Purpled Ease

_No quarter! We want all that you possess. We will be content

with nothing less than all that you possess. We want in our

hands the reins of power and the destiny of mankind. Here are

our hands. They are strong hands. We are going to take your

governments, your palaces, and all your purpled ease away from

you, and in that day you shall work for your bread even as the

peasant in the field or the starved and runty clerk in your

metropolises. Here are our hands. They are strong hands._—_Jack

London._

The above is taken from a postal card sent out by the publishers of

Jack London’s books. Jack is a Marxian Socialist all day long, and he

is much more frank than most of his party. All the other Socialists I

ever met, alternately admit and deny that what they want is a division

of property ❦ Jack London stands by his guns and declares, “We want

all you possess.” And when he says “you” he means the people who own

property. He is talking to the owners and managers of the “tools,” by

which he means the railroads, mills, shops, stores, factories, mines

and steamships. That is to say, Jack is going to take things away from

the present owners and give these things to “we.” Jack assumes that

property in the hands of the Socialist would be much better managed than

it is now in the hands of those who own it. ¶ This threat of Jack’s

would be a tragic thing if Jack and his pals were really going to do

all they say they are. But they are not going to do anything but talk.

That is their “hold.” Folks who can, do; those who can’t, chin. Jack is

a writing tramp who roams the world for thrills and copy. He is kindly,

intelligent, amusing, indolent, and absolutely without the power to

manage anything—even his own tongue. He is a good fellow; and he makes

folks think. In fact, he is the sparker to this paragraph. Jack made me

think, he made me mad, he made me laugh, and he made me write. Personally

I like the rogue—he is most companionable, especially if you have no work

to do. ¶ The tendency of property of every sort is towards depreciation

and dissolution. Only eternal vigilance and tireless industry keep a

manufacturing plant or a farm effective ❦ Jack does not know this. Jack

thinks that to own property is to be immune from work. The truth is,

ownership is a responsibility and a burden. Most of the Socialists I know

do not work—they only talk about work. ¶ What they want is an orthodox

heaven of ease, where the harps are always in tune and the robes are

always laundered. If Jack could take away the property from those who

have it and set them to work like peasants and “runty clerks,” then the

Socialists would live in “purpled ease,” as Jack and many other childish,

silly folks think that rich people do now. ¶ There is an “idle rich”

class, but it is a very small class, and it is not made up of the people

who manage things. It is made up of remittance-men—and some of these are

Socialists, who play at equality, badger the busy, and patronize the

poor. Leave the idle rich to Nemesis. Disease and death are at their

heels. ¶ The men who operate our great enterprises—mills, factories,

elevators, banks and department-stores—know nothing of ease. Their

working-hours are not limited by the whistle ❦ They sweat blood to meet

payrolls and to keep the wheels of trade revolving. Modern business is a

most exacting taskmaster. It says, “Thou shalt have no other gods before

me.” It demands every ounce of energy its devotee has. The thought of a

“good time” is not for the businessman. He works, and works eternally.

He works because he can’t stop ❦ And this is the man the Socialists are

going to send to the fields! Jack London’s view of railroading is only

from the bumpers. His philosophy can not deceive the section-hands, nor

the train-crews, nor the operators, nor the managers. They work, and they

work with care, precision, energy and economy. Each one does the thing

he can do best. That is what we all do. If Jack’s hands were the strong

hands he pretends, they would be grabbing plow-handles or a shovel,

instead of reaching for a hand-me-out ❦ If the hands of Jack and his

friends were strong enough, they would own this property towards which

they now look with lustful eyes. ¶ The world will be redeemed; it is

being redeemed. It is being redeemed not by those who shake the red rag

of wordy warfare, who threaten and demand, but by its entrepreneurs—its

workers, its inventors, its toilers—the men and women who do the duty

that lies nearest them. ¶ The fallacy of the Jack philosophy lies in

the assumption that the industries of the world would be much better

managed by Jack and his kith than by the men who are now at the helm ❦

In other words, Jack’s claim is that Socialists are a peculiar, separate

and distinct class of able, unselfish, competent persons with hands

especially strong, who accidentally are out of the game, but who are

soon to take possession of things and run everything in such a way that

Society will be blessed and benefited as never before. ¶ The fact is,

Socialists are not a separate and distinct class. We are all children of

Adam and Eve, and the differences in us are more apparent than real ❦ We

all have our limitations—read Carlyle! The weaknesses of humanity are

inherent in Socialists—only perhaps in greater degree. Their doctrine

of reaching Utopia through firing the men who now manage things is the

doctrine of despair. Fabian Socialism is something else—it is opportunism

❦ It does what it can, now. It does not wait for a revolution—rather

it believes in evolution ❦ We climb step by step. Fabian Socialism does

not preach class hatred. In fact, it does not recognize that either

the “class” or the “mass” exists. People who belong to one so-called

class today are in another tomorrow. Most of our so-called predatory

rich wiggled up out of the mass—and they may be poor again ❦ Many of

the poor will be rich. Watch the immigrants landing at Ellis Island.

