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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* EDITORIALS from the HEARST NEWSPAPERS {Arthur Brisbane} CONTENTS Why Are All Men Gamblers? No Man Understands Iron We Long for Immortal Imperfection--We Can't Have It. Three Water-Drops Converse Did We Once Live on the Moon? William Henry Channing's Symphony The Existence of God--Parable of the Blind Kittens Have the Animals Souls? Jesus' Attitude Toward Children Study of the Character of God The Fascinating Problem of Immortality Discontent the Motive Power of Progress The Automobile Will Make Us More Human Let Us Be Thankful The Harm That Is Done by Our Friends Shall We Tame and Chain the Invisible Microbe As We Now Chain Niagara? The Elephant That Will Not Move Has Better Excuses Than We Have for Folly Displayed Let Us Be Thankful What Will 999 Years Mean to the Human Race? The Azores--A Small Lost World in a Universe of Water No Napoleonic Chess Player on an Air Cushion A Girl's Face in the Gaslight The "Criminal" Class The Wonderful Magnet Who Is Independent? Nobody When We Begin Using Land Under the Oceans Where Your Body Came From How Marriage Began Man's Willingness to Work The Human Brain Beats the Coal Mines How the Other Planets Will Talk to Us Shall We Do Without Sleep Some Day? The Three Best Things in the World The Value of Solitude There Should Be a Monument to Time A Mother's Work and Her Hopes Your Work Is Your Brain's Gymnasium The Steeple, Moving Like the Hand of a Clock Cultivate Thought-Teach Your Brain to Work Early The Wind Does Not Rule Your Destiny One of the Many Corpses in the Johnstown Mine "Limiting the Amount of a Day's Work" Catching a Red-Hot Bolt The Trusts and the Union--How Do They Differ? France Has Learned Her Lesson Union Men as Slave Owners Again the Limited Day's Work To the Merchants What About the Chinese, Kind Sir? 150 against 150,000--We Favor the 150,000 To-day's World-Struggle White-Rabbit Millionaires and Other Things No Happiness Save in Mental and Physical Activity The Owner of a Golden Mountain The Human Weeds in Prison Crime Is Dying Out The Value of Poverty to the World 600 Teachers Now, 600,000 Good Americans in the Future Education--The First Duty of Government Poverty Is the Father of Vice, Crime and Failure The Importance of Education Proved in Lincoln's Case Knowledge Is Growth A Whiskey Bottle Those Who Laugh at a Drunken Man Law Cannot Stop Drunkenness--Education Can The Drunkard's Side of It Drink a Slow Poison To Those Who Drink Hard--You Have Slipped the Belt Try Whiskey on Your Friend's Eyeball What Are the Ten Best Books? The Marvelous Balance of the Universe--A Lesson in the Texas Flood The Earth Is Only a Front Yard Last Week's Baby Will Surely Talk Some Day The Good That Is Done by the Trusts Trusts and the Senate The Promising Toad's Head Trusts Will Drive Labor Unions Into Politics The Trusts Are National School Teachers A Woman to Be Pitied When Will Woman's Mental Life Begin? The Cow That Kicks Her Weaned Calf Is All Heart Respectable Women Who Listen to "Faust" Why Women Should Vote Astronomy- Woman's Future Work Woman's Vanity Is Useful To Editorial Writers--Adopt Ruskin's Main Idea Imagination Without Dreaming the Secret of Material Success The One Who Needs No Statue The Vast Importance of Sleep Woman Sustains, Guides and Controls the World The Story of the Complaining Diamond Don't Be in a Hurry, Young Gentlemen hen the Baby Changed Into a Fourteen-year-old The Eye That Weighs a Ton What Animal Controls Your Spirit? From Mammoths to Mosquitoes--From Murder to Hypocrisy The Monkey and the Snake Fight Too Little and Too Much Do You Feel Discouraged? Two Kinds of Discontent What the Bartender Sees What Should Be a Man's Object in Life? Cruel Frightening of Children It Is Natural for Children to Be Cruel Two Thin Little Babies Are Left A Baby Can Educate a Man The articles in this book were published originally in the editorial columns of the various Hearst newspapers throughout the country. These articles may have some interest for the student of modern happenings, because of the fact that the newspapers publishing them have an aggregate daily circulation of two millions of copies, and are read each day by no fewer than five millions of men and women. Such wide circulation of identical opinions on current events, in different parts of the country, is a new feature of our national life. The character of such writings, and their probable influence upon the public mind, whatever their lack of intrinsic merit, may be of sufficient importance to justify the publication of this collection of ephemeral writings. WHY ARE ALL MEN GAMBLERS? The annual report of the gambling house at Monte Carlo shows a profit of about $5,000,000. A large collection of human beings travel from all parts of the world to Monte Carlo for the sake of giving $5,000,000 to the gambling concern there. Wherever you look on earth to-day or in the past you find human beings gambling, and you will find the gambling instinct stronger than any other--stronger than the love of drink, infinitely stronger than the love of normal, honest gain. * * * Christopher Columbus's sailors gambled on the way over, and the Indians on this side were gambling while waiting to be discovered. In an office overlooking Trinity graveyard, in New York City, an old man, past eighty, with a fortune of at least $50,000,000, gambles every day with all the excitement of youth. The fluctuations in his game bring to his sallow cheeks the color that no other human emotion could bring there. On his way home this old man passes crowds of children in the streets and looks down, concerned and sorrowful, to find that they, too, are gambling. They are matching pennies or shaking dice. * * * Clergymen are startled and amazed to find that women are gambling heavily. They have gambled heavily ever since civilization has progressed far enough to give them large sums to gamble with. Marie Antoinette staked thousands of louis at a time at Versailles. She was so wrapped up in gambling she could not see that her neck was in danger. When the lava came down from Vesuvius it buried Pompeiians who were gambling. The men who dig up the old monuments in Africa find gambling instruments crumbling away side by side with appliances for taking human life. * * * Nowhere in the lower forms of animal life, so far as we know, is there the slightest indication of the gambling instinct. The monkey, the elephant, love whiskey, and easily become drunkards. The passion for alcohol seems innate in animal life; even the wise ant can be readily induced to disgrace himself if alcohol is put near him. For all the human weaknesses and mainsprings--ambition, affection, vanity, drunkenness, ferocity, greediness, cunning--we can find beginnings among the lower animals. But man appears to have evolved from within himself the gambling instinct for his own especial damnation. Where did the instinct come from? Why was it planted in us? Like every other instinct with which intelligent nature endows us, it must have its good purpose, and it must not be judged merely in the corrupted form in which we study it at Monte Carlo or in Wall Street. Perhaps the spirit of gambling is really only an atrophied, perverted form of the spirit of adventure. Columbus staked his life and gambled, when he started across the water. The leaders of the American Revolution expressly staked their lives, their fortunes and their "sacred honor" in signing the Declaration of Independence. They were noble gamblers, working for the welfare of their fellows. Perhaps gambling is only a perverted form of intelligent ambition--we are all natural gamblers because we have within us the quality which makes us willing to risk our own comfort, security and present happiness for a result that seems better worth while. The universality of the gambling instinct in human beings is certainly worthy of our study. NO MAN UNDERSTANDS IRON HOW CAN WE HOPE TO UNDERSTAND GOD? Is there laughter in heaven--or can nothing move the eternal heavenly calm? If mirth exists among the perpetually blissful, how must the angels laugh when in idle moments they listen to our speculations concerning the Divinity? They peer down at us as we look at ants dragging home a fragment of dead caterpillar. They hear us say things like this: If God exists, why does He not reveal himself to ME? How could God exist before He created the world? Force cannot exist or demonstrate its existence without matter. How could a creator exist except with creation around him? Where did He live before He made heaven? If He is all-powerful, could He in five seconds make a six months' old calf? If He made it in five seconds it would not be six months old. Nonsense more subtle comes from the educated, from those who know enough to be preposterous in a pretentious way. Hear the wise man: God does not exist, because I cannot prove His existence: I can prove everything else. With my law of gravitation I point to a speck in space and say: "You'll find a new planet there," and you find it. If a God existed could I not also point to Him? If I can trace a comet in its flight, could I not trace the comet's maker? Huxley says: "The cosmic process has no sort of relation to moral ends." That's a philosopher's way of saying something foolish. Lalande, the astronomer, remarked that he had swept the entire heavens with his telescope and found no God there. That's funnier than any ant who should say: "I've searched this whole dead caterpillar and found no God, so THERE IS NO GOD." The corner of space which our telescopes can "sweep" is smaller, compared to the universe, than a dead caterpillar compared with this earth. Moleschott, an able physiologist, believed that phosphorus was essential to mental activity. Perhaps he did prove that. But he said: "No thought without phosphorus," and thought he had wiped the human soul out of existence. Philosophers do not laugh at Moleschott. But they would laugh at a savage who would say: "I have discovered that there is a catgut in a fiddle. No fiddle without catgut--no music without cats. Don't talk to me about soul or musical genius--it's all catgut." We peek out at this universe from our half-developed corner of it. We see faintly the millions of huge suns circling with their planet families billions of miles away. We see our own little sun rise and set; we ask ourselves a thousand foolish questions of cause and Ruler--and because we cannot answer, we decry faith. Wise doubter, look at a small piece of iron. It looks solid. You suppose that its various parts touch. But submit it to cold. You make it smaller. Then the particles did not touch. Do they touch now? No; relatively they are farther apart than this planet from its nearest neighbor. That piece of iron, apparently solid, consists of clusters of atoms wonderfully grouped, each cluster called a molecule. The molecular cluster is invisible, millions of clusters in the smallest visible fragment. The atom is accepted by science as the final particle of matter. Its name indicates that it is supposed to be indivisible. When science gets to the atom it calmly gives up and says: "That is so small that it can no longer be divided." A reasonable enough conclusion on the surface, considering that you might have millions of atoms of iron in one corner of your eye and not know it. But why should the atom be incapable of further division? If it is any size at all it can be thought of as split. Where does the divisibility of matter end, if anywhere? What is there SOLID about iron? Nothing in reality, except that it seems to us solid. Already, with the X-ray, we can look through it. Forces such as heat and electricity pass through it more readily than through free air. Science, which gradually finds things out, denying as it goes along everything one step beyond, tells you truly that the clusters of atoms in iron float in a sea of ether, just as do our planets going round the sun. Heat the iron intensely. What happens? You get what you call white heat. The white heat and the white light come from the increase of wave motion in this ether, and this ether, absolutely imponderable, of a tenuity inconceivable, possesses elasticity greater and more powerful than that of coiled steel. ---- So much for one small piece of iron, such as you would kick to one side in a junk heap. If it interests you, read pages 159 to 162 of John Fiske's admirable little book, "Through Nature to God." You will finish the book the day you get it. If you are surprised to learn how much you did not know about iron--after living near bits of iron all your life--is it not just possible that your mind may be too feeble to conceive of God? For the fly buzzing about the edge of Niagara Falls, the falls do not exist. The fly's brain cannot grasp their grandeur. It can understand only the speck of spray that falls on its wing. You live with God around you, hopelessly incapable of perceiving His existence save through that faint spark of unconscious faith that was mercifully planted in you. Snuff that out with dull efforts at reason, and you have nothing. WE LONG FOR IMMORTAL IMPERFECTION-- WE CAN'T HAVE IT. All our longings for immortality, all our plans for immortal life are based on the hope that Divine Providence will condescend to let us live in another world as we live here. Each of us wants to be himself in the future life, and to see his friends as he knew them. We want to preserve individuality forever and ever, when the stars shall have faded away and the days of matter ended. But what is individuality except imperfection? You are different from Smith, Smith is different from Jones. But it is simply a difference of imperfect construction. One is more foolish than another, one is more irresponsibly moved to laughter or anger--that constitutes his personality. Remove our imperfections and we should all be alike--smooth off all agglomerations of matter on all sides and everything would be spherical. What would be the use of keeping so many of us if we were all perfect, and therefore all alike? One talks through his nose, one has a deep voice. But shall kind Providence provide two sets of wings for nose talkers and chest talkers? Why not make the two into one good talker and save one pair of wings? Why not, in fact, keep just one perfect sample, and let all the rest placidly drift back to nothingness? Or, better, why not take all the goodness that there is in all the men and women that ever were and melt it all down into one cosmic human being? ---- The rain drops, the mist and the sprays of Niagara all go back to the ocean in time. Possibly we all go back at the end to the sea of divine wisdom, whence we were sent forth to do, well or badly, our little work down here: Future punishment? We think not. One drop of water revives the wounded hero--another helps to give wet feet and consumption to a little child. It all depends on circumstances. Both drops go back to the ocean. There is no rule that sends the good drop to heaven and the other to boil forever and ever in a sulphur pit. ---- Troubles beset us when we think of a future state and our reason quarrels always with our longings. We all want--in heaven--to meet Voltaire with his very thin legs. But we cannot believe that those skinny shanks are to be immortal. We shall miss the snuff and the grease on Sam Johnson's collar. If an angel comes up neat and smiling and says "Permit me to introduce myself --I am the great lexicographer," we shall say "Tell that to some other angel. The great Samuel was dirty and wheezy, and I liked him that way." And children. The idea of children in heaven flying about with their little fluffy wings is fascinating. But would eternal childhood be fair to them? If a babe dies while teething, shall it remain forever toothless? How shall its mother know it if it is allowed to grow up? Listen to Heine--that marvellous genius of the Jewish race: "Yes, yes! You talk of reunion in a transfigured shape. What would that be to me? I knew him in his old brown surtout, and so I would see him again. Thus he sat at table, the salt cellar and pepper caster on either hand. And if the pepper was on the right and the salt on the left hand he shifted them over. I knew him in a brown surtout, and so I would see him again." Thus he spoke of his dead father. Thus many of us think and speak of those that are gone. How foolish to hope for the preservation of what is imperfect! How important to have FAITH, and to feel that reality will surpass anticipation, and that whatever IS will be the best thing for us and satisfy us utterly. THREE WATER DROPS CONVERSE Three drops of water, stranded in a crevice on the side of an inland mountain, talked in this way: First Drop--"They say there is an ocean whence we came and to which we shall return." Second Drop--"They say we three drops are made in the image of that ocean; that as far as we go, which is not far, we are miniature oceans." Third Drop--"Bosh and nonsense. There is no ocean. It is all superstition. Before we were born here, from the mist, what were we? When we evaporate in a few minutes what becomes of us? You two drops make me feel sorry for you. I know that when I cease reflecting that white cloud up there, that ends ME. I have no delusions about oceans or going back to anything." ---- You know what happened. The cloud formed into rain and our three drops were washed into a tiny trickling stream. The thin stream of rain ran into a brook, the brook into a river. Soon the three drops were back in the ocean--possibly without knowing it. Shall we some day go rolling back to the ocean of cosmic wisdom whence we came? Is it possible that man is indeed made in the image of God, as drops are made in the ocean's image--the individual men, like the individual drops, being sent forth to do necessary cosmic work through the universe, going back to the ocean after each errand is done, and so going back and forth, forever and ever? That would not be such a mean destiny, we should say. It would certainly be a very democratic form of cosmic government. ---- Inferior men, inferior women, unworthy of comparison with perfect, cosmic wisdom? Not at all. Not inferior men and women, but inferior mediums, inferior brains, bodies and planets through which to work. Is one drop of water inferior to another? Is any inferior to the purest drop in the ocean? No. But one drop runs through the gutter of a stable, another rolls from a mountain spring, a third carries in solution the germ of typhus. But all three came pure from the ocean and all will go back to the ocean pure. DID WE ONCE LIVE ON THE MOON? AND SHALL WE MOVE ON TO THE SUN SOME FINE DAY? The most interesting questions are such as these: Whence did we come? Whither are we going? And, by the way, what are we? Are we of any true importance? Are we a permanent part of the universal scheme, privileged to move along through the ages and see the end as we have seen the beginning? Or are we, as advanced science says, merely like the weevil in the biscuit--no part of the Baker's plan? Are we indestructible specks of cosmic intelligence, lighting up and animating one material body after another--never destroyed--or do we play on this earth the passing part of the microbe in the Brie cheese, which gives that cheese its flavor? ---- A great scientist, coldly analyzing the chemical processes essential to the creation of each new human being, scoffs at any possibility of immortality. With the microscope at his eye, he magnifies nature's mysteries; he sums up the investigations of the Hertwig brothers; he discourses learnedly of the nucleolus of the Cytula--or progeny cell. He declares that science is able to watch the creation of a human being, as it watches the progress of a chick in the egg. He asserts that each new creature is merely the result of a chemical process blending qualities of the mother and father. Having a "final beginning," man must have a final end. Man--a mixture of two sets of qualities--has no more chance of immortality than has beer, which is a mixture of malt and hops. Read and think over this cold summing-up of our mean, limited destiny as science farthest advanced now sees it: "It must appear utterly senseless now to speak of the immortality of the human person, when we know how this person, with all its individual qualities of body and mind, has arisen. How can this person possess an eternal life without end? The human person, like every other many-celled individual, IS BUT A PASSING PHENOMENON OF ORGANIC LIFE. With its death, the series of its vital activities ceases entirely, just as it began." That certainly is discouraging to a man who for fifty years has sung "I want to be an angel." Yet that is what Haeckel has to say about our chance of immortality. But the other side of the grave has the LAST say, and we think it will discredit Haeckel. We should even undertake to do that now and here in two columns of a yellow journal. But we are DETERMINED before the column ends to ask you what you think of our moon-earth-sun transmigration notion. The sun is now a blazing mass, inconceivably huge, inconceivably fierce in our eyes. Its flames leap hundreds of thousands of miles into space. If our earth fell to the sun, it would melt as a snow-flake falling upon a blazing forest. We certainly do not readily look upon the sun as our future home, if we accept its present condition as permanent. But once upon a time, hundreds of millions of years back, this earth used to look TO THE MOON, on a smaller scale, as the sun now looks to us. If there were on the moon at that time inferior human beings, in a low state of cosmic evolution, they undoubtedly had to thank the earth for their life, as we thank the sun. To them the earth, then incandescent, blazing with the heat that now reveals itself through volcanoes, was simply a whirling ball of fire, put in its place to warm them. They could no more think that men would ever come to live here than we can now think of moving on to the sun. ---- In course of time this earth cooled off. It cooled so thoroughly that the moon died of cold. Life could no longer continue there. The dead satellite's destiny thenceforward was to show gratitude for past heat by moving our tides and cheering our poets. As life died out on the cold moon which had given us temporary hospitality, life sprang into being on this planet, now fitted to support it. Here, on a larger sphere, with greater opportunities, mankind is growing, and will far outstrip all that it could have done on the poor little moon. Meanwhile, as we struggle on, improving slowly, the sun, as science proves, is cooling off in its turn. The flames become less fierce as the thousands of centuries roll by. When we shall have developed as much as possible on this limited planet, our home will be cooled and ready on the sun, centre of our life in this corner of space. We shall move up a step--as boys do in the public schools. We shall have been moon men, earth men, and shall graduate into sun men. Think of a home so vast! On that grand star we shall lead lives worth while, and justify Huxley's belief that men exist somewhere compared to whom we should "be as black beetles compared to us." The excitement of meeting our brothers from other planets as they move up to the sun in batchcs will be great. WILLIAM HENRY CHANNING'S SYMPHONY THE THOUGHT-- To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not, rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common--this is my symphony. WILLIAM HENRY CHANNING. TO LIVE CONTENT WITH SMALL MEANS. This means to realize to the full the possibilities of life. Contentment means ABSENCE OF WORRY. It is only when free from worry that the brain can act normally, up to its highest standard. The man content with small means does his best work, devotes his energies to that which is worth while, and not to acquiring that which has no value. TO SEEK ELEGANCE RATHER THAN LUXURY. The difference between elegance and luxury is the difference between the thin, graceful deer, browsing on the scanty but sufficient forest pasture, and the fat swine revelling in plentiful garbage. REFINEMENT RATHER THAN FASHION. The difference between refinement and fashion is the difference between brains and clothing, the difference between an Emerson or a Huxley and a Beau Brummel or other worthless but elaborately decked carcass. TO BE WORTHY, NOT RESPECTABLE. In other words, to be like Henry George, and not like the owner of a trust. WEALTHY, NOT RICH. The man who has a good wife and good children, enough to take care of them, but not enough to spoil them, is WEALTHY. He is happier than the man who is RICH enough to be worried, rich enough to make it certain that his children will be ruined by extravagance, and perhaps live to be ashamed of him. TO LISTEN TO STARS AND BIRDS, BABES AND SAGES, WITH OPEN HEART. This means to enjoy the noblest gifts that God has given to man. He is happy who takes more pleasure in a beautiful sunset than in the sight of a flunky with powdered hair, artificial calves and lofty manners, handing him something indigestible on a plate of gold. TO STUDY HARD; TO THINK QUIETLY, ACT FRANKLY, TALK GENTLY. To exercise in this way the brain that is given to us is to lead the life of a MAN, a life of self-control, a life that is worth while, that leads to something and helps forward the improvement of the race. In the words which we have quoted at the top of this column William Henry Channing has given a recipe for wise living. ---- WHO WAS CHANNING? He was a good man, and a wise man. He was one of the most eloquent clergymen ever born in this country, and as sincere a friend of individual man and of the race in general as ever lived. He was an enthusiast and an optimist--admirable combination. He was born in 1810, and died in 1884. His biography has been written by Octavius B. Frothingham. Channing saw the world through generous, charitable eyes. He was an ardent admirer of Charles Fourier, and appreciated the philosophy and social law-giving of that gigantic intellect. The quotation we print above is an index to his whole character, just as one flower tells the story of the beautiful garden in which it grew. Channing, unlike many sayers of fine things, was personally as fine as the things he said. He was worthy even of his own best thoughts, and that can be said for few fine thinkers. Admire him. Read some of his sermons and other writings if you have the chance. THE EXISTENCE OF GOD--PARABLE OF THE BLIND KITTENS The notion that small things, the petty details of life, such as money getting, marriage questions, etc., are uppermost in the modern human brain is entirely false. If an editor asks: "Is marriage a failure?" he receives just so many answers, and then the interest dies out. If he asks: "Should a wife have pin money?" or "What is the easiest way for a woman to earn a living?" he ceases to receive answers after a short time. But to questions concerning the immortality of the soul, the existence of God, and man's destiny here and hereafter, the answers are endless. Letters on such matters have been received here by thousands. Every day the mail brings new and intelligent contributions to the questions that have kept men praying, thinking, fighting and hoping through the centuries: "IS THERE A GOD, AND WILL MY SOUL LIVE FOREVER?" ---- Very interesting are the expressions of faith which fill a majority of the letters. Interesting also are the letters of doubters atheists, agnostics and the many intoxicated with a very little knowledge, who have decided to substitute their own wisdom and doubt for the belief of the ages--the belief in God and in personal immortality. Many think science has discovered that we could get on very well without a God. But science has done just the contrary. And here, if you please, we shall build up a sort of parable: ---- A Man had a box full of motherless blind kittens. He was very kind to them. He put their box on wheels and moved it about to keep it in the sun. He gave them milk at regular intervals. With loving kindness he drove away the dog which growled and scared the little kittens into spitting and back raising. The kittens trusted the Man, loved him and felt that they needed him. That was the age of faith. One day a dog got a kitten and tore it to pieces. The kitten had disobeyed orders and laws. It had crawled away from the box. Another kitten, with one eye now partly open, got thoughtful and said: "There is no such thing as Man. Or, if there is such a thing, he is a monster to let little Willie get torn up. Don't talk to me about Kitten Wiliie being a sufferer through his own fault. I say there is no such thing as a Man. We kittens are bosses of the universe and must do our own fighting." That speaker was the Ingersoll kitten. A kitten of higher mental class opened both eyes just a little and actually made observations. Said he: "I am a scientist. I discover that we owe nothing to Man's kindness. We are governed by laws. This box is on wheels. It rolls around in the sunlight of its own volition. True, I do not know who shoves it, but no Man could do it. Further, I discover that there is such a thing as the law of 'milk-passing.' Milk comes this way just so often. Its coming is nature's law. It has always come. It always will come. Good-night, I am going to sleep. But don't talk to me any more about a kind Man. It's all law, and I am certainly great, for I saw the laws first." That was the Newton kitten, but he lacked the Newton faith. We have no time to tell what the Darwin kitten said. He was very long-winded. But this happened. The kittens grew up--such as did not perish through their own fault. They got their eyes fully opened. They saw the Man, recognized him and asked only to be allowed to stay in his house. "Excuse us," they said, "for being such foolish kittens. But you know our eyes were not quite open." "Don't mention it," said the kind Man. "Go down cellar and help yourselves to mice." That's the end of the parable. We are all blind kittens, and our few attempts at explaining nature's wonders and kindness only get us into deeper and deeper mysteries. We discover that the earth goes round the sun. But the greatest scientist must admit his inability to tell or guess why it goes. "Give me the initial impulse," he says, "and all the rest is easy." The blind kittens in their wagon say: "Give our wagon just one shove and we'll explain the rest." The kitten gets hold of a law of "milk-passing" and substitutes that for man's individual kindness. The feeble-minded agnostic seizes the law of gravitation and thinks he can discard God with gravity's help. But the great mind that defined gravity's law was a religious mind--too profound to see anything final in its own feeble power. Newton was no atheist. None better than he knew the mysterious character of his law. That it has worked from all eternity "directly as the mass and inversely as the square of the distance" he knew and told his fellow-creatures. That is all he knew and all that any man knows about it. To-day Lord Kelvin, a worthy follower in Newton's steps, is asked to explain WHY gravity acts. He can only say: "I accept no theory of gravitation. Present science has no right to attempt to explain gravitation. We know nothing about it. We simply know NOTHING about it." Darwin asks, without answering his question: "Who can explain what is the essence of the attraction of gravitation?" ---- To our doubting friends we say: Doubt if you must. But doubt intelligently and doubt first of all your own blind kitten wisdom. Remember that you at least know absolutely nothing. Study and think. Read. But don't let the half-developed wisdom of others choke up your brain and leave you a mere clogged-up doubting machine. Whatever you do, never interfere with the faith of others. Spread KNOWLEDGE, spread FACTS. Keep to yourself the doubts that would disturb others' happiness and do them no good. Tell what you KNOW. Keep quiet about what you GUESS. HAVE THE ANIMALS SOULS? "For that which befalleth the sons of men, befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them; as the one dieth, so dieth the other; YEA, THEY HAVE ALL ONE BREATH; SO THAT A MAN HATH NO PRE-EMINENCE ABOVE A BEAST: for all is vanity. "Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the SPIRIT of the beast that goeth downward to the earth." --Ecclesiastes iii., 19-21. The surface of the earth, the air as high as we can study it, the depths of the sea, swarm with animal life. The earth rolls around the sun bathed in its warm light. Millions of creatures die with every revolution of the little planet which is their home. And man "going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down in it" rules the little animals and the big ones and calls himself sole heir of immortality. He says: "For ME this earth was made and balanced in its wonderful journey; for ME alone the marvels of future life are reserved." He digs up the strange creatures from the slimy depths of the ocean, studies and labels them. He dissects one animal to study his own diseases. He skins another to cover his feet with leather. He eats one ox and hitches its brother to the plough. He uses nature's explosive forces to bring down the bird on the wing. He sweeps the rivers with his nets. The stomach of the well-fed man is the graveyard of the animal kingdom. When his dinner is finished, the man well fed strokes his stomach contentedly and says to himself: All is well. For I have a soul and THEY have none. They have died to feed me. I am happy and they should be satisfied. ---- What is the nature of the spirit that directs our humble animal brothers and sisters? They cover the earth as long as we let them, give place to us as the human race increases, and, without any thought of organized resistance, die that we may live. HAVE THESE ANIMALS SOULS? You have seen the bird grieving over the destruction of its nest. You have studied the pathetic eyes of the lost dog, and the sad submission of the tired, beaten horse. Is there not soul in those stricken creatures, and spiritual feeling deeper than that displayed by many men? First came all ANIMAL life, as we know it, and then came MAN. Science and religion agree on this point, at least. All owe their being to the same eternal FORCE. On this point again religion and science agree. Is the life in animals merely a passing dream, or does it express in its humble way the promise of life eternal? In Italy a scientific villain experimented on a dog to ascertain the power of maternal affection. The dog was most cruelly tortured. Its newborn puppy was beside it. Its nerves were racked, its spine injured, BUT WHENEVER PERMITTED TO DO SO, THE POOR TORTURED, ANIMAL MOTHER TURNED ITS HEAD TOWARD ITS WHINING CHILD AND LICKED IT AFFECTIONATELY. Until it died there was nothing that could overcome maternal love in the heart of that poor dumb mother. Is there not soul in such love as that? JESUS' ATTITUDE TOWARD CHILDREN A SUNDAY SERMON "Suffer the little children to come unto me; and forbid them not; for of such is the Kingdom of God."