the proviso that he would make attempt there to beat a modicum of common
sense into the heads of certain of his confrères? The odds against his
success would be nearly prohibitive, to be sure; but millions of Americans
would relish his try at it. Then, too, the pug would stand a chance of
being of some use in the human scheme, the which he has not been up to the
present time: unless to image and suggest brawling and blood-letting to
up-coming kids, is useful.
Let America get after and stay after her pug and mulcting parasites, along
with her conscienceless money-changers and spenders, after the manner in
which the Christ-man got after them, and the criminal will at once take up
quite somewhat of the oblique slack of his mind. Until America does just
exactly that, both in and out of prison, recidivistic criminals will ride
the rougher shod in America, in constantly increasing numbers.
History seems to have it that a contagious human hysteria recurs in
cycles; that the hysteria usually roots in an aimless spirit of unrest;
and that when the wheel of time points the fatal number, myriads of
advanced humans yield their grip on intrinsic values.
Initial expression of the mental eruption has usually taken the form of
choromania, as witness ancient Sparta's grand march to corrupted morals
via the nude dance; also, America's present peek-a-boo gyrations,
remindful alternately of nothing so much as the lumbering clown bear, and
"monkey-on-a-stick."
One could make better than a crude guess as to the psychological sequences
involved in the connection between the semi-bestial dance, and concomitant
blunting of the finer sensibilities. One could, because sex-charged,
hysterical dancing unchecked, runs in the end almost inevitably either to
conscious or unconscious brutality of one or another form and degree.
In the beginning, the form may but slightly offend that which is natural,
and the degree may seem to be as inconsequent; but the cumulative effect
of both as suggested and imaged is to commonize a low level of human
expression; and since a low level of human expression demands varied
excitement pyramided, the final result will depend upon whether a people
do or do not put overhead check on that kind of expression.
At the Jersey City prize-fight, Americans very palpably did just the
reverse who fattened the purses of parasitic pugs and their purveyors
there assembled.
As a matter of course, such as capsheaf criminals, gamblers, pool-room
sharks, bookmakers, race-track "touts," and members and ex-members of the
won't work "frat" were at the ringside, drawn as by an irresistible magnet
to their natural element. But think on representatives of a nation's
dignity and sanity mixing with the motley mass, while entering into the
spirit of the brutalizing abomination!
Save their women, and say how much the minds of honorables of that kidney
have "on" the criminal mind? Essentially how much have they, taking into
account their blood and bringing-up, and the blood and bringing-up of the
average criminal? How about the mind of a public servant who does not know
a bestial, crime-breeding thing when he sees it: or, if he does recognize
its basic baseness, still clamps moral handcuffs on his conscience in
order to indulge a natural or acquired predilection for brutish
expression?
May such an one be held safe either to help frame or interpret the laws of
his land, on which the oncoming generations of American youth must guide?
Could any of the revered forefathers have been dragged to such as current
"boxing exhibitions"--again, "don't laugh"--other than in the same as
chains? If they could not have been, were they mental, moral and physical
"hayseeds" of their day: or, do certain of their successors fundamentally
flout their oaths of office, through literally flinging the most
pernicious of suggestion and example into the very faces of America's
budding lads and lassies?
To what, at bottom, more than any one other concrete cause, was the late
debacle due, if not to Germany's brutally-planned persistence in making
brutish sport a part of the common and uncommon education of her young
males? If you are inclined to pass the query, question closely any one of
thousands of German ex-students and soldiers whose face bears cicatrized
scars of the sword's edge or point, and get your answer.
The reply of the sporting mad of America would be that Germany advisedly
fashioned the minds of her lads for alleged defensive war with her
enemies, real and imaginary; whereas such as prize fighting conserves the
all-around stamina of American youth, to be employed in the pursuits of
peace, and that it is meant to do no more.
