Chapter II: Part 2

As usual the wise do not agree with me, but nevertheless, I am convinced that the coming man will be a consolidated man. Please observe the trend of man’s endeavor, and note the results. He started with the conception of things as a whole, and all things divine. He worshiped the sun, the moon, and the stars, the trees and the creative function, whether by symbol or in action--everything was God. That was the Golden Age of his joy. Then the wise men appeared and “analyzed God.” They really had no other claim to be wise than the discovery of good and evil and the work of separating them. The office of “wise man” maintains its pristine purpose with professional purity unto the present time. He began specializing--dividing things into parts. He specialized God and put him in heaven above; he specialized the devil and put him in hell below. But life revenged itself on the specializer, and in turn man, the specializer, became specialized. And now, when it seems that things are coming to their oneness once more, man too, will consolidate himself and become a complete man.

The wise, having analyzed the Universe, have cautioned the multitude against worshiping that which his priest disapproved. So it came to be that we “drifted” into specialization. We placed God in the “heavenly bodies,” and all the rest of creation were the world and the flesh, and these were of another God, the devil by name. The priest himself was the earliest to experience the revenge that time works to the meddling wise. The priestly function had been symmetrically composite. The priest was mentor, tutor, doctor, lawyer, judge, politician, philosopher, administrator, and executioner. The fine works of art were made and preserved by religious bodies. Gradually differentiation sheared one after another of these prerogatives from him, until there is little left him but his fantastic vestments, and even these are disappearing. We used to take our medicine and advice from the priests. Who now would stoop to do him such reverence? No one takes the priest seriously in these days. We pretend that we go to him to cure our souls, but we’d like to see ourselves permit him to monkey with our liver, sit on juries, purvey our diet, or obtrude his general boredom on us as of yore.

It is true that we have become specialized under the tutelage of our wisest, but the Man to Be will have other ideals, and he will scorn to be a part of a man.

Observe the distributing side of our commercial life. Formerly, when we went to market we found all kinds of commodities under one roof. The same man sold plows, pins, calico, bacon, hair-oil, tape, and what not? Then differentiation became the order of the day. We went to the hatter for our hats, and to the druggist for our pills, and to the butcher for our raw meat, and to the delicatessen shop for our cooked meats.

A man devoting his time to one article becomes perfect in his relation to his specialty. He learned everything about it with the result of better satisfaction, more value to the consumer, and more profit to himself. After it became perfect by specialization--when the function of specialization has brought the improvements required of it--consolidation takes its place. We have now what is called the department store. A specialistic consolidation. Although resembling the market of old, it is a forward step; it is the perfectness of the specialist with the advantage of co-operation.

In the shop the smith made knives, wagons; all things wrought in iron and steel were made there. The next step was to specialize and to perfect each thing. Fortunes were made in the manufacture of screws, bolts, and sundry “parts.” Each part has become perfect by specialization--consolidation is the result; the great machine shops now make all the material for their own consumption. The same is true in agriculture. Starting out with a general farm, with its many grains, fruits, and meats, the specializer comes with the stock farm, the dairy-farm, and truck-farm. Now consolidation takes place even there.

The man in mediæval times, when gods were in full swing, was a man who used his head, his hands, and his heart. He was a complete man. Then the specialist came. The schools and colleges have taken men’s heads; the church and the ethical societies have taken man’s heart; the factory has taken his hands; with the result that hell is full of headless and handless people, sent there by the theologians. The graveyards are crowded with heartless and handless students, sent there by the dry, economic philosophy of our professors. The earth has been paved with bones and bathed with the blood of the workingman, slaughtered by his own kind, because they have not used their heads nor their hearts. Others have done the thinking for them. The specialists have done their work--man has become perfect in each of his parts. I am looking for the consolidation of the perfect parts of man. I am looking for the restoration of head and heart to the brainless worker in the factory and he will become an intellectual giant. The theologian will also be a useful member in society when he uses his hands. To be a laborer will be the sole patent of nobility, and the pedant, the pedagogue, and the professor will pocket his pride, purge himself of his pretensions, and become a producer instead of a parasite.

Then we will be like children of one household, departing from the family roof in the morning. Some go to pick berries, others to catch fish, others to till the soil. Some in the workshops, some in the mines, with the freedom to work at what pleases us, and to change from one work to another if we choose. At eventide there will be a gathering of those who have each performed his allotted task--a union of the scattered tribes. And it is then, when all the various members come together once more in the joy of having rendered each a service to each, that the day is done. Any fool could read this lesson to the wisest, but so overawed have we fools allowed ourselves to become under the domineering masterfulness of the wise, that only rarely will the fool trust himself to “sass back.” I wonder if I am a rare fool?

SUCCESS

Whoso has achieved the purpose or has obtained the thing that he desires has attained Success.

