Part 2

Several years ago a Federal investigation disclosed a highly unsanitary condition in the large packing plants of the country. The lack of sufficient pressure in the form of public opinion left Congress very slow to take definite action concerning it. Then Upton Sinclair’s story, _The Jungle_, came from the press. As soon as the public had read the book a great popular clamor went up, demanding that something be done. The result was a system of pure food rulings which has been very satisfactory and far-reaching in its results. A great industry was cleaned up, and the health and lives of thousands of people have been saved by the work of a wielder of the pen. The sword can only destroy, but the pen can do a better thing. It can save.

Germany has long recognized the power of the writer in the moulding of history. She has made a large use of it in her attempts to build the history of the future to suit herself. This is evidenced not only by the fact that she has flooded the world with mischievous and deceptive propaganda during the present war, but also by the fact that such was her policy long before the beginning of the war.

Nearly a decade ago a German professor published a book which emphasized the horrors of war. It was profusely illustrated with pictures of the bloody scenes of the battlefield and of the inevitable hardships of the military life. It was an evidence of an undercurrent which runs even in German thought, but which only the bolder few ever allow to go to the extent of public expression. The result of the publication of the book was the prompt suppression of it by the German government.

Shortly afterward another book dealing with the subject of war was published in Germany. It was written by the Crown Prince who is now fighting so anxiously for his own future. It likewise was highly illustrated, but its pictures emphasized the glories of war. They were of dress parades and the more pleasant aspects of the life of a soldier. The publication of this book received every encouragement the government could give it. It was, of course, an official expression of the militaristic policy of the government itself.

There is a sense in which literature mirrors life, but there is also another sense in which life mirrors literature. Social conditions and new historical epochs are always the outgrowth of the popular thought and spirit. One of the firmest hands upon the floodgates which control these things is that of the writer. He can produce an age of unrest or an age of calm contentment. He can make a period of faith or one of unbelief. He can mould an era of mortality or one of unrestraint.

It does not matter what is the form of his work. It does not even matter whether it is serious and pretentious. It affects the thought and, therefore, the life of the world. A printed jest once determined the result of a national election. A derisive term applied by the editor of an enemy paper once elected a man president. The recorded and unrecorded history of every age is full of just such instances.

The writer accepts a momentous responsibility. It is desirable to receive editorial checks, but his work means vastly more than that. The people will read what he writes; many of them will believe it; at least some of them will act upon it. It will travel to unsuspected places, and it will affect the lives of those whom he will never see either for weal or woe. His pen is an instrument of fate. It is highly essential that he use it with a careful hand and with an honest purpose. He dare not fail to be a mouthpiece of truth.

The Message of the Washington Monument (1919)

A few minutes from the South Portico of the White House, overlooking the majestic sweep of the Potomac, stands the tallest piece of marble masonry in the world. It commemorates the life and deeds of the Father of His Country. At its foot is a good place to stand and think for a while, as I did one spring afternoon.

The architect who planned the Washington Monument could not have more fittingly characterized the man of whom it stands as a memorial. Every line of its vast form, stretching from the ground to more than six hundred feet above the level of the river, breathes the spirit of the statesman and soldier whose leadership is an essential part of our early history.

That long stretch of Maryland marble, capped with its apex of aluminum, does more, however, than to memorialize and interpret the character of Washington; it outlines the essential qualities of our people. They were well typified in Washington. They are, therefore, well typified in a monument which symbolizes his nature. It is at once a picture of their past and a prophecy of their future.

It combines simple plainness with rugged strength. One cannot look at it without thinking of the spirit of the pioneer. The picture of the pilgrims facing the dangers of an unknown wilderness, that of the embattled farmers at Concord, and that of the men who have borne the burdens of the Republic throughout the years each rises into view. We have had hard tests in the past. We are facing what may yet be harder ones in the future. No other spirit than that of simple, rugged Americanism could prove sufficient for either those past or those to come.

The strongest point of America has always been the spirit of her people. She has amassed a national wealth which has become a wonder to the world. She has built up a great army and a magnificent navy. She has gained a place in the councils of the great world powers. She has never reached a place, however, where she can afford to place such reliance upon any other power as upon that of the spirit and ideals of her people.