Can you prophesy to what “class” these boys and girls—curious, quaint,

half-frightened—will belong twenty years from now? Many of them will be

contractors, lawyers, bankers, scientists, doctors, teachers—it is all

a matter of individual energy, intelligence and desire, modified by the

antics of the gods of Chance. There is no conspiracy in America to hold

people down and under. Class hatred, represented by Marxian Socialism,

says there is. There is nothing so savage, cruel and blindly unjust

as class hatred. ¶ I’ve been accused of class hatred because I make

statements from time to time that seem to reveal a lack of appreciation

for the three learned professions. Granted that I do, it is not the man

I criticize—it is the office. Doctors, lawyers and preachers are men,

caught in a certain environment, trying to win the world’s plaudits and

plunder in a certain way ❦ I may consider the way a mistaken one, but I

surely do not hate the man. And the fact that I have hundreds of close

friends among the professions proves that I am not entirely misunderstood

in this matter ❦ Doctors are men. Lawyers are men. Preachers are men.

So, also, are judges. Marxian Socialists are men, and all these are very

much like the people with whom they mix and associate ❦ Rogue clients

evolve rogue lawyers to do their work; fool patients evolve fool doctors;

and superstitious, silly people in the pew secrete a pretentious, punk

party in the pulpit. For the man, himself, I have only admiration,

respect and love—and sometimes pity. I may despise his business and some

of his acts, but how can I hate the man, when I realize that his life is

a part of the Great One from which mine is derived? This man may quit

his business and take up something else. ¶ The criminal is not wholly a

criminal—he is only a criminal at times. Some of his impulses are good,

and most of them may be excellent; but one mistaken act will brand him

forever as a criminal in the world’s assize. ¶ Under the same conditions,

if I were of the same quality and temper, I would have done the same

❦ If I criticize lawyers, doctors and preachers, it is simply because

there courses through my veins a quality and kind of corpuscle which

fits me eminently for success either as a lawyer, doctor or preacher.

“A hair, perhaps, divides the false and true,” says old Omar. ¶ Yes,

and I missed becoming a practising physician by a hair. Had I gone into

Medicine I would have had a team of bays, a coon driver, and a whisker

that would have put all the other doctors in my town to the bad. I have

the fingers of a diagnostician, a voice that soothes, a presence that

heals. If you didn’t have it, I could convince both myself and you

that you had. Then I would have cut into your cosmos to find out who

was right—and I would have charged you five hundred dollars for the

operation. If I were wrong in my diagnosis, you would never have known

the difference, for on occasion I can be discreet. ¶ The law is a game

that lures: it isn’t a matter of securing justice—not that. Truth has

a secondary place in the practise of law, and only very ignorant folks

imagine otherwise. The law is a game, and you play to win. The whole

thing is fascinating. It is a clash of wits—mind matching mind. As a

lawyer, I would have quibbled you six nights and days together; and I

would have been a legal lallapaloosa. ¶ Bill Reedy writes, “We are all

touched with the essence of the thing against which we strive.” And Bill

is sometimes right. That is all we can expect, even from the wisest and

best of men, and Bill is both ❦ Yes, I would take kindly to the law, for

guff, bluff and stuff come easily within my grasp. I can cross-buttock

a fact; side-step an equity; befuddle a judge—some judges; kerflumix a

jury; juggle with justice; put reason astride of a barb-wire fence; and

prevent a witness from keeping his oath to tell the truth, the whole

truth and nothing but the truth. And a fat fee would always reanimate

any flagging zeal I might have as to the justice of my client’s cause. ¶

As for the pulpit, I would take it now, were it not so securely fastened

down—hypocrisy, gush, glibness, Chicago Tongue,—yes, let Billy Sunday

look to his laurels! I, too, could tear a passion to tatters and make

the judicious grieve. I could hypnotize myself into a belief that souls

were “lost,” like collar-buttons under a bureau, and I was the one man

to rescue them ❦ Sure! Especially am I qualified for making Pastoral

Calls—or I was once. Also, I have great capacity for chicken-pie,

pretense, cheap social honors, and the applause of the unthinking. As a

Churchman, reversed haberdashery would have done me proud; breeks would

become me, for my shanks have individuality; and a dinky hat would set

off my sky-piece in a way not only to arouse curiosity but mirth. Let

Dean Hart beware—his job is not so secure as he thinks! ¶ Doctor Samuel

Johnson was for a time a member of Parliament in the capacity of cub

reporter. One certain speech he reported, and when the gentleman who had

made the speech read the report he didn’t exactly recognize it. So he

went to Johnson and said, “Look ’ere, young feller, I didn’t say that.”