There be wise ones who say that success has been cornered and monopolized and opportunities are slendering. There are still others who assure us that they have a formula; that the “greedy rich” have not the monopoly that envy attributes to them. There be socialists, anarchists, disciples of Henry George, of John Alexander Dowie, and Ella Wheeler Wilcox, who have prescriptions warranted to transplant one from Rag Alley to the desirable side of Easy Street. When you get through taking their nostrums step around to the fool’s office and let her enlighten you.

Success is within you, I say. The attainment of your ideal is success; if not, then what is? Blame no one (even yourself) if you fail in the realization of your ideal. You get what you want if you want it.

I do not pretend to have a hard-and-fast definition of success, that can be photographed and sent on application for inspection and approval.

“He has made a success who has obtained the fulfillment of his strongest desire.”

Do not permit the supernally wise to dissuade you by interposing some other interpretation of success. Neither heed the successful man’s advice, for unless you fail he cannot succeed, hence his advice is for his and not your success. Take a fool’s advice and shun those who would dazzle you with a description that does not apply to an achievement of the real thing which you most desire.

Why should you delude yourself with chasing after something you don’t want, because a sage has told you that it is that which you ought to want? Your own ideal is clear enough. You do not require the medicine men of your tribe to concoct ideals for you. You have a multitudinous stock of desires on hand. Make your selection. Set the chosen one on a pinnacle and have no other gods before it.

Fame, wealth, happiness, revenge, notoriety, or any other ideal that you set up in the holiest sanctuary, is yours if you prove faithful to it.

Whatever your desire is you shall have. But you must not seek to dictate by what processes it will answer your call. You must be prepared to take it by whatever route it arrives.

The price that has always been paid (there are no deadheads on the roster) is the submergence of every aim but the achievement of the ideal. You cannot serve two masters; you cannot have two ideals. The cost is marked in plain figures; it is fixed and invariable. There are no rebates, no free-list, no slipping under the canvas. If you want a thing you must strip yourself of all other purposes than that of obtaining that thing. You must conquer every craving, kill every desire, stifle every call, but the clamor of “get there!”

All that is dear to you must be held in readiness to be given in exchange. The love of parents and children, your compassion with the widowed and the fatherless, your virtue and comfort, and all else that you have held dear must be sacrificed on the altar of your ideal. There must be no looking back, lest you become a pillar of salt. However, if it is what you most desire you will not count the cost too great. If you falter at the cost, if you find there is something you won’t give in payment for your ideal, you have been mistaken in your ideal; that something which you hold back is your ideal.

You have heard your dearest friend say that she would give anything to be rid of her bad temper. She thinks amiability is her ideal. But you will discover that she has not selected her strongest ideal with discrimination, for she is not ready to give everything for her ideal of a good temper. She is willing to give everything except her bad temper. She is not willing to pay the price. Then why should she be favored? Why should a law be violated in her especial behalf by giving her something she don’t want? Her bad temper is her ideal. You are convinced that you must obey the laws of symmetry, gravity, and proportion in construction. You get tools and instruments to make sure that you may not go astray; even in making mud pies you observe the mud law. Then why should you think that you can get a free pass to success?

The price of success is all, even life! To give one’s life for one’s ideal is a privilege which only the earnest seeker of the ideal may enjoy.

Life means death anyway. Then why should you waste it on anything except in the payment for success? Whosoever makes his life serve his ideal, saves it in giving. To give your life for your ideal means that you have not lived in vain; that your life has been sold in the best market and the highest price has been realized. To die for one’s ideal means to be born again.

Examine the successful, and note how true they have been to their god. Observe W-rr-n Spr-ng-r, he is in nowise distressed because ramshackle old buildings and decrepit second-hand elevators contribute to his ideal. Nor do the McC-rm-cks permit any twinges because labor troubles lead to the killing of a few men and the hanging of anarchists. The occasional burning of an oil well are not episodes of a disturbance to the R-ck-f-ll-r ideal.

Consult not the heart when you are on the success path. (Except when your ideal is happiness, you will find no happiness outside of your heart.)

“Mine and Thine” is an intellectual philosophy. The heart has nothing to do with it. The heart says Give and the mind says Get. Get success, is an intellectual proposition. This probably explains the reasons of the different degrees of success. It appears that W-rr-n Spr-ng-r’s mental equipment is inferior to the R-ck-f-ll-rs and the McC-rm-ck thought magazine.

Know also, that you must have an earnest conviction that the thing you lust for is a primary object. My fool formula will not work in a confusion of secondaries. See to it that you have not given the highest seat in the synagogue to a mere adjunct. Be sure that the thing you want is desired for itself, and not as a means of securing some other end, else there will be the disappointment of getting the thing you thought in your mind you wanted, rather than the real thing for which the heart lusted.