American guns were only an incident in the Revolution. They would have been failing weapons in the hands of many. They won their cause, however, because they were carried in the hands of men whose souls were throbbing with the power of a great conviction. They had the toughness, the courage, the bravery, and the nerve of the pioneer, but they had more than all these. They had the consciousness of a worthy cause. They knew they were fighting for all that was dear to them. They had homes to defend, a principle to vindicate, and a future to achieve. These things enabled them to show the world how men can fight when all that they are has been staked on the struggle.

We still need guns and armies, but we need never hope to graduate from the fundamental necessity for sturdy and courageous men. The kind of men who have been our salvation in the past and who are our hope for the future are always found where habits of plain and rugged simplicity prevail. However sophisticated our thinking may become, we need to ever cultivate the kind of physical frames which are developed by plain living and high thinking. Where Rome placed softness and self-indulgence we must always keep the simple and wholesome ideals which proved so mighty in the lives of our fathers.

Another thing to be noted about the Monument is the fact that it stands foursquare to all the winds. Its ideal of plainness decreed that it should be so. There are no tricky twists in its plan. Its architecture has no place for merely decorative turns. There is not a deceptive line nor a hint of anything superficial.

The habit of being real deserves a place among the chiefest of all virtues. No one ever gained anything by any measure of pretense and unreality. No nation ever bettered either itself or the world by any process of deception and sham. We can no more outgrow the necessity for truth and honor than we can outdistance that for plain living and high thinking.

In accordance with this long-standing characteristic, America is leading the world in its stand against shady intrigues and secret treaties. When that principle has been vindicated in the conduct of the nations we shall begin to be able to feel that Mars has been left behind the chariot of civilization forever.

Another thing to be noticed about the Monument is the fact that it reaches high but it is founded deeply. From just beneath its aluminum cap the ground seems very far away. From the base its apex seems to be pushing itself through the clouds and piercing the sky beyond them. It is a connecting link between earth and sky, between the common and the lofty, between the practical and the ideal.

Two people fail to get more than half the meaning and the joy of life. One is the star-gazer, so enraptured with his visions that he is blind to life’s practical realities. The other is the extreme realist, so fearful of the fanciful that he will not lift his eyes from the mud at his feet and take a look at the glories which hover about the hill of vision.

The American viewpoint is represented by neither alone. It is represented, rather, by a combination of both. As the Monument stands with its feet firmly planted in the clay, but with its top among the stars, the national spirit is best typified by the man who keeps his plans firmly fixed among practical things, but who also keeps his thinking at the high level of splendid dreams, worthy ideals, and inspiring visions.

We have achieved such marvelous progress as a nation largely because we have busied ourselves with real things. We have taken hold of things and conditions as we found them, and have made the best of them. We have been the better able to do so, however, because we have not forgotten the things of the unseen world about us. Our dealing with practical things has been blessed by the treasuring of spiritual ideals and the following of worthy dreams. Our place as a nation is largely the result of this union of hope and thing, this combination of dream and realization, this blending of the ideal and the practical.

The Post-War Outlook for Literature (1919)

The true writer is a sort of social seismograph, sensitive to every change that takes place in the life of the race. Literature is, therefore, the record in which is told the story of social movements, the mirror which reflects the history of the ages. The peace and strife, the faith and unfaith, the love and the malice of all the past lives in the literature which it has produced.

The great war was preceded by a period of fermenting stagnation. It was a period of suppressed restlessness and hidden fears. The little eruptions on the surface of its seemingly placid literature bespoke the deeper feelings and hidden gropings of the time. At length the pent-up fury of things burst into a volcano of war.

The war produced a literature of its own. It ran like a golden thread through the vast mass of ordinary war propaganda. Most of the propaganda was of mere brain origin, but the real literature of the war was born in the depths of the tried souls of men.

One day I had occasion to mention to a friend the spiritual cost of the war. I remarked that in addition to all that the struggle had cost us in money, and even in blood, we had paid an unutterable price in the loss of brains that were born to think, souls that were made to dream, and lips that were fashioned to sing. She promptly replied that, while this was true, the war had awakened a great many minds to thoughtfulness, taught a multitude of souls the magic secret of weaving the fabric of dreams, and put a song into many lips that had hitherto been dumb.