--Mark X., 14. Jesus gave to the child its place in the world's society. With all the power of divine authority He built around the feeblest among us a wall that has protected them through the ages. Before His day the child existed only by sufferance. It had no rights. It was but a counter, an infinitesimal atom. It was considered simply the property of the parent. Its father had power of life and death over it. The homeless dog that roams the streets to-day is more effectively shielded from cruelty than was the friendless child before Jesus came to live and to die for the weak and poor. The law had said: "The parent is ruler of the child, and may dispose of it as he sees fit." But Jesus said--and these are the most beautiful and affecting words in all the moral law of the world: "Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven."--Matthew xviii., 10. No threats so terrifying as those aimed at men who should harm little children: "It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea."--Matthew xviii., 6. It is impossible now to conceive the horrid indifference to childhood's rights which preceded the birth of Christianity. Infanticide was not the exception, but a settled custom. So much so, that in Rome the "exposure" of children in desert places was almost a virtue, since it gave the child some slight chance of surviving. Not a few, but thousands and tens of thousands of children were thus "exposed." They fell a prey to wild beasts, or to the human beasts, still more ferocious, who took the children to make slaves or criminals of them. Jesus came, and a miracle was worked--a miracle that no man will deny. This was the miracle: Jesus said: "For I say unto you, their angels behold the face of my Father which is in heaven." Jesus spoke, and thousands of millions of men, through nineteen centuries, have believed, and obeyed the command. Every man was warned that the child dying goes straightway into the presence of God, and there, looking upon His face, bears witness to the treatment meted out to him here. Well might it be said of the man who mistreated such a child: "It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea." Every man should study with awe and reverence the sad, lonely misunderstood life of Jesus, the friend of children. He had no home, and for companions only a few humble fishermen, to whom He spoke in simple parables, as to children. "The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head."--Matthew viii., 20. It was this childless, homeless Man that ever used His marvellous power to protect children. It was He who gave to children their definite share in the kingdom of God. Before His coming the wisdom of the world was devoted to telling the child ITS duty. But Jesus explained to grown men THEIR duty toward children. The family life was His ideal. All men were His brothers, and, with Him, sons of God. The loving kindness shown by God toward helpless men and women THEY should show to helpless children. Neither the rights nor the WISDOM of children must be despised: "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes; even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight."--Luke x., 21. Wherever Jesus went, children followed Him, and the tiniest little soul, in its mother's arms or tottering along in wide-eyed curiosity, could arrest His loving attention. How beautiful is the picture that the Bible story presents to the mind! Jesus is at Capernaum, on the sunny shore of the Sea of Galilee. The Disciples--simple, honest men, often excited as to precedence and filled with deep longing to stand first in the Master's esteem--ask Him: "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?"--Matthew xviii., 1. Around them is gathered the typical Oriental group, and many olive-skinned women, with their children: "And Jesus called a little child unto Him, and set him in the midst of them and said: 'Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. "'Whosoever, therefore, shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. "'And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me.'" Teach your children to think of and to love the divine Soul that pleaded their cause. Teach them that in all the words He uttered there can be found only love for them. No threats, no warnings-- only love. STUDY OF THE CHARACTER OF GOD "Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said . . . . Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding."--Job xxxviii. 1, 4. Since men have lived on earth their feeble intellects have struggled to realize the majesty of God. Succeeding nations and civilizations have expressed through laws or religions their puny conceptions of the power that controls the universe. As mental and moral standards have improved, there has been constant improvement in the conception of God. The Greeks and Romans imagined a variety of gods, and attributed to these the vices and weaknesses of men. The Fijians worshipped a god who devoured the souls of the dead, inflicting torture in the eating, but mercifully releasing souls from pain when the meal was ended. The ancient Mexicans went to war "because their gods demanded something to eat." Their armies fought "only endeavoring to take prisoners, that they might have men to feed those gods." ---- Even with the birth of the one great idea--THE UNITY OF GOD--the personality of the universal Creator was but a reflection of His worshippers. He was a "jealous" God, a "man of war." "God Himself is with us for our captain."-- Chron. xiii., 12. God dwelt in a city made of nothing cheaper than gold and precious stones. For His own glory, He maintained a court Oriental in form, with strange beasts to sing His praises, and He tortured forever and ever creatures that He had made. The present conception of an omnipotent God has changed greatly since the old days, when cruelty was the rule and was admired. There is to-day insistence on God's LOVE, on His JUSTICE, on His MERCY that "endureth forever"--there is practically no teaching of the old belief that a creature, born of circumstances, and good or bad as circumstances may determine, is to suffer endless torment under never-changing conditions of horror. ---- The writing of this editorial is based upon frequent reading of the book of Job. In that ancient and wonderful book, as in no other writing, the Jewish forces of poetry and of prophecy are exhausted in the effort to portray God's majesty. All of the old prophet's knowledge of the world, all of his mystic notions of sidereal government, are used in the effort to glorify his Creator. "Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days? "Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go and say unto thee, Here we are? "Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow? "Gavest thou the goodly wings unto the peacocks? "Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? "Will he make many supplications unto thee? Will he speak soft words unto thee? "Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail?" Thus through chapters of greatest beauty the primitive mind seeks to portray for the benefit of other primitive minds the omnipotence of the world's Ruler. ---- What hope has man of conceiving, even approximately, the great law-giving Force that rules the universe? Shall we ever do more than attribute to Him those qualities which our own pygmy minds admire? Shall we forever conceive Him as a glorified "individual"? We believe that in the Book of Job there is suggested the method of studying God that alone can aid us to a better, higher conception. The study of God must be prosecuted through the study of astronomy, and this the old prophet foreshadows clearly: "Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? "Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons?" Long years ago children were taught to admire a god who created a leviathan, a unicorn, and "Behemoth." Children of the future will be told: You live on a globe twenty-five thousand miles round. It travels ceaselessly through space at a speed of eighteen miles a second. Compared to the huge sun that lights and gives us life, our earth is but a pinhead, and the sun itself is but one tiny dot in the ocean of space. Through that space the sun rushes on an errand unknown, carrying us with it. Everything moves, revolves, rushes ceaselessly, yet a balance registering the one-thousandth part of a grain is not adjusted as nicely as these huge behemoths of limitless space. Laplace shows positive proof that the earth, travelling eighteen miles per second, has not changed the period of its rotation by the hundredth part of a second in two thousand years. The mind of the future, imbued with respect for the Force that controls, conducts and makes the laws for the universe, will attain more nearly to a conception of God. But a study of God will remain man's chief and constant effort while he lives here. That study is never-ending. THE FASCINATING PROBLEM OF IMMORTALITY (If you read this you will probably feel that you have wasted time.) If you travel back far enough you can see in your mind's eye a primitive man with long, red hair, shivering in some icy pool. He has taken refuge there from a pursuing bear or other foe. He sees that he must die of cold or of the bear's teeth. His dark mind--product of a brain primitive and poor in convolutions--contemplates vaguely the prospect ahead of him. He hopes that after death he may through some mysterious kindness be permitted to meet again the red-haired women and the wolfish cave children left behind. There, in the cave man's mind, is the first craving for immortality. Born in that poor brain long centuries ago, it has steadily grown stronger with man's mental development. ---- No man looks at death without looking beyond it. None but has a craving for a future life, with consciousness of his personality AND WITH RECOLLECTION OF FRIENDS, FACES AND DEEDS HERE. Say to a man, "You shall be immortal, but you shall not know that you are you." He will not give you thanks for such immortality. So strong is man's craving for personal, individual immortality that hell with its fires would be preferred by many to annihilation. The strongest argument against immortality--weak and ignorant at best--is but a frantic attempt of the mind to prove negatively the existence of what it covets. Fortunately for human happiness in general, FAITH, covers the requirements of millions. They live and die contented, the instinct within them fortified by the teachings of a faith not to be questioned. ---- But what of the men and women who ask for evidence, or at least for plausible argument, proving the reasonableness of immortality? What can be said to please them? Not much, alas! Probably because we are still so undeveloped that it would be, for many reasons, unsafe to let us know how great a future is before us. Strongest in hope is the argument of Charles Fourier, based on what he declared to be a natural law. "Attractions are proportionate to destinies." By this Fourier meant that a universal longing among human beings was certain proof that their ultimate destiny involved the fulfilment of the longing. The little girl fondling a doll foretells maternity. The hectoring boy foretells the soldier's career. No universal attraction, save with a destiny proportionate. ---- The human race since it began to think and believe has thought of and believed in immortality. The half wise declare that belief in immortality and a spirit world came to savage peoples through dreams, that it has been kept alive through superstition and the power of religion. Trivial, certainly, is such an explanation of a phenomenon as wide as mankind's existence. ---- A very consoling fact for the doubter is this. The strongest minds born on the earth have almost invariably, at some stage of development, rejected belief in immortality--only to return to the belief, or at least to the HOPE, with fuller age and riper wisdom. That no great mind has seen any positive argument against the hope of immortality is certainly comforting to all of us. Intelligence can always refute improbability and falsehood. ---- What about the nature of immortality? The Indian hopes for dogs and hunting, the Turk for a life of which the least said the better. The Christian, borrowing his ideas from the writings of the old Hebrews, looks forward to what may be called a solid gold existence--everything made of gold or of something more expensive. We do not think that religious docility demands implicit belief in any of the published details of our future existence. Gold is not comfortable; jasper would not well replace the green turf. Is it not more reasonable to assume, since immortality is to be ours, that it is ours now and always has been? We cannot imagine creation of the indestructible. Is it not sensible to take literally that most beautiful invocation: "Thy kingdom come ON EARTH as it is in heaven"? We know that heaven cannot be above us or hell below; because as we whirl round in each twenty-four hour period those abodes would have to whirl also--quite unreasonable. ---- This earth would make a very good heaven--properly improved and managed. Wipe out human selfishness, and the Sahara and other deserts. Establish universal philanthropy, regulate the climate, confine human manual labor to the pushing of an electric button--all quite possible--and you have the sort of heaven that man would select if left to choose. Why should we not come back here again and again, taking varying human forms, doing our duty well or badly each time according to our start in life, and finally enjoying perfect terrestrial happiness here as a finished race of immortal beings--immortal in the sense of being indestructible and of possessing the gift of perpetual reincarnation? ---- Now, this earthly reincarnation idea is what we have been driving at since the beginning of this particular article. What is the argument against prior and subsequent existence here? It is this: "If I am to live here again, I must have lived here before. If I have lived here before I do not know it, and I do not look forward with pleasure to future existence here in which I shall not know myself." This is a reasonable objection, certainly. Reincarnation without consciousness of former existences would miss half the fun. ---- But it is possible to be in too much of a hurry. Let us suppose that as yet we are not sufficiently developed to carry from one existence to another the memory of former existence. Suppose the time is to come when we shall suddenly advance as far beyond this intellectual stage as this stage of intellect is beyond that of the Bushman. Is it not conceivable that we may suddenly be enabled to recall all former existences and to remember all the various happenings of our former lives? May we not say, "There is Mrs. Jones. I was married to her six million years ago, and we quarrelled"? It seems quite hopeable. You cannot deny that it is possible. For instance: You now lead a continuous existence. You know that you were alive three days ago and you remember what you did then. But a baby four weeks old does NOT know that he was alive three days ago and he does not know what he did then. He has not reached a stage where his mind can grasp even the fact of continuous existence. We may not have reached a stage enabling us to grasp continuous reincarnation. Think of this, and see if you cannot get some comfort, or at least some amusing speculation out of it. ---- Science admits and thinks it proves that the inorganic atom of matter is indestructible--that it persists forever. Why should we not admit--and ultimately prove--that the atom of organic force called a soul is indestructible and exists forever? Every atom of matter, every particle of force, existing in the visible universe will continue to exist billions of centuries after the universe shall have melted and lost its present shape. The nail on your finger will exist as separate atoms when the Milky Way shall have faded from the heavens. How does that strike you for immortality? We predict that the mysterious force-atom called your soul will exist AND KNOW ITSELF AND ITS FRIENDS ten thousand billions of centuries from now and be as young as ever. DISCONTENT THE MOTIVE POWER OF PROGRESS At first the baby lies fiat on his back, eyes staring up at the ceiling. By and by he gets tired of lying on his back. DISCONTENT with his condition makes him wriggle and wriggle. At last he succeeds in turning over. If he were contented then, there would be no men on earth--only huge babies. But DISCONTENT again seizes him, and through discontent he learns to crawl. Crawling--travelling on hands and knees--satisfied lower forms of animal life. It used to satisfy us, in the old days of early evolutionary stages. But the human infant--thanks to inborn cravings--is DISCONTENTED with crawling. With much trouble and risk and many feeble totterings, he learns to walk erect. He gets up into a position that takes his eyes off the ground. He is able to look at the sun and stars and takes the position of a man. DISCONTENT is his mainspring at every stage. ---- What discontent does in the limited life of a child, it does on a much larger scale in the life of a man--and on a scale still larger in the life of a race. You can always tell when a man has reached the limit of his possible development. He ceases to be discontented--or at least to show discontent actively. Contentment, apathy, are signs of decadence and of a career ended in either a man or a nation. If a baby lies still, no longer wiggling or trying to swallow his toe, you may be sure that he is seriously ill. The nation that no longer wiggles is in a condition as serious as that of the motionless infant. ---- The man or newspaper which imparts dissatisfaction--wise discontent to a nation or to individuals, gives them the motive power that brings improvement. Ruskin as a young man declared that his one hope in life was to arouse "some dissatisfaction." The constant aim of men in talking to each other, in writing for newspapers, even in writing novels, should be to arouse discontent. In this column, as our readers will have noticed, the constant aim is to make the great crowd dissatisfied. Only through discontent can changes come and are there not causes enough for discontent and need enough for changes? A majority of the people half educated, and tens of thousands half fed. Children run over daily because they have no playground but the gutter. Men of noble aspirations kept down by hard work and poverty. Children left locked up alone all day while their mothers work for a pittance. Men, uncertain of their future and of their children's future, engage in a constant struggle for wealth that is not needed--a struggle that develops in the end a passion as useless as it is degrading. Unless you believe that the world is perfect because YOU happen to have enough to eat and to wear, you should be discontented. You should remember that the world's achievements and great changes have all come from discontent, and you should be, in as many ways as possible, a breeder of discontent among the human beings around you. THE AUTOMOBILE WILL MAKE US MORE HUMAN One of the commonest and most disagreeable sights in a big city is that of a strong, brutal human being beating a weak and overworked horse because it refuses to do what it cannot do. Brutality inflicted upon horses is atrocious. But the bad effect of such unkind treatment of animals on HUMAN CHARACTER is far more serious than the actual physical suffering inflicted. ---- The perfection of the automobile will do much to improve human beings by taking away from their control and from brutal coercion submissive animals. Everybody knows that the moral standard is raised immediately in a country when slavery is abolished. In America we have abolished the slavery of human beings, but we still adhere to horse slavery, accompanied by all the worst forms of the old negro slavery. The faithful slave may be beaten and driven to death. The driver MUST BE BRUTALIZED. Every day, on every street, you may see stupid, muscular boys and men jerking with all their might on the tender mouths of poor horses, only too willing to do their best. This brutal indifference to the sufferings of animals makes us brutal and indifferent in other directions. With the advent of the automobile and the disappearance of horses from our cities, horse slavery will be abolished and men, compelled to use their brains in dealing with machinery, will soon become more nearly human than they are at present. The practical abolition of the street-car horse is one great step in advance. The abolition of the truck horse, carriage horse, cab horse, soon to come, will complete the dream of those modern and highly deserving abolitionists, the automobile inventors and manufacturers. LET US BE THANKFUL Thanksgiving Day, November 27, 1902. Let us be thankful first of all for one great right: The right, when dissatisfied, to SAY that we are dissatisfied, and to try to make things better. Let us be thankful that every man--with few exceptions--has a holiday to-day. However bad our national affairs may seem, let us be thankful they are no worse. And above all let us be thankful that we have the power and the constitutional right to change things, just as soon as we become wise enough to use our ballots. ---- Let us be devoutly thankful for the PUBLIC SCHOOLS, for the fact that every child is taught to read and encouraged to think. The nation now declares that a child has a right to food for the mind, as long as the child behaves properly. We are not so far from the day when human decency will declare that every child and every human being has a right to food for the BODY also, as long as they behave, and are ready for honest work. Let us be thankful for the constantly growing recognition of human rights. The workingmen of America are better paid than they have ever been before. More of them than ever are at work, and the unions which protect them are more powerful than ever--let us be thankful for these facts. The whole nation prospers when the workers of the nation are busy and well paid. Science has been, and is, making wonderful progress, explaining for us daily the problems of the universe. Every man must be thankful that highly specialized brains are constantly at work piling up knowledge for him. As a nation we are too big to fear successful attack, and we are, it is to be hoped, too sensible to seek trouble with others. Let us be thankful that all things point to continued national, mental development on peaceful lines, free from the horrible wholesale murders, called war, that have bled and weakened all people through the ages. ---- Each of us individually has reason for thankfulness. If you can feel that you are honestly trying to do your duty, that is much to be thankful for. If you are dissatisfied with yourself, you should be thankful for the power of self-condemnation-- and thankful especially that you have long and blessed TIME ahead of you to make up for your mistakes and improve your record. We live in a wonderful age--wonderful in the fact that life and liberty are fairly secure; wonderful in freedom of conscience. You can believe in Heaven, Hades, Christian Science, or in nothing at all--and as long as you do not interfere with others, no one can imprison you, or question, or burn you at the stake. ---- We should all be especially thankful for the steady awakening of the national mind. We all pursue wealth--and doubtless circumstances compel us to pay too much attention to that line of effort. But we are all THINKING also. There are a thousand times more thinking, reading men and women to-day in America alone than lived on earth half a century ago. Love of knowledge is spreading, and with love of knowledge, love of justice and a sense of fairness will always be found. Our material prosperity is great. But it is out- balanced by our mental prosperity. We are becoming a nation of THINKING men and women, and since that means real development, we have all reason to be thankful. THE HARM THAT IS DONE BY OUR FRIENDS Thought lives through the ages, flies about over the earth, and goes on visiting fresh minds, after the mind that gave it birth has gone back to dust and nothingness. An Italian wrote words to this effect: "Man is commanded to forgive his enemies. Nowhere is imposed on him the far more difficult task of forgiving his friends." Francis Bacon, the philosopher, read in England the words of the Italian and quoted them. Vincent W. Byars, a very able thinking man of St. Louis, read Bacon's quotation out there, and now, coming to New York, he says to this writer: "Why don't you make an editorial on that old Italian saying quoted by Bacon?" Italy--England--St. Louis--New York--thus the idea has hopped about, until to-day you get it in this column. A million of you read it, or at least glance at it; and so, if the idea has any value, it will go hopping on all over the earth's surface long after the steel press that prints this paper shall have crumbled away. ---- How little your ENEMIES can hurt you! How little harm they do, even when they try! You are warned against them and on your guard. The world knows they are your enemies, and discredits what they say. It is quite easy to forgive our enemies, for they do us comparatively little harm. But to forgive our friends would be hard indeed if we could realize how much harm they do us. ---- THE DRUNKARD'S FRIENDS Who makes the drunkard? His enemies? No. The drunkard is made by his friends. When it is known that he is inclined to drink no enemy is so vicious as to lead him on. No enemy slaps him on the back and begs him to take "just another drink." No enemy laughs down his poor, feeble attempts at reform. No enemy tells him that it will not hurt him "just this time," and that he really must not refuse to be a good fellow "just for once." The drunkard is MADE a drunkard, is pushed into the last depths of drunkenness, by his friends. And it is his friends who kick him and leave him and despise him when he has sunk into the mire. Did ever the drunkard's enemy hurt him as much as the friend has hurt him? ---- AMBITION KILLED BY FRIENDS A young man starts out to succeed in life. His enemy may lie about him, may call him worthless. He may think he is hurting him. If there is anything in the young man, the enemy's lies and discouraging words only spur him on to greater effort. They do him good. It is the friend that ruins the young man by false, injudicious, unearned praise. As artist, poet, writer, clerk, or in any other effort, the young man begins his work. It is his friends who tell him that he is a splendid success, when he needs to be told that, at best, he has some slight chance of success, and that everything depends on desperate effort. Look at the young, conceited fool who, instead of struggling on, rails at the world, feels that he is not appreciated. He is a failure--a sad, foolish failure. He has been made a failure, not by