One estimable old friend assured me that he wanted a million or two. “Not for myself,” he insisted, “but that I may give it to the suffering poor.”

“Then,” said I, “it will be quite the same if I were to get the million and distribute it in accordance with your schedule.” But it wasn’t the same at all. He wanted to be a benefactor. Not a blameworthy ideal, but quite different from what he thought until the test was applied.

No matter what your desires may be, the satisfaction of them depends on other people. Hence you must be circumspect in the selection of those you use; you must see that none of them have any survival of heart. If you have not sufficient intellect of your own to guide you, do not despair. Let that be the least of your troubles. There are many who are eager to render the sort of service you require. But see that the intellect you enlist is simon-pure, and then let the substitute be your guide. Obey orders without straying from the path. If you play your part well your intellectual bankruptcy will not be detected. Woe to you if you are not true to the intellectual manager! Society will condone anything if intellect stands guard to set you right, but intellectual insolvency is never forgiven.

Remember, it is sometimes wise to appear foolish; do not indulge in asking questions--for often there are no answers. And sometimes it is necessary to back up to get a better start.

It is essential to have public approval while we are on the success path. It is indispensable! It is so easy to secure the approbation of the public that one is not justified in attempts to defy public opinion unless your ideal be love of justice. In such case public opinion be hanged! Public opinion for revenge will hang you, but your ideals will survive the gallows and the cross. Public opinion can be molded by the press. Arson will be condoned if there is a spice of adventure in burning down a distillery, or blowing up an oil well, to say nothing of wrecking banks and corporations. Robbery by rebates and other discriminations presents no difficulties; and murder, if we can procure it by the militia or the hangman, is respectable. These diversions are incidents of success, and comport with the ideal in whose service they are enlisted.

You will have to join the Combine of Modern Saints. A gift now and then to a hospital, church, or libraries and social settlements when in season, also have their appointed time; and occasionally art is quite the vogue.

The people will give you anything you want if you’ll but ask in the right way. They care not if you kill some of them, or rob them all, but do it beautifully. They will prove loyal if your rapacities are cloaked with “Law and Order” and your misdemeanors tagged “virtue.” They will let you denude them if you accomplish it in the name of civilization.

Be true to the _esprit de corps_ of success. No man can be successful enough to stand alone. Only the success of failure can indulge that luxury. And above all, avoid any tendency to being natural. You will fail if you allow love any play. Nevertheless, at times you are expected to manifest symptoms of love. This entails the necessity of becoming an imitator. A good article of make-believe will be effective as the genuine in the atmosphere in which your lot is cast. The moment you yield to love you have failed; success will tolerate but one God.

Let me repeat: If you be an earnest seeker for success, your heart must be dead and the whole campaign shifted to the intellect. That, too, is dead, but the intellect being wise is too wise to know of the deadness of its death. It continues in galvanic imitation of life. One Chicago millionaire has been dead for forty years, but so excellently galvanized is he, that the administration on his estate is postponed from day to day. When seen in his automobile only last week he had a very natural, life-like look in his eyes, but the death grip on his wallet emitted the odors of the tomb.

This essay is not written for the benefit of the wise in order to convince them of the efficacy of changing their ideal. They will not accept my foolishness any more than I will bow down before their wisdom. It is the ideal of the wise to establish ideals for others. Let them air their wisdom. They, too, have a province in this world of many mansions. I do not begrudge them the space they cumber, nor do I commiserate the victims of their wisdom. Not that it is my ideal to decry the wondrous wise! That is a bit of _en passant_ by-play with which I amuse myself while resting for intervals in the pursuit of my central ideal.

SHOES, PIGS, AND PROBLEMS

While trying on shoes at a shop one morning I was meditating on the nature of problems, and why it was that I had none to solve, and was not even sure that I would recognize one should I encounter it in my rambles. Presently I heard myself asking, “What is a problem?” and the clerk, probably thinking that the question had been addressed to him, replied:

“A problem, miss, is to get a number six foot in a number three shoe. The way I’ve seen it solved seems satisfactory. The last place I worked we used to mark down shoes on bargain Fridays. I was new at the place when I learned about problems. I asked the manager one Thursday night how much to mark down our neat six-dollar gaiters. The manager instructed me to put up a sign, ‘Shoes marked down one-half.’ Then he directed me to mark down the size accordingly, and not bother about the price at all.”

“We don’t do such things in this house,” he went on to state, seeing that I was more interested in problems at the moment than in footgear, “but at that place we used to tell our customer we were not sure that we had anything in stock quite small enough to fit her, unless perhaps a couple of pairs we happen to have in stock that were ordered especially for Cinderella (but proved a trifle snug) might serve. We rarely failed to solve the problem that way.”

While I was down at the farm, I heard a great commotion in the direction of the sty one morning. Investigation showed that two fat pigs were lying in the trough, and the remainder of the drove were exclaiming against that bit of pre-emption with more vehemence than euphony.

