Part 10

The middle class are always insisting that they have arrived at the top of advanced ideas, and that it is an unpardonable sin to advance one single step farther. Whatever form of government is accepted by them is the right form, and the “crank” who would suggest anything different, is a bad man.

And the unthinking plodders take up the cry and shout “Bad man!” at everybody who accepts the new theory. In fact, the plodding mob is used as a tail to the middle class kite, and as of material assistance in helping to hold the kite in proper position to catch the breeze. And it is because the advanced class refuse to serve as a tail to the conservative kite that they are persecuted. They may in time persuade the mob of plodders to cease playing tail-piece to the middle class kite, and let the kite come down with a bang and break up its stock of old exploded theories and decayed ideas, and so leave them floundering in the mud of mental stagnation.

Read up the history of the old martyrs, men who died on the scaffold and at the stake for truth’s sake, and you will find in every instance that they were men of advanced ideas—men who had broken away from conservative fogyism and had made some attempt to break the fetters that bind the minds of men and set them free.

In the eyes of the middle class there can be no greater crime than to make an attempt to break the fetters of the mental slaves and stir the minds of the plodding, unthinking mob and set them to thinking real thoughts and evolving new theories.

Go back a few years previous to the abolition of human slavery and notice how the advanced thinkers were treated. History tells how Thompson narrowly escaped the mob at Concord, for teaching that human slavery is a crime against God and man. Whittier was pelted with mud and stones, and Garrison was often mobbed in Boston.

At one time a subscription to a fund was asked of the Norfolk people to pay for the heads of Thompson, Garrison and Zappan, and many Southern cities threatened to boycott all cities in the North that allowed men to teach the abolition of slavery. And the plodding mob who were little better than slaves themselves were ready to cast the first stone or brickbat at the advanced thinkers who could see human slavery from the human side.

I know a woman in Colorado who had once been a Mormon. She had been born and reared in Mormondom. But she began to doubt the whole institution when asked to become the fourth wife of a wealthy Mormon elder. Her ideas had advanced beyond the pagan idea of such gross immorality. It was lucky for this woman that just outside of Utah there were thousands of people advanced beyond pagan morals. She fled from home one night in a covered wagon, and outside the city she met her lover, the young Gentile who had taught her the sham and pretentions of her father’s religion.

In Colorado they found safety and happiness. She was an old woman when I met her, but she said she still trembled when she looked back to her early experience. Had all the world believed in Mormonism she could not have escaped the lust of the Mormon elder and a life of misery.

HISSED AND HOOTED

I saw him when he first came out of the Sisters’ hospital. He had been with the Sells Brothers’ Circus, but was taken with mountain fever while the show was in Grand Junction, Colorado. His wife was a tight rope dancer and trapeze performer, and went on with the show. She may have regretted to go, and she may not have cared at all. She had never written to him after she went away. He told me confidentially that he suspected her of being infatuated with one of the acrobats, but hoped to win her back when he got on his feet again.

Somehow or other, every man with a pain at his heart came to me in that faraway town. Was it because I was homesick and kept longing, longing for the valleys of old Pennsylvania, and the unfortunate could read something in my face that encouraged them to unburden their souls to me? Even my wife was drawn into some of the unfortunate love affairs of the young men and women, and we listened to the tales of woe, like martyrs, and gave advice which we knew would never be followed; for who can advise a young man or woman in love?

One poor fellow had been jilted by a young woman who visited at our home very often, and he came around almost every evening to try and have a last interview with her. But she never came back after treating the young man so badly, for she knew our feelings in the matter. The man she jilted was a handsome boy—a young French Canadian, and the man she intended to marry was a boasting Yankee from Michigan.

Finally we persuaded George to go over into Wyoming, as he intended to do if the girl married him; where he fell in love with a Western girl and was happily married in less than a year. Emma married young Lane, and deserted him in less than two years, and we never saw her again.

And the poor showman came likewise to me and told his tale of sorrow and financial troubles. A relative of mine was organizing a little circus in the town, and proposed going on the road after the summer fair. I secured a situation for my new friend, but when the opening day came the poor fellow had not gained sufficient strength to perform on the bars, or ride bareback, as he had been doing before he was taken down with fever.