the attacks of his enemies, but by the more dangerous praise of his friends. ---- The lonely and friendless often succeed amazingly. "Multum incola fuit anima mea" ("My spirit hath been much alone") said the great Bacon. His mind fed on loneliness, on failure, and even on disgrace. How much success is due to freedom from that harm which friendship does? The reader can finish this editorial for himself with hundreds of other arguments. This is enough for a sample. SHALL WE TAME AND CHAIN THE INVISIBLE MICROBE AS WE NOW CHAIN NIAGARA? When Solomon was gathering his materials to build the Temple, his, large cedar trunks from Lebanon and his costly materials from everywhere, he used oxen, mules, camels. With all his wisdom, he little dreamed that the day would come when his descendants, instead of using mules and huge beasts of burden, would heat water and with steam develop a force sufficient to tear his Temple from its foundation. Still less did he dream that steam would eventually be superseded, as clumsy and primitive, by the invisible force of electricity. When the thunder roared, the lightning flashed and his conscience troubled him, Solomon, turning away from his thousand wives and his numerous other doubtful associates, put his head under the richly embroidered pillow, worked, perhaps, by Sheba's own fair hands--it did not enter his mind that that lightning could be tamed and put to work. Man has been gradually controlling and employing the various animals on the earth's surface. He taught the elephant to haul wood and water and to fight his battles. He trained the horse, the dog. He even taught falcons to bring him back birds from beyond the clouds, and otters to catch fish in the bottom of lakes and rivers. Gradually he has made himself independent of his animal partners. The rifle made the falcon useless; steam destroyed the importance of the horse and the ox. But apparently we have only begun using animal life. We must run the whole gamut of the marvels of creation before conquering conditions on this earth. ---- We used to train the biggest dogs to kill wolves. The Government of the United States is now breeding darning-needles to kill mosquitoes. A certain kind of wasp, with a black and white striped body, spends his time killing house-flies, and this creature could be bred and used to destroy the disease-spreading pests. Even the invisible insect life can be made most useful to man and to his health. The latest plan for disposing of city sewage involves the cultivation of microbes, to be employed as disinfectors. Several towns in Illinois and in Wisconsin have established plants for the purification of sewage by means of microbe life. The collections of organisms invisible to the naked eye are to be kept in great antiseptic tanks, and employed in the purification of the city 's refuse. Mosquitoes will ultimately be destroyed, undoubtedly, by breeding among them smaller creatures fatal to their existence. Man, in his conquest and use of animal life, will run the gamut, from the biggest elephant, employed as a public executioner in India, to the invisible microbe, doing a work ten thousand times more important all over the globe. These infinitesimal microbes, bred and controlled by science, will do regularly and methodically the work which buzzards and vultures have done on land, which sharks and dogfish have done at sea, throughout endless centuries. To the marvellous workings of nature we cannot possibly give too much thought or too great admiration. Gardens are filled with beautiful flowers, and fields are fertile to-day because hundreds of years ago sea birds were devouring the carcasses of dead fish, acting as nature's scavengers, and building up the great guano fields of South America. There is a Peruvian millionaire in his big yacht, and there is a rose in full bloom--the millionaire's money, the beauty of the rose, come from those birds that picked up the dead fish five hundred years ago. It's an interesting world. THE ELEPHANT THAT WILL NOT MOVE HAS BETTER EXCUSES THAN WE HAVE FOR FOLLY DISPLAYED This is an editorial which we shall merely suggest, and which each reader will write out for himself. In the Zoological Garden of New York a poor elephant has stood in chains for years. The animal was thought to be vicious, and was kept fastened tightly to one spot, that it might have no leeway to do damage. A short time ago its keeper became convinced that the elephant would do no harm and might safely be unchained. The chains were taken off, and the keeper thought with satisfaction that the poor beast would now enjoy freedom and be made happy by the possibility of moving freely about its large inclosure. The elephant did not move. The chains were gone, it was no longer tied, but it stood, and it still stands, in just the same spot. The habit of slavery, of monotony, had become too strong. The elephant, though free, stands still, sadly swaying its heavy head, ignorant of the freedom that has come to it. Men and women and children who see the elephant, and other men who write paragraphs for the newspapers, dilate on the poor animal's "stupidity." "The elephant has been called the most intelligent of animals," says one writer, "but this elephant, that doesn't know when the chains are off, seems to prove that the elephant can be a good deal of a fool." How easy it is for us human beings to see the faults in others, our fellows, and the animals below us. But which one of us can truly say that he is not in exactly the same position as that poor elephant, fixed to one spot by the chains of long ago? Are we not still standing as a race just as we stood years and centuries ago, ignorant of the freedom that has come to us? Thousands of splendid men have worked, lived and died to free us from superstition, from credulity, from ignorance, yet still we stand in the same place, and fail to appreciate the freedom that is ours. ---- Millions of us, tied down by foolish superstition, are like that elephant--the chains are off, but we stand still. The road to peace, happiness and universal progress has been shown us in the teachings of great leaders, but we still stand in the same old place, fighting, hating, cheating, suspecting, harming one another. Here and there there is a little progress; gradually we begin to appreciate and enjoy the freedom that has been given to us with the striking away of old mental chains. The process is slow. Look into your own mind. Do you take advantage of all the possibilities that are before you? Do you use your brain to control your existence, acts and habits for your own benefit and the benefit of others? If not, you ought to sympathize with this poor elephant, and realize that as your brain exceeds his in bulk proportionately, so do you exceed him in the folly that misses opportunity. LET US BE THANKFUL You get tired of reading editorials in which one man, spouting from his editorial pulpit, lays down the law for you--without giving you a chance to reply or contradict. So let us write this editorial together. There you sit--the reader--in your street car, or perhaps clinging to a strap, and here we sit, impersonal editorial creature, thinking over thankfulness, Thanksgiving Day, and what reasons we have for feeling thankful. Let us talk as few platitudes as possible, and try to get at a few of the inside workings of human life. ---- You look across the car and hate the fat man who lounges and spreads his feet around so boorishly. LET US BE THANKFUL THAT WE SO READILY PERCEIVE THE SHORTCOMINGS OF OTHERS. Much comfort is derived from others' failings. In the quiet evenings we talk of our neighbors' weaknesses and we enjoy them. By contrast we admire ourselves. LET US BE THANKFUL THAT WE NEVER APPRECIATE OUR OWN LIMITATIONS. Each man's children are beautiful and promising in his view. He cannot see the hopeless construction of their foreheads, nor can he read in their eyes the sad absence of "speculation." Let us be thankful for that. The future depends on the good care awarded to almost worthless specimens now. ---- FOR THE UNIVERSAL INSTINCT OF THANKFULNESS, LET BE DEEPLY THANKFUL. The thick-lipped negro on the Congo finds a dead hippopotamus, half eaten by wild beasts, and in his woolly brain a dim, misty feeling of THANKFULNESS is born. The Tartar bandit surprises mild Chinese conducting a tea caravan across the stony desert. He murders the mild Celestials and feels THANKFUL as he contemplates the booty. A great Trust manager finds ways to add some millions to those which he already has and does not need. In THANKFUL mood he gives two millions or three to education. As inborn, as instinctive as the beating of the heart in the human being is THANKFULNESS. Thankfulness is the unconscious acknowledgment of a Higher Power. It is the indestructible evidence of man's permanent belief in just government of the universe. It is the most hopeful, the most promising feature of man's character. For THANKFULNESS itself we should be thankful. ---- If you want to succeed, cultivate a feeling of hopeful thankfulness. Hopefulness, thankfulness and success are as near akin as light, heat and motion--the same force underlies, makes up the first trio, as it does the second. If you find it hard to be thankful, read a little of history, and thankfulness will come. Thousands of millions of men have lived and suffered to make your existence here at least bearable. You may not be satisfied, but you have comforts that were not dreamed of by the luckiest a few centuries back. You think the prosperous have too many privileges. Perhaps they have. But when your great-grandfather was a young man a nobleman could order his lackeys to seize Voltaire the greatest mind in Europe--and beat him almost to death. Voltaire was locked up in the Bastile for complaining. Thanks to the eternal row that Voltaire kicked up, you can never be treated as he was. So be thankful to Voltaire. Be thankful to the long line of plucky men and fighters--not forgetting Christopher Columbus--who have gone before you. Be thankful that you are alive in an interesting age with interesting events happening. Be thankful also that with thankfulness you combine the feeling of dissatisfaction, of unrest that will push you ahead and give you cause for fresh thankfulness next year. ---- We are thankful to have you for a reader. We are thankful for the criticisms and friendly comments that you occasionally send. We hope that you will enjoy your dinner to-day and not regret it to-morrow. WHAT WILL 999 YEARS MEAN TO THE HUMAN RACE The street railroad company in the Borough of Brooklyn has just executed some leases to endure 999 years. Leases of property have also been made for the same period, though, of course, a lease of 999 years will be about as binding 999 years from now as would a lease of the great pyramid executed the day after it was finished, if such a lease should be presented at present to the Egyptian Government. These preposterous leases are interesting because they bring vividly before the human mind the certainty of wonderful and splendid changes in human affairs. The street railroad leases are especially fascinating to the imaginative mind. They deal with present conditions and will seem inconceivably primitive hundreds of years before the leases will have ended. These leases deal with miserable little electric cars crawling slowly over the face of the earth, at either end an underpaid, overworked man, and in the middle a crowd of poor, dissatisfied, ill-housed human beings. Nine hundred and ninety-nine years from now the human race will not by any means have accomplished its destiny. It will still be struggling on toward the goal of real civilization. But it will have grown far beyond the savage condition of life that marks the execution of these long leases. Before these street railroad leases expire Brooklyn and all other cities as they now exist will have disappeared from the earth. Perfect transportation, underground, overground and through the air, will enable human beings, if they choose, to live as far from their work as does the seagull or the eagle. It will no longer be necessary to crowd together in miserable tenements, and homes will be scattered. Human beings undoubtedly will dwell in huge, splendidly managed structures, each in the centre of its own park, far from the noise and the brutality of modern city life. Before the leases expire the combined cities of New York and Brooklyn and Yonkers and Coney Island and Montauk Point will have grown into an enormous, hideous human aggregation of fifty million or more human beings. Even the city of a hundred millions may be seen. But as that huge, monstrous city will have grown, so it will have died, as the monsters of former geological epochs grew and died in their turn. The site of the vanished great city will be covered with gardens, and children in schools will be taught that human beings who once lived in the cliffs in the Far West afterward gathered together in horrible municipal ant-hills in the East, called cities, before they learned how to live comfortably. ---- Before those street railroad leases expire the present temporary mania for money will have run its course. Once every important man felt that a certain number of slaves must be murdered at his funeral. Sometimes his favorite horse was shot. In scores of millions of cases his wife was burned alive with his corpse. We have outgrown that. Nowadays the great man who dies must leave behind him an accumulation of millions, which means that thousands of men have worked to give him what he did not need. Before these leases shall have expired that form of financial barbarism will have ceased to exist. It is reasonable to hope that the coming thousand years will have seen the end of industrial feudalism, which has had its birth in our day, and which will run its course as did the military feudalism of the Middle Ages. What a marvellous picture the world will present one thousand years from now! The earth will be adequately populated. Science will have conquered disease almost entirely. Each woman will be the mother of two children. She will not bring five or six into the world in order that two or three may live. Competition will be replaced by emulation. The intelligent servant of government will work as loyally and enthusiastically for his government and for the people as the boy at college now works for his college football team. The human mind will have wandered on many leagues in its search for a satisfying religion, getting always nearer to a clear conception of the grandeur of the universe, and further away from the superstition necessary to the moral control of a brutal semi-civilization. Human beings will have learned that the noblest thing one man can do is to work for others. Each will gladly contribute all his talent and strength to the welfare of all. All will gladly recognize, applaud and richly reward the special ability of the individual. There will be no poverty. Willingness to work will insure a comfortable livelihood. Education will have developed the average human intellect far beyond our conception. Nine-tenths of the human race have been able to read only within the past few years. What will a thousand years of universal education do? ---- The end of the leases of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company will find many of our problems solved. It will find, however, the real work of man just beginning. The abstract work of the intellect, the proper organization of society as expressed in human passions, the study of the wonderful and beautiful universe outside of our own little planet, will then begin with the conquest of our material conditions. THE AZORES--A SMALL LOST WORLD IN A UNIVERSE OF WATER As you cross the Atlantic by the Southern route the "sighting of the Azores" is one incident of your voyage. Just before daybreak the ship is shaking and the passengers roused by the deep tones of the big steam whistle. One by one shivering forms straggle up from below, like reluctant spirits answering a premature last call. Bare feet in slippers, and shivering forms with overcoats over nightgowns, gradually line the rails. On the left there appears, apparently, a heavy, dark bank of clouds: "The Azores!" shouts down from the bridge your yellow-whiskered captain, looking as cheerful and warm as though it were noon. You watch, shiver and blink as the light grows stronger behind the pinkish clouds in the east. The dark cloud settles into solid land. You see it clearly. Sharply outlined against the sky stands, forty miles long, a mammoth saw with huge teeth, irregular, sharp. The power of old-time volcanoes made all of that land, and those sharp saw-teeth, pointing toward the sky, are the destroyers of long ago, cold and dead now, but telling ominously of the power that lies hidden below. Between you and the brightening sunrise, suspended in the "crow's nest," half way up the mast, stands the sailor who watches the sea for you through the night. He calls out, and ahead to the left you see a small boat filled with human beings that seem scarcely as big as your finger. Your ship could plough through miles of such small boats-- but out there in the ocean, just as well as inside the biggest court-house, LAW rules, and the big ship must turn out for the small fishing boat. You realize the power and beauty of law, as our governor and sustainer. You see that laws of little men reach out two thousand miles into the sea. You think of the laws of the universe that stretch across the immeasurable distances of time and space, protecting ALL, and insuring ultimate fulfilment of the destinies of all the worlds. As those fishermen of the Azores work safely, under full protection, in their little lost corner of the great ocean, so we, in our little world, our little insignificant corner of space, work out our tiny problems safely under the splendid protection of Divine Law and wisdom sent to us from some far- off point of which we know nothing. The light of the rising sun brings out from shore many other small boats, each with its load of men who wave their arms to the steamship and cheer against the sound of the waves and wind. To them that ship is like the fast express that passes the country railroad station, or the comet that whirls round our sun and off again. Those fishermen feel that THEY are the REAL world; the steamship and outside creation are only half imagined, interesting phenomena. You look down from the deck and the fishermen seem unreal little ornaments of your European excursion. And so the two sets of human beings go their ways--to each nothing is important, save that which each is doing. There are great planets and suns that roll past us across this cosmic ocean of ether. Our pathetic little round earth looks to them as that fishing-boat of the Azores looks to you. And WE think of those great interstellar travellers as the fisherman in his little boat thinks of the ocean liner--the great star to us is merely an interesting feature of OUR sky. And we actually wonder whether there is any thought on that big, distant sun; any intelligence on the vast ship that ploughs the ocean of limitless space. ---- The high ridge of volcanic peaks and the others near it are made fertile and green by soil gradually developed through the centuries by seeds brought across the ocean by winds and birds. The tops of the mountains are black lava. Lakes of black water fill some of the quiet craters. Only, here and there, the rising sulphur smoke from rocky fissures tells of heat and power smouldering. The last great eruption of the volcanoes occurred a little more than two hundred years ago--so the inhabitants laugh if you speak of danger. They forget that two hundred years in the earth's life is as two minutes in the life of a man--and that what a man did two minutes since he may do again. Fences are built across the fields of thin soil that cover the lava. Each inch of that land thrown up by fire "belongs" to some man. White houses stand at the edges of deep lava canyons running from the mountain tops to the sea's edge canyons made by pouring lava or by the splitting of the mountains under fearful pressure. Children play about the blocks of lava--and all their lives, no matter where they may go, those children will think of that far-off island as the only real home, and of black lava blocks as the only REAL kind of stone. From your passing boat you cannot see these children. Their little lives, lost in the far-off sea, seem as unimportant as the lives of the fish that swim below you. But some child playing there to-day may be like that other island child, Napoleon, and live to make the rest of the world talk about the island that bred him. Or, better still, some one of those children, with a brain made powerful by solitude and noble thought, may have the idea that shall help us all, teach us more and more to think kindly of each other and help each other, instead of passing each other coldly and indifferently as the big ship passes the little, far-off island. NO NAPOLEONIC CHESS PLAYER ON AN AIR CUSHION ZANGWILL'S IDEA IS FALSE--WHY CHESS PLAYING STUNTS GENIUS Mr. Zangwill's keen intellect, straining hard for striking pictures and word effects, sees falsely the great general of the future. He says: "The Napoleon of the future will be an epileptic chess player, carried about the field of battle on an air cushion." In this condensed, picturesque fashion Mr. Zangwill expresses sententiously a number of mistaken ideas. He thinks that the game of war is like the game of chess, and that the future world conqueror will be a great chess player, using men as pawns and the world as his chess-board. He observes the curious and interesting historical fact that of the world's great conquerors many, including the two greatest, Napoleon and Alexander, were afflicted with that mysterious disease, epilepsy. He concludes that the great general of the future will probably be a confirmed epileptic. The ability of a fighting man to-day resides largely, of course, in the brain. The general's MUSCLES no longer count as a fighting factor. His battles are won or lost inside of his SKULL. Mr. Zangwill concludes that the future great general will have a mind developed to an abnormal extent at the expense of the body--he sees in the future world conqueror an abnormal creature, a giant brain perched on a miserable, wasted body, so feeble and delicate that it must be carried about the field of battle on an air cushion to prevent shocks. ---- The quotation from Zangwill which we print above contains only twenty-one words. Rarely have so many errors, so many fundamental yet plausible errors, been crowded into so little space. The Napoleon of the future, the great conqueror, will NOT be a chess player. The real Napoleon whom we know had no love for chess or any other waste of time, or any other form of self- indulgence. Chess is no game for a Napoleon, or for any other man who wants to embody real accomplishment in the story of his life. CHESS IS A WEAK GAME, FOR IT ADMITS ALL KINDS OF RULES AND ALL KINDS OF FOREORDAINED IMPOSSIBILITIES. The man who makes the world's great success will not be bound by rules. The great men of the world are great because they refuse to ADMIT impossibilities. The man who plays chess has two knights, and these knights he can only send two squares in one direction and one square in another, or one square in one direction and two squares in the other. His two bishops can only move diagonally across the board, one on the white and one on the black. His castles lumber along on straight lines. His king cannot be touched or taken, and the game ends when the king is in fatal danger. The queen, in the dull game we call chess, can do almost anything. But Napoleon was really a great man, and the game of life that he played was very different from the chess game. When the king was in hopeless danger, Napoleon's game had just begun. Others before him had looked upon kings on the board of life as the chess player looks upon the wooden or ivory king before him. But to Napoleon kings were pawns, to be moved around and made ridiculous. When he felt like it, he made pawns into kings--the descendant of one of his pawn-kings reigns to-day in Sweden. Napoleon's game deprived the queen of all power--she was less than a pawn. HIS game sent the bishops hopping back and forth, diagonally or at right angles, as he saw fit. He created knights to his heart's content, and he taught them to move as he wanted. Napoleon was great because there was nothing of the chess player about him. He did not admit of regular, foreordained moves on the chess-board or on the board of life. HE REFUSED TO CONSIDER ANYTHING IMPOSSIBLE UNTIL HE HAD TRIED IT. He tells us himself that he deserved credit for crossing the Alps, not that he accomplished a difficult feat, but because he refused to believe those who declared the feat impossible. If anybody said "Check" to Napoleon, he kicked over the chess-board and began a new game of his own--that was what surprised the poor, dull old Austrian generals in Italy. No; the real great man is no chess player, he has no chess player's mind. And do you, Mr. Reader, waste no time at chess, if you have any idea of being WORTH WHILE in a big or a little way. ---- The Napoleon of the future will be no epileptic. That terrible disease has afflicted many of the noblest intellects, and it is undoubtedly a disease brought on, or at least intensified, by great intellectual activity and a lack of co-ordination between the mental and physical operations of the body. But some great men have been great, not because of that terrible disease, but in spite of it. Science will conquer that trouble, as it has conquered others, and the scientist to do this work will be, himself, one of the world's great men. ---- The Napoleon of the future will be no huge-brained dwarf, with feeble body, carried on an air cushion. It is true that many great men of to-day are relatively small in body. The gigantic muscle, thick legs, broad shoulders and hairy chests of the successful Viking have nothing to do with modern achievement. But it is also true that to-day, as always, the healthy mind lives in a healthy body, and lives ON a healthy body. As well expect to find the most perfect fruit on a withered, half-dead tree, as to find the most able brain in a withered, half-dead body. The blood is the life of the brain, and unless a HEALTHY body supplies HEALTHY blood the brain's chance is small. Napoleon, it's true, was at one time a physical wreck--BUT DON'T FORGET THAT HIS GREATNESS WAS ALSO A WRECK AT THAT TIME. The GREAT Napoleon operated in a body tireless and powerful enough to remain thirty consecutive hours on horseback. It was a body so powerful that criminal neglect and stupid ignorance of the laws of health were powerless against it for many years. The Napoleon that went to St. Helena dwelt in a worn-out body, a fat, degenerate perversion of the Napoleon that conquered the world. The great conqueror of the future, ladies and gentlemen, will be a splendidly original brain, working through a perfectly developed body, AND WORKING FOR THE MASS OF THE PEOPLE, FOR THEIR FARE, NOT FOR THEIR CONQUEST AND OPPRESSION. All of which is respectfully submitted to our readers for discussion and criticism. A GIRL'S FACE IN THE GASLIGHT AND AN IMPORTANT PART OF THE WORLD'S WORK On a corner of Rector street, down near the river, a loud drum was beating. A guitar and a tambourine competed shrilly with the drum's dull booming. Slowly a careless crowd gathered round the Salvation Army workers. There were bare-headed women, little girls holding little babies in their arms, sailors drunk, and one or two sober, 'longshoremen pleased with the sound of the drum, and a few of the thin, hungry faces that disturb our well-fed happiness. The man beat his drum, standing erect and proud in his army uniform. The two thin, nervous young women played on guitar and tambourine with all their force, striving to gather the crowd whom they hoped to make better men and women. Thirty or forty people gathered--glad to accept any noise and excitement in their dull lives. The music stopped, and a young girl stepped to the centre of the circle. She was frightened. Her voice was weak at first. Gradually her thin, pale face grew animated. Her blue eyes dilated. In dull, routine way, doing her best, earning respectful silence from the night crowd, she told her story: "I was bad. I tried to be good. But I couldn't do it with my own strength. I asked God to save me. He did save me. He will save you, if you will ask Him." She spoke with a strong German accent. With all her deep, earnest soul, with all her poor, limited mental force, she longed to help the men and women around. As she spoke she bent her head farther and farther back, until her eyes looked up to the sky. There, with perfect faith, she saw the God whose work she was humbly doing in the muddy streets and flickering gaslight of the riverside. While she could control her voice and her deep emotion she talked on her one theme--the power of God to help the helpless. But she BELIEVED, and she FELT what she said. Soon the tears ran over from her upturned eyes, and she could speak no more. Then a man began--thickset, earnest, with a strong Scotch accent. He talked to the men about him in a rough way that appealed to them. ---- As the crowd stood listening many passed. A few were contemptuous; the majority were indifferent. If you see these workers you ask perhaps: "What good do they do?" That is the question that may be asked of every man that ever lived, and only One can answer it. The thin, white-faced girl, playing, singing and PREACHING in the dirty street, does this: She touches the heart of a half-drunken man. Turning from the saloon door he goes home, and takes to his wife and children as much of his wages as is left, a feeling of repentance, good resolutions. Her tears are answered by the tears of miserable girls and women who sink back into the shadow as they watch her pure face. Through them she helps to undo the horrible, soul-destroying work of brutal civilization. ---- Mysteriously, diversely, the work of the world is done. The storm, endless in its power, washes down the mountain-tops to fertilize the valley. The tiny earthworm works in darkness, crumbling up its little patch of earth to make it fit food for plants. Each does its work. The mighty intellect with cyclonic force gives to mankind grand, general views of cosmic grandeur, and introduces to minds prepared the "eternal silences," and the vast serene fields of divine law. THE "CRIMINAL" CLASS DID THIS VIEW OF IT EVER OCCUR TO YOU? Much interest just now in CRIMINALS. Much horror aroused by depravity. Many plans more or less appropriate for making the air pure. Many good men, politicians, women and bishops, who spent the Summer at the seaside willing now to spend a few days wiping "CRIME" off the earth. ---- What is CRIME? Who are the criminals? Who makes the criminals? Do criminals viciously and voluntarily arise among