I asked the assembled disputants the cause of the uproar, and was given to understand that they were discussing the problems of life. I asked them what were the problems of life, and they said that the pigs on the outside wanted to get on the inside. I asked why they did not let them in, and a great big fat hog said:

“We have natural rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”; and all pigdom squealed:

“We have natural rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

“And the object of life is not swill,” said the hog on the inside.

“And the object of life is not swill,” responded the pigs on the outside.

“We have a right to free assembly and free grunts,” said the hog on the inside.

“We have a right to free assembly and free grunts,” they all grunted.

“We must restrain our piggish nature,” he said.

“We must restrain our piggish nature,” the echo replied.

And the pigs on the outside were on the outside, and the pigs on the inside were on the inside.

My intention was to write a chapter on the Philosophy of Pigville. You see we have books on almost everything except the pig. Our younger brother is being awfully neglected, though there is much to say and write on pigs. Carlyle says they are so human. Yet there are some points of difference between the swine and the human species. I have seen “gentlemen” who were said to be “as drunk as a hog,” but I have never seen a pig as “drunk as a gentleman.”

On the surface it appears that all you can say about pigs is swill, but swill is only a small part. There is the religion of the pigs; the political economy of the hog; there is the educated pig--he must not be neglected; then there is a pig morality--why should not our dear little brother have a morality? I studied them closely and discovered that they have no monogamistic marriages, and I asked them why they practiced polygamy. The reply was that to do elsewise would interfere with the stock market, and anything that interferes with the stock market is a crime. The same old sow suggested that I should solve their economic problems. So I called them together and said to them:

“You are pigs, and have pig natures; it is a mistake for you to restrain your pig nature. You really never do it, but only make a piggish bluff at repression, which reduces the volume of your lard and the delicacy of flavor of your hams. Being pigs you should be candid in your lives. Your natures demand that you root, feed, love, serve and reproduce your kind, and that you offer your bodies a smoked, salt, or sugar-cured sacrifice to man, which is your reasonable service and in consonance with pig destiny. This talk about restraining your piggish natures is all squeal, and there is neither coherence nor music in it. You’ll find no peace in resistance, rights, or repression. Be good.”

There was an educated pig in the assembly, and he took issue with me. “There are certain natural rights,” he proclaimed, “and it is a mistake to declare that we should not restrain the other pigs from invading the natural rights of pigs. We deny that any one has the right to deprive us of our happiness. And my solution of this problem is that the pigs in the trough, while they have a perfect right to be there, should submit to a system of taxation whereby their occupancy will tend to the benefit of the whole drove.”

I never cared for educated pigs, and of all educated pigs I deem the single-tax variety the least attractive. However, his contention being based on the wisdom of natural rights, his pig philosophy is of a piece with that of his human confrère.

Then I went to an entertainment and there saw a problem solved. The performer had on a table before him two hats. Into one he dropped a little ball.

“With your kind permission, ladies and gentlemen, one and all,” he pattered, “I will now, by the mere waving of this magic wand, cause the little ball to pass from the hat into which you saw me deposit it, into the other.... So, now it has passed through the substantial material of both hats without in anywise injuring the fabric of either. But that is not the most wonderful feature of this act. Observe me now, as I cause the little ball to return to the hat into which you saw me place it. By the mere utterance of a magic formula, accompanied with the proper manipulation of my all-powerful wand, I command the little ball to get back to the first hat, and ... here, ladies and gentlemen, it is; and you will observe as I pass the hats around among the audience that they have not been injured by the passage of the balls.” Everybody applauded. I have a strong suspicion that the ball never left the hat, but should I see things like the wise do I would be no fool.

I came very near solving a problem once by guessing the solution. My guess was right, but the problem turned out to be no problem at all, else my guess would have proved futile. The problem was stated in these terms: Given a tub full to the brim with water, and another tub full of live fish, how comes it that one may drop all the fish, one by one, into the tub of water, without causing the water to overflow?

My guess was that it was a lie.

I think that there are many problems just like that one. Perhaps they are all that way.

I rather suspect that one of the chiefest problems of life is of that same fishy flavor. The problem is: Given a God that is All in All, and humanity that has only what God grants. How comes it that God gives his creatures desires which he expects them to suppress?

My guess is that the premises contain a lie.

You are entitled to a guess in your turn. If you get more comfort from your guess than I get from mine you must have a wonderful capacity for comfort, and in that case I may be justified in the assumption that you are a greater (because happier) fool than I.

The religious problem, as I have been told by those in the business, is how to save man. Human beings, to all appearances, seem to be well content and loving, but they say they are not. They have information from somewhere--I know not where--that man is lost; and the problem is how to save him.

After looking carefully at the problems which people are trying to solve, I find that a problem is to do things in an “undoable way.”