But he could sing a song, so on the first night he came out before an unappreciative and unsympathetic audience and tried to sing. He did not know that weakness of the body interfered with the voice. The audience laughed at first, for they thought he was imitating an old man; but when they discovered that the poor emaciated fellow was giving them the best he had, they hooted him and hissed him, and called to him to take the frog out of his throat, and to get more wind, and to go and hire out as a nurse and sing to the baby.

Oh, how I pitied the poor fellow. The refrain of his song was: “But I will say nothing, not I!” I went around to the dressing room to console the poor man, for there was a look on his face when he left the ring which I did not like to see. He had been despondent and dejected before, but when he left the ring there was a look of desperation on his thin face. I found him sitting on a trunk taking a fond look at the photo of his absent wife. I tried to start a conversation with him, but he only looked at me and asked: “Did you catch the refrain of the song I tried to sing? Well ‘I will say nothing—not I’ tonight. You have been kind to me, and some day it will come back to you, like bread cast upon the waters, but nothing will ever come back to me. My heart is broken—I am no good. I am deserted and alone. The woman I loved has left me, and my luck will go with her—good bye—I’m going out.”

He shook hands and I said, “Wayne, I will see you in the morning.”

“Yes, in the morning,” he replied, as he lifted the flap of the tent and passed out into the night, while I returned to the big tent and tried to become interested in the performance.

Next morning the body of my despondent friend was found in the Grand river, just below the bridge, lodged on the middle island.

When the ringmaster announced to the audience that the man who had been hissed from the ring on the previous night had drowned himself, there were a few “Oh’s!” from the women, but the men who hissed him were not there. One man said if they had known the real facts, they would not have hissed; but when people do not know the real facts, is when they should be merciful—always.

THE WAR WITH SELF

If all wars were once abolished, and universal peace established, don’t think for a moment that the age of conquests and triumphs would be absolutely past forever. Those who argue that war and conquest bring out man’s best energy and build up strong manhood, can turn their guns against themselves and find all they care to fight. A man at war with his appetite and passions and human frailties and weakness finds his match. The man will not always be on top. At some careless hour a man will forget his vigilance and watchfulness and will fall before the onslaught of his passion or appetite, and it will require many days for him to regain his former position and place human weakness under his feet.

I have seen strong men bowed down to the lowest notch of humiliation, with all their courage and hope gone, yet no one did them a wrong. It was only their own appetite and passion that dealt them the crushing blow. No use to sit down and grieve over the fall. Grieving only adds to the first defeat. A man’s own appetite and passion and lust and hate and fear and weakness are his worst enemies, if once they get the upper hand. And in our youth we are apt to receive our first defeat; before we know the subtle strength of our weakness, we often become its victim.

Ninety per cent. of all the suicides come through man’s battle with self, and his defeat. After a man has become a slave to appetite and passion there isn’t much in life worth living for, and he falls a victim to the worst of all weaknesses—the fear to go on with life to its natural end. And how often the criminal, against whom every hand is raised in condemnation, is only the victim of his own weakness.

Theodore Radden became the victim of self before he was sixteen years old. His appetite began to rule him before he was twenty, and passion began to ruin him at the same time. He found congenial company in the lowest dives of his native town, where the fallen men and women collected, like buzzards, to feast on each other’s fallen condition. Several times he fought successfully with himself and broke away from his evil associates, only to fall back again when temptation laid her snares to catch his uncertain feet.

Once he held out for two years, and during that time he met and loved and married a beautiful girl. In her eyes he found a new world, and for over a year he lived in the only earthly paradise known to man—the world of love.

How proud his wife was when she contemplated his physical strength and manly beauty, never dreaming that the moral man within had been many times conquered by temptation, and was absolutely unqualified to conquer himself. She was but a weak and frail body, but morally she was a giant of strength, while he was but a pigmy in the grasp of former defeats. She was a country girl, and in marrying her he, too, lived out in God’s beautiful country and far away from the influence of old associates.