Rot, that, just plumb rot! Rot of the kind no thinking man would dare
attempt to justify on bended knee. Prize fighting "is meant" first, last,
and all of the time, to pack the purses of human parasites; to pack purses
that are unpacked to beat the law, both God-made and man-made, from every
possible angle. To hold else is either not to know the game, or not to
want to know it.
Prize fighting is war in miniature between two men. It is, moreover, up to
the point of a killing, the most merciless of war. It is, because
"top-notch" fighters of the several "weights" are rare birds who are
practically unbeatable in their prime, so long as they hold to Nature's
laws. Those who go against them are usually as good as "licked" before
they enter the ring. Therefore the hundreds of "marked" would be
"cham-pee-ons" who eke out a living serving essentially as punching bags
for their physical betters; and therefore the former are marked with such
as ear drums put out of commission; broken noses, wrists and hands;
impaired eyesight; and internal traumatic wounds that are fated to rise up
and curse them along at about life's middle course.
Pretty picture in so far as painted, isn't it, with which to stir the
imagination and ambitions of your boy? And mark you, the vicious
by-products of pugism have been but barely indicated herein, as for
instance: at least one-third of the sixteen-hundred-thousand dollars of
gate money of the Dempsey-Carpentier fight will circulate as disappearing
dollars. The bulk of them will disappear from legitimate lanes of trade
and circulate through corrosive sporting channels, the which are a drag
upon the general turnover of business. What's more important, they will be
placed so as to further menace the morals of the young. And all will be
managed mainly by those who pack smug chuckles over the apish credulity
of legions of the self-nominated august.
This seemingly misplaced diversion is meant to drive it home, with the
final word, that sport overdone at once locks arms with the criminal, and
undercuts at the foundation of the national structure.
No matter what form of expression the non-producer may affect; or by what
specious arguments he seeks to establish that form of expression, he
remains a non-producing leech.
Did the professional sporting pug peddle his nefarious wares after having
done an honest day's work, it would still be bad enough; but he doesn't,
he never has done so, and he never will. He knows that always of the mass
an appreciable percentage of sporting-bug bitten individuals can be relied
upon to sponsor his spurious offerings. Therefore he plays up to them, and
down to that which the Creator expects of every man.
However, that actual producers have to carry the drones of the human hive,
is by no means the prime ingredient of the foul mess. That resides in
spiritual loss not to be calculated in dollars and cents: a spiritual loss
which side-tracks rational thinking and doing, while it engenders "a
spirit of unrest men miscall delight."
The criminal mind functions exactly as does that of the socially
prominent, if not ethically discriminating woman, who, in a late newspaper
item, declares for the blood-spilling at Jersey City because she thinks
it was "wonderfully sportsmanlike." As a matter of fact, there wasn't a
thing "sportsmanlike" about that brutal battle. There wasn't, if for none
other than the reason that Carpentier gave away nearly twenty pounds to
probably the hardest-boiled, two-fisted fighter of his weight the prize
ring has ever known. That, alone, spelled the "count" for Carpentier.
Furthermore, the true metal of the clan rings in Carpentier's contention
to the effect that he broke the thumb of his right hand in the "first
round." Had he done so, he could not have rocked Dempsey with that hand,
as he did, in the "second round."
A "sportsmanlike" proposition presumes a fair fighting chance for either
contestant. Carpentier didn't have a ghost of a chance. American pugs knew
it, though they cannily kept the odds on Dempsey up, so as to attract the
big money from overseas.
Carpentier floored, battered, bleeding, doubled up in agony and gasping
for breath, symbolized at once the spirit of the prize ring, and the
chance the layman has when he stakes his money against the underground
machinations of those who "toil not" and will not toil. They must first
attract, then outmaneuver honest money. They do, and they do it while
poisoning the national mind.
Finally, as regards claims even for physical betterment accruing from
brutalizing sport: Rot, again, pure rot. Not a thing attaches thereto but
which Dame Nature offers man gratis and bountifully out of her
outstretched hands.