us, eager to lead hunted lives, eager to be jailed at intervals, eager to crawl in the dark, dodge policemen, work in stripes and die in shame? Hardly. Will you kindly and patiently follow the lives, quickly sketched, of a boy and a girl? THE GIRL Born poor, born in hard luck, her father, or mother, or both, victims of long hours, poor fare, bad air and little leisure. As a baby she struggles against fate and manages to live while three or four little brothers and sisters die and go back to kind earth. She crawls around the halls of a tenement, a good deal in the way. She is hunted here and chased there. She is cold in Winter, ill-fed in Summer, never well cared for. She gets a little so-called education. Ill-dressed and ashamed beside the other children, she is glad to escape the education. No one at home can help her on. No one away from home cares about her. She grows up white, sickly, like a potato sprouting in a cellar. At the corner of a fine street she sees the carriages passing with other girls in warm furs, or in fine, cool Summer dresses. With a poor shawl around her and with heels run down she peers in at the restaurant window, to see other women leading lives very different from hers. Steadily she has impressed upon her the fact, absolutely undeniable, that as the world is organized there is no especial place for her--certainly no comfort for her. She finds work, perhaps. Hours as long as the daylight. Ten minutes late--half a day's fine. At the end of the day aching feet, aching back, system ill-fed, not enough earned to live upon honestly--and that prospect stretches ahead farther than her poor eyes can see. "What's the charge, officer?" "Disorderly conduct, Your Honor." There's the criminal, good men, politicians, women and bishops, that you are hunting so ardently. THE BOY Same story, practically. He plays on the tenement staircase--cuffed off the staircase. He plays ball in the street--cuffed, if caught by the policeman. He swings on the area railing, trying to exercise his stunted muscles--cuffed again. In burning July, with shirt and trousers on, he goes swimming in the park fountain--caught and cuffed and handed over to "the society." A few months in a sort of semi-decent imprisonment, treated in a fashion about equivalent to that endured by the sea turtle turned over on its back in the market. He escapes to begin the same life once more. He tries for work. "What do you know?" "I don't know anything; nobody ever taught me." He cannot even endure the discipline of ten hours' daily shovelling--it takes education to instil discipline, if only the education of the early pick and shovel. He has not been taught anything. He has been turned loose in a city full of temptation. He had no real start to begin with, and no effort was ever made to repair his evil beginning. ---- "What's the charge, officer?" "Attempted burglary; pleads guilty." "Three years in prison, since it is his first offence." In prison he gets an education. They teach him how to be a good burglar and not get caught. Patiently the State boards him, and educates him to be a first-rate criminal. There's your first-rate criminal, Messrs. Bishops, good men, politicians and benevolent women. ---- Dear bishops, noble women, good men and scheming politicians, listen to this story: In the South Sea Islands they have for contagious diseases a horror as great as your horror of crime. A man or woman stricken with a loathsome disease, such as smallpox, is seized, isolated, and the individual sores of the smallpox patient are earnestly scraped with sea shells--until the patient dies. It hurts the patient a good deal--without ever curing, of course--but it relieves the feelings of the outraged good ones who wield the sea shells. You kind-hearted creatures, hunting "crime" in great cities, are like the South Sea Islanders in their treatment of smallpox. You ardently wield your reforming sea shells and you scrape very earnestly at the sores so well developed. ---- No desire here to decry your earnest efforts. But if you ever get tired of scraping with sea shells, try vaccination, or, better still, try to take such care of youth, to give such chances and education to the young, as will save them from the least profitable of all careers--CRIME. ---- Rich good men, nice bishops, comfortable, benevolent ladies--every man and woman on Blackwell's Island, every wretched creature living near a "red light," would gladly change places with any of you. Scrape away with your sea shells, but try also to give a few more and a few better chances in youth to those whom you now hunt as criminals in their mature years. God creates boys and girls, anxious to live decently. YOUR SOCIAL SYSTEM makes criminals and fills jails. THE WONDERFUL MAGNET HOW WILD SUPERSTITION SETTLES DOWN INTO SCIENTIFIC REALITY Everybody knows something of the peculiarities of the magnet. As a boy you led tiny painted ducks around the water basin, holding a magnet in your hand, or you owned a horseshoe magnet that would pick up nails and needles. You know now in a general kind of way that the magnet is a very useful as well as a somewhat mysterious thing. The old Greeks and Romans simply knew that some remarkable iron ore found in Lydia, near the town of Magnesia, and hence called magnet, was capable of drawing and holding pieces of metal. The ancients had the wildest theories concerning the magnet, just as we have wild theories about things that are new and strange to us to-day. They thought that the magnet could be used in cases of sickness, that it could attract wood and flesh, that it influenced the human brain, causing melancholy. They believed that the power of a magnet could be destroyed by rubbing garlic on it, and that power brought back again by dipping the magnet in goat's blood. They believed that a magnet could be used to detect bad conduct in a woman; they believed that it would not attract iron in the presence of a diamond. They believed much other nonsense quite as ridiculous as the nonsense that we believe to-day. ---- It must have seemed a great waste of time in wise men in the old days to discuss the magnet or think about it at all. Please observe how the apparent nonsense of early speculation finally ripens into actual utility, and learn to respect those who deal as best they can with questions that seem beyond our comprehension. First the magnet was made actually and wonderfully useful in the compass. Who discovered the compass nobody knows. It was probably invented by the Chinese and brought to Europe through the Arabs. Anyhow, some genius found out that a small needle brought in contact with the so-called lodestone, or magnetic ore, absorbs the qualities of the lodestone, and when placed on a pivot will always point to the north. In the magnet there were and there still are many mysteries. A form of perpetual motion seems to be embodied in the principle of magnetism. One strange fact is this, that the weight of the metal is exactly the same before it is magnetized and after it is magnetized. Early students thought that the magnet pointed toward some particular spot in the sky, perhaps some magnetic star. One genius felt sure that there must be huge mountains of lodestone near the North Pole. This suggestion was followed by ingenious yarns to the effect that in the extreme North ships had to be built with wooden nails, instead of iron nails, as the magnetic mountains would draw the iron nails out of the ship. After this came the more rational conception that our own earth is a great magnet, and that the little magnet in the compass simply obeys in pointing, the greater force of the earth magnet. ---- This editorial generalizing on the magnet is brought about by an incident telegraphed from Vallejo, California. John Gettegg, apprentice in the Navy Yard, had imbedded in his cheek a flying piece of steel. To get it out would apparently have demanded a painful and difficult surgical operation, as the piece of steel had entered the bone. But the head electrician, Petrio, simply placed near the wounded boy's face an electro-magnet capable of lifting five hundred pounds, and the sharp piece of steel instantly flew out of the cheek and attached itself to the magnet. So much for one proof of the value of developing what may seem at first to be a foolish set of experiments. In thousands of ways to-day this magnetic power is utilized. You can buy strawberries in baskets very cheap, partly because the baskets cost very little for labor. The man who tacks them together uses a magnetized tack hammer. This magnetic tack hammer picks up the tacks of its own accord, and the man drives them in the basket as fast as he can touch the magnet to the heads of the tacks and strike the basket. In the great steel works where armor plate is made powerful magnets are used to carry the hot plates from one place to another. The magnet lifts up the hot, soft metal without denting it or damaging it and drops it down where it is wanted. The power which moves trolley cars through the streets is nothing in reality but an application of the force of the magnetic principle. ---- That the earth itself is a great magnet cannot be questioned. And there is no doubt that each of us human beings is a compound magnet on his own account, depending for his welfare on magnetic force. The millions of red corpuscles in the blood, each with its infinitesimal particles of iron, absorb in the lungs and distribute throughout the body the electric forces on which we depend, and with which we do our work. When you read of men and women dealing in a blundering kind of a way with abstract, abstruse speculations and problems, do not laugh at them too heartily. They are no more ridiculous than the old Greeks who thought that a magnet could be regulated by garlic or goat's blood. And their wild theories of to-day may settle down into great utility centuries from now. This applies to Christian Science, faith cures, telepathy, and the many other speculations of the present day. There is unquestionably much future fruit and value in many or all of them. WHO IS INDEPENDENT? NOBODY We all have our moments of imagining ourselves INDEPENDENT characters. We take pride in our independence and are never as foolish as when trying to prove how independent we are. Every man, to begin with, is born absolutely at the mercy of his ancestry. You have not a thing in you, and you never will have a thing in you, that you did not inherit from some one of the thousands and thousands of ancestors, all of whom are dimly stored away in your complex make-up. You may develop marvellously the faculties which they gave you. But you ARE DEPENDENT on those who brought you into the world, and upon those back of them. The Kaffir, sober, industrious, honest, with all the virtues rolled up within him, has not a fragment of one chance in ten thousand billions of equalling the achievements of a tenth-rate white man whose ancestral start was better. ---- After birth you start with dependence on your ancestors, and after youth you are dependent on your education. Facts are your tools, and you can't work without them. If your mind has the right formation, if your brain is provided with the deep convolutions, and good luck has supplied you with a good education in youth, the whole thing is dependent on your health--on your liver, your stomach, or some other part of your internal machinery. Very often your success is dependent on your temper and tact. These depend on your digestion. Digestion, of course, depends on your cook, and the cook's attention to business may depend on the politeness of the policeman in front of the house. You may FEEL absolutely independent and THINK you are independent, when as a matter of fact you are miserably dependent on the mood of the policeman who has snubbed the lady who cooks your food. WHEN WE BEGIN USING LAND UNDER THE OCEANS BIG WORK AHEAD FOR MAN, KIND FRIENDS There is a great deal of water on this earth of ours and a great deal of land underneath it. All the treasures of these hidden plains are simply put away for our future use by bountiful nature, as prudent parents put money in the savings bank for their young ones. ---- Already in Chili they are mining coal under the bed of the Pacific Ocean, and the traveler may ride on electric cars through solid tunnels of coal beneath the waters of the greatest ocean. The tin mines in Wales extend far out beneath the sea. Workers in the Calumet and Hecla mines work beneath the waters of Lake Superior. Oil wells are worked out beyond the edge of the Pacific Ocean. You may see the oil derricks just off Santa Barbara's surf. In the bay of San Francisco artesian wells, going through the preliminary depths of salt water, bring the water of fresh submarine springs to the surface. But these little enterprises are but faint beginnings of the great work that man has to do in exploiting the wealth beneath the waters covering two-thirds of the earth's surface. This earth will be quite a romantic abode when sub-oceanic exploitation reaches full development, when the great gold mines beneath the waters are indicated simply by latitude and longitude. Mars, with his huge canals distributing a planet's waters scientifically, will be matched perhaps by our network of tunnels under the water from here to Asia, and by our boring, with the aid of cooling mediums, toward the earth's centre and bringing up metals in a molten state. Before he finishes with her, man will make old earth know that he is at work "in her midst." He will make the harnessing of a tiny Niagara or the boring of a poor little isthmus seem feeble efforts. WHERE YOUR BODY CAME FROM LET IT BE SCATTERED AS IT WAS GATHERED Did you ever think about the construction of the body which you inhabit? Did it ever occur to you that your shoulders and hands and chest and legs and lungs are made of contributions from widely different parts of the earth? Your brain, a wonderfully complex machine, the seat of thought and of the will, is packed away in darkness in the bony skull. The heart, working ceaselessly, pumps the blood that feeds the brain and makes possible its work. The eyes, with the aid of the nerves that perceive light, guide you. The ears, with the nerves that interpret sound waves, tell their story. Like a central operator with a million wires leading to him, your INDIVIDUALITY, a wonderful mystery without form, matter or name, sits in your brain guiding the body. ---- Where did the body come from? Part of it came from potatoes grown on Long Island, and part of it from spices grown in Ceylon. In your nerves there is the extract of tea leaves gathered by a Chinese girl on the other side of the world. Your blood is purified and made red by the wind that blew across the Rocky Mountains only a few hours ago. That current of oxygen has helped build up your strength. A month ago an ox was eating grass in Texas. Many millions of years ago the pollen of huge fern trees was falling to the earth in the carboniferous era and making coal. To-day, part of the backbone of the ox from Texas with the meat attached is laid on the fire of coal made by those fern trees, and the Texas ox and the fern pollen combined help to build up your body. That same body is three-quarters water, and of that water part was once the Pacific Ocean; part, perhaps, was drunk up by a whale before it reached you; and part floated in clouds over the Southern Sea. ---- Your imagination can carry the picture as far as it will--to the fisherman catching your sardines in the North, and the dark man gathering your oranges in the South or your dates in some oasis. We want to suggest this idea to you. Since the body is gathered from all parts of the world, from all corners of our little speck of the material universe, should it not be scattered, at death, as it was gathered during life? Is not the destruction of the body by fire far better than hideous burial in the earth? The body that fire destroys goes back to nature, instantly reduced to its original elements. Is not such disposition of the body more in accord with nature's laws and with respect for the dead than our present custom? Would it not be pleasanter to think that one we cared for had gone back to the air, with only a handful of ashes remaining, than to think of the dark, close, lonesome grave far below the sunlight, clogging and uselessly occupying part of the earth, which should be devoted to growth and cheerfulness? HOW MARRIAGE BEGAN HAPHAZARD REFLECTIONS ON GRAVE TOPICS. At stated times we mortals have stated visitations. One day it is the grippe, next day the financial problem. Just now it is the marriage and divorce question, with much learned expounding by the good and the pure, such as bishops and members of Sorosis. ---- What is marriage? How did it begin? Whence does it come? Why is it a feature of human life wherever that life is found. You must begin with such questions. Always study beginnings. Nothing can be learned by taking hold of a thing in the middle and examining its imperfections. The first priest to join man and woman together was no benign being with lawn sleeves and soul-stirring words. Marriage was brought about on this earth by the will and wisdom of God Almighty working through primitive babyhood. In the old days, when the world was cruder, men and women ran wild through forests and swamps. They fought nature, fought each other, as savage as other beasts around them. There was no love; there was no marriage. The instincts of self-preservation and of reproduction worked alone to keep the race here through its hard childhood. ---- But in cold stone caves or in rough nests under fallen tree trunks savage children were born and nursed by their savage mothers with savage affection. Through those infants of the stone age, or of ages much earlier, marriage and pure affection came into the world. It is not hard to reproduce in our minds the picture of the first marriage. A savage woman, half human, half ape, with rough, matted locks hanging round her face, sits holding her new-born baby, protecting it from wind and cold. It is a queer baby, covered perhaps with reddish hair, its brow no higher than a rat's. Its jaw protrudes; its tiny, grimy hands clutch with monkey power all things within reach. Along comes the father, full of plans to kill a mammoth or a cave bear; interested in his stone-tipped club, but caring nothing for the mother, who has been for some time only a whining nuisance. He stops for a second to look at the small creature which he has added to earth's animal life. Its misshapen skull, ferret eyes, miniature shoulders--something about it reminds him of his royal self, as studied in the pool. He stoops to look closer. His bristly hairs are grabbed, and a weird, insane, toothless grin lights up the little monkey face. Then the savage takes a new view of life; there the marriage institution and the marriage problem are born simultaneously. Says the mammoth hunter, with whistling words and hoarse throat sounds half articulated: "I like this baby. He's like me. Let me hold him. Don't you go out with him looking for food, and don't leave him alone while I'm gone. I've got a bear located. No one can beat me killing bears. I'll bring the bear's heart to you this evening. You can give this baby some of the blood. It will do him good. Don't have anything to say to that mammoth hunter in the next swamp. I want you to stick to me. I'll look after you. I have taken a fancy to that baby. He looks very much like me." Off goes the father, and that savage mother, in a primitive way, is a wife. Hereafter she is to be cared for. Bears will be killed for her, even while she has children to keep her busy and unattractive. Society takes a new turn and the red-haired baby has done it. To childhood, helpless and beautiful, we owe marriage and all that growth of morality which is gradually making us really civilized. The basis of all real growth is altruism; and altruism, the inclination to think more of others than of yourself, came into the world through the cradle. We owe such civilization as we have acquired to children. "A softened pressure of an uncouth hand, a human gleam in an almost animal eye, an endearment in an inarticulate voice--feeble things enough. Yet in these faint awakenings lay the hope of the human race." ---- The influence of childhood has transformed mere animal attraction into unselfish affection. It has substituted family life for savage life. The interests of childhood demand that marriage and its responsibilities be held sacred. Duty to future generations demands that divorce be made difficult and considered a misfortune. Marriage, brought into the world through the influence of children, should be dissolved only with due regard for the interests of children. ---- An unhappy marriage is earth's worst affliction. Quite true. But it is not affliction wasted. Examples are needed to warn the young against the matrimonial recklessness which underlies most unhappy marriages. Unhappy wives and husbands are human light-houses--lonely, but useful. If a gentle little Alderney calf should marry a sleek young zebra and afterward get kicked to death for her pains, we should all sympathize with her. But we should expect other mild-eyed Alderneys after that to beware of zebras. As a matter of fact, this present divorce talk, which sets the good to fluttering, really interests a very unimportant class. The man who spends his life spending what he didn't earn, feeding his physical senses, who goes from rum to the races, from the races to the opera, and from the opera to roulette, wears out his nervous sensations. He then thinks that he is unhappily married. He has possibly driven his wife to being seven kinds of a fool. But that is not her fault. A man who marries a woman undertakes to make her happy and keep her busy. If he keeps his contract, she will keep hers. If he fails, he has no right to experiment on another unfortunate. The divorce class is a self-indulgent, malformed class, not worth notice. ---- Professor Cope, an earnest man and serious thinker, believed that marriages should be contracted on probation--say for five years, with the right on both sides to refuse a renewal. Theoretically, this would be beautiful. It would make courtship permanent, abolish curl-papered wives in the morning, and tipsy, bragging husbands at night. But it wouldn't work. It would be all right for women. They are only too willing to be faithful and permanent. But men cannot be trusted. The animal in them, so essential long ago, when the race was struggling for a foothold, has not been obliterated. They have got to be MADE responsible and HELD responsible. ---- As a matter of fact, there really is no marriage or divorce problem which sensible beings need consider. At present men are not good enough to be trusted with liberal marriage or divorce laws. When they are good enough the laws will not be wanted. For the man fully developed and fully moral will know what he is doing when he goes into a marriage contract. His stability of character will insure permanency. There will be no need of laws. At one time the English laws regulated the conditions under which a man might beat his wife. "The stick," said the law, "must not be thicker than the husband's thumb." Some Englishmen have very thick thumbs, and the law was doubtless hard on some thin, worn-out women. But that law is no longer needed. Men have outgrown the need of regulations in wife-beating. In time they will outgrow the need of laws regarding infidelity and lack of self-respect. MAN'S WILLINGNESS TO WORK What a fortunate thing it is that men want to work and like to live! Suppose for a moment that the out-of-work, hungry, unlucky creatures, numbering one hundred thousand in New York City, should suddenly change their character. It is a harmless supposition, as it implies that a great body of good, though unlucky, men should be suddenly metamorphosed. But suppose, for instance, that one hundred thousand men should have a meeting and say: "The State provides food, lodging and good care for every thief. It does not provide anything for us. Let us therefore accept the situation like philosophers and become thieves." Suppose the hundred thousand men thereupon, very quietly, without any show of violence, should each proceed to steal something and then announce the intention to accept the consequence by pleading guilty. It would embarrass the State and the reigning powers, would it not? What could society do with a hundred thousand self-confessed thieves to take care of? It could not lock them up. It could not let them go. It could not nominally sentence them and have the Governor pardon them, because the hundred thousand would then proceed to steal something else. What could be done? Nothing. There is no punishment save imprisonment for theft, and the wholesale thieves would ask for and demand imprisonment with the usual rations. We think society is well balanced and that everything is ingeniously provided for. So it is; but everything hinges on the extraordinary fact that the hungry, thin, common, shiftless, luckless man at the very bottom is still a MAN. He will not be a thief, and he will die of hunger and cold, as poor fellows do almost every winter day, rather than take the food that society guarantees to the thief. We attribute much to our own wisdom and the wisdom of our laws. But we owe almost everything to the instinct of self-preservation and to that second, very peculiar, instinct called pride. THE HUMAN BRAIN BEATS THE COAL MINES For six million years, during the carboniferous period, the tree ferns dropped their pollen dust to the earth forming coal beds which now cook our dinners and incidentally make J. Pierpont Morgan so prosperous. A good deal of useless anxiety has been devoted to the questions: What will the human race do when the coal gives out? Shall we freeze, or begin planting huge forests of wood, or what? In the first place, coal will not give out for a long, long time. In the second place, its disappearance will not make the slightest difference, for in the few cubic inches of the human brain nature has stored up treasures greater than all those hidden in the depths of the earth. The creation of the human brain took more years than the creation of the coal fields, but the brain's resources are inexhaustible. A German workman now comes along who has discovered a chemical substitute for coal, better than coal in many ways, and before this German shall have been dead many years some other will find a further substitute far better and cheaper than his. There is endless heat power in the action of the tides, in the rush of Niagara, in the winds, and in endless chemical combinations. Heat is motion, and the Universe is motion. Men will soon cease lighting tiny bonfires to obtain crude heat in a crude way. Electricity or the sun's own rays, concentrated for heating purposes, will do the work without any digging in mines by men, or delving in ashes and clinkers by women. The story of antiquity, more or less fictitious, of the burning of a fleet with the aid of a glass and the sunbeams, will be matter-of-fact reality long before the coal shall have been exhausted. HOW THE OTHER PLANETS WILL TALK TO US We talk of civilization as though it necessarily implied improvement. Civilization means the school and the library, but it also means the prison and the poorhouse. Two short stories illustrate different views of what we call civilization: Aristippus was a young Greek gentleman of large means, genuine intellectual power, a sense of humor and a reputation as a philosopher. He was on his way to Corinth with a young lady named Lais, or possibly he was coming from Corinth with her. Anyhow, he was wrecked on the voyage. If you know anything about the reputation of Lais, you know that the philosopher was badly employed, and that the Greek gods doubtless wrecked his vessel to impress upon his mind the importance of morality. Thrown ashore on a barren stretch of sand, the philosopher was very sad at first. He observed on the sand the remains of certain geometrical drawings, and instantly exclaimed: "There is help near. Here I see signs of thinking men, of civilization." ---- Voltaire tells of wrecked individuals thrown on a lonely coast, and also much distressed and frightened. They saw no geometrical tracings in the sand. But on a bleak moor in the twilight they saw the black beams of a gibbet, and below the cross-piece, swinging in the wind, they saw a human skeleton with bony wrists and ankles chained together. Prayerfully the wanderers dropped on their knees and exclaimed with upturned eyes: "Thank God, we have got back to civilization." ---- Thus, you see, there are varying signs of civilization. There is a great gulf between the signs perceived by Aristippus--signs of the mental activity which engages in geometrical demonstrations--and Voltaire's sign of civilization--the brutal execution of a brutal criminal. ---- Those accustomed to waste time in speculations that cannot bring a financial return may be interested in the following application of the sign of civilization which Aristippus immediately recognized back in the days of two thousand years ago. We know that some day the inhabitants on Mars or some other planet will want to talk to us. They have doubtless been studying us and consider us still too barbarous and primitive to be worth talking to. But when we become semi-civilized, in the cosmic sense of the word, the older and wiser planets will get ready to open communication with us. How will they go about it? They are perhaps absolutely different from us, in shape, in manner of thought, in every conceivable way, including language, customs, and so on. BUT GEOMETRICAL, MATHEMATICAL FACTS ARE THE SAME THROUGHOUT THE UNIVERSE. Will not the wise Martian who wants to speak to us and decides to flash some message down here on our clouds, or on the surface of the water, utilize the universality of geometrical truths in order to make us understand that thinking beings are trying to talk to us? The sum of the angles of any triangle is equal to two right angles. That is true of every triangle, no matter what its shape, no matter whether it be drawn on this earth or on the most distant sun. Therefore, when the Martian gentleman gets ready to talk to us he need only repeatedly place before us two right angles followed by a triangle, or a triangle followed by two right angles. Instantly, like Aristippus, we can say there is civilization in Mars, or wherever that sign comes from, or at least there is organized thought. The mind that is flashing that sign knows something about geometry. Of course, we should also recognize "signs of civilization" if the Martians should project upon our atmosphere a skeleton hanging in chains. But it is to be hoped that the Martians have got beyond that particular evidence of civilization. SHALL WE DO WITHOUT SLEEP SOME DAY? A half-developed being like man, hanging midway between primitive barbarism and ultimate perfection, should study the insect tribes which appear to have realized