But one unfortunate day he was obliged to go to the city. By chance he met an old associate and was invited to take a social glass. And while in the saloon he met a bad woman who had much influence over him in past days. She knew that he had married and left the gang, and she set about to bring him back. It was her weakness to lead men astray. She was not all bad, nor had she always been bad. Once she had been a good girl, full of hope and happy dreams; but her own weakness gained a victory over her, and she fell. Even then she was not all bad. Many the poor woman and half starved hobo had eaten at her expense, and on many occasions she stooped and kissed a weeping child on the street and tried to soothe its sorrowing heart.

Did she love Theodore Radden? No one will ever know, but many thought she did, and that her love knew no moral code of honor, nor cared anything for public opinion. She already knew what opinion the world entertained for her—what need she care for public opinion?

And Theodore Radden fell a victim to his own weakness. He blamed the woman for it all, just the same as Adam did; but nobody took Adam seriously, nor will they take Theodore Radden’s word for it. A week later the woman crawled to the street from a tenement house, bleeding from several ugly wounds in her breast. Before she died she told them that Theodore Radden had shot her in a drunken brawl, accusing her of parting him from his wife; to which accusation she confessed her guilt, and said she deserved to die at his hands.

Inside the house the police found Theodore Radden—dead. He had shot himself through the head, after shooting the woman who tempted him from the paradise where now only a brokenhearted woman was leaving to go out into the shadows of sorrow and live her lonely life to the end. She had never fallen, and she knew not how to forgive the woman who had led her husband to his death.

CRIPPLE JOE AND THE SHOWMAN

Returning home from Reading on a Sunday not long ago, I was forced to lie over at Pottsville for three long hours. I was angry with myself for leaving Reading on Sunday, for the trains are so infernally chaotic and uncertain on this day of mental distress. I must reach Williamsport in time to catch the evening train on the Pennsy at 7.10, or be obliged to lie over until Monday morning. Everybody in the station was feeling about as blue as I was, for we were all travelers, and opposed to three hours of monotonous delay. I walked the station outside and inside for about an hour, and once as I passed the door leading into the toilet room I heard a plaintive voice at my feet. I looked down and beheld a small body—a wee boy sitting flat on the floor. He was looking up to me and speaking, but I could not distinguish the words. I stooped down and asked the boy to repeat his words: “Won’t you help a poor cripple?”

“Sure!” I exclaimed, as I caught sight of the poor twisted legs doubled up under his body, and I reached into my pocket and handed him a couple of coins. He reached out his hand and took my donation, and while he was looking at them I sat down in a nearby seat. He then looked up into my face with gratitude in his eyes and exclaimed: “Oh, thank you!” Then he caught the arms of the seat and pulled himself into the adjoining seat with his stout arms, looked into my face again and repeated: “Oh thank you.”

I was interested in the boy, so I asked: “How did you become so helplessly crippled?” “Born that way,” he replied carelessly, and then whistled to a boy across the station room. The boy shouted back: “Hello Joe, what luck today?” “Good!” the cripple replied, jingling several coins in his pocket. Just then a red faced man came in through the south door and Joe caught sight of him and called: “Hello, Charley!” Charley didn’t turn his face our way, so the boy gave a shrill little whistle, and the man turned toward us. “Hello, Charley! Come over here.”

The red faced man crossed the room hurriedly and Joe held out his hand, pulled it back and removed his soiled glove, then extended the hand again, saying: “It’s awfully muddy, and I get my gloves soiled crawling around on the floor.”

The red faced man took Joe’s hand in his and greeted the cripple warmly, but was called away before he could say more. While the red faced man was talking to the man who called him away from us, I turned to Joe and inquired: “Is he your brother?” The boy laughed and replied: “Oh, no; he’s a showman—gave a show here last night—a good one, too—I met him up at the opera—”

He stopped talking and whistled in a high key, like steam escaping under high pressure. The red faced man came back to us again and the boy said, in accusing tones: “Say, Charley, you went back on me—you weren’t as good as your word. You promised to pass me into the show, and you didn’t show up, so I had to cough up fifteen cents of my money.”

“Well, that’s too bad!” the man said. “I’ll just pay you back right here.”

He began to search through his pockets carefully, and finally exclaimed: “I haven’t got a cent of change in my pockets now, but you wait here until I buy my ticket, and I’ll have some change then. I’m going away on the 1.50 train.”

“You’re foolin’, ain’t you, Charley? You’re goin’ away without livin’ up to your promise, ain’t you, Charley?”