The social problem that worries our wise men a great deal I have heard discussed a number of times and various remedies suggested. I once heard a lecture by a wise man and the problem of peace was his subject; and the trend of his conversation was that, by having arbitration instead of war, we will have peace in society, and the problem of life will then be solved.

Nature has ordained that if you do not comply with her rules that that particular member of your physical body which violates the law suffers. When that member escapes punishment another organ or member suffers. When a man overloads his stomach with liquor, headache follows. It is identical in the social world. The disregarding of nature’s rules brings pain in the physical body, or discord in the social organism, and that pain or discord is not a punishment but a warning. To live in harmony and peace is nature obeyed. All our troubles come from the unnatural isms and wasisms which create problems. Nature is broad and great and openhanded. It is the broad, big untrammeled highway. And because the wasisms and isms are forever crowding us in the narrow little alley, men find no room; consequently, we are constantly falling over one another, and the result is discord and pain. To keep us in this narrow alley and maintain peace is the problem, and the suggestion of the wise man is, “The way to have peace is to have peace, and that is by arbitration to make one or the other of the parties in dispute shut up, and thereby not annoy the rest.”

It seems to me that all problems are about like this: How can I pinch the cat’s tail and escape the scratches that are the penalty for squeezing cats’ tails? The only way that could be done would be for the cat to take a non-resistant attitude, and if the cat could do that (which by the way is not cat nature) you could not then pinch its tail.

It seems to me that you cannot have peace by force. You can only have peace when you remove the inharmonious cause, otherwise it will only prevent discord from expressing itself. When my child is crying because of a toothache, it is no remedy for me to tell it to shut up because the noise annoys me. Suppose she complies with my request (arbitration having been applied to prevent the expression of discord) would that stop the toothache? Would you get peace by stopping the expression of discord? It seems to me if there is anything wrong in the physical or social world it would be better to remove the cause, and until the cause is removed, let us have as much discord as possible. If your home is on fire, you want a 4:11 alarm to wake up the household; and you are willing that the din and clamor of the alarm should continue until the wake-up process is complete. The way to remove the cause is to understand that nature has not given man desires to suppress them. It is not in prevailing upon man to do things he does not like to do, or restraining him from things he does like to do that will give us peace.

However, the wise ones are not satisfied to have things natural. That would be too easy; and therefore they must have problems which can never be solved. I have no problems and no philosophy of Life to bother me,--I just live. This conglomeration, the I, with feelings, emotions, thoughts, pleasures, ambitions, is a wonderful communistic society of organs harmoniously co-operating with no dictatorship--an anarchistic dream--each performing for the good of the whole. They have no wish, no desire, save the desire of the whole. When I walk on the street my eyes pick out nice clean spots for my feet to step on; when it would please my stomach to churn some good fruit, my eyes carefully select, my arms reach out, and my hands pluck the fruit. There is no jealousy, no bickering. In case of an accident to one member, all the others rush to assist it. This morning I thought I felt a commotion in myself. Investigation proved that different members of my body were each claiming recognition. The eyes claimed that if it would not be for them the other members could not see a thing and would be helpless; therefore they ought to have all the glory. The ears said without them you could not hear. The legs said if they refuse to take me from place to place I would be in a bad fix. The stomach said that it grinds all the food for the nourishment. Sex claimed that it is the real thing, for it is impossible for any other member to have existence except by its action. And so on every member set up its claim. Before I had time to straighten things out for them I slipped on a banana peel and then I saw that it was only imagination, for up went my hands, my body, and all to regain my equilibrium. No one member can have any pleasure without sharing in company with all. In milk there is cream, sour milk, and water. In cream there is butter and buttermilk. In sour milk there is cheese and water. Can you tell me which drop of it when it comes from the cow is cream, which is water, and which is cheese? Each part, each drop of milk, contains all. There is a stomach, a liver, and all organs of my being in my eye, and still they are eyes. More than that, everything in this universe is in the I--trees, cows, fishes, the sun, the sunshine, the rain and wind, the moon and the stars are in the I. I am the universe, and I in turn am in the trees, in the cow, and in the sun, being all that I am in the eye. I have eyes and they see certain things which it pleases me for them to see, and I see that they see. I have ears and they hear. Certain sounds give me pleasure, and I seek them, and shun those which give me pain. I have a sense of touch--I feel with my hands and my body. There are certain things it pleases me to touch and I touch them; and the touch of others being repulsive, I avoid them. All members work in harmony without any philosophy. My stomach (I used to have two) is always at work, and when it is empty it sets up a clamor; so it gives me pleasure to have my stomach filled, and neither myself nor my stomach care whether we conflict with the rights and the wrongs of society so long as we get our stomach filled. I am very careful of my stomach. I have it surrounded by a wall. My principal organ, sex, is the most delicate of me; it is protected by a pair of hips, that no harm may come to it. I am very careful of my eyes, and let down the lids and cover them when they are not in use or are in danger. I am very careful of my ears, and they are protected by frames. I have a brain that does the thinking, and I have a hard skull to protect it--its private office.