the possibilities of development in their line. The study of the ant and the bee, the spider and the scorpion should fill us with hope. We should say to ourselves: "If these tiny fragments of life can develop so highly, what may not WE hope for in the way of ultimate possibilities? Our beginning is so much more full of promise than the beginnings of our tiny insect brothers." ---- This writer, taking his own advice, which is most unusual, has been trying to get acquainted with some insects in the hope of cheering himself and getting new ideas. From the female scorpion we acquire fresh veneration for the possibilities of maternal devotion. The mother of the Gracchi has been well advertised because she preferred her sons to jewelry. The Russian mother who feeds herself to the wolves, instead of throwing her boy over the back of the sleigh in the usual way, is also highly praised. But their devotion shrinks to nothing when compared with that of any poor mother scorpion of Mexico's sandy tracts. As soon as her young scorpions arrive, they climb to her back, half a hundred of them or more. She moves about with them, protecting them, avoiding danger, giving them the sunlight. Meanwhile they are feeding on her body. Her movements get gradually slower and slower; finally they cease. The young scorpions depart leaving the mother scorpion simply an empty shell. We should dislike to see any such exhibition of tenderness among human beings, but we can't help admiring the scorpion. Mr. Scorpion, placed as was Captain Dreyfus, would sting himself to death. They are a determined race. ---- Spiders who construct tiny balloons with little cars all complete are wonderful creatures. They cross chasms in their balloons, throwing out bits of trailing web which seem to act as rudders. In their little way and in a perfectly adequate fashion they have solved aerial navigation, which still puzzles us. We admire spiders and kill only those with yellow stomachs, which are "poison." ---- But up to the present we have found the ant the most interestingly suggestive creature. He has developed and understands stirpiculture--the improvement of the race by careful breeding--which with us is as yet mere theory, and as we look down at the ant, we look up to him because the strangely active creature manages to do without sleep. We human beings drowse through thirty years of our threescore and ten, but the ant is awake and working all the time. If the ant has managed to live without sleep, if he has acquired the faculty of lifelong wakefulness, why should we not do as much in time? We take it for granted that sleep is essential, as we take everything else for granted. We used to take it for granted that the earth was flat, but we have stopped that. Sleep was at one time forced upon man and other animals. The earth in its rollings turned away from the sun once in every twenty-four hours. In the darkness of the beginning man said to himself: "If I go walking around, I shall fall into a hole, so I shall lie down and wait until the sun comes again." He did as all the animals did before him for millions of years. Since that time, man has conquered darkness. Why should he not ultimately conquer sleep? We know that thin men, nervous, highly organized, do with far less sleep than others. We know that old age requires less sleep than youth. Can we not cultivate and develop the characteristics which make sleep less necessary? Higher races of apes have abolished tails. Can't we abolish sleep? ---- As old age needs less sleep than babyhood, so in our maturity as a human race we shall probably demand less sleep than now in our racial babyhood. Perhaps none at all will be needed. If that happens our lives will be doubled in value, they will be complete. The hours of sunlight will be devoted to examination and admiration of nature's beauties on this earth. The hours of darkness, given up to sleep no longer, will be devoted to the study of space, to investigation among other worlds. That kind of life will be worth while. Bear in mind that we shall only really begin to live on this earth when we shall have settled all the little social and material questions here and shall have begun in earnest the study of the universe in which we are a speck. The days of the future will be given up to artistic enjoyment of the beautiful. The nights will be devoted to intellectual development and research. Man will LIVE. THE THREE BEST THINGS IN THE WORLD If you had choice of all qualities which man can possess, which three would you declare most important? This question is submitted as interesting every man. We give our answer; if yours is different, send it here. ---- SELF-CONTROL. JUSTICE. IMAGINATION. Those we think the most important elements in the human character. A man fully and evenly equipped with all three would be greater than any the world has known. ---- SELF-CONTROL you must start with. It makes life worth while. It frees you from the danger of remorse, the wasted time of self- reproach. It sees opportunities as they come; saves you from damaging temptation. It is as important to a brain as is physical equilibrium to a work of masonry. A man without self-control, a building out of plumb, cannot endure. JUSTICE. It is the foundation of all reputation worth the having. It is to man as necessary as the compass to a ship. It is the compass. Justice will give reputation for greatness though you create nothing great. It will win affectionate reverence in life and a gratifying gravestone at life's end. ---- IMAGINATION. Greatest gift to man. It finds him grovelling here a pithecoid littleness. The rough hair is gone from his body. His thumb has lost its monkey smallness; he walks flat on his feet. But beyond that he has naught else to thank material nature for. All the rest comes to him from imagination. Marvellous work she performs. She takes naked man with his low forehead, with his gruntings and whistlings through his teeth, and makes of him what man was meant to be. Very slowly she works, but ceaselessly. Her task is not nearly ended. At her first glimmerings man's real life begins. He learns from her to add wood to a fire. No monkey ever did it. That stamps him a man. Soon, with her help, he leaves the earth and travels off ten thousand million miles into space. He counts the suns in the Milky Way; travels in the air, under the water; harnesses lightning, controls nature. By IMAGINATION he is made CAPTAIN of this earthen ship on which he travels through space. IMAGINATION separates Archimedes, working at his problems in the sunlight, from the vile soldier that slaughtered him. Shakespeare rattling his ale pot and Johanna, the ape, shaking her bars at the Zoo are alike, save for difference of imagination. SELF-CONTROL to balance you. JUSTICE to guide you. IMAGINATION to lend creative power. "Equilibrium, Direction, Creation." The TRINITY ardently to be desired. ---- Long ago Plato announced that apparent differences are deceptive; that all things existing come from one casting--the mind of God--which he names "idea." Similarly to-day the solemn-thinking German tells you that matter and force are identical, that the interchangeable character of forces--heat light, magnetism, etc.--is part of the a, b, c of proved phenomena. Haeckel stops digging up old bones and classifying sea microscopic organisms long enough to write "Monism," expressing his belief that God is anything and everything from Orion to a tumble- bug. It is quite easy to show that the selected three--self-control, justice and imagination--are in reality one. Each exists as part of the others. Each is made up of the other two. But this column is not devoted to any save simple things. The question is this, once more: What are man's three most useful qualities--which three would you possess? Do not call this question idle or believe that we cannot change ourselves. We CAN. Napoleon said: "Never believe that a man ever changed his temperament." But Napoleon often said what was foolish. It ought to delight you to know that you can change yourself if you want to, as you can change the arrangement of your back parlor. Try it. It is hard work, but good exercise. THE VALUE OF SOLITUDE We inflict a piece of advice upon our readers. It is intended especially for the young, who have still to get their growth, whose characters and possibilities are forming. GET AWAY FROM THE CROWD WHEN YOU CAN. KEEP YOURSELF TO YOURSELF, IF ONLY FOR A FEW HOURS DAILY. ---- Full individual growth, special development, rounded mental operations--all these demand room, separation from others, solitude, self-examination and the self-reliance which solitude gives. The finest tree stands off by itself in the open plain. Its branches spread wide. It is a complete tree, better than the cramped tree in the crowded forest. The animal to be admired is not that which runs in herds, the gentle browsing deer or foolish sheep thinking only as a fraction of the flock, incapable of personal independent direction. It's the lonely prowling lion or the big black leopard with the whole world for his private field that is worth looking at. The man who grows up in a herd, deer-like, thinking with the herd, acting with the herd, rarely amounts to anything. ---- Do you want to succeed? Grow in solitude, work, develop in solitude, with books and thoughts and nature for friends. Then, if you want the crowd to see how fine you are, come back to it and boss it if it will let you. Constant craving for indiscriminate company is a sure sign of mental weakness. Schopenhauer--a sour genius, BUT a genius--speaks contemptuously of the negroes herded in small rooms unable to get "enough of one another's snub-nose company." ---- If you enter a village or small town and want to find the man or youth of ability, do you look for him leaning over the village pool table, sitting on the grocery store boxes, lounging in the smelly tavern with other vacant minds? Certainly not. You find him at work, and you find him by himself. Think how public institutions dwarf the brains and souls of unhappy children condemned to live in them. No chance there for individual, separate development. Millions of children have grown up in such places millions of sad nonentities. ---- Here is what Goethe says: "Es bildet ein Talent sich in der Stille, doch ein Charakter in dem Strome der Welt." (Talent is developed in solitude, character in the rush of the world.) You wonder why so much ability comes from the country--why a Lincoln comes from the backwoods while you, flourishing in a great city, can barely keep your place as a typewriter. The countryman has GOT to be by himself much of the time whether he wishes to or not. If he has anything in him it comes out. Astronomy, man's grandest study, grew up among the shepherds. You of the cities never even see the stars, much less study them. ---- Don't be a sheep or a deer. Don't devote your hours to the company and conversation of those who know as little as you do. Don't think hard only when you are trying to remember a popular song or to decide on the color of your Winter overcoat or necktie. Remember that you are an individual, not a grain of dust or a blade of grass. Don't be a sheep; be a man. It has taken nature a hundred million years to produce you. Don't make her sorry she took the time. Get out in the park and walk and think. Get up in your hall bedroom, read, study, write what you think. Talk more to yourself and less to others. Avoid magazines, avoid excessive newspaper reading. There is not a man of average ability but could make a striking career if he could but WILL to do the best that is in him. Proofs of growth due to solitude are endless. Milton's greatest work was done when blindness, old age and the death of the Puritan government forced him into completest seclusion. Beethoven did his best work in the solitude of deafness. Bacon would never have been the great leader of scientific thought had not his trial and disgrace forced him from the company of a grand retinue and stupid court to the solitude of his own brain. "Multum insola fuit anima mea." (My spirit hath been much alone.) This he said often, and lucky it was for him. Loneliness of spirit made him. Get a little of it for yourself. Drop your club, your street corner, your gossipy boarding-house table. Drop your sheep life and try being a man. It may improve you. THERE SHOULD BE A MONUMENT TO TIME Time has no real existence. Yet time is man's most precious possession. Time is defined as a "succession of events." What we call an hour means certain movements in the machinery of a watch. What we call a day means one revolution of the earth upon its axis, the turning of its surface toward the light of the sun. Time is the most mysterious factor in our lives and thoughts. It never had a beginning, it cannot possibly have an end. Time only exists for us in the actual moment in which we live. Yet our thoughts are in the time of past and future, and hardly ever on the actual reality of the moment. With the ceasing of our own consciousness, time ceases, so far as we are concerned. If you go to sleep and sleep soundly, you cannot tell when you awake whether you have slept a minute or an hour. Time stops when YOU cease to observe the succession of events. In dying, we duplicate on a big and prolonged scale our little daily sleeps in life. If a man were told that after death his soul would not regain consciousness for a thousand millions of years, he would worry, and complain of the "long time." But it would make no difference to him whether the time were a thousand millions of years or forty seconds--time would not exist for him; he would not know the difference. There is little doubt that to the ephemeridae, creatures that live but for a day, that day must seem as long as our century, for in their life of incessant activity and agitation every second is a long space. And there is no doubt that to the giant turtles of the Galapagos Islands, heavy monsters that live ten centuries or longer, a week is a fraction of time far less important than an hour to us. ---- A mysterious thing is time and its divisions. Man manufactures a watch capable of registering a fraction of a second. And in the force called light we have a power that can go seven times around the world in one second. We estimate our time by years. It takes one year for our little earth to spin round the sun. And during that year it turns three hundred and sixty-five times on its own axis. While the entire body of our earth flies through space, accompanying the sun on its journey, the northern extremity of our planet has a separate circular motion of its own. This circular motion takes twenty-seven thousand years to complete one circle, and as it moves in this inconceivably slow journey our pole selects for us and points out the various suns which in turn we call the North Star. We have written thus much to fix the attention of readers on the question of time. Now, how does it affect you? Time represents your only chance, your only wealth, your only possibility for achieving anything. The man who lasts fifty years lives about four hundred and thirty-eight thousand hours. Sleep takes at least one-third, or one hundred and forty-six thousand hours. The processes of eating, washing, dressing, getting up and going to bed take up at least three hours per day, or fifty-four thousand seven hundred and fifty hours. In addition to all this TIME cut out of our lives there is the time devoted to amusement, the time devoted to idle dreaming--and yet millions of people are wondering how they can "PASS THE TIME." In every great city and in every small town there should be a monument to time. Young children should be taken to see it, clergymen should preach at the foot of it on the sacred importance of the few hours of activity given to us here. As the sand runs through an hour glass, so you run your short race on this earth. That passing sand means the passing of your chances for making your life worth while. Instead of thinking how you WILL pass the time, cross-examine yourself and ask yourself how you HAVE passed the time thus far. What did you do last year--what use did you make of the time as it went by? What did you do yesterday? What are you going to do to-day? You possess a mind organized for practically unlimited thinking and studying. How many of your hours do you live as a thinking, studying man? How many do you live on a par with an ox chewing his cud in the field? The ox does not waste HIS time. It is his business to grow fat and produce beef. He uses every hour. It is your business to use your time in the development of your mind, in dealing with the duties and problems that are put before you. Every young man can make a success if he will really look upon each hour as an OPPORTUNITY, and cease to look upon the hours as useless things, to be thrown away. One hour will give you a knowledge of some good book, or wisely spent, with a purpose of improving your health, it will make your brain more efficient and add to the value of all future hours. If you have a horse, a bicycle, a gun, you feel that because you HAVE it you ought to USE it. How much more should you feel that you ought to use your TIME, in using which you use your own brain! Surely, your brain is more important and more worthy of conscientious use than a bicycle or a gun. Talk to children on this question of time. Teach them that respect for time means respect for their own lives and success in life. A MOTHER'S WORK AND HER HOPES This editorial is not written for women. It is written for MEN, and for boys; for the millions who fail to appreciate the work that mothers do, for the millions that ignore the self-sacrifice and devotion upon which society is based. On a hot night, in the dusty streets of a dirty city, you see hundreds of women sitting in the doorways, TAKING CARE OF BABIES. In lonesome farm houses, far out on monotonous plains, with the late sun setting on a long day of hard work, you find women, cheerful and persevering, TAKING CARE OF BABIES. In the middle of the night, in earliest morning, when MEN sleep, all over the world, in ice huts North, in southern tents, in big houses and in dingy tenements, you find women awake, cheerfully and gladly TAKING CARE OF BABIES. ---- We respect and praise the man selfishly working for himself. If he builds up a great industry and a great personal fortune, we praise him. If he risks his life for personal glory and for praise, we praise him. If he shows courage even in saving his own carcass from destruction, we praise him. There was never a man whose courage, or devotion, could be compared with that of a woman caring for her baby. The mother's love is unselfish, and it has no limit this side of the grave. You will find ONE man in a thousand who will risk his life for a cause. You will find a THOUSAND women in a thousand who will risk their lives for their babies. Everything that a man has and is he owes to his mother. From her he gets health, brain, encouragement, moral character, and ALL his chances of success. How poorly the mother's service is repaid by men individually, and by society as a whole! The individual man feels that he has done much if he gives sufficient money and a LITTLE attention to her who brought him from nothingness into life and sacrificed her sleep and youth and strength for his sake. Society, the aggregate of human beings, feels that its duty is done when a few hospitals are opened for poor mothers, and a little medicine doled out in cold-hearted fashion to the sick child. Fortunately, it may truly be said that the great man is almost always appreciative of his greater mother. Napoleon was cold, jealous of other men, monumentally egotistical when comparing himself with other sons of women. But he reverenced and appreciated the noble woman who bore him, lived for him, and watched over him to the end. He said: "It is to my mother, to her good principles, that I owe my success and all I have that is worth while. I do not hesitate to say that the future of the child depends on the mother." ---- The future of the individual child depends on the individual mother, and the future of the race depends on the mothers of the race. Think what has been done for mankind by thousands of millions of perfectly devoted mothers. Every mother is entirely DEVOTED, entirely HOPEFUL, entirely CONFIDENT that no future is too great for her baby's deserts. The little head--often hopelessly ill-shaped--rolls about feebly on the thin neck devoid of muscles. The toothless gums chew whatever comes along. The wondering eyes look feebly, aimlessly about, without focus or concentration. The future human being, to the cold-blooded onlooker, is a useless little atom added to the human sea of nonentity. But to the mother that baby is the marvel of all time. There is endless meaning in the first mumblings, endless soul in the senile, baby smile, unlimited possibilities in the knobby forehead and round, hairless head. She sees in the future of the baby responsibilities of government, and feels that one so perfectly lovely must eventually be acclaimed ruler by mankind. As a result of perfect confidence in its future, the mother gives to every baby perfect devotion, perfect and affectionate moral education. Each child begins life inspired by the most beautiful example of altruism and self-sacrifice. Kindness has gradually taken the place of brutality among human beings, because every baby at its birth has found itself surrounded by absolute kindness. The mother's kindness forms moral character. The mother's confidence and encouragement stimulate ambition and inspire courage. The mother's patient watchfulness gives good health, and fights disease when it comes. The mother's wrathful protection shields the child from the stern and dwarfing severity of fathers. Truly, a man may and should be judged by his feeling toward his own mother, and toward the mothers of other men--of ALL men. In the character of Christ, whose last earthly thought on Golgotha was for His Mother, as in the character of the hard-working, ignorant man whose earnings go to make his mother comfortable, the most beautiful trait is devotion to the mother who suffers and works for her children, from the hours that precede their birth through all the years that they spend on earth together. Honor thy father and THY MOTHER. And honor the mothers of other men. Make their task easier through fair payment of the men who support the children, through good public schools for their children, through respectful treatment of ALL women. The mother is happy. For she knows "the deep joy of loving some one else more than herself." You honor yourself, and prove yourself worthy of a good mother and of final success, when you do something for the mothers of the world. YOUR WORK IS YOUR BRAIN'S GYMNASIUM For "buyers" in big stores, For clerks in little stores, For office boys, For typewriters, reporters, car conductors, household domestics, for all who are hired to work for others, this article is intended. There is no greater mistake than skimping your work--BECAUSE YOU ARE WORKING FOR ANOTHER, AND FEAR YOU MAY DO TOO MUCH. For your own sake remember that whatever you do in the way of honest concentrated work you do FIRST OF ALL FOR YOURSELF. Only one thing in the world can improve you and better your condition, and that thing is your own effort. You begin life with certain mental faculties, and with certain muscular faculties. Their development or decay depends entirely on yourself. No work that you do is worthless. It will NEVER pay you to neglect or slur the task that you have undertaken. You may be idle, in the thought that you are indulging yourself at the expense of your employer. It is a dishonest thought, and it is a stupid thought at the same time. You may rob your employer of the time that he pays for, but when you shirk your work you rob yourself first of all. ---- You may say that your employer pays you too little. Perhaps he does. But that is no reason for hurting your moral character through dishonesty. It is no excuse for failing to develop yourself. The store, or factory, or office in which you work is to your mind what a gymnasium is to your muscles. You enter a gymnasium AND PAY FOR THE PRIVILEGE OF WORKING THERE. You do not say to yourself: "This gymnasium belongs to another man. The profits go to him, and so I'll not work hard." On the contrary, you realize that the owner of the gymnasium gives you the chance to develop your muscles, and you thank him, although he makes you pay for the privilege. And you do your very best, on the trapeze, rings, parallel bars, or in any other direction. Act in your work as you do in your gymnasium hours. There is no kind of work that can fail to make you a better and more successful man if you work at it honestly and loyally. If you sweep an office, sweep it well. And begin punctually each day, remembering that punctuality acquired in sweeping an office may be used later in governing a city. Train your mind through your work, whatever it is. Study the lives of those who have succeeded. You will see that they did whatever they did as well as they could. Edison was an ordinary telegraph operator. But he was not content with merely working as others worked. He worked very hard, devised means to make more valuable the instruments of his employers. Soon he was an employer himself, and what is far better than being an employer, he was a creator of new ideas and a benefactor of the world. ---- Intelligent readers will not misinterpret this advice to mean that they should OVERWORK themselves, or work regardless of their own physical welfare. The right course is this: Do as much as you can in the present, without drawing on your future reserves. Don't work all night and then go on the next day. Such effort impairs permanently your store of vitality, and that vitality is your capital. But never form the habit of neglecting work, of shamming and lying instead of achieving honestly. You may deceive one employer, or ten. But 36> you can't deceive nature, and you can't deceive yourself. You can form good habits only through regular work. You can develop your faculties only through exercising them honestly and systematically. ---- MERELY WORKING "FAIRLY WELL" IS NOT ENOUGH. If you want to run a mile fast, you do not merely jog. You try every day to run the mile faster than you did the day before. If you want to learn to jump high, you strain your muscles and try over and over to do what you can't do. Ultimately you achieve it. Keep that in mind when you work. Remember that you must wind yourself up. The most watchful employer may discharge you. But he cannot wind you up. Be a self-winding machine, and keep yourself wound up. Your hardest effort may fail to achieve greatness. But honest work will at least make it impossible for you to be a failure. Train your brain, nerves and muscles to regular, steady, conscientious effort. Make up your mind that FOR YOUR OWN SAKE you will make every effort your best effort. You will soon find yourself a more successful, more self-respecting, abler man or woman. And here is an argument that should be more powerful with you than self-interest: Remember that the world needs honest, conscientious men and women, able to do good work themselves and to people the earth with children born of honest parents. Make up your mind to be one of the world's HONEST citizens. To improve the world begin by improving yourself. THE STEEPLE, MOVING LIKE THE HAND OF A CLOCK If you live in the suburbs you devote perhaps two hours each day to travel. Two hours per day means practically one-fifth of your active life. How many readers make any use of those two hours, and feel each day that they have been well spent? ---- Instead of being wasted, those hours should be among your best. Never mind if you are clinging to a strap because companies are licensed to exploit you. Never mind if you are tired and weary when the day is ended. The tired brain often thinks better than the fresh one. And man, so recently descended from the monkey who had to think while hanging head down, ought to have no trouble thinking as he hangs from his strap--head up. ---- Some in the cars play cards as they travel homeward. Others talk gossip, and tens of thousands waste too much time on this and other newspapers. Try this experiment: Make up your mind to devote your hours of travel to thinking. The brain, like the muscles, needs definite and well-planned exercise. It must be methodical and regular. There is no limit to its possible results. You would be glad to spend your two travelling hours in a gymnasium on wheels. Make of your homeward car a mental gymnasium. Each night or morning, take up some one line of thought and follow it to its end--or as far as your mind can take you. Learn to observe, to study, to reflect. Don't look at your fellow passengers as calves look at each other on the way to the slaughter house. Look, as a human being, at other human beings. There they sit or stand or hang. Some chatter, others scowl, fret, fume, complain, brag, grin or otherwise express the strange emotions that move us here. They are all ghosts, as Carlyle tells you, imprisoned for a time in coverings of flesh, and a car packed full of real ghosts passing over the earth on their quick journey to the grave ought to stir you. ---- The giggling shopgirls whose life of misery is still a joke to them--blessed youth!