It is universally recognized to be the inherent right of all groups of
men, beginning with the family, and holding its inviolable sacredness
in the municipality, in the State and in the nation, to protect
themselves against immorality, disease and disorder; but it is only
when purity and harmony exist within the gates that the gates are
effectively closed to that which is bred without.
There is little use to establish national or State seaport quarantine,
either sanitary or social, if what is quarantined against is breeding
and flourishing within the boundaries.
It is of little avail to exclude the Chinese, on account of their dull
moral sense, which, it is said, precludes the possibility of good
citizenship, or paupers, imbeciles and insane persons, while we are
cultivating crops of similar defectives with an indifference of
neglect which shows as dull moral sense among ourselves as that
attributed to the Chinese, or as imbecile or insane lack of attention
to first principles as could be exhibited by the leering and gibbering
refuse of Europe which we turn back from our shores.
Care begets care as surely as carelessness begets carelessness. A
house-wife who presides in a tidy home will hasten to close all
openings when there is a dust storm raging without. This is too
axiomatic to enlarge upon, but the illustration is strong. It is only
when we have perfected the character of our own Apprentice Citizens,
by giving them every chance to develop whatever qualities they bring
with them from our mutual Creator, by the best methods known to the
Science of Child-Culture, that we can appreciably feel any good
results of closing our ports to the defective and neglected children
of China or Europe. It can only be when we are ourselves free from
expressions of criminal neglect that we can preach to the world except
in the form of a paraphrased adaptation of the saying of a political
economist of the saloon persuasion to a solicitor for a waif's home,
which was as follows: "Let the blokes as breeds vermin look out for
their vermin. I ain't got no sugar for the kids of such."
It will only be when we have attended to our own national first
principles--our Cadet Citizens--that we can notice imported dullards
and perverts among us by contrast with our own product.
When we have applied the thoroughness demanded by our highest
intelligence in character culture we can close our gates to the bad
characters of all the world, and say, with good grace and effect: "No!
No! friends. We respect the sacred title of 'Brother,' we believe in
brotherhood, and hope for the time when the mandate of Christ shall be
fulfilled in the establishment of a Universal Brotherhood of Man, but
let us begin to accomplish it in the right way. We have learned how to
cultivate the children the Creator sends us in such a way as to make
perfect chrysanthemums of good citizens out of the skimpiest little
wild flowers of waifs that have heretofore languished in neglect on
stony wastes, unnourished and uncared for. We have yet some little
gardening--kindergartening--to attend to before we are ready to open
our National Character Exposition, and in the meantime we will ask you
to excuse us from the usual conventionalities of old-time methods
while we start the brotherhood idea to propagating right here at home
where we can watch it. It will take about three or four years to
organize a Mother Branch of Government, raise and drill a sufficient
army of "Angels of the State" and make them efficient kindergartners,
and five years more to get rid of the criminals and perverts of the
present time, either by conversion under the warmth of a new
point-of-view that will throw a mantle of charity over their past
ill-doing, or by certain death which will seek them as victims within
that time, if they are helplessly lost to reform.
"Let us see--four years and five years are nine years. We have just
cleared the home, as well as the foreign, atmosphere of certain
impurities, of lack of respect for us on account of our granger and
commercial habits of prosperity, as if by a flash of lightning, so
that we may work in peace and have plenty of time in the next decade
to prepare for the exposition which we will offer to the world under
the name of United States and Canadian Character Exposition and Peace
Jubilee. When we have opened our exhibit and given our object lesson,
after the manner of the kindergarten, we can say to the world: "Come
and see what we have done with material gathered from all your lands
and nations. Not one race or national ingredient has been omitted from
our brew. What God makes is good and within the power of man to
cultivate into usefulness, and here is the proof of it. Now go home
and do likewise within your own national boundaries, and when you have
produced good material for brotherhood send it to us and we will
welcome it, but until then, the purity of our own establishment
demands that we refuse your neglects who are already too set in
perversion to be easily reformed.
"Good friends of China and of India and of Africa and of the Islands
of the Sea, or any of the so-called semi-civilized or uncivilized
peoples of our earth, we will send you missionaries and show you how
to cultivate what you have as well as the quality of the material will
permit, and we will supply all the world with an object lesson, but we
cannot take your defectives as boarders in our family."
* * * * *
As a logical sequence of a Strict Social Quarantine it is _possible_
for any civilized nation to make such an exhibit as given in the
illustration in ten years, for the area of neglect is very small in
which idleness and disorder and criminality breed, although the area
of disturbance caused is as wide as the world. We say ten years as a
measure of possibility on the authority of proved results, but fifteen
years is a most reasonable time to settle as an aim if attempted by a
majority co-operation.
It has been said that God never hurries. This is true when the
contrast is made between our unit of time and our idea of eternity,
but when His pure atmosphere has been encumbered with intolerable
inconsistencies, He flashes the lightning, and calls the attention of
the world to it by loud thunder.
In our opinion it is time that lightning should clear our social
atmosphere. We have been shown the way and the fuse has been put in
our hand. There is no difference of opinion as to there being
impurities in the social atmosphere, and methods of purification have
been proven to be effective and have been approved by social chemists
who have intelligently investigated. No creed, no political party, no
class interest, no selfish interest, nothing! opposes the giving of
babies a chance to develop their best possibilities, while the cost of
it, lavish though it may be in the beginning, is a better investment
than any other, not only to the Commonwealth, but to each contributing
unit; to you, and to me, and to our children.
Fellow Citizens, do you not see and smell and feel the impurities in
our social atmosphere? Do you not realize, even if you are indifferent
yourself, that your children are breathing and are being morally and
spiritually asphyxiated by this atmosphere? With the fuse placed in
your hand and the promise of the Master of our Civilization that "Of
Such is the Kingdom of Heaven"; the heaven that we are seeking, can
you resist applying the fuse? Do you not think it is time to lighten,
when we know that the bolt of destruction will consume only the evils
which now environ us and our own children? Are we not agreed? Yes!
We are agreed! Then touch the fuse and let the lightning strike! Some
children are now perishing, and we know it, and the means of rescue
are at hand. The responsibility now is ours. Then, again, our
responsibility demands it, IT MUST LIGHTEN!!