Is it any wonder that we poor fools, we happy fools, laugh at you wise, whose wisdom undertakes to establish peace by force?

A fool will tell you wise ones that the only way to establish and maintain peace is to remove the inharmonious conditions that disturb peace. You have crowded us off nature’s broad highway, and you punish us for climbing your silly fences, and even for laughing at your flimsy barriers. Whenever we think it worth while we’ll ignore your imaginary fences and enjoy our inheritance to the earth unobstructed and unafraid.

Then, ye wise ones, “What are you going to do about it?”

It seems to me that the real problems of the wisest are still before them.

DEMOCRACY

There once was a man who knew what a palladium was. He died without bequeathing the mystery, and so we are bereft of a positive knowledge on the subject. There is, however, a tradition that our constitution is the palladium of our liberties. Hence we should have reverent regard for palladiums.

How grateful we should be that we are privileged to live in a glorious democracy. Each man a sovereign! All are equals! No rulers! The administrators--servants of the people; no aristocracy.

In this great democracy each man is at work under the palladium. All are laborers. There are variant degrees of labor. Some are better pleased with their job than others. But there are always and everywhere malcontents who are dissatisfied with the work assigned them. Some of these creatures complain because he who performs the most laborious services receives the slenderest reward; as though the delight in rendering service were in itself not sufficient.

Yes, it is true, that many of those on whom is conferred the honor of performing the hardest tasks, do not appreciate the distinction thus lavished upon them. Society could not exist without classes. Our best people would be in pitiful plight if there were not a tired class from which to recruit its asylums, its social settlement work, its houses of prostitution, and its police force.

Society requires a class that must build houses, plan and supply the furnishings for these edifices, make the roads, grow foodstuffs and fashion the clothing. It also needs a class that will use the stuff created. We need people to live in the houses, make use of the roads, eat the stuff which is grown, and wear the clothes fashioned. Then we need another class to keep the peace between them that make the things which they care not to use, and the class that uses the things but makes none. I once asked one of these working fellows why he wanted to be on the police force. He replied that he might as well have an easy job as any other fellow, and, he added, “we must have a police force, just as we must have sunlight. Life and property would not be safe otherwise.”

It would seem that the less one has the more he requires protection for what he has not, against the other fellow who also has nothing.

Workers of another class are those that do not work with the hands. Theirs is brain work. They furnish the intelligence for the manual laborer, and give him permission to work. They are called employers of labor. They work the workers and become forceful factors in social life. What would become of our poor ignorant working-classes who know only how to work and obey were it not for our better classes who furnish employment for them?

I remember hearing of an occurrence that illustrates how sadly our workfolk would fare if they were not given employment. During the reconstruction days following the close of the Civil War, an old darkey sauntered into the handsomely appointed offices of the Freedmen’s Bureau at Memphis.

“Is dis yer de Freedmen’s Beuoh?” he asked, in open-mouthed admiration of the walnut and brass fittings of the handsome quarters.

“This is the place,” courteously answered the sole occupant, who appeared to be the officer in charge.

“Well, wot yer gwine do fer de cullud man?” was his next inquiry.

“We can’t do anything for you just now,” said the functionary. “The last appropriation for this office was only about enough to put up these fixings and pay our salaries, and Congress will not--”

“Lor bress ye, suh,” interrupted the recently emancipated citizen, “I aint axin’ fur no money, no suh! All I want is jess a job er wukk. Kain’t you all fine me airy job?”

The Mississippi was high at the time, and lots of driftwood was floating down the stream. The official tried a bit of pleasantry.

“I’ll give you a job,” he said to the old man. “There’s lots of driftwood coming down the river. You go out there and gather all you can, and I’ll give you half you get.”

“All right, boss,” said the darkey to his new employer; and away he went.

By next night the diligent employee had piled up a considerable stack of wood. He was congratulating himself on the success of his work, and making a mental survey of his half of the proceeds, when he was approached by a man whose gold-braided cap gave evidence of officialdom.

“That’s a pretty good pile of wood you’ve gathered, uncle,” said the newcomer. “I’ll take this half over here,” he said as he indicated one end of the pile.

“Lor’ bless my soul!” ejaculated the old fellow. “You doan look like de Freedman’s Beuoh gemman.”

“No,” he replied; “I have nothing to do with the Bureau, but I’m the wharf master, and according to the city ordinances I’m entitled to one-half the wood that’s piled up on this levee.”

