envoy to
the German Chancellor, to the effect that, for certain personal reasons,
Mr. David Morning greatly desired the attendance of the Baron and
Baroness Von Eulaw. Such a request from such a source was favorably
considered, and the baron—greatly to his astonishment, for he had not
been in favor at court since the affair at the Chateau d’Or—received the
appointment.
Professor Thornton and Doctor Eustace had received invitations to
attend, and the baron, finding it convenient to leave Berlin in advance
of the other members of the German delegation, sailed from Hamburg late
in January, and, after a brief visit with his wife’s parents at Roxbury,
the party journeyed to the Pacific Coast, to enjoy its climate and
scenery for a month or more in advance of the “dynamic exposition.”
“I feel,” said the baroness, as the train rolled out of Benson, “as if I
had a renewed lease of life; these delicious airs stir the blood like
wine, and, entranced with the perfume of almond and oleander and jasmine
bloom, I forget that it is still midwinter in the East.”
“You are drugged, madame,” said the doctor, slowly passing his finger
scrutinizingly over the soft flesh upon his hand. “You could be lured to
your death in a few hours by—I wonder what ails my hand?” he broke off
meditatively, still feeling for the insidious and evasive little hair.
“Cactus, sir,” put in an “old-timer” across the car, “and you ain’t got
no use to look for it, if it does feel like an oxgad. I could hev tole
you when I see you foolin’ around them fine flowers at the station, but
you fellers hev all got to try it once; another time you’ll know
better.”
“This is Mr. Morning’s state, I believe,” observed the doctor, after the
laugh at his expense had subsided, and all sat dreamily looking away to
the dimly-outlined mountains in the distance, “and we must be nearing
the place of the wonderful gold deposit, with the results of which he is
rapidly revolutionizing the world.”
“You are right, sir,” said a bright-eyed, smooth-shaven, portly
gentleman, of forty years of age, who occupied an adjoining seat. “It is
Morning’s state in every sense of the word. He has made it—industrially,
politically, and socially. His enterprise and money have constructed
great reservoirs, and laced the land with irrigating canals, and changed
its wastes into orchards, and its deserts into lawns. He is the idol of
its people, as he ought to be, and his ideas are embodied in our
constitution and laws. They are all the product of his thought, from
marriage contract-laws to abolition of trial by jury.”
“Abolition of trial by jury,” said Doctor Eustace.
“Yes, sir; at least the jury is composed of judges, instead of men who
don’t know the plaintiff from the defendant, and we have no Supreme
Court.”
“No jury, and no Supreme Court!” observed Miss Winters. “What a capital
idea. I shall come here to practice.”
“Well, miss, if you practice law here, and wish to patronize the twelve
men in a box, or enjoy the luxury of an appeal, you must bring your case
in the United States Court, or take it there. In our State courts we
have dispensed with all that ancient rubbish.”
“Rubbish!” exclaimed the doctor.
“Even so,” rejoined the stranger. “The judicial system in vogue
elsewhere than in Arizona is as much a relic of barbarism as slavery or
polygamy. It is no more fitted to the wants and enlightenment of the age
than the canal boat for traveling, or the flint lock musket for shooting
pigeons. Suppose you wish to recover a piece of land from a jumper in
California or Maine, and one side or the other demands a jury trial.
Every good citizen who is busy shirks duty as a juryman. Every
intelligent citizen who reads the newspapers forms an opinion and is
excused. From the residue—which is sure to contain both fools and
knaves—you get twelve clerks, mechanics, laborers, merchants, farmers,
and idlers—none of whom have any training in untangling complicated
propositions, weighing evidence, remembering principles of law and
logic, and according to each fact its just and relative importance.
“After these twelve men have listened to a muddle of testimony,
objections, law papers, and speeches, concluding with bewildering
instructions, which half of them fail to remember, and the other half
fail to understand, they retire to the jury room and guess out a
verdict. The losing party appeals, and, after wearisome delay, the
Supreme Court decides that ‘someone has blundered,’ and, without
attempting to correct the error by a proper judgment, sends the case
back for another trial, another batch of blunders, and another appeal.”