Have you ever, really, thought it all over? If you haven't, make haste to
do so. God will not hold you guiltless else; for, in just the degree men
fail to realize that they are the moral "keepers" of His children, they
will be held responsible by Him for those of them that take on the
criminal mind and stumble on with it to the social discard.
While thinking it over, watch it out and see the sporting thief, and thug,
primed for a nefarious business in such as the cigarette-soaked, gambling
poolroom.
III
THE MORAL CRIMINAL
_Dr. Adler says there are 10,000,000 feeble-minded people in our
country. Well, well: it isn't as bad as we thought. Passaic News._
Crime is commonly imaged as felonious offense committed against the public
law. Definitions of the word "crime" are likewise restricted in meaning.
The common idea of crime is natural, and the legal definition of it is
necessary, albeit crime reaches far beyond casual views and word-analysis.
In the final sieving, anything that abets, suggests or examples devilish
conduct on the part of normal humans, is criminal.
It is a devilish thing to do individual murder; but it is infinitely more
devilish to so gouge and mulct as to help kill the chances of millions of
fellow beings to bring up their broods as children have a right to be
brought up.
It is a spiteful fling of Nature that monogamous mating cannot hold the
oversexed of the human species; yet their bestial impulses are benign, as
compared with the persistence of the public press in successively
pyramiding detail on detail of the nasty aftermath of the expression of
those impulses. "News is news," yes; also, nasty news is nasty news,
concerning which the moral obligation is upon the newspaper fraternity not
to flaunt it, time and again, at the top, under spread-type caption, for
the edification of younglings. The writer has been in position to know
that the bulk of newspaper men do not relish the kind of mental pabulum
they feel they are practically compelled to serve to a percentage of their
patrons. Editors and the like are usually staunch, far-seeing men who
realize fully the fateful suggestion of the crime-breeding,
sexually-perverting print they hold themselves obliged to feature, else be
beaten to it by competitors with narrative a part of the public demand.
Nevertheless, it is more than probable that the sheet which should decline
either prominence to, or reiteration of, such as erotic copy, would
increase rather than yield its clientele. To believe else were to believe
the mind of the average citizen to be reduced to a very low level.
As a matter of fact, the average reader lends but casual eye to crime and
sex-charged stuff. He turns from the mere headings thereof in disgust. Did
he follow through with arrested attention, he would be impressed with the
carrying power of the stuff, and take measures to protect his kids from
it. That the case boils down to impressionable effect upon the babe in
embryo, is sufficient to give good men pause over the publication of such
as prurient matter, poisonous to the last degree by suggestion to immature
minds. Moreover, to deprive unsocial and anti-social plungers of a public
audience, is one of the best ways by which to extract the tang from their
obliquely-conceived flings.
The criminal feeds on the pernicious notoriety given him in the printed
page. So do marital globe-trotters. Hence, a common publicity of dirt
operates as a two-fold menace to good morals. And mark you, however
specious the plea for the publicity, the menace of it remains.
In any case, purveyors of news will do well by up-coming lads and lassies,
through pressing the soft pedal for dissonant tones; by passing up
youth-poisoning narrative to those who have a natural predilection for
that kind of print. They will do well to do it over their signatures, and
thus permit the public to get a strangle hold on the few who would maim
budding character for a packed purse. No one looks for such a change; but
until some such measure is effected, gentlemen of the press may not wash
their hands of crime by suggestion.
In effect, the bulk of the public press of America stand in no better
moral light than does the foul-mouthed gossip who goes from house to
house peddling filthy wares. There is no difference in principle between
the two, and in practice only what demarcates retailing and jobbing. That,
not only, but doing it over and over again, with but such details deleted
as a self-respecting husband would hesitate to impart to a self-respecting
wife.
"_Noblesse oblige._" Let those on whom moral leadership is in part thrust,
and in part assumed, go over their own lines and discourage the leprous.
The drone-bum is a drag on the public purse, but he baldly dresses and
acts the part, makes no pretentions, makes no apologies and seldom deals
from the bottom.