“Ef dats de law, all right; go ahead. You tekk your harf, and de Freedman’s Beuoh tekk his harf--only I hope you gemmen won’t mine ef I tekk one little stick off’n you all’s harfs so’s I kin mekk a fiah to cook me any little ting I mout be able to steal fore mornin’.”

I tell this little story to illustrate in a convincing way that there’s no excuse for any able-bodied man ever to be out of a job. There are always benevolent employers who will give us work. We can hear this same truth from every pulpit, though perhaps lacking the anecdotal form. And there is always some sort of government that stands ready to protect the producer against the curse of a surplus. Nor do these various governmental agencies neglect to protect the employer in his share of the product--and help him get it from the producer.

Brain work is very effective. It gathers more in one hour than the toiler can produce in twelve. Therefore the brain-worker does not need to work as long as does the man who works with his hands. It is a fine disposition of things.

The brain-worker requires an occasional vacation. The manual laborer can dispense with such a rest. The latter needs to work longer and more continually so as to keep him out of mischief. The employer’s food, too, must be of better quality, his clothing of finer texture, and he must have servants to wait on him. The working person must learn habits of thrift, and should not partake of expensive foods. Indeed, adulterated and coarse food is more in keeping with his position in life; while shoddy clothing will give him a feeling of decent humility, without which he could not so readily be kept under the wholesome control of his benefactor.

Then there are workers who teach others how not to work. This is one of the most important branches of our Democracy. We call it education, and worship at its shrine. The end and aim of education is to impress upon its victims the necessity for a ruling class; and the rewards which are promised to the faithful pupils is either entrance into the aristocracy or a good job serving the people. The teacher may truly be said to be engaged upon brain-work, for the efforts of the teacher’s brain is to stunt that of the pupil. Neither the teacher nor the pupil brag about this openly; both of them are very much impressed with the nobility of their mission. An utter absence of a sense of humor assures the teacher of promotion and the pupil of appreciation.

The nobility of the teacher’s mission is one of our most sacred beliefs. We know that the teacher is overworked and underpaid. The work consists of twenty-two to thirty hours per week for eight or nine months in the year. During a year’s work the average teacher can instruct fully one hundred pupils in the mystery of escaping work. The ignorant masses who are taught only the dignity of labor do not appreciate the fine work of teaching. The masses must be taught a more proper esteem for intellect, and all our teachers are beautifully intellectual.

The work of priest and parson is another branch of labor that is highly regarded. These check the criminal intent of man. They teach peace and brotherhood. They are the spiritual guides of society, God bless them! Horror on horror’s head would accumulate were it not for these indefatigable workers. Society requires of them only two hours’ work per week, on the first day thereof, which being the Lord’s day is not reverently regarded by the lords, but has some recreative value to those who are not in the lord class.

The work of the Sunday workman is to convince the poor man that he has a better chance to get to heaven than has his master. For this teaching the master willingly and generously pays the hire of the Sunday workman. The laborer of the pulpit proves to the masses that it is foolish to desire earthly possessions--that the rich are better able to endure the pangs of Hell, hence all earthly possessions should be turned over to them, out of which to pay the parson’s salary. Many fine preachments may be heard during those two Sunday hours. We learn that the poor man needs only to inform the pastor that he is hungry and instantly he will be fed with advice concerning Good Citizenship and the proper humility of those whom it has pleased God to cast for the humbler parts.

Were it not for these laborers in the vineyard of the Lord we should never have discovered the close relationship between religion and art. The trouble, we are told, with the disinherited is, that they are soul-hungry. Let them go to the art museum during the Saturday half-holiday, and to church on Sunday, and all will be well.

Now and then a preacher or college professor succumbs to the temptation of the devil. They blaspheme the highest and mightiest of earth. They see smirch and taint on the wealth from which they have been fed. There are not many of these, and they are easily silenced. They are not taken seriously by the good people, and are consistently ignored by the masses. They are the victims of the sympathetic temperament. They commiserate the poor. They suffer agonies of excruciation through their compassion for the sufferings of the downtrodden. And their pain is all for naught. For the very people with whom these generous souls sympathize are not suffering, in actuality, anything like the pangs that their champions are enduring in their commiseration.

The downtrodden do not chafe. The poor do not suffer. They are lulled to sleep by the hope that they, too, shall have their innings at the lord game. Dear me! if the disinherited should ever really get to the point of suffering that the “reformers” think has already been reached--but why dwell on that picture? We did not like what happened in the French Reign of Terror. That was too large a dose of democracy to contemplate complacently.

As education is the teaching of methods whereby we can find the way to let others do our work, so religion seems to be a method of saving lost souls that are not lost. A shepherd who left his flock afield and strayed into the village tavern insists to this day that it was the sheep who were lost. There is no soul that so much needs saving as his who thinks all others are lost.