--should interest you deeply. And the negro, too, with a tired black face, resting for the next day's slavery--slavery on a wage basis, but slavery all the same. Possibly you despise his thick lips. But those lips are carved on every sphinx in Egypt's sand, and if you could go back far enough you would find the ancestors of that negro, before the days of the Pharaohs, laying the foundations of your religion and locating the stars in heaven. At that time your forbears were gibbering cave savages, sharpening bones and gnawing raw flesh. When you see the negro on the opposite seat, the ill-starred one who has gone down in the human race while we have gone up, think about him, study him, speculate as to his ultimate end--and your own. Don't merely say to yourself, "That's a plain negro," and go on chewing gum. ---- The pictures that flash by your car windows should help you to think. The train rumbles over the switches, and in the dusk a swinging lantern tells you that a man is at work, guiding you safely when your work is done. Can't you take an interest in that human atom, representing the Power that swings our tiny sun in space, lighting us on our journey toward the constellation Hercules? ---- A black steeple is outlined against the dark-blue sky of the evening. That is a finger of stone, built by man to point everlastingly toward Infinite Power. It now points "upward." In twelve hours--as the earth slowly turns--it will be pointing "downward." But there is no upward or downward in the carpentry of the universe. In the twenty-four hours, as it turns round with the earth, that steeple points toward all the corners of space, and constantly it points toward Eternal Wisdom and Justice in every corner. ---- This is tiresome? All right, then we'll stop. But whether we tire or interest you, remember: As a man thinks, so he grows. Think, study, use all the hours that separate your croupy cradle from your gloomy grave. Those hours are few. CULTIVATE THOUGHT--TEACH YOUR BRAIN TO WORK EARLY Two centuries back a young man of twenty-three sat in the quiet of the evening--THINKING. His body was quiet; his vitality, his life, all his powers, were centred in his brain. Above, the moon shone, and around him rustled the branches of the trees in his father's orchard. From one of the trees an apple fell. No need to tell you that the young man was Newton; that the fall of the apple started in his READY brain the thought that led to his great discovery, giving him fame to last until this earth shall crumble. How splendid the achievement born that moment! How fortunate for the world and for the youth Newton, that at twenty-three his brain had cultivated the HABIT OF THOUGHT! ---- Our muscles we share with everything that lives--with the oyster clinging to his rock, the whale ploughing through cold seas, and our monkey kinsman swinging from his tropical branch. These muscles, useful only to cart us around, help us to do slave work or pound our fellows, we cultivate with care. We run, fence, ride, walk hard, weary our poor lungs and gather pains in our backs building the muscles that we do not need. Alone among animals, we possess a potentiality of mind development unlimited. And for that, with few exceptions, we care nothing. ---- Most of us, sitting in Newton's place and seeing the apple fall, would merely have debated the advisability of getting the apple to eat it--just the process that any monkey mind would pass through. A Newton, a BRAIN TRAINED TO THINK, sees the apple drop, asks himself why the moon does not drop also. And he discovers the law of gravitation which governs the existence of every material atom in the universe. ---- Young men who read this, start in NOW to use your brains. Take nothing for granted, not even the fact that the moon stays in her appointed place or that the poor starve and freeze amid plenty. Think of the things which are wrong and of the possibilities of righting them. Study your own weaknesses and imperfections. There is power in your brain to correct them, if you will develop that power. As surely as you can train your arm to hold fifty pounds out straight, just so surely can you train your brain to deal with problems that now would find you a gaping incompetent. You may not be a Newton. But if you can condescend to aim at being an inferior Sandow, can't you afford to try even harder to be an inferior Newton? Don't be a muscular monkey. Be a low-grade philosopher, if you can't be high-grade, and find how much true pleasure there is even in inferior brain gymnastics. ---- Take up some problem and study it: There goes a woman, poor and old. She carries a heavy burden because she is too sad and weak to fight against fate, too honest to leave a world that treats her harshly. There struts a youngster, rich and idle. How many centuries of hell on earth will it take to put that woman's load on that other broad, fat, idle back? Answer that one question, better still, TRANSFER THE LOAD, and your life will not have been wasted. ---- It is THOUGHT that moves the world. In Napoleon's BRAIN are born the schemes that murder millions and yet push civilization on. The mere soldier, with gold lace and sharp sword, is nothing--a mere tool. It is the concentrated thought of the English people under Puritan influence that makes Great Britain a sham monarchy and a real republic now. It is the thought of the men of independent MIND in this country that throws English tea and English rule overboard forever. Don't wait until you are old. Don't wait until you are ONE DAY older. Begin NOW. Or, later, with a dull, fuzzy, useless mind, you will realize that an unthinking man might as well have been a monkey, with fur instead of trousers, and consequent freedom from mental responsibility or self-respect. THE WIND DOES NOT RULE YOUR DESTINY "There be three things which are too wonderful for me; yea, four which I know not. "The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; THE WAY OF A SHIP IN THE MIDST OF THE SEA, and the way of a man with a maid." At sunset a long train of cars waited on a bridge as a sailing ship passed through the draw. The ship sailed up the river toward the cold Winter sun; another ship sailed past it going in the OPPOSITE direction. Only ONE wind was blowing. Yet, of those two ships blown by the same wind, moved by the same power, one sailed EAST and one WEST. It may be of use to you in your career to think for a few minutes about these two ships and the lesson which they teach--especially to young men. ---- The man who has sailed, in his life's journey, toward failure and disaster looks always with envy, sometimes with hatred, and very often with an intense sensation of injustice, at the man who passes him going in exactly the opposite direction. Yet the FORCES that move men bound toward success are exactly the same as those that move other men to failure, humiliation and defeat. It is all a question of the way in which you use the forces within you--just as on shipboard it is all a question of the use of the common wind which blows. IT IS A QUESTION OF THE USE OF THE RUDDER. Two ships pass, each with its sails filled out by the same wind. The difference in direction is accounted for by the handling of the rudder and the adjustment of the sails. What the force of the wind is to the ship, our varying emotions, passions, ambitions, appetites and aspirations are to us. All of these constitute the power which may be called HUMAN FORCE. This power differs in different individuals, as the wind differs on different days. It may blow from the east or the west or the north or the south. However it may blow, it can be forced, by proper steering, to send the ship in any direction desired. It is harder to beat against the wind, of course, and many men have hard struggles to steer themselves to a good port in the face of an adverse start, a hard beginning, or inclinations difficult to overcome. ---- But in all of us the force exists which can be made to move us in the right direction--the force within us can be MADE to obey our will, if the will be strong and the hand on the rudder steady. This can be proved--for instance: There is a certain force in human beings called LOVE. This force leads sometimes, and happily it leads usually, to domesticity, morality, care of children and lifelong devotion. Then the force is used properly. The same human passion leads to murder, suicide, theft, to almost all forms of crime. There is another human passion called AMBITION. This human force of ambition, with a Lincoln's conscience to guide it, saves a republic. The same force guided by Benedict Arnold seeks to betray the nation. ---- Consider yourself a ship launched on the sea of life under certain conditions--but with the essential condition in your own control. The wind may be feeble, you may drift for a while or move very slowly--move at least in the right direction. The wind may blow a gale, and you may feel, as so many do, that you cannot control your emotions and your appetites. But if that comes show at least as much interest in yourself as a sailor does in his ship. Take in sail and fight the storm, instead of going willingly to destruction. ---- Four things puzzled and impressed the wise man that wrote the nineteenth verse of the thirtieth chapter of Proverbs. Think to-day about the third of these things: "The way of a ship in the midst of the sea" The way of a human being in the midst of life is like that of a ship on the ocean. Make up your mind that your own way at least shall be controlled by the rudder of conscience, and learn from the passing ships a lesson of use in your own life. ONE OF THE MANY CORPSES IN THE JOHNSTOWN MINE The widow says to the mine owner: "Here he is, dead--killed working for you. Where were you when he was killed? Driving in your carriage, enjoying the difference between his EARNINGS and his PAY. Was one dollar and thirty cents per day too much to pay him for this risk? Was it too much to let him save something for us--who now have nothing? Is there nothing to arbitrate when the man who risks his life and gets nothing asks arbitration of the man who risks nothing and gets all? ---- There are many men in America--honest and sincere--who believe that strikers are nearly always right, that failure of a strike is a calamity. Other men, less numerous, but also honest and sincere, consider strikes an evil. They believe that labor unionism threatens "capital," threatens national energy, and our national industrial supremacy. ---- Let us endeavor to take a clear view of the strike question, and to discuss--as free from bias as may be possible--some of the main viewpoints of those interested. We may, at the start, accept two statements as sound: First. The employer wants as much money as he can possibly get. Second. The workman wants as much money as HE can possibly get. It is impossible for both or for either to win absolutely. The success of one must leave the other penniless. Let us look at the matter of a coal strike only, for simplicity's sake. In a coal mine you have three factors: First. The COAL given to men--presumably for the use of mankind in general--by Divine Providence. Second. The WORKMEN who dig the coal, haul it, screen it, etc. Third. The OWNER, who through money, or intelligence, or both, gets control of mines and works them for his profit. The mine owner resents the suggestion that he and his men are partners. Ought he to resent that suggestion? We think not. Miners without any capitalist could certainly get coal out of the ground. The capitalist without miners could not possibly get coal out of the ground. The labor is at least as important as the mine. ---- The capitalist who wishes to acquire a mine is willing to grant certain rights and conditions to him who has the MINE for sale. He treats with that person as with an equal. WHY WILL HE NOT GRANT RIGHTS AND EQUALITY TO THOSE WHO HAVE THE LABOR FOR SALE? If a hundred men own the mine, and elect a certain agent to represent them in the sale, the capitalist will willingly treat with that agent EVEN THOUGH HE BE NOT ONE OF THE ACTUAL MINE OWNERS. It becomes simply a question of the agent's AUTHORITY. Why does the capitalist haughtily refuse to treat with the accredited agent of the men who have the LABOR for sale, Is it not because he resents the workman's attempt at emancipation and equality? Is it not because the capitalist in his heart demands SUBMISSION from the man who works for a daily wage? Is it not because the powerful among us fail to admit that workers have passed from slavery to equality? A man owns vast mining properties. He lives in New York and in Newport. Comfortably, and at a distance, he runs and rules his mines. He is good-natured enough, kind-hearted. He means well. He does not see the corpses brought up from the fire-damp. He does not notice the hollow chests of young children with the pores of their skin and the pores of their lungs full of coal dust. This owner--who rules and draws his profits from Newport--has one bitter complaint against his striking men. He cannot forgive them BECAUSE THEY CALL IN A LABOR LEADER FROM CHICAGO TO SETTLE A LABOR DISPUTE IN PENNSYLVANIA. Imagining himself most condescending, he expresses willingness to treat personally and individually with his men. But he will not tolerate interference "with my business" on the part of the workmen's agent, whom he calls "an agitator from Chicago." WHY should he feel so badly about it? If the Pennsylvania workman is willing to let a NEWPORT man manage the capitalistic end, should not that Newport man allow a CHICAGO labor leader to manage the labor end? Is not one explanation the fact that the owner considers his workmen, in every possible respect, financially, morally, legally, ethically and eternally, his inferiors? If one mine owner disagrees with another, each will treat with the other's chosen agent, whether he be Tom Reed, corporation lawyer from Maine; Joe Choate, corporation lawyer from New York, or Levy, corporation lawyer from Chicago. Why not accord to the workman the right to choose his accredited representative? So much for the much-talked-of "interference in MY business by labor agitators." What about the interests of the country? There are in Pennsylvania, let us say, one hundred square miles of coal lands OWNED BY ONE MAN, and WORKED BY TEN THOUSAND MEN. The working of this mining region develops an annual net profit, perhaps, of five million dollars, AFTER the workmen have been paid as little as they will work for. The owner lives in a house of a hundred rooms. The miner's family lives in two rooms. The owner has a yacht, a private car, a fast automobile, fine carriages, many servants. The miner WALKS. He has a wife who cooks, sews, scrubs, washes, mends while he and his boys work in the mines. We wish to arouse no "maudlin sympathy" for the miner, no "anarchist loathing" of the owner. We ask an answer to this question: Which would be better for America: to let one man have five millions a year, and keep ten thousand men on the edge of want; or to let the one (and, if you choose, SUPERIOR) man have one million a year, and divide the four millions among ten thousand families, adding four hundred dollars to the income of each family? That is a plain, simple question. Remember, we suggest and advocate no COMPULSION. We state a situation. The STRIKER is trying to get a little more for himself and family. The OWNER is trying to keep the vast sum for himself and his family. Each is convinced of the righteousness of his cause. The striker does not try to TAKE AWAY money or property from the owner. He simply strikes, saying: "I will not work for less than such a sum, unless you starve me into working." He calls upon YOU, the public, to give him moral support. He entreats other workmen not to take his place while he strikes. It is for YOU, the public, and for YOU, the idle, hard-pressed workmen, to answer conscientiously the question: Is it better for one man to have four extra MILLIONS a year, or for each of ten thousand families to have four extra HUNDREDS a year, that they need sadly and sorely? If this question were answered as Christ would answer it, there would be no smug respectabilities scoffing at the striker. There would be no heartless scabs taking the places of men struggling to support wives and children. Leave out sentimentality, if you will, and Christianity, and our hollow pretence of following Him who called every poor man "my brother." What about the cold utility? Four millions more for an owner mean what? Some bogus antiquities, and perhaps a bogus title brought to America. Another palace, with a dissatisfied owner. A dissipated son; money spent by this son to promote vice, and by the father to corrupt legislation. Four hundred dollars more for a workman's family mean wholesome food for children. And the children go to school and have a chance. This sum means a self-respecting life for a father, and for the mother it means everything. She can hire some woman to help her when her babies come. She can give her husband and her children good food, rejoice in their comfort, add good, healthy citizens to the nation. ---- The owner in his struggle makes various statements of which only a few must be answered, and very briefly, for the sake of the impatient reader. "If capital goes on granting the demands of union labor there will be no more capital, no more big manufactures, our prosperity will die as England's prosperity is dying--killed by union labor!" Thus speaks the indignant, would-be patriotic and unselfish capitalist. Let us see: What becomes of the established FACT that a nation is prosperous in proportion as the average individual citizen (NOT its few millionaires) is prosperous? There are nowhere on earth stronger labor unions than in the United States. There are no such unions in Mexico, none such in South America, none as powerful in Canada. Why are we not eclipsed industrially by those countries? You say that labor unions have killed English industry? No. They have kept England alive in the face of fierce competition. Millions upon millions of Englishmen live on a little foggy northern island incapable of supporting them. By their courage, their mental power, their genius, their UNION, they have kept the nation great. It is as though in one corner of New York State we had the greatest industrial power on earth. What the Gulf Stream has been to England's agriculture, labor unionism has been to England's industry. It is not the English WORKINGMAN who has been beaten. The English workmen did not sell the English mercantile navy to J.P. Morgan. English capitalists did that. Get this in your heads, you who talk against unions. Morgan and his fellow American capitalists have formed themselves into financial UNIONS, which we call trusts. And they have beaten the English capitalist, who did not know enough to take lessons from his workman and form unions of his own. The American FINANCIAL union, not the English LABOR union, has beaten England in the race for industrial supremacy. Union is strength everywhere and forever. The remaining strength of England is in her labor unions, which give men time to think, food to grow on, and give real men to the nation. You say that powerful unions kill nations. Why is not China a great industrial power? She has vast fortunes and no unions. Li Hung Chang was richer than Morgan, and could cut off the head of any striker. His coolies got five cents a day and worked fourteen hours--is THAT your ideal system? ---- Last of all (and we apologize for this unforgivably long editorial), let us discuss the question of foreign labor. The capitalist complains that the Hungarian, "the brutal, ignorant foreigner," makes much of the trouble, and "wants as much as an American." Loud is this cry against the foreign laborer. And the ignorant, know-nothing American workman joins in the cry only too willingly. Who brings in those foreign laborers by the shipload, Mr. Mineowner? Who rounds up cargoes of Slavs on the other side and brings them here to cut the wages and the living of the native-born? Who shrieks dolefully, Mr. Miner, when the Slav shows that he is a MAN brave and willing to prove worthy of freedom by joining the army of union labor? The Slav and the Hungarian ARE HERE, and their children will be here when we are dead. Which is better, to underpay them, treat them like cattle, fill them with just hatred of unjust discrimination, or give them a chance to be men? Shall their children grow up ignorant mine slaves? Or shall they go to that factory of honest citizenship--the public school--to be improved as we have all been improved, whether we came originally from Hungary, Ireland, England, France, Russia, or elsewhere? The struggle of the strikers, like all great struggles, is sometimes unjust. It has not always the wisest or the most unselfish leaders. But it is an effort to improve the AVERAGE CONDITION OF HUMANITY. Help that effort. "LIMITING THE AMOUNT OF A DAY'S WORK" THERE'S A GOOD DEAL OF NONSENSE TALKED ON THIS SUBJECT An honest, well-meaning clergyman talked the other day on labor unions, and wandered out of his depth. As a rule, clergymen, having studied the teachings of Christ, are aware that they ought to be on the side of the workingman. Hence the strongest supporters of the union are found among the clergy. The mistake of the clergyman whom we mention is discussed here, because it is often made by well-meaning, but narrow-minded, citizens. He spoke of "the custom union labor has of limiting a day's work AND OTHER DISHONEST PRACTICES." By limiting a day's work, the reverend gentleman referred to the rule existing in certain unions regulating the maximum day's labor. That rule does exist, and sometimes undoubtedly--labor union men not being angels or cherubim--the rule may be pushed to extremes. But on the whole the rule is necessary, and it works for good. We shall tell this clergyman and other citizens one special reason for limiting the day's work. The contractors want to make all the money they can. When the unions forced them into recognition of certain hours of labor as constituting a day's work, THAT was looked upon as a dishonest practice. It was felt in the old days that a workman should be only too glad to get out of bed at daybreak and work until dark. Now even the stupidest and most selfish have come to recognize limited hours as a feature of American industry. And the enlightened gladly admit that the well-paid, well-rested, independent worker usually does more in his eight or nine hours than he used to do in his twelve or fourteen. After the inauguration of the limited-hour day the contractors invented what is known as a "rusher." The "rusher" is a young workman, in his prime, marvellously quick in his work as compared with the ordinary, good, capable workman. On a job of bricklaying, carpentering, or other work, it was customary for the shrewd contractor to hire one or more "rushers." Nominally the "rusher" was paid regular union wages. But secretly the contractor paid him double wages, or more than double wages. The "rusher" worked at high pressure hour after hour, day after day. The others could not possibly have kept up with him had he worked his fastest. But his instructions were to keep just a little ahead, that the others might struggle and do their best to keep even in their task, in order not to lose their work for apparent idleness. Thus the "rusher," a man of unusual skill, getting double wages, went along well within his forces, while the others were working themselves to death in order to keep up and not lose their jobs. The limitation of the day's output is based originally on the desire to squelch this "rusher" idea, or to put the quietus on the very young and able workman anxious to curry favor with his "boss" by making the pace too hot for the men working beside him. ---- Our friend, the clergyman, and many others say that it is dishonest to limit the day's output. But is it dishonest? What is the difference between limiting the DAY'S output and limiting a YEAR'S output? In the middle of the Summer the clergyman says, "I have worked enough; I ought to go to Europe," and he goes. The bricklayer does not criticise the clergyman for limiting his YEAR'S output to forty sermons. He does not say to him, "You are ABLE to preach fifty-two sermons a year. If you preach only forty, you are dishonest and rob your parishioners." What business is it of the clergyman's if the bricklayers, among themselves, decide that it is better for them in the long run to set only a given number of brick per day? The trouble with some clergymen and many others is that they forget one important thing--namely, THAT THE WORKINGMEN NOW HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY. When it comes to a question of laying brick, it is no longer the squire or the local clergyman who decides what shall be done. The BRICKLAYER DECIDES WHAT SHALL BE DONE. And when it comes to carpenter work, the CARPENTER decides what shall constitute a day's work. In olden times the clergymen, the lawyers, the rich, the lucky class in general, decided for THEMSELVES what THEY should do, and then they decided for their so-called inferiors what those INFERIORS should do. Our prosperous class are having a very painful time indeed getting into their minds the fact that such a thing as the right of the majority REALLY EXISTS. And they find it very hard indeed to believe that the doctrine of human equality is to be taken seriously in matters of business. Labor unions are performing an important educational function when they drive into the heads of these would-be superiors the fact that this nation is becoming actually a republic in which the workingmen shall decide for themselves questions affecting themselves, and in which they shall no longer be guided by the whims or financial interests of would-be "superiors." CATCHING A RED-HOT BOLT Men were working on the roof of a Pennsylvania ferryhouse, overhanging the North River on the Jersey side. The passengers on one of the big ferryboats watched with admiration the work of the fearless young mechanics. The men stood on a board not more than a foot wide. They had nothing to hold to. Sixty feet below them was a mass of rough piles. A misstep would have meant death. One of the men, standing perfectly at ease on his narrow ledge, swung a heavy sledge-hammer, while the other held in place the bolt to be driven home in the iron-work. ---- The work on that bolt was finished, and one of the young men, a wiry giant over six feet tall, picked up in his arms a small wooden keg which stood on the board beside him. It was a keg such as nails are packed in. About forty feet away from the bridge, up among the iron beams, a smith was at work heating the bolts red-hot. This smith saw the young man on the narrow board holding the wooden keg in his arms. He knew that another bolt was needed. The bolt, white-hot, was seized with a pair of tongs, thrown violently through the air, sending off a shower of white sparks as it went. As the white bolt shot toward the metal worker, he held out the wooden keg in a matter-of-fact way, caught the bolt, picked it out of the keg with a pair of pincers, and soon the heavy sledge- hammer was at work driving the metal, still white-hot, into the hole. ---- Passengers who make their living in a less exciting way watched with great excitement as one after another of these heavy red-hot bolts came flying through the air, each in its turn caught by the mechanic standing on the narrow board. If the bolt had struck or burned him, he must almost inevitably have fallen. He must have fallen had he made a misstep reaching out the wooden keg to catch the flying iron. Among those who watched him were very prosperous men come in from the seaside on the flying express, bound for Wall Street. These men were sorry when their boat pulled out, so deeply interested were they in the skill and courage of the mechanics working so high up on so narrow a footing. If their opinion had been asked then and there they would have said that no reasonable rate of pay would be too high for such mechanics, and that eight hours of work catching red-hot bolts and driving them home, on a narrow plank sixty feet in the air, ought to be considered a fair day's work. We trust that if these men read in the future that the structural iron-workers or the house-smiths are striking for a little more pay and for eight hours' work they will remember those men working on the ferryhouse, and remember that all of these iron-workers, like all miners, and many others, earn their bread at the risk of their lives. We hope that those who watched the red-hot bolts flying through the air will remember their sensations when they hear of a strike among those men, and not say, as they usually do: "The impudence of union labor must be suppressed. The men are lazy; that's what's the matter with them. It is all nonsense to talk about working eight hours. Union labor, if it keeps on, will ruin this country's commercial supremacy." ---- The trouble with human beings is that their lives are widely separated and sympathy is killed by ignorance. The banker does not see, therefore cannot appreciate, the courage of the man working on an iron beam at the top of a steel frame 300 feet in the air. The mechanic cannot understand, and therefore cannot appreciate, the worry, the mental stress of the money man, who must make ends meet, pay bills, arrange mortgages, find tenants and settle his union troubles at the same time. Better acquaintance with each other is what human beings need. It would be well if more very rich men had seen that young mechanic catching his red-hot bolts. It would be well if more young mechanics who like their beefsteak and onions could see John D. Rockefeller sipping his glass of milk and seltzer (his whole dinner), or know what Rockefeller feels when he lies awake half the night. He has found pretty well-paid employment for a hundred thousand men who sleep soundly while he tosses and turns and feels the weight of a ton on his chest. THE TRUSTS AND THE UNION-- HOW DO THEY DIFFER? A letter signed "Several Democrats from St. Paul" reads, in part, as follows: "In order to convert several rank Republicans it is necessary that we should be able to explain the difference between a trust and a labor union. Will you kindly, through your columns, make a clear explanation of this distinction? Our opponents holdthat both trusts and unions are combinations, which appears to be true, but there is apparently a weak point in our ability to definitely show the difference, and we beg that you explain it." ---- Trusts and unions are both combinations, beyond question. But a pronounced difference distinguishes them, and we shall endeavor to make it clear. You see a horse after a hard day's work grazing in a swampy meadow. He has done his duty and is getting what he can in return. On the horse's flank you may see a leach sucking blood. The LEACH is the trust. The HORSE is the labor UNION. Possibly you have read "Sindbad the Sailor," with its story of the Old Alan of the Sea. The Old Man of the Sea rode round on the sailor's back squeezing his neck with his tightly twisted legs. The OLD MAN is the TRUST. The SAILOR is the labor UNION. ---- In Chicago two combinations are fighting. One is a combination of citizens--the Citizens' Union. The other is a combination of public robbers--the Gas Trust. Each combination is trying to get what it wants. Surely you can see the difference between the two combinations. The citizens are striving in a purely legitimate way to obtain their RIGHTS. Similarly, Labor Unions, when soundly organized, are striving properly and legitimately to obtain their RIGHTS. Gas Trusts and other Trusts endeavor improperly and illegitimately to obtain what does not belong to them. ---- In old times, on the high seas, there were two classes of vessels. The great majority were honest vessels of commerce, doing good to the world, while striving, of course, to benefit their crews and owners. Those honest SHIPS were the Labor UNIONS. On the same waters there sailed other ships--fast, daring--manned by unscrupulous, although able, men. Those were the pirate ships. The TRUSTS compared to Labor UNIONS are the pirate ships compared to honest ships of commerce. FRANCE HAS LEARNED HER LESSON The employes on the Paris underground railroad had a strike and have settled their strike. The terms of the settlement amaze the outside world. The terms are especially amazing to the American--and well they may be. The employes of the underground railroad in Paris are GOVERNMENT employes. Their strike inconvenienced the public, and even the radical French people were annoyed