“And how does your Arizona system correct the evils you depict?” queried
the doctor.
“We commence at the other end of the puzzle,” said the stranger. “We
place the Supreme Court in the jury box. We have a preliminary court of
three judges in each judicial district. Every plaintiff must first
present his case informally to this court. He states on oath the facts
he expects to prove, and gives the names of his witnesses. Any willful
mis-statement of a material fact, is perjury. If the evidence would, if
uncontradicted, entitle him to recover, an order is issued giving him
leave to sue. In practice, not one-half of the proposed suits survive
the ordeal. The saving of time and money is great. Under the old system,
after a jury had been impaneled, and days consumed, the plaintiff might,
after all, be nonsuited. Now it is all disposed of in an hour or two.
The preliminary court practically puts an end to all blackmailing
litigation.”
“And when leave to sue is granted, what is the next step?” inquired the
doctor.
“The case is brought under the same rules of procedure as of old,”
replied the stranger, “with only such changes as were necessary to adapt
litigation to the new conditions. We have three judicial districts in
the State, and nine judges for each district. Upon questions of law
arising during the trial, the judges pass by a majority vote, and in
making the final decision, from which there is no appeal, seven judges
must concur.”
“Does this system satisfy litigants?” asked the doctor.
“Much better than the old method,” replied the stranger. “What honest
litigant would not prefer to have his rights determined by nine men, who
were trained to sift truth from error, who were honest and just, and
without other duties to distract them, rather than by twelve men such as
ordinarily find their way into the jury box? The judgment of seven out
of nine judges will be as nearly right as human conclusions can well be,
and people affected by it are better satisfied—even when they lose—than
by the guess of a stupid and sleepy jury.”
“Can the courts you have organized attend to all the business?” asked
the doctor.
“Easily,” was the rejoinder. “No time is consumed in procuring juries,
and much less in objections to testimony. Arguments are abbreviated, and
instructions eliminated. In practice, four cases out of five are decided
from the bench.”
“Are not the salaries of so many judges a heavy tax upon you?” asked the
doctor.
“The system costs the public treasury less than the old one,” was the
reply. “Many court expenses are dispensed with, and the expense to
litigants is reduced, although the loser is now compelled to pay the fee
of his opponent’s attorney, which is fixed by the court.”
“As you have no court of appeals, I suppose no record is made of court
proceedings,” remarked the doctor.
“Oh, yes, each court room is provided with one of the new automatic
noiseless receiving and printing phonographs.”
“And how about lawyers who have bad cases?”
“They endeavor to take them into the United States Court, where the old
practice prevails.”
“Beg pardon, ma’am,” said the Pullman conductor, approaching Mrs.
Thornton, “but we are passing over the new line, which runs north of
Gila River, and a view may be had of the sleeping Montezuma now, and the
passengers generally like to see it.”
“The sleeping Montezuma! What is that?” asked the lady addressed.
“It is the giant figure of an Indian resting on his back on the top of
the mountain. You can see it now quite plainly from the right-hand
windows of the car.”
And across the plain—in centuries gone densely peopled by some
prehistoric race, and then for centuries a waste, and, since the
completion of the Gila Canal, a checker-board of orchard, vineyard, and
meadow, the eye looked upon the lavender-tinted mountains to the
northward, and it required no aid from the imagination to behold, upon
the summits of those mountains, the profile of a stately figure and
majestic face, with a crown of feathers upon the brow, lying upon its
back.
Once there lived, in the shadow of this giant, a race, of which traces
may still be found in mounds containing pottery, and in the ruins of
great aqueducts, and in stone houses seven stories in height, a portion
of the walls of which are still standing.
“The Indians hereabouts have a story,” said the conductor, “to the
effect that Montezuma went to sleep, when the sun dried up the waters,
and his people died, and they say now that Morning’s canal is making the
country green again, the old chief will awaken.”
“You were saying,” said Doctor Eustace, by way of suggestion to the
stranger, “that there are some peculiar marriage contract laws here.”