The sport-parasite, whose name is legion, and who is the "four-flushing"
blood-brother of the hand-me-out peripatetic, goes about it differently.
He affects spats, the last wrinkle in waistcoats, cane and gloves, feels
the feel of silk, boast a wardrobe Beau Brummel would have envied, poses
about in a "Packard Six," and wouldn't appear on the street "on a bet"
under a hat a day out of style. Also, he spreads "easy-money" all along
the sporting pike from baseball to the bawd. And also, the high finance,
"fake-scheme" cult of him alone draw down annually close to
five-hundred-million dollars. The bill is paid mainly out of lean purses,
the strings to which have to be tightened, to the end that parasitic
sporting mongers may give their dupes "the laugh."
It is no new thing for the plausible parasite to refuse any part of the
actual social load: meaning, of course, the sweating and tugging necessary
to load that load. Non-producing knights of the gilded circle have always
ridden the tiring nation to its last gasp. But it remained for Anglo-Saxon
Christians to lend unqualified approval to intrinsic drones, who elect at
the best to play for their "pile" and make hard working men and women foot
the bill; and at the worst, to make every possible use at spurious
sporting activities of crooked tools, such as manipulation, inside
information, and, in the end, the confiscatory law of averages.
Followers in America of the Christ lend their money not only to the
ominous business, but their moral support as well; followers, mind you,
ostensibly of Him who raged at money-mad cheats, and who couldn't abide
them that shift labor to other backs.
Many there will be to bristle over the leads immediately preceding; still,
search them out to the final throw, and it will be found that at least
ninety per cent of them either pull or aim to pull directly or indirectly
at strings on the "rake off." This from the college graduated "sport" who
heads for the gaming limelight, to the manufacturer who turns out the
paraphernalia of blood-spilling "pugs."
Many, bitten by the malignant sporting bug, believe the desideratum of
life consists in hardening oneself to give and take the greatest amount
of physical punishment. Mark it: to give and take the greatest amount of
physical punishment.
Why take the punishment? Why, primarily, say the pugs, to the end that one
may take care of oneself in case one is thuggishly assaulted; and
secondarily, to engage at forms of exercise that conserve longevity.
Concerning the primary proposition, say as to how many times in your adult
life you have been obliged to put up your fists in self defense? And as to
the secondary contention, recollect that any form of strenuous exercise
habitually taken on after the plastic period, results practically in a
stretching of the muscles and tissues, and a feeding of them so stretched.
Thereafter, the like of the form of exercise with the feeding, must be
continued for years, and gradually graded down to some past middle age,
else both muscles and tissues will go flabby under wrinkling flesh, and
"Doc" must do the best he can in the case.
As an example of how the thing works out take this: the grand majority of
ex-college athletes slough off too soon on the following-up process named.
Hence, though they represent the physical cream of colleges, they do not
stand out in life insurance statistics as by natural right they would, had
they exercised and trained to Nature's bidding, instead of to the snap of
the professional's whip; nay, had they not trained at all for
heart-exhausting competition, and had just breezed along the countryside,
agreeably with the modest demands of the muscular reflexes.
Lads are subject these days to all kinds of sporting flim-flam, not the
least pernicious of which is that they must be banged about the lot in
order to win physical standing.
Under stress of wholesouled play, pure sport will pass betimes the line
that divides the gentleman-athlete and the instinctively brutal battering
ram. It is good that some have a bit of grit ground into them. Sport must
ride lads to a degree, else be robbed of enthusiasm that makes for
wholesome results; but the moment the thuggish "professional" promoter
promotes, bid farewell to the finer sensibilities and to the purposes to
which pure sport and sporting should be held for lads.
When, as at present, it comes to the point where habitual parasites of the
"pug" variety are held up to the youth of the land by governmental
honorables, as exemplars of all a lad should be and strive for, it is time
to call check; and if the grossly overdone sporting proclivities of men do
not strike in, perhaps the fact that the women of the "honorables" also
stand sponsor for first-driving drones, will do so.