She was right. Many singers and tellers of tales went down in the crash of things, but out of it came many others who had been reborn. The war has invigorated literature for a long while to come. We shall not soon see another stagnant age.

Having had a war literature, we now face the period in which is to be born a post-war literature. It is a common thought among people everywhere that during the years between 1914 and 1918 the elements melted with fervent heat. The old world has been done away, and all things are ready to be made new. The outlines of seas and continents are the same as before, but the viewpoint, outlook, and general consciousness of the race are totally changed. It could hardly seem more so if we had been bodily transported to another planet. The new age will express itself in a new literature—a reconstruction literature.

The literature of pre-war writers already seems to belong to a very remote time. Scott, and Thackeray, and Dickens will never lose their literary excellence, but the time has already come when their work seems to belong to another world. The fundamental principles of life have not changed, but our attitude toward life and our application of those principles have changed mightily. A broader interpretation of them is now a necessity. This service must be rendered by the pen of the writer.

Writers can now turn their attention from the production of propaganda and concern themselves more vitally with the real mission of the author. The world will warmly welcome, be it also said, a time when it may feel that the writer of its reading matter had no axe to grind in the writing.

The German Empire offered an instance of the sad extent to which the pen can be prostituted for propaganda. Education, Science, Philosophy, and Literature were all made to serve the selfish ends of a party struggling to build a super-state upon a foundation of self-interest. At such a time, the soul of greatness dies from any land. Those who usher in such periods dig the grave of pure literature by the purchase of its makers.

The wielder of the pen is now able to face the problems of life and deal with the principles of truth with an open mind. This has not been true with most since the war began. The weakness of human nature overcame many minds which before the war had manifested commendable poise and evident sincerity. In Germany and in almost every other country as well, erstwhile careful thinkers seemed to cast to the winds all the calmness of reason and temper of soul they had ever possessed. There was a perfect Babel of efforts to prove that all the right was on one side and all the wrong on the other. Butchers were whitewashed into angels, and champions of justice were caricatured into buffoons by pens which were supposed to be dedicated to the telling of the truth.

During the year 1916, a German anthropologist published an article in which he proved, to his own satisfaction, that to be a Frenchman necessarily meant to be a moral degenerate. During the same year, a French anthropologist proved, with equal fervor and with equal satisfaction to himself, that to be a German necessarily meant to be a criminal lunatic. So long as such conceptions prevail in the minds of thinkers and investigators, there can be neither literature nor science of any dependable sort.

It may be some time before the squint of prejudice is entirely removed from the thinking of the various peoples involved in the war. Gradually, however, it must necessarily relax from its violence. Thinkers should now do their best to work with only truth for a standard. The saner our reconstruction writings prove, the more potent they will be. Nothing but truth can ultimately prevail.

While the war, as is always the case with wars, has caused much violent prejudice, and has led many talented people to defend a cause in forgetfulness of truth, it has at the same time performed one great service to literature. It has served to bring the work of writers on the various subjects down from the ethereal heights of mystical theory to the solid levels of plain thinking and everyday living.

In order to produce the materials and solve the problems necessary to the winning of the war, Science was obliged to turn its work into the most practical channels. No thoughtful person will insinuate that Science is useless since it has helped us in so many ways to save the day in a great national emergency. The completeness of the abandon with which scientific investigators and writers gave themselves to war problems is evidenced by the fact that at the 1917 meeting of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, almost every address dealt with some problem incident to the war and the needs of the nation.

The trends in Philosophy and Theology were alike profoundly affected by the wartime spirit. In no single year of the past have these two departments of thought made such progress in their efforts to get down where men live and to deal with the problems which are real to people as they have made during either of the past two years. As a result, they are more intelligible, more helpful, and more widely adapted for vital use. Imaginary problems and arbitrary arguments have been largely laid aside. The literature of these least tangible subjects has come to deal with them in the most tangible way. It considers more and more the problems of everyday life and work.