with the strikers. In other European countries and in this country, as the news reports very truly say, the strike of those Government employes would have been dealt with very summarily. Three engines of civilization would have been brought into play effectively. "First the police, second the cavalry, third Gatling guns." ---- But the police, the cavalry and guns were tried on the French people long ago, and that little matter was fought out and settled. The men who govern France know that at a certain stage in the proceedings a courageous people will not stand Gatling guns, cavalry or police. They have found out in France that the way to deal with striking workmen is just the way the Government official would like to be dealt with himself if he were a striking workman instead of a well-paid public officer. The striking men complained that their day's work was too long and their pay too small. The pay was increased and the day shortened--which was perfectly right. Each employe is now allowed one day off in seven, and ten days' vacation every year with full pay--which is perfectly right. The young men employed on the road are compelled to do twenty days' work in the army each year. Their wages are paid while they are doing this compulsory military work--which is perfectly right. If a man is ill through no fault or vice of his own he gets his pay as long as he is ill up to three hundred and sixty-five days, and the company in whose service he has become ill pays his doctor's bill, his drug store bill and any extra expenses involved--which is perfectly just and fair. No striker is to be dismissed because of having taken part in the strike. A benefit fund is provided for the employes of this Government enterprise--and the company pays the membership subscription to the benefit fund with NO DEDUCTION FROM THE WORKMEN'S PAY. The above seems a horrible narrative to the energetic American exploiter of labor. It would have seemed very stupid, in fact quite incomprehensible, to the French Government at any time before the Revolution. But the Revolution taught France and some other people that a nation, like any other structure, is insecure when its foundation is agitated. The foundation of a nation is the enormous mass of working people, and that foundation the French have learned to respect and treat well. We shall learn as much here some day. Let us hope we shall learn it more peaceably than the French did. UNION MEN AS SLAVE OWNERS WHAT PLANS HAS THE FIVE-DOLLAR-A-DAY MAN MADE TO HELP HIS POORER FELLOW-CREATURES? Every addition within reason to wages, every reasonable reduction of working hours, must help the whole nation. Working human beings have been looked upon through the ages as slaves, either on an actual slave-owning basis or on an insufficient wage basis--which is about the same thing. Each recognition of the worker's rights moves us a little farther from slave days. Every time a new class earns decent treatment by hard fighting we see increased the number of those who may properly be called men. The blind employer asks: "Shall men be allowed to fix their own wages?" OF COURSE they shall. And until they do fix their own wages they are not men at all. The ox does not fix his hours of labor or the quantity of his corn. But the man does. The man controlled like an ox is nearer an ox than a man. We delight in the efforts of unions. We are advocates of every movement that tends to divide among a still larger class the good things of the world. But this newspaper is no mere labor union organ. We care more for the welfare of the humblest, non-organized, underpaid, underfed citizen than for the finest, most highly paid, most intelligent mechanic. The man who is least well off needs our help most. He needs, above all men, some practical PROOF that he lives where men are equal. He should be the object of earnest thought on the part of the five-dollar-a-day man. It is the five-dollar-a-day man, the able mechanic, whom we address to-day: ---- Many of your thoughts and words, Mr. Five-Dollar Man, are devoted to plutocrats. You are not free from envy. You consider, and with perfect justice, that you do not--even with your five dollars--get your share of the world's good things. But, for a change to-day, will you look DOWN instead of UP? You work hard at five dollars per day "to fatten in comfort the happy millionaire employer." All right; admitted. But did you ever think who works hard to fatten YOU? Did it ever occur to you that you are a plutocrat, and a very numerous and decided plutocrat? Do you ever wonder what you will answer when the time comes for those whom you underpay to demand eight hours and fair wages of YOU? You keep a servant girl to help your wife. Does she work eight hours a day? No; she works about fourteen, and hears a good deal of grumbling because she does not do better. Does she get union wages? No; she gets about thirty cents a day. Does she get double pay on holidays? Can she put on any substitute if she chooses to wander off for two or three days a week? The woman who works to make your life comfortable works just as many hours as you can make her work, and she gets just as little pay as you can get her to take. Is that all right? ---- And the servant girl is not the only one. Some farmer's hand works to raise the wheat, the potatoes that you eat. What is he paid? What are his hours? Fifty cents a day, twelve or fourteen hours of work. And your bootmaker in the factory, and the sweat-shop slave who makes your coat, and the long list of other poor devils who work for about one-tenth of your salary. Do you know why you are comparatively well off? Simply because the man for whom YOU work pays you ten times as much as you pay the men and women who work for YOU. You pay indirectly? True. But what difference does that make? You are well-to-do because you purchase without question the product of men who are really slaves. You have brains, and by combination have FORCED your employer to treat you decently. Yes, and you deserve credit. But you are not fundamentally superior to the other men around you. What are you going to do when they demand treatment as good as yours? What are you going to reply when they class you with the other plutocrats? You enjoy the work of only ten or twenty underpaid men--that is so. But you are in the same class with the plutocrat who enjoys the profit on the work of ten or twenty thousand men. Utter disregard of others--where it does not affect your own wages--is your rule, and you know it. What better joke is there than the joke about the union label? How many hats on your rack have union labels in them? How many of you can swear no sweatshop ever saw your clothes? How many of you would apologize for not offering your friend a "union-made" cigar? It is the nature of man to think earnestly of only one thing at a time. If one pursuit really engrosses his attention he has little time to think of anything else. In the hard struggle for a living the workingman has little time for any thought save for his OWN wage, his OWN stomach, his OWN welfare. As union men you will continue to struggle for your five dollars a day--restricting apprentices, that others may be shut out from your field; opposing changes threatening you, however beneficial they may be generally. But as individuals you must THINK. You study, and, being free from the grind of real poverty, you should be less hardened than the unfortunate, and inclined to feel for others. You have made a good fight against the slavery that used to oppress you. In England you destroyed mills, endured shooting and hanging. All over the world, by hard fighting and wise voting, you have established the fact that the top class of mechanics must no longer be treated as cattle. Now, what are you going to do for the others who are still cattle? You have demanded in the name of holy justice that others help you. In the same name, what do you propose to do for those still oppressed? Will you use your big voting power for the millions who are still at the bottom? Will you combine for the benefit of the vast army as you have combined for your OWN benefit? Or will you wait--as did the employers--to be FORCED into decency? Will you free your own collection of underpaid, overworked slaves, or wait for them to organize and beat you into decency, as your representatives did with your oppressors long ago? Take a look downward once in a while. Study those below you. Glance over your own little collection of "wage slaves" in your kitchen and wherever your money is spent. There is a problem there for you when you shall have finished hurrahing for your own eight hours. AGAIN THE LIMITED DAY'S WORK WISELY HANDLED, IT MEANS EMANCIPATION FROM INDUSTRIAL SLAVERY. We refer again to the much discussed rule in labor unions limiting the amount of work that a man shall do in a day. As a matter of fact, in many unions no such rule exists. In some it does exist, and MUST exist. There is nothing in the notion that limiting the day's work will diminish the excellence of American workmen. On the contrary, the BEST work is done slowly and carefully. The WORST work is done at high speed. That very aristocratic financier who denounces the regulations as to a day's output will say to the man who is doing something FOR HIM, "Take your time; I want this done very carefully." Why should not EVERYBODY'S work be done carefully? But it is not merely careful work that is involved in the regulating of the day's work. The welfare of the nation and of the nation's future is involved. Go with the man who denounces labor unions for limiting the amount of work that a good American mechanic should do in one day, to the stable in which that man keeps his fine horses. You can easily bring about this dialogue: "That mare in the box stall is a beautiful horse. Is she fast?" Rich Owner--"Yes, very fast. I value her more highly than any horse I have. " "How many miles do you drive her every day?" "Oh, I don't drive her EVERY day. I drive her one day, and have her jogged quietly the next. When I do drive her, I jog her for two or three miles to warm her up, then speed her a mile or two, and then take her home. She covers perhaps six or seven miles in an entire day's work." "But you COULD drive her twenty-five miles, couldn't you, and drive her as far as that EVERY day?" "Oh, yes, I COULD, of course, if I was only thinking of using her up and getting all I could out of her now. But, you see, I mean to use her for a brood-mare; I expect to get some splendid colts from her, and I don't want to wear out her vitality. I might get a little more fun or a little more work out of her just now, BUT I WOULD LOSE IN THE LONG RUN." ---- Now, gentlemen, the labor union rule limiting a day's work simply considers the workingman as that imaginary rich person considers his beautiful horse. And the feeling of the labor unions should be shared by the entire country. The highly skilled American mechanic is one of the chief assets of this country; the intelligent, scientific, up-to-date American farmer is another highly important asset. These two classes of citizens ARE THE UNITED STATES. Between them they are more important than all the rest of the nation put together. AND YET THEY ARE NOT AS IMPORTANT AS THEIR CHILDREN. The workingman of to-day is the father of the future. The trouble with us is that the employer, unlike the owner of the fine horses, has no interest in that workingman's future or in his future family. He employs and treats the workingman as the casual heartless customer would treat that fine horse if it were rented by the day at a livery stable. There is much to be said, no doubt, on the side of harassed employers, many of whom are fair-minded men, and many of whom are put to unjust annoyance by some of the labor unions' mistakes. But, first of all, the employer must realize the RIGHTS and the EQUALITY of his workmen. And as a patriotic citizen he must realize that the welfare of the future is in the health and vitality of parents to-day. By limiting the amount of work which they do in one day our mechanics enable themselves to preserve some of their vitality for mental work, for educating talks with their children. THEY GIVE TO THEIR CHILDREN THE VITALITY WHICH THE SWEATSHOP SLAVE CAN NEVER GIVE. What are our laws against sweatshops but laws acknowledging the justice of regulating the amount of the day's work? And why do we refuse to permit unions to do for themselves what we do on a sentimental, philanthropic, haphazard basis, through our "sweatshop laws," for the miserable, unorganized workers of the slums? TO THE MERCHANTS PLEASE LISTEN PATIENTLY TO A DISCUSSION OF THE LABOR UNION FROM YOUR POINT OF VIEW. We invite the merchants to consider the question of unions and of high wages from THEIR OWN point of view. If we err in our statements or conclusions we shall be glad to print replies and criticisms from responsible merchants over their own signatures. This we maintain: THAT IN PROMOTING THE WELFARE AND INCREASING THE WAGES OF THE GREAT BODY OF WORKINGMEN, WE PROMOTE THE WELFARE AND INCREASE THE PROSPERITY OF ALL LEGITIMATE MERCHANTS AND BUSINESS MEN. The unions make mistakes. The employers make mistakes. The unions are often unreasonable. The employers are unreasonable sometimes. No doubt in America the workingman is more exacting and more highly paid than anywhere else. But in America, also, the merchant is more quickly and numerously successful than anywhere else. ---- As a subject for our text to-day we shall take the street-car lines--surface, underground or elevated--of any great American city. The success of every street-car system is made BY ALL THE INHABITANTS OF THE CITY. Every woman who brings a baby into the world in a great city adds so much value to the stock of that city's street railroads. She increases the gross income of that railroad by about three dollars and sixty-five cents a year with each child to which she gives birth. Therefore the street railroad should properly serve the public that gives the road its value. Next in importance to the traveling public come the human beings that work on the street railroad--the conductors, motormen, gatemen, gripmen, engineers, etc. This newspaper fights constantly to improve within reason the pay and the hours of work of the street railroad employes. This we do for the sake of the employes themselves, and for no other reason. We demand better pay for the men that they may lead decent American lives, feeding and clothing their wives and children, and educating their children properly. We demand short hours for them, that they may live part of the twenty-four hours WITH their families, knowing their own children and bringing a little pleasure and companionship into the lives of their patient wives. We are proud of the fact that we have helped in a small way to increase the prosperity and happiness of many tens of thousands of honest families, that we have increased the OPPORTUNITIES of many thousands of children. We want the merchants to remember that, while we have thus striven to protect those masses of the people whom we represent and whose ADVOCATE we are, we have also advanced enormously, although without premeditation, the fortune and quick success of every capable and legitimate merchant. Who owns the stock in the street railroads? A few individuals--a Widener, an Elkins, a Yerkes, a Whitney, or some other energetic private individual. One street railroad system, let us say, employs ten thousand men. They struggle to add one dollar per day to their pay. We help them with moral support and publicity, and they succeed. TEN THOUSAND FAMILIES have each ONE DOLLAR a day more to spend, or ten thousand dollars a day in all. What becomes of that ten thousand dollars added daily to the living-money of ten thousand families? EVERY DOLLAR OF IT GOES INTO THE HANDS OF THE MERCHANT, THE LANDLORD, OR THE SAVINGS BANK. If the men had not got that increase in wages, what would have become of that ten thousand dollars daily, or $3,650,000 A YEAR? Would it have gone to the merchants of the great cities? Would it have gone to build up thousands of comfortable little homes in all the suburbs of the great towns? Would it have enabled thousands of American boys and girls to stay in school instead of going in their infancy to the mills and factories? No! If that money were not distributed among the people in the shape of good American wages for good American work, it would go to build big race tracks, where thieves and gamblers are manufactured. It would go to buying foolish bogus antiquities that no man needs. It would go to building ridiculous and uncalled-for palaces where human mushrooms without a sense of humor imitate in their idleness the active types of the past. ---- When this newspaper adds to the payroll of a great corporation, it adds to the happiness of a great many families; and therein lie its pride and its excuse for being. And at the same time this increase in the payroll of the Trust or the monopolizer of public privileges means an increase in the income, the prosperity, the legitimate reward of the enterprising merchant, builder and general business man. We do not lack criticism from well-meaning friends who conduct great stores or other business enterprises. We appreciate all criticisms and suggestions. We offer a suggestion in return: Let the builder who dislikes unions GO TO CHINA and build his apartment houses. He will find patient workmen at ten cents a day. He will find laws that suppress the unions, and laws that suppress the newspaper which takes the side of the poor. He will find a non-union Utopia. But he will not find tenants for his buildings, because in a land where men don't get high wages they can't pay high rents, and when the few Li Hung Changs have built their palaces the building boom is over. Let the great merchant who deplores unions start a DEPARTMENT STORE IN CHINA. He will never see a walking delegate; he will never be bothered by the dark cloud of unionism. He will find a perfect heaven in the way of low wages. BUT HE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO SELL GOODS. His department store will dwindle into a store for selling rice, and while his velvets, silks, hats and muslins moulder he will get very sick of a hundred million women who don't spend forty cents in a year. In the land where men are not well paid THEY CAN'T SPEND MONEY. The best friend of the American merchant, builder, lawyer, doctor, property owner, banker and general business man is the individual or the newspaper that helps the people to get high wages, AND THUS GIVES THEM MONEY TO SPEND. WHAT ABOUT THE CHINESE, KIND SIR? A prosperous and old New York merchant assures a conference of workingmen that England's great strikes have caused that country to lose its leadership in exports of machinery. If England's wonderful system of trades unionism has hurt its exports of machinery, if abundance of very cheap slave labor means great industrial superiority, we beg to ask this question: WHY IS NOT CHINA THE GREAT EXPORTING COUNTRY OF THE WORLD? There are scores of millions of men in China glad to work for a few pennies per day. There are no labor unions in China, and in some districts the employer can have his workmen beheaded for demanding an increase of pay. If the venerable old New York merchant is right, China ought to be certainly a marvellously successful country industrially. As a matter of fact, China is dead, and there is no better proof of her complete deadness than the fact that among all her millions of coolies there is not enough spirit for the formation of a labor union. The energy of the British workman established England's industrial greatness and fought for and won the great trades-union system which the workmen of this country are developing so ably. ---- Suppose it were true that trades unionism, with its higher wages and shorter hours, decreases exports--what of it? Is it not more important to have ten million workmen well paid, with reasonable leisure and decent lives, than to have a handful of iron masters and coal-mine owners piling up millions of pounds and producing sons like the famous "Jubilee Juggins"? Wouldn't it be better for China if her several hundred millions of citizens were well paid, well fed and well educated, even though Li Hung Chang and the other prosperous viceroys should all be paid a little less money, and own fewer square miles of rice fields and tea plants? ---- In Huxley's admirable biography, written by his son, you may read of a 'longshoreman who, thanks to reasonably short hours of work and a little leisure, took up the study of scientific subjects. He was aided by Huxley, who lent him a microscope, and ultimately this common 'longshoreman's researches were of real value to the scientific world. Isn't it well to have a trades-union system which curbs the avariciousness of employers and gives workmen a chance to develop the best that is in them? Isn't it better for England to have that 'longshoreman develop into a scientist than to let some man who employs him make an extra shilling a day out of his labor, even though it should add a little to the exports of England? ---- A country's greatness depends on the quality of the men that live in the country, not on goods manufactured to sell to outside nations. Rome was doing little exporting when she ruled the world. She was breeding men, independent and brave, who could bring the products of the world to her. She did not need to worry about exports, nor does any other country need to worry about them. The thing to worry about is the condition of your citizens, the education of children, the decent treatment of women, the equality of laws. Other things take care of themselves. 150 AGAINST 150,000--WE FAVOR THE 150,000 It should not take long to convince a man fit to live in a republic that public welfare demands the support of Union Labor. No better proof of that could be asked than a spectacle presented in Chicago. ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY contractors have practically locked out ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND men. The contractors want bigger profits--to be got through underpaying and overworking their employes. The men want better pay and shorter hours. ---- Leave out sentiment if you choose. Ignore the fact that on one side the few who enjoy everything are industriously squeezing the many who have little enjoyment. Look at things purely from the standpoint of benefit to the nation and the nation's future. If the hundred and fifty win, they will have a little more money. Their wives and daughters will dress a little more grotesquely. Their families will be able to go abroad oftener and stay longer. Their heirs will be able to make more complete idiots of themselves--and that is all. Personally we should like to see all contractors' families prosperous--all American families prosperous. No man's wife or daughter can be too happy to suit us, provided things more important be not neglected. ---- If Union Labor wins, ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND families will be able to lead at least decent American workingmen's lives. ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND wives will be able to dress their children comfortably and to dress themselves respectably. ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND families of children will be brought up more nearly as American children ought to be. Which is more important: THE WELFARE OF 150 CONTRACTORS' FAMILIES? (They will have enough anyhow.) Or THE WELFARE OF 150,000 WORKINGMEN'S FAMILIES? (They will have only a decent living at best.) Perhaps you have drifted away from the early American idea, and refuse to admit that one family is as good as another. It may seem anarchistic to suggest that the workingman's wife, who acts as wife, mother, cook, washwoman, nurse and housekeeper, is as good as the lady who has less to attend to. But admitting--which we don't--that one hundred and fifty contractors' families are more important than one hundred and fifty workingmen's families, surely all will agree that ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND of the alleged inferiors ought to offset the 150 alleged superiors. ---- If the contractors win, the Paris dressmakers will be richer, and a few families will have a little added to what they do not really need. If the workingmen win, the future of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children will be made brighter, and the citizenship of the future made stronger by men better fed, better clothed and better educated. ---- This newspaper hopes for labor union victory and means to help it along, BECAUSE THE PUBLIC WELFARE DEMANDS IT. TO-DAY'S WORLD-STRUGGLE Far off in the distance shines the goal of present human ambition. It is a shining, golden light. Toward that light the millions struggle, trampling each other, sacrificing everything in the harsh fight for the dollar. Here and there a preacher thunders, here and there a philosopher proses against the money struggle. But they might as well whisper at the brink of Niagara. And often the preacher changes his thundering when a RICH church calls him, often the philosopher grasps the first chance to forget philosophy in Wall Street. The men admired to-day are the men who have made millions--some are admired because they find excitement in giving the millions away, others because they silently pile more millions upon the others already gained. "Society," the class devoted to pleasure, consists now, in America, of those who have much money. Literary success depends upon the money which the writer accumulates. The man talked about is he who has SOLD a hundred thousand books. The rich boy at school is followed by toadies. In college he learns contempt for human nature from the sycophancy of others. "Representatives" of the People may be found dogging the footsteps of those who need to buy laws, or to steal the people's rights. ---- It is a fierce and remorseless climb up the steep road to wealth. There are many corpses, many crimes, many broken hearts, haggard faces and bitter disappointments on that road. The man with the "Good-money-making idea" struggles on with it over the bodies of suicides and of those who have fallen in despair. At the bottom of the road the murderer plies his trade with knife or poison--to make money. And the murderer who has tried for MUCH money calls forth special interest and special privileges, special new trials, special newspaper headings. At the top of the road to wealth, another, more intelligent class, work with equally remorseless energy. They murder no individual. But they rob entire classes of society. They tax others to fatten their pockets--they add to the cost of food that children eat--they coin human life into cash--smoothly and nicely, using law-makers as tools. Envy and admiration are theirs--such admiration as the retail murderer can never earn. ---- The struggle for money is the struggle of THE WHOLE WORLD to-day. And of the money-making movement, as of ALL WORLD-WIDE MOVEMENTS, there is a side that is good and necessary. Divine wisdom guides the world, and the human race, working out its destiny in seeming blindness, is not allowed to wander from the track of actual progress. The money-making mania is one phase of human advancement. This is the age of industrial progress. Money is simply the means of perfecting industry. It is human labor condensed and put into compact, transferable shape. The man with the hundred millions can build the great railroad across the continent. There is no more important work now than the building of that road. The man with the thousand millions can control the great oil trust and a dozen other trusts. He taxes the people--but his hundreds of millions do an important and necessary work. It is well for us all that such a man has sacrificed health, digestion, happiness and all idea of self-indulgence to the accumulation of a vast industrial army of dollars. The scramble for money, looked at without understanding, is a horrid sight. But horrid also is the sight of a battle that frees slaves. When the battle of money shall end, the score will be on the right side of humanity's ledger. A few forgotten billionaires will have struggled and died. Some millions of men will have died disappointed. But industry will have been brought to perfection. Universities, libraries and other benefactions will abound, pleading for recognition of the money-making dyspeptics. Human ingenuity will have contrived some means for freeing men's minds from the dread of destitution. The money struggle will have ended and humanity will be much better off, much further advanced--as it is at the end of all great and painful struggles. WHITE-RABBIT MILLIONAIRES AND OTHER THINGS The most wonderful thing in America is--what do you think? It is the absolute nullity of the man of many millions. It is the vapid colorlessness, the dull inactivity, the total lack of imagination among men whose power is unlimited. What possibilities are spread out before the man who by signing his name could set to work in any direction a million of his fellow men! The world stands ready to obey his orders; every law says that he shall have whatever he demands. Any conception born in his brain can become reality as soon as conceived. But there is no conception there. These comments are written, not to scold, or complain, or suggest, but simply to express wonder. What man of millions does anything that a white rabbit does not do? One man--of a hundred millions at least--has become recently very conspicuous among his golden fellows. How? By undertaking a scheme to irrigate the desert of Sahara and give millions of fertile acres to humanity? No. By calling together, at his expense, the ablest thinkers of the world to discuss and to solve, if possible, the social questions that so deeply concern the millionaire's future? No. By seeking, through study and experiment, to abolish child-labor, to promote public education, to encourage science art or American inventiveness? No. This millionaire, much discussed because of his piquant originality, has put on a dress coat with two pointed tails behind, and, geared in a white shirt front and white tie, with silk socks highly colored and patent leather shoes, this splendid American product has led a cotillon and has led a cakewalk. Grand, splendid, magnificent, inspiring, isn't it? What lop-eared, mild-eyed rabbit dancing in a clover field with a full paunch need fear comparison with this man of millions? Old Jacques Coeur, of France, giving his fleets to his country--there was a man of millions and imagination combined. But his kind has died out, and in his place we have a herd of overfed, sleek, timorous, hopping white rabbits, hoarding their piles of gold, shivering at the mention of change or innovation, asking only for peaceful possession, as free from thought as the fat oyster in his bed. What wonderful things, what useful things, what dangerous things could these all-powerful men do? What