“Certainly not,” said Johnson, “certainly not; but that is what you

should have said!” ❦ In recounting his reportorial experiences, Johnson

was once asked this question: “What kind of men are there in the House

of Commons?” And Johnson replied, “Take the first fifty men you find

walking up Fleet Street.” Johnson knew that all men, regardless of their

condition in life, are, at heart, very much alike. ¶ And when Fate has

flung a man into a certain situation, the man will, if it is a place

of some honor, give himself all the credit for having attained it. If

it is a position that perhaps carries no honor, the party will always

blame some one else for putting him there. We credit ourselves for our

successes; we blame others for our faults. Also, we justify ourselves in

everything we do ❦ And wise men see plainly that this self-justification

is a part of Nature’s great law of self-preservation. The exaggerated Ego

is a primal necessity. Good men all and everywhere multiply the value

of their work by ten. ¶ Success in life consists in convincing yourself

that you are the whole cheese, and then getting the world to accept your

view. Rostand’s rooster was fully assured in his own mind that the sun

would not come up if he did not crow. The hens being told this by the

rooster cackled it back to him, and it became a crystallized part of the

orthodox Zeitgeist ❦ And it would have so remained for all time, but for

an accident—an accident of love, when a guinea-hen became enamored of the

boss of the barnyard. So Life is a paradox—and love is not only illusion,

but it is also the great enlightener. ¶ Now, I know Jack London; I know

the proletariat; I know the “predatory rich.” And this I know, that so

far as happiness is concerned each and all of them have an equal portion

❦ The struggle in getting out of the mass has given Jack’s predatory

party a certain power, but he has paid for it with his peace of mind, and

has to struggle to hold it. “Purpled ease” is a thing that exists only

in Jack’s mental vacuum ❦ That is where the tramp has the start of the

millionaire. The tramp can dream it; the other fellow has no time even

to think it. ¶ When John Wesley saw the condemned criminal being taken to

Tyburn Tree, he turned to his friend and exclaimed, “But for the grace of

God, there goes John Wesley!” When Walt Whitman looked upon the wounded

and dying soldier, he said, “I am that man!” Emerson wrote in his _Essay

on Justice_, “I have in me the capacity for every crime.” ¶ And here is

what I say to Jack London: If you and your pals were in possession of

the tools of trade, you would commit all the so-called crimes of which

you accuse the industrial leaders, and more. The fact that your heart is

full of hate proves your unfitness to govern. ¶ These men now in power

have climbed step by step to their present position, and at every step

had to prove their worth, before they were allowed to go on. These tools

of which you speak are sharp, and men like you, unskilled in their use,

would cut others with them, and they in turn would take the tools and

cut your head off. ¶ Your hands are not as strong as you imagine. The

strength of the hands of men is not proven by assertion—it is proven by

use. How far can you put the shot? Power unrestrained is always tragic.

The world is held in place by the opposition of forces. The men in

power are ballasted by responsibility, as never before in history. You

have your use as an agitator; so go it, Jack, and say your say. ¶ That

fly on the wheel of the chariot of Achilles said, “Oh, just see what

a dust we do kick up!” ¶ And this remark of the fly has added to the

gaiety of nations. But get enough flies on the chariot of Achilles and

not a wheel revolves. The Egyptians in Moses’ time battled with swarms

of flies, when the flies scored home-runs and base-hits. Self-interest

and the tug of inertia have hypnotized you, Jack, until you, being down

in the gutter—through choice—see only your side. Yet, your barbaric

yawp is being heard, and I am your antipodal organ, passing it along.

¶ Meanwhile you ride on the bumpers provided by the Trusts, and these

bumpers carry you forward to your destination. The pie you eat is made

by the Pie Trust, yet you find it palatable and ask for more. If the Pie

Trust didn’t make good pies and sell them at a fair valuation, housewives

would make their own pies. Or they might find pie-timber too expensive,

and then you would go pieless ❦ The great consolidated industries serve

society, and their very existence turns on their ability to minister and

to help. That which does not serve, dies. If the Trusts overcharge they

invite competition and dissolution. ¶ Success lies in co-operation and

reciprocity, and the hope of the future is in the fact that the world

knows it. We can’t go back to chaos, and start over. We must go on. Light

lies ahead, not behind. We are not going to take off the train-crews,

and put the tramps in possession. There are accidents occasionally now,

but there would be more then. Safety lies in getting rid of the tramps.

One wide-awake, vigilant man at the switch is worth more to society than

all the tramps who ride the brakebeams. Get to work, Jack, and if you

can’t find the job you want, then take the one you can get! To prove

yourself able to rastle a big job, get busy and take care of a little

one. Power does not reveal itself in scolding. And with all your getting,

get busy! ¶ Yours for the Evolution!

[Illustration]

[Illustration]