Looking at the matter in the large, what is it if not morally criminal to
babble in one breath about "disarmament," and in the next breath imbue
lads and lassies with the ideals of the shouldering hog, and the
instincts of the boss bull? Where else than in the moral gutter should a
nation expect to land, which goes out of its way to heroize thinly
veneered parasites, and plays up to out and out cheats of the same breed?
The American people have their work cut out to arrest that for which they
have bidden, put up, put down, and put through; which is to say: to snap
social handcuffs on those who advisedly prey upon the weak crotchets and
vicious curves of their kind. Adding to the germane tens of thousands of
flouted laws wont do it; nor will anything short of a purging of the
social conscience. Moreover, the purging will begin necessarily at the
mother's knee, and extend through the plastic years.
America heads for the shallows because she took on the impossible task of
making over habit-marked grown-ups, bidden to her bosom from the scrap
heaps of nations. Now, she may tack quickly or take her medicine,
prescribed by past masters at brute-struck quackery.
So, without end, we might specify and elaborate. The crucial point is that
the public sees capital menace to the public safety only in the acts of
the crassest of felonious offenders: whereas much more of fateful
consequence resides in the morally unclean machinations of those who
practically shove human pawns to the first lines of criminal attack.
Were all imprisoned, petty thieves in the land turned loose, and jail
sentence given their equivalent in numbers of those at the top who make a
business of breaking moral law, the basic steps would be taken at once to
stop the criminal and solve the crime problem. The foraging criminal holds
that he at least takes the gambler's chance, while swivel-chair cheats
"stack" and deal themselves sure-thing financial aces. In so far as that
fact justifies the small-fry felon, he is justified.
Some allowance should be made for tainted-in-blood, gutter bred,
falsely-environed social misfits, who are driven more or less to selection
of the tools of the savage. Contrariwise, there is no defense of the
well-born, well-brought-up man who descends in his dealings with his
fellowmen to the level of the card shark. Yet even the latter is light in
the dark as compared with the public character who affects sporting pugs,
pirates, and parasites. When not a fit subject for the alienists, such an
one is overdue for political death.
The common servant who cannot distinguish as between beneficent sport and
sporting that smells to heaven, ceases to be a social asset not only; he
is a menace to the moral health of the nation. Did he not stand convicted
by the major millions of rational men and women, one would despair of the
dawning day of a common brotherhood.
It were not too rank to paraphrase thusly: "The nation the gods would
destroy, they first make sporting mad." America is dangerously close to
sporting mad. She will come out of that particular form of nerve storm
because she will have to do so. She will have to do so for the very good
reason that she cannot much longer pay the two-fold freight entailed; a
two-fold freight expressed man for man in constantly reduced production,
and an increasing number of disappearing dollars.
At a given time, the national wealth of America reduces to the equivalent
of the number of dollars Americans have wisely earned and invested.
Wisely-earned dollars mean big production, and big production means an
average big spending and investing capacity. That, in turn, means brisk
business along the lines of legitimate commerce and trade. And that means
nearly universal employment, and freely-circulating money turned over and
over along those lines.
Contrary to the claim of the gamester, there is a vast difference between
the working power of the dollar that finds its way into the industrial
groove, and the dollar that helps pack the purse of a prostitute. In the
one case, the moral dollar will earn ever-increasing increment, while
contributing to the general well-being. In the other case, the immoral
dollar had passed and will pass mainly from the pocket of one mulcting
parasite into the pocket of another mulcting parasite. It had and will,
because human parasites produce nothing tangible in exchange for that
which is dumped into their palms. The money they spend for their general
upkeep is largely turned back into approved channels of trade; but that is
but a fraction of the grand total. The bulk of their capital is and must
be nearly as dead to the business world. It is practically of little more
use to going business than is hoarded money.
Even so, the enacting indictment of the sporting drone is not a dollar
indictment. The capital brief society should hold against him is that he
plys intrinsically criminal tools, with which he frequently
"double-crosses" even his fellow craftsmen.