I lost my garter this morning, and the loss caused me much worry. It is very annoying to lose one’s garter. The loss of a garter implies loss of control of the stocking. However, there’s an immense difference between the loss of a garter and the loss of a soul. In both instances there is a minus mark involved, but as to the garter one loses, one seeks to recover it for herself, while in the matter of a soul one can scarcely lose it before all one’s neighbors are diligently undertaking to save it for her. Moreover, one is promptly made aware of the loss of a garter by the unrestrained and licentious behavior of the stocking, while one may lose her soul and go about her usual avocations without any sense of stress or strain. To judge from the demeanor of those who have been gathering lost souls, it is a fair inference that all the decrepitude of their many finds has clung to the finders. A sour lot of souls some of them must have assimilated in the saving.

And some souls seem to require frequent if not periodic saving. It’s like a fellow with two shirts that he sends to the laundry each week. In the course of the year he had one hundred and four shirts washed, yet he has but the two. Hence when we hear the ardent soul-saver recount his triumphs, and he tells of ten thousand souls saved, we are justified in demanding an itemized account. Did he save the same soul ten thousand times? Or two souls on five thousand several occasions? Or--but the mathematical combinations are infinite.

I attended a revival meeting once, and saw the operators in the act of saving souls. The revivalist by one sentence saved fifty souls, and the sentence was “Where will you be one hundred years from now, where will you be one thousand years from now, where will you be ten thousand years from now?” And I wondered how many souls he could save if he would ask his audience where they were one hundred years ago, where they were one thousand years ago and where they were ten thousand years ago? That would be more convincing, as there is a larger class of people who can tell what transpired yesterday than who can tell what is going to happen to-morrow. The soul-savers always appear eager to go where the well-fed souls require saving. They discern a “call” to a more populous field with much less difficulty than if the call chance to be to a smaller town. The fact that the larger the town the larger the salary has, of course, nothing whatever to do with the case. The “call” from one pastorate to another is not the only kind of pastoral call. There is another kind, and the envious say invidious things of the pastoral calls that are made while the man of the house is away for a day or on a journey. A Kentucky preacher received a call to a religious conference; so did a Chicago woman. He moved to Chicago and has been calling ever since.

One of the triumphs of Democracy which Mr. Carnegie may interweave into some future edition of his edifying book on that topic, is the discovery of the law of compensation within the realm of triumphant democracy. Our heavenly guide has shown us that the more spiritual the work the more material commodities should be exchanged as fair compensation.

He has located heaven away off toward the zenith, and bids you to look up--and while you are looking up he looks down. Should he discover that you are burdened with possessions that are calculated to imperil your attainment of the goal toward which you are looking, he deems it no less a duty than a privilege to effect a change of owners. For all the world like the game I used to play on my baby brother--telling him, in my artful little way, to look up at the bird, while I possessed myself of his goodies. The essential difference between my cute little game and the preacher’s is, that I filched the dainties for the fun of teasing Buster, while his reverence “plays for keeps.”

Little brother fooled me once by refusing to be fooled. When I bade him look at the bird he only laughed and reached for his goodies. Funny what a queer child he was. If big folks were not wiser than babies it would make a substantial difference in the bank account of His Holiness.

While the pedagogue is teaching the young idea to overreach, and the parson is busy saving souls, let it not be thought that our material welfare is being overlooked. Our lawmakers and judges are giving their serious attention to such matters. Fortunately for our country there are always many patriotic and generous souls ready to sacrifice themselves to serve their country in legislative and judicial capacities. There is a legend that once there was a lawyer who declined to immolate himself on the altar of patriotism. It is further stated that he would have had to surrender a practice worth $1,200 per annum for a judgeship at that time paying but $900 a year. Later he was sufficiently patriotic to accept a job as senator at $8,000 a year.

The duties of the lawmaker are to provide protection for society. To carry out his purpose in the line of his duty, he must see to it that the humble poor are protected against the predatory rich. Of course, the rich as a class have some rights, too, which cannot be overlooked. It is truly refreshing to observe with what a wealth of patriotic zeal they engage upon their task. To look at them in session you would esteem them as mere, ordinary, plain men. This is because of the democratic spirit of our age. Our greatest, wisest, noblest, and best take a pardonable pride in masquerading as humble citizens. But their work shows how sapient and pure they are. Elected by the enlightened masses, they are truly representatives of the source from whence they spring. The ballot is a very wizard in selecting for us our choicest and finest and most sagacious.

I have known a disreputable tavern-keeper who pandered to the most depraved people in his district; whose word was not accepted by even the most credulous, who, when he became a “grave and reverend seignor” in our state senate, immediately became the paragon of statesmen, the model of virtue, and the pattern of the boys in the high school of his district. This shows the wisdom of the ballot. That statesman associated himself with the vile and disreputable in order to discover their real needs so that he might understand and supply those needs after his election. He really was a great man in disguise.