There has been sown into the literature of the various nations a certain moral and spiritual element which is very indicative of the trend of human thought and desire. An unusual number of dramas, for instance, are dealing with moral and spiritual themes and principles. The situations with which the war brought men face to face caused some of life’s great questions to demand an answer. People who had long put those questions aside came to face them squarely. Out of our late experience, probably most people came with some intelligible attitude toward the supreme questions related to living and dying. Neither are we any longer afraid to face them either in books or upon the stage.

The literature of the new age may not be reflective, but it will be vital. The prophet of truth never faced such an opportunity as now.

Free Verse (1921)

We generally think of free verse as being a modern literary creation. Such is not really the case. That form of free verse which is now most in vogue, namely the form commonly called polyphonic verse, may be a comparatively new thing. At least it has been commonly familiar only during the last few years. The fundamental form of which it is but a variation is quite an old one.

Walt Whitman was a writer of a form of free verse in a literary generation now vanished. His “Blades of Grass” was the most unconventional thing done either in his period or those prior to it. This verse varies from our polyphonic prose of the present time, yet the spirit and general form are much the same. Whitman’s work awakened an abundance of discussion and criticism in his day. It survives because he had a message, and compared with the message of a poem, its form is only an incidental thing.

The blank verse forms, which are as venerable as they are familiar in our literature, are variations of the same general poetic pattern. As a rule, the most conservative of us are fond of holding up Shakespeare as a literary model for the centuries. We seem to have been about right in our estimate of him too, for his work certainly has evidenced a remarkable measure of immortality.

Yet the great body of the work of Shakespeare was of the unconventional type. It differed, of course, from the free verse of today, yet it was a forerunner of what is now being produced. Shakespeare contributed largely toward giving blank verse a lasting good name. He ventured to pay little attention to rhyme in an age when England was a nest of singing birds, and most of them were singing in rhymes and stanzas. He preserved his rhythm, it is true, but our modern free verse does that also.

It has a still older pedigree than Shakespeare. It appears in the earliest beginnings of the poetry of the English and of still more ancient peoples. The literature of the Hindus and Semites is full of it. From the earliest snatches of song recorded in the sacred writings of the Hebrews, the Bible has a wealth of poetry which suggests the modern form. Moses, David, and Solomon all used it. The Magnificat of Mary and the Nunc Dimittis of Simeon are both worthy of an honorable place in a modern magazine of free verse.

Rhythmic prose is, then, quite an ancient literary institution. It appears in two distinct grades and types. One is the simple, childlike, elemental form which marks the early stages of the life of a people. The other is the more polished form which represents the later period of culture.

The first is found in the early lore of most races, savage or semi-civilized. The American Indian had an abundance of it. The beginnings of the poetry of what are now the most civilized races also include a great deal of it. It represents that time in the life of a people when human feelings burst spontaneously into song. In such an age practically everyone is a singer, though not everyone can fashion fancy rhymes and stanzas.

Of the second form, we have abundant examples in our large and growing store of fine poetical work. We have simply swung back toward the freer forms which gave opportunity for the expression of the feelings of our earlier forefathers. We may have done so because we had feelings to express that seemed to demand such forms. We may have done so simply for the sake of variety. At any rate, we have done so.

This fact does not argue that any violence has been done to the quality of our poetic output. The present movement has simply changed the favored poetic form, for the time being at least. It may be that we have gone backward in some other things, but there is little to indicate that we have done so in relation to our poetry. The general run of American poetry today is of a very high order. Generally speaking, poetic art in America stands today at its highest level thus far.

The rhyme and the stanza belong to the period of highly studied form. They are ornamental, and, like fine lace, the weaving of them calls for great skill if it is to be well done. They often express commanding thoughts and emotions, but the outstanding thing about them is their form. Of course, if their form were their only value they would still be worth while. We cannot get on without beauty. It is true, however, that in the case of formal rhymed verse, the thought and message cannot so easily be at their best. Thought must often be limited and truth stilted by the necessities of form.

The free verse form offers an opportunity for the poet to break largely away from these narrowing limitations. It has been said that the prose writer is master of his materials while the poet is the slave of his style. Many a versifier has unintentionally fallen into a vein of grandiose expression which could hold little of sincerity and truth.