“Bet your life I ain’t Joe! I’m going to get change when the ticket window opens and then——”

He went off to talk to his friend again at the opposite end of the room, but every five minutes lame Joe would just whistle to him and say, “You won’t forget, Charley!”

I became interested. Would the showman prove true to his promise? He surely would. No man who could deliberately deceive a poor little cripple like Joe could possibly possess enough sentiment in his soul to please an audience. Once when Joe wasn’t looking, Charley winked at me and smiled. What did he mean? Was he amused at Joe’s doubts, or was he tasting the joke he was going to play on the poor boy later on? So certain was I of this that I began to look at the man more closely. His face was a puzzle. Not a bad face, but no doubt a lover of a practical joke. Maybe he thought it a great joke that any one should expect to have his entrance money refunded after the show was over.

I began to hate the man for what he intended to do, and pitied the boy more and more, as so many people passed by unheeding his petition, “Won’t you help a poor cripple?” They couldn’t help but hear, but so many people have grown calloused to the appeals of the unfortunate that they can pass through a shower of appeals without even putting up an umbrella.

One man even declared to me, on the side, that Joe’s begging should be prohibited. He said it encouraged begging in other boys who were not cripples. He said the town of Pottsville should support the boy in comfort, and not drive him to begging for a living. In his own city he paid an annual poor tax for the support of the indigent people, and stopped at this. He was opposed to begging.

I suggested that maybe the sound of a beggar’s voice kept our hearts mellow and our charity warm toward the world and God’s miserable poor. He gave me a look of contempt and passed on. I do not know his profession. He might have been a lawyer or a minister or a doctor. Anyhow, he was no worse than the showman who was going to fool poor Joe.

Then the ticket window went up and there was a rush of people. I heard Joe’s voice above the noise of tramping feet: “Don’t forget, Charley!”

I felt like crying. Poor crippled Joe! The crowd was rushing for the train. I saw Charley stop and drop several coins into Joe’s outstretched hand, and heard his “Oh, thank you, Charley! I’ll go to your show every time you come back to Pottsville.”

RACE SUICIDE

During the last ten years race suicide has been one of the leading problems of life, and on several occasions I have written my views on this subject. I have not changed my views at all after hearing the many arguments of the old conservative “stand patters” who try to imitate Solomon and the other prolific polygamists of long ago. There is no such a thing as race suicide. When big families are necessary, the big family will be fashionable. There is an ebb and flow to everything. Just now the pendulum of progress is swinging out toward the small, healthy, educated family of two to six children.

In pioneer days in this country, when it was desirable to have many children born to the new soil, and thus populate the wild country with people who knew of no other land, and would more likely live contented in the American wilderness than in the over-populated, lord-laden countries beyond the seas, the big family was a safeguard against the encroachments of the Indian and was desirable.

So, too, when Mormonism was a weak doctrine, and grown men would not accept it as a religion, the pioneers of that faith removed to Utah and built a city on the parched desert by the inland sea known as Salt Lake. From here they sent out missionaries to foreign countries, making converts among the women and families that were prolific in bearing children. It shows the wisdom of Brigham Young.

He preached to the women that every child born to them added a new star to their crown of glory. Those who believed the doctrine were anxious to add to the population of Utah and add a few stars to their future crown. This is one reason why the unmarried women accepted polygamy. The one great desire, fired by religious enthusiasm, was to bear children who would fight for the new doctrine.

It was a matter of wisdom on one side and sheer deception on the other. It was cheaper to rear Mormon recruits than to secure them full grown. And the child Mormon would never renounce the faith imbibed at the mother’s knee.

And thus you will find the situation in all cases where the race was made to believe that God loved the prolific woman better than the barren maid. Women will submit to anything, if made to believe it is their religious duty to do so. But men now realize that there is a psychological problem connected with the rearing of children, and the question is asked: Is it the wisest thing to bring into the world many children who cannot obtain a practical education, and therefore over-populate the nation with ignorant and dependent creatures? Do we not need quality rather than quantity?

Is Germany any better off with its prolific families than France with reduced numbers? Or take your own village or town—who is the best prepared for the battles of life, the child belonging to a family of fifteen members, or the child who is one of three or four offsprings?