“It is all expressed, sir, in the preamble to the law, and in the law
itself, a copy of which I happen to have with me, as I am on the way to
attend court at Yuma. Here it is,” and he offered the book to Professor
Thornton.
“Read it aloud, professor,” said the doctor, and the professor read:—
“The Senate and Assembly of the State of Arizona recognizes the truth
that not easy divorce laws, but easy marriage laws, are at the root of
the conjugal evil; that men and women have been accustomed to marry,
disagree, and divorce in less time than should have been allowed for a
proper period of betrothal; that the loose system now prevailing often
results in children destitute of the inherent virility of virtue and
affection; that no adequate defenses have hitherto been builded for the
protection of young females too unthoughtful and too trusting; that the
laws underlying the physical as well as the mental constitution, with
their multiple of subtile, gravitating, and repellant forces, have
hitherto been wholly unstudied, or disregarded; that the arbitrary
conditions of society compel woman to accept marriage, in violation of
her higher aims; that in certain human organizations the conditions
created by propinquity are altogether false and ephemeral; that certain
other human organizations are, by nature, filled with inordinate vanity
and self-love, which qualities, beguiling the judgment, constitute
fickleness and instability of purpose, and that the true solution of the
great social problem is likely to be found in preventive rather than in
remedial laws. Therefore, be it enacted”—
“Hold up, John,” said Dr. Eustace. “That is all my mentality can
assimilate without a rest. Are you not reading from an essay by Mona
Caird, or a novel by Tolstoi? Is that really and truly the preamble of a
law enacted by a Western Legislature? Have all the cranks, and all the
theorists, and all the moonstruck, long-haired, green-goggled reformers
on earth, been turned loose in Arizona?”
“Doctor,” said the professor solemnly, “the truth is a persistent fly,
that cannot be brushed away with the wisps of ridicule. The Arizona
legislators have fearlessly attempted to deal with conditions which
every close observer of our social life knows to be existent.”
“Papa,” said the baroness, interestedly, “in what way is it proposed to
deal with the problem? Please read further.”
“The law is too lengthy,” said the professor, after glancing over a few
pages, “to be read in detail, but I will summarize it for you. Marriages
are declared void unless the parties procure a license, which can only
be issued by an examining board of men and women, composed in part of
physicians, and in part of graduates of some reputable school, dedicated
to physiological observations and esoteric thought and investigation.”
“Anything about ability to boil a potato or sew on a button?”
interrupted the doctor.
“Peace, scoffer,” said the professor. “It seems to be required that all
applicants for license shall have had an acquaintance of at least one
year, and be under marriage engagement for six months, and shall pass
examination by the board upon their mutual eligibility, as expressed
through temperament, complexion, tastes, education, traits of character,
and general conditions of fitness.”
“Is red hair, or a habit of snoring, or a fondness for raw onions,
considered a disqualification?” queried the doctor.
The professor, ignoring the interruption, continued: “It is required
that one or both of the applicants shall possess property of sufficient
value, to support both of them for one year, in the manner of life to
which the proposed wife has been accustomed.”
“A gleam of common sense at last in a glamour of moonshine,” said the
doctor. “But how can such a marriage law be enforced?”
“The act provides,” said the professor, “that children born to parties
who have no license, shall be deemed born out of wedlock, and all such
children, as well as all children born to extreme poverty or degrading
influences, may be taken from their parents and educated at the public
expense.”
“How does this experiment of turning the State into a moral kindergarten
for adults, and wet-nursery for infants, succeed?” said Doctor Eustace
to the stranger.
“The law was enacted only a few weeks since,” replied the gentleman,
“and it is too soon to answer your question.”
“Humph! have you any more of such revolutionary legislation?”
“Nothing so important as the marriage contract act, but on page 72 you
will find some provisions of law which may interest you.”
The doctor read:—
“Women who perform equal service with men shall be entitled to recover
an equal sum for their labor, and all contracts made in derogation of
this right shall be void.”
“Good!” applauded Miss Winters.