could they not do? They DO nothing. NO HAPPINESS SAVE IN MENTAL AND PHYSICAL ACTIVITY. Bresci, who murdered the Italian King, is sentenced to solitary confinement for life. While you read this he sits on a narrow plank in a cell not much bigger than a sleeping-car section. If you talk to any friend about Bresci--and especially if you mention the subject to any young man inclined to be idle--call attention to this point. You can amplify what must be presented briefly here. Bresci's imprisonment is torture--why? Because it sentences him to DO NOTHING. Every man put on this earth is put here for a purpose. He is put here to work, to struggle, to interest himself in his fellows, to share the pleasures and disappointments of others. The wise laws ruling the universe fill us with a DESIRE to do that which we were meant to do. It is intended that we should be active here, and, therefore, although we often fail to realize it, our happiness lies in activity. Bresci is to be tortured beyond the power of imagination because he will be forbidden to follow nature's law. He will be forbidden to fulfill man's destiny here. His brain, his muscles, his sentiments must lie idle until death or insanity shall come to relieve him. ---- Bresci will live on bread and water--but it is not the bread and water that will make his life worse than death. He could be happy on such simple fare if his mind had work to do. Many a man has done his good work and enjoyed life's greatest pleasures while suffering mere hunger or poor fare. Many men would be happier if they could see Bresci, the murderer, forced into that idleness which is sometimes ignorantly desired. In his prison Bresci is protected from the sun and the rain and the cold. He can sleep as many hours as he likes. No duns can trouble him. He pays no rent. There is absolutely nothing that he MUST do. But there is absolutely nothing that he CAN do. The saddest slave in Morocco toiling under the heaviest load would win Bresci's gratitude if only he would let Bresci carry that load. The most desperate man, harassed by cares of all kinds, would seem blissfully happy in Bresci's eyes, for he has at least full play for his sentiments, for his activities. ---- To punish Ravaillac's attack on the life of the French King, long ago, they tried ingenious devices. They broke him on the wheel. They tortured him slowly. Finally they poured melted lead into his stomach through his navel. It was a hard death. But they did not punish Ravaillac as severely as Bresci is to be punished. The minutes, the hours, the weeks, months and years will drag along. Idleness, idleness, idleness. Nothing, nothing, nothing. No human smile or voice to measure time. Sleep, bread and water; sleep, bread and water. Gradually madness will come and bring relief. Be glad that you are active, you who work willingly. And you young man who rebel against labor and long for the chance to do nothing, study Bresci's case and take up your load gladly. The decree condemning us to earn our bread in the sweat of our brow was merciful, not stern. For that same power which sentences all to work also causes happiness to be found in work alone. THE OWNER OF A GOLDEN MOUNTAIN An old man sits at the end of his life, with money piled up on all sides of him. Years ago he was working hard. All his ability was strained to the utmost pushing back those who strove to pass him on the road up the golden mountain. He enjoyed the conflict, he enjoyed the sight of beaten rivals. His delight was in work, in ACQUISITION. His growing surplus added new zest to his life. He pitied "the poor fool" who wasted time at anything save money-making. But he is at the top of the heap of money now. He looks about, and none compete with him. A few strugglers--too far away to be heard--strive for a little of his useless accumulation. Legal sharpers struggle and get a little, and in return keep away those who try to climb up near him. The interest has gone out of life. Where he used to see competitors, he now sees only old memories. The old associates have gone--it is even too late to help them--and he will soon go, too. He looks out over the land, and sees, when it is too late, all that he has missed while he thought he was doing the thing most important. He has made a hundred millions of dollars, but not one human friend. He can hire almost any man to do anything. But there is not enough money in the world to hire any one to miss him sincerely when he is gone. Such a man as this--an actual individual, with wealth far exceeding one hundred millions--has insured his life for half a million. To those who asked "why" he replied: "I want some insurance company to be sorry when I die. No one else will be sorry." Possibly he thought he was joking. But there was truth in what he said. The man who piles up money builds a solid wall that shuts out the world from him. Sycophants climb over the wall--but their flattery and fawning grow tiresome. Old age and cessation of strong feeling cause the mind to see clearly--and hypocrisy no longer deceives in the old, pleasant way. The most depressing fact in the old man's life is the hopelessness of trying to change. His mind has worked so long in one direction that it can no longer work in any other. He would like, perhaps, to begin now and live as others live, but he cannot do it. There are men whose great wealth is earned WITH PART OF THEIR ABILITY, leaving them force and strength for other things. Such a man was Peter Cooper. But the man most frequently seen in America is the man who accumulates money for money's sake. His is a sad heart when he looks over the past and ahead into the short future. If he has children, he has hardly known them--and HIS MONEY has separated them from each other. When his son was a little child the rich man made himself think that he was piling up the money for that boy. What became of that boy? Ask the Keeley Cure, the public gambling houses, Monte Carlo, the divorce court--and the other "resources" of the sons of the very rich. Thousands envy him, and he knows it. But there is little in being envied when old age makes a lonely life unbearable, and when the next striking event in his career will be a funeral. There are hundreds of thousands of men with their thoughts fixed absolutely on money making. They hate what threatens money. They love those who sympathize with money. They live, work, vote, talk, marry and cheat their friends for money. If they fail--as most of them do--they die unhappy. If they succeed, money cheats THEM, and for all their devotion gives them nothing. "For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" The man wastes his soul who devotes its forces only to accumulating wealth. THE HUMAN WEEDS IN PRISON How shall we approach a prison to see it fairly and to study it intelligently? Let us imagine ourselves visitors from a world outside of this. Far off in infinite space there is a small whirling planet--our earth. Little creatures move about this planet, chained to it by the force of gravity. But they MOVE as they choose, and they call themselves FREE. There are millions of free square miles, and hundreds of millions of free human beings. But there just below us is the prison at Auburn. There the human beings are not free. There suffer those who for any reason have violated the established rules of the little globe that supports them. They have not even the freedom of the little patch of soil fenced in for them. They cannot walk, speak, sit down, lie down, or stand up as they please. They have broken some of the rules established for the protection of all. They have misused their freedom, and in punishment their freedom is taken away from them. They live in small cells, in a very big prison. Gray stone, iron bars, striped suits, enforced silence, enforced work, enforced regularity of life--all these punish most keenly those whose first crime was lack of self-control and lack of regularity. ---- In every prison and in every prisoner there are lessons for each of us. You will not waste time to-day if you walk through this great Auburn prison and think of the men there think why they came there, think how they could have been saved, think what will gradually empty prisons and make them unnecessary. A man with one arm opens the first iron gate--his mutilated body foreshadows the mutilated minds and souls within. Before the door of the prison there are bright flowers--the name of the prison itself stands out in brightly colored blossoms to prove the gardener's ability and strange sense of the appropriate. Many of the causes that bring men there are written out in just such bright colors--when first seen--and many a prisoner must have thought of that as he passed through the iron door. A party of six or seven go through the prison with you. There is a woman of middle age, stout and cheerful, in a bright purple dress. There are two children, a moon-faced man, a tall, thin man, and others whom you do not notice. Carelessly they look at a nervous woman sitting in the reception room talking to a convict. They take no interest in her, no interest in the convict. To you the prison guide says: "She comes here to see him as often as the rules allow. She's his wife. She's been coming for seven years. I tell you, women get the hard end of it in this world." Women do indeed get the hard end of it. There are twelve hundred men in that prison--and every one of them has caused some woman to suffer. And every one has broken the heart of one other woman--his mother. Through a narrow door you travel with your fellow-visitors. At every step you marvel at the curious indifference of average humanity to the one interesting thing--their fellow-man. There are shown to you piles upon piles of loaves of bread--fresh and brown. The guide says: "We bake every day. Nine hundred loaves a day." The stout woman in purple sighs with amazement, the children gape, the man with the round face has an anxious look--he seems to be a taxpayer. But not one looks at or thinks of the convict who turns quickly away to hide a thin, white face. To you the guide says: "He's a forger. You can see he's sensitive about being here. Some of them never seem to get used to it." ---- The stout woman in purple is delighted with the enormous copper vats for making the convicts' coffee. She is charmed with the great iron pots for boiling soup. But you will be more interested in these facts: There is a great chapel--BUT NO CONVICT IS COMPELLED TO ATTEND. There is a huge wash room--fitted with showers for the hardy, with porcelain tubs for the old and crippled--AND EVERY MAN IS COMPELLED TO TAKE HIS BATH. How much of progress, how much that is hopeful for humanity, is told in those words! Religious services are optional--no more compulsion of man's soul or of his belief. Bathing IS COMPULSORY. Truly, we progress, and the prison rules prove it. There were showers in every prison and in every insane asylum one hundred years ago--but those showers were used only to torture the criminal or the lunatic. He was doused with cold water until senseless. There were chapels in the old-time prisons, and all were forced to accept and profess such views as the majority or the ruler chose to profess. That prison at Auburn is a monument to humanity's sorrows and weaknesses. But it tells in every department of human decency and of a constant striving by those who are fortunate to help others. In the prison yard a squad of convicts are marching. The lock-step is there no longer. Prison reform has ended that. The convict is no longer forced into a gait which stamps him ever after. There are electric lights in the hundreds of cells--and there is absolute cleanliness throughout the vast structure. No hotel is cleaner, if any be as clean. The convicts get their letters twice a week. They have pictures in their cells--and they may have musical instruments if they wish; and many a man, beside his narrow plank bed, has a strip of rag carpet made at home. Their lives are horrible--for confinement kills men's souls; and one has said who knew prison life: "It is only what is GOOD in man That wastes and withers there; Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate, And the Warder is Despair." ---- While you go through the prison you see the things mentioned--electric lights, clean halls, bathing apparatus, and the rest. But you STUDY the human beings working at their fixed tasks, or moving about in their dismal, heavy suits of stripes. Just as many kinds of faces as you see in a city street you see in that prison--but there you see more than elsewhere the failures, the human weeds. But at least there is a striving to make things better. Society no longer willingly tortures its failures. It controls, punishes, but does not hate them. There are no beatings, no tortures, no close-cropped heads, even, for the convict may grow his hair as he chooses. Every man who knows no trade is taught one. There is a feeling of moral responsibility to the criminal, and a desire at least to make him NO WORSE. The prisoners are divided into two classes: those whose faces and skulls tell of evil birth and predestined failure, and those who are simply like others--average men, victims of chance, of temptation, of ability ill-balanced, of ignorance, of drink, or even of accident. In one great room the convicts are weaving--working at hand looms. The work is desperately hard. Both hands and both feet are going constantly. Human power is used, that the greatest amount of labor and least competition with the outside working world may be simultaneously achieved. At one loom sits a poor creature, a dismal human failure. His forehead is half an inch high and a bony ridge-telling of unfortunate prenatal influence--runs high along the top of his head. His small eyes are close together. His exaggerated chin protrudes; only a cunning look directed now and then toward the watchful warden tells that any thinking goes on in that miserable being. His best place, perhaps, is there. He is protected against himself, and society has no other way of taking care of him. Near him sits a young boy in his teens. His face is intelligent; he is not a born criminal. He is above the average in intelligence, and in him there are all possibilities of success and usefulness. A boyish piece of criminal foolishness brought him there--and he must now spend years degenerating into real criminality under the influences around him. There are the two extreme samples of humanity in that cage which we build to protect ourselves against ourselves. It is a dismal garden set apart for human weeds and in it many a good plant is hopelessly driven into the weed class. Of the men in that prison may truly be said what a great student of plant life--Luther Burbank-- says of the poor weeds that we despise among plants: There is not one weed or flower, wild or domesticated, which will not, sooner or later, respond liberally to good cultivation and persistent selection. * * * Weeds are weeds because they are jostled, crowded, cropped and trampled upon, scorched by fierce heat, starved, or, perhaps, suffering with cold, wet feet, tormented by insect pests or lack of nourishing food and sunshine. Most of them have no opportunity for blossoming out in luxurious beauty and abundance. * * * When a plant once wakes up to the new influences brought to bear upon it the road is opened for endless improvement in all directions. More pitiable than any weeds in a garden and more worthy of sympathy are those poor human weeds in the great prison. Crowded and kept ignorant in youth, tempted, ill-fed, cold and worried in after years, their lot was hard--and their fall almost inevitable. They must be confined, they must be protected against themselves, they must suffer for the poor start given to them. But the duty of those who are FREE and fortunate is to treat kindly those who fall, and especially to deal in such fashion with the young as shall minimize the crop of weeds later. Fortunately, it may truly be said that humanity begins to realize its responsibilities in both lines of effort. Kindness reaches the convict in his prison. And Education, the thrice blessed AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOL, does steadily the work that makes useful plants of growing youth, diminishing year by year the crop of weeds. Kindness and EDUCATION--go to Auburn prison and you will realize how much work they have still to do in our country. CRIME IS DYING OUT Many of us feel that crime is the striking feature of modern life, that this century sits among the skulls of crime's victims, and that Father Time, after all his ages of travel, sees no improvement. But those discouraged by modern crime misunderstand the meaning of events and fail to make a just comparison between the past and the present. It is true that crime to-day is shocking in its frequency. Each day we see spread out before us murders. But first of all remember this: We often mistake widespread NEWS of crime for increase in crime itself. The newspapers are multiplied in number by tens of thousands, and they all tell what happens. It seems as though crime had increased, whereas in reality we have simply increased facilities for letting all the people know what goes on among us. ---- We are shocked occasionally by crimes of poisoning. Go back a few centuries and you find men and women making a regular business of selling poison to those who want to commit murder. The crimes that fill us with horror would not have been noticed in those days. We hear of a father killing his own child, and we declare that humanity is going to destruction. Yet but a few centuries back and THE LAW RECOGNIZED EVERY FATHER'S RIGHT TO KILL HIS CHILD IF HE CHOSE. We shudder when we hear that a mother has exposed a new-born child on a doorstep or thrown it into an ash barrel. That is a horrid and unbelievable crime. But in Rome, before the days of Christianity, there were appointed places where mothers might legally expose their children to destruction. The wild beasts or dogs ate the children thus exposed, and no one was shocked. Whoever might care to take such an exposed child could keep that child for a slave forever. That kind of crime we have outgrown certainly. The Presbyterian teaching of infant damnation seems to us horrible. We shudder at the statement that God would condemn a helpless baby to eternal punishment simply because it had not been baptized. The idea seems cruel now. But it was invented by the well-meaning early Christians in order to make women give up the legal practice of infanticide. The mother was made to believe that her unbaptized child went to hell, and that she must follow later on for not having had it baptized. Thus women were afraid to expose their children secretly, and infanticide was stamped out by a Christian doctrine which now seems so brutal. ---- And note one thing above all: Crime still lingers among us. But it is now LABELED AS CRIME. We no longer have horrible crimes sanctioned by law. We read that a criminal has tortured some old man or woman for money--and then murdered the victim. We can scarcely believe in such atrocity. But only a little while ago--barely two centuries-- IT WAS THE REGULAR LEGAL CUSTOM TO TORTURE OLD PEOPLE AND YOUNG. Poor old women, falsely accused of witchcraft, were burned alive and ducked in this country, while clergymen and magistrates looked on and applauded. All over Europe innocent witnesses could be tortured to make them give testimony at a trial. Men accused of no crime whatever were tortured to make them give testimony against others--often when they had no testimony to give. They were hung up by the thumbs, the bones of their legs were crushed in a boot of steel, the soles of the feet were roasted over a brazier of red-hot coals--to make them help convict another. The noble leaders of the French Revolution abolished such torture of witnesses in France, and they were criticised for doing so by the respectabilities. "How are you going to convict criminals if you do not torture witnesses?" the respectable element asked. We have got beyond that state of affairs. We hear of murders based on jealousy-- perverted affection. We hear of crimes based on envy--perverted ambition. All of the best elements in man, when perverted and thwarted, lead to crime. And these perverted passions will continue to breed crime until men shall have learned to regulate society on a basis that will give full and natural play to the forces within us. But organized murder on a really vast scale is practically done away with. Caesar, Alexander, Napoleon and others like them had great ambition. To gratify their ambitions they forced millions of men to die for them. Human beings have protected themselves against the murderous ambitions of their great leaders. The Napoleon of to-day must get a Congress to give him his soldiers. Public opinion, the ballot and financial science have pulled the teeth of the greatest instrument of crime--the conquering army of ambition. It is horrible to witness the assassination of a national leader. The murder of McKinley or Carnot makes republican hopes seem chimerical. But it must be remembered that not so long ago the head of a government who ESCAPED assassination was the exception. A few centuries back, and murder was the natural end of the average ruler. ---- Murder results first from control of the brain by animal passions. Almost every animal is a murderer, and at stated times murders its own kind. Primitive man is always murderous. Murder results, in the second place, from misdirected forces within us. Crime will diminish through education, as the mind takes control of us, and through society better organized, which shall give men a chance to develop normally. Thanks to education and to improving social conditions, crime is disappearing, NOT increasing. Even our despondency is comforting. It proves that we have progressed so far as to be horrified at that which we should have taken for granted a few centuries back. THE VALUE OF POVERTY TO THE WORLD ASK YOUR FRIEND WHAT HE WOULD DO IF HE HAD A MILLION A majority of men long for a great deal of money. Each man will tell you that he is struggling along in uncongenial employment; that if he had his way his life would be arranged very differently. Put to any friend this question: "What would you do if you had a million dollars?" You will learn that, first of all, he would get rid of the useful daily plodding that occupies him. Instead of living to work he would live to enjoy himself. A majority of men are usefully employed because they must work to live. If we all had our way we should do as we chose, and there would be no progress. Fortunately, the wisdom of Providence keeps the great majority of men poor and usefully busy. ---- This writer asked an able business man, who manages the material success of a great newspaper, what he would do if he had a million dollars. He replied without hesitation: "I would go abroad and spend the rest of my life collecting artistic things and enjoying them." By his newspaper work, which helps to disseminate truth and to fight privilege, this man renders the greatest possible service to the world. He is head of the commissariat department of an army of righteousness. How fortunate that he cannot abandon his useful work to collect artistic trash that would only make him useless and enrich a few unscrupulous dealers! ---- Joseph Jefferson as an actor has done great good for the world. He has filled hundreds of thousands of young and old hearts with kindly sympathy. He has set a good example to all the actors of the world. He is truly a public benefactor. If Joseph Jefferson had had a great fortune he would have spent his life painting pictures, for he believes that he was meant to be a painter. He was not meant to be a painter; if his life had been devoted to painting it would have been wasted. How lucky that he was not rich enough to be able to waste his life! ---- Often the world marvels that the sons of great and successful men accomplish so little. The world is foolish. It should marvel that the sons of the rich accomplish anything at all. For genius has truly been called the capacity to take infinite pains. It is the splendid fruit that grows on the tree of HARD WORK. Infinite pains and hard work are distasteful to human beings. They are avoided by those who can avoid them. It is lucky for the world that the number of those who can shirk is limited. ---- Dryden tells you in four lines what the actual man would amount to if he had his way. "My next desire is, void of care and strife, To lead a soft, secure, inglorious life. A country cottage near a crystal flood, A winding valley and a lofty wood." Every man who could afford it would live for himself, to indulge some useless little tenth-rate part of his brain activity. ---- The world progresses because the wisdom of the universe compels every man to work directly or indirectly for every other man. If we had our way, if hard necessity did not compel us to do the disagreeable work for which we are fitted, we should all live for ourselves; we should all be mere human sponges, absorbing personal gratification--the progress of the human race would stop. Let this fact console you when you contemplate with bitterness the few who accumulate great fortunes. You are a disappointed drop in a great ocean of useful human beings. The interest of the whole ocean demands that you and the vast majority of all other drops should fail to get what you crave-- THE OPPORTUNITY TO BE USELESS. 600 TEACHERS NOW, 600,000 GOOD AMERICANS IN THE FUTURE On one single day 600 teachers, representing and devoted to the American public school system, sailed for the Philippine Islands. These 600 teachers, men and women, will do more than 6,000 or 6,000,000 soldiers could do with cannon and Gatling guns to civilize and Americanize the new possessions. They will teach the inhabitants FACTS. They will give them solid knowledge in place of degrading ignorance and superstition. They will teach them that the world is round and that every man on it has the same chance, if he will use his brain; that if he himself cannot seize the opportunity it can he seized by the children whose success is as dear to him as his own. Like all wars, the conquest of the Philippines has had many discouraging and some disgraceful features. The killing of ignorant men and women, the burning of houses, the unnecessary severity, will all be forgotten when the school teachers of America shall have done their work. ---- A great many thoughtless people imagine that the world is retrograding, that times are not as good as they used to be. We are still far from perfect. But as a matter of fact we are angels compared to the men of olden times. A few years ago the usual course was as follows: First, soldiers were sent to subdue the people. Then tax collectors followed with the public executioner, the noose and various ingenious instruments of torture to extract cash payments. We still send soldiers, but with them we send physicians to cure the wounded; and when the soldiers' work is done we do not send tax collectors or other civil vampires. We send school teachers, publishers of newspapers, organizers of labor unions. We send those agencies which shall enable the people conquered to make themselves equal or superior to their conquerors. EDUCATION--THE FIRST DUTY OF GOVERNMENT We wish to discuss with our readers in this and in later editions of this newspaper the great and serious question of education. It is a question as broad as the ocean, and as deep. It is a question so vast that organized discussion of it seems hopeless. The greatest minds of the world have devoted their powers to the intricate question of developing the human brain, and the problem has been scarcely touched. The greatest works on education in the history of the world are undoubtedly Plato's "Republic," Spencer's "Education" and Rousseau's "Emile." The last is the greatest of all. It should be read by every father and mother and by every earnest citizen. Other works that may be earnestly recommended are Aristotle's "Politics," Pestalozzi's "How Gertrude Teaches Her Children" and Froebel's "Education of Man." To Rousseau undoubtedly belongs the high honor of having thought and written most powerfully, most originally and most practically on the greatest of problems. His brain is the cornerstone of the structure of intelligent educational methods. He foreshadowed in his "Emile" Fourier's splendid principle of "attractive industry." ---- THE PROGRESS OF HUMANITY DEPENDS UPON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE HUMAN BRAIN THROUGH EDUCATION. The intricate processes of thinking separate mankind from other members of the animal creation. Man is far from the animal in proportion as his brain is cultivated. Even the animals themselves rank in their kingdom in proportion to their brain activity. William T. Harris said truly: "If man had let himself alone he would have remained the monkey that he was. Not only this, but if the monkey had let himself alone he would have remained a lemur, or a bat, or a bear, or some other creature that now offers only a faint suggestion of what the ape has become." The elephant and the ape, among our humble animal brothers, appear to have reached their limits of possibility in the way of educational development. They still remain, and always will remain, vastly inferior to their microscopic comrades--the ants and bees and other insects. The human race has barely begun the systematic study of the problem of application, and systematic application of the truths discovered and agreed upon. In proportion to our stature and possibilities we are hideous ignoramuses compared with the ant in the garden path. The education of children is regulated not by their brain formation and possible development, but by the wealth of their parents, the parsimony of municipalities, the baleful influences of tradition and the colossally stupid idea that thorough brain cultivation is in some way antagonistic to material success. The greatness of a nation depends upon the average mental power of the nation's citizens, and mental power depends absolutely upon education. The man who doubts the importance of educating his son thoroughly--if any such man now exists--is invited to consider the following brief statement of facts: The holders of slaves in the Southern States and outside of America desired to keep their slaves down. They wanted them to be content with slavery. They wanted them and their children to remain willing, humble, helpless machines. THEY PUNISHED AS A CRIMINAL ANY MAN WHO TAUGHT A SLAVE TO READ. THEY KNEW THAT SLAVERY AND EDUCATION COULD NOT LONG ENDURE IN THE SAME HUMAN BEING. ---- The ignorant man who has succeeded through natural force and lucky opportunity is fond of asking these questions: "What is the good of education? Of what practical use is scientific training?" These men are admirably answered by Herbert Spencer, to whose work they are referred. A collection of Englishmen ruined themselves in the sinking