Again the doctor read:—
“The men who represent the State of Arizona in the United States Senate
shall be chosen by a majority of the voters, and not by the Legislature,
as in other States of the Union, and no man, however favored, shall be
eligible for the position whose property interests, justly estimated,
exceed in value the sum of $100,000.”
“That will exclude Mr. Morning from the millionaires’ club, will it
not?” queried Dr. Eustace.
“Yes, sir,” answered the stranger, “but he favored the law. Of course,
under the United States Constitution, this section is not legally
operative; but it is morally binding, and the Legislature has always
elected to the Senate gentlemen who were previously designated by the
people at the polls, and thus far no man suspected of solvency has
ventured to be a candidate. Arizona is friendly to progressive
legislation. You will find our law for the prevention of cruelty to
animals on page 56; it may interest you.”
The professor read:—
“Any person or persons convicted of having beaten, abused, underfed,
overworked, or otherwise maltreated any horse, mule, dog, or other
animal of whatever kind, may thereafter be assaulted and beaten by any
person who may desire to undertake such task, without the assailant
being responsible civilly or criminally for such assault.”
“That,” said the doctor, “to quote a Boston girl on Niagara Falls, ‘is
neat, simple, and sufficient.’ Have you any further novelties in the way
of legislation to offer?”
“Our law of libel is in advance of all other states,” said the stranger;
“you will find it on page 163.”
The professor read:—
“Any man or woman or newspaper firm lending themselves to the
dissemination of scandal, or defamation of private character, to the
moral detriment of innocent parties, shall, on conviction, be adjudged
outlaws, and may be lawfully beaten or killed at the pleasure of the
party injured.”
“Lord,” said the doctor, piously raising his eyes, “now lettest thou thy
servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have beheld thy glory.”
“We take a great deal of pride in that libel law,” said the stranger.
“It has inspired a degree of courtesy on the part of Arizona editors
that would have made Lord Chesterfield ashamed of himself. The Yuma
_Sentinel_, which was accustomed to personal journalism, lately alluded
to a convicted highwayman as ‘a gentleman whose ideas on the subject of
property differ from those of a majority of his fellow-citizens;’ and
the Tucson Star, which used to be the chief of slangwhangers, reviewed a
sermon and spoke of Judas Iscariot as ‘that disciple whose conduct in
receiving compensation in money from the Romans for his services as a
guide, has caused his memory to be visited by all religious
denominations with great, and probably not altogether undeserved,
criticism.’ But we are at Yuma, sir, and I must bid you good-by. Boats
run up the river from here to Castle Dome. There is an excellent hotel
here. Tourists usually stop over to visit the Gonzales place, and I
suppose you will not neglect the opportunity. The house is a marvel of
beauty. It was built by direction of Mr. Morning.”
“Does he live there when at home?” queried the baroness.
“Oh, no, madame! The Gonzales family nursed Morning through an attack of
fever, after he was shot by the Apaches near the old Gonzales hacienda
several years ago. The Señorita Murella never left his bedside for
weeks. Really, the doctors say the girl saved his life. He was,
naturally, very grateful, and, when he recovered, he bought the Castle
Dome rancheria from the Indians, and had a rock tunnel run into the
Colorado River, and took out the water and carried it in irrigating
canals over a thousand acres of land, which he had planted in oranges,
lemons, vines, olives, and other fruit. It will pay a princely revenue
to the Gonzales people in a few years.
“Morning ordered built upon the dome overlooking the river the most
beautiful marble palace on the coast, and they say it is not surpassed
anywhere on earth. The whole business must have cost him several
millions, but money is nothing to him. The place is kept up in princely
style by the Señora Gonzales and her daughter. They entertain a great
deal of company, and are always delighted to welcome strangers who may
visit the place.”
“And I suppose that Aladdin is a constant visitor at his palace?”
sneered the baron.
“Morning? Oh, no; strangely enough, he has never been near the place
since its completion, two years ago! Too busy, I suppose, helping the
world out of the mud. But he is on the coast now, preparing for his
‘dynamite exposition,’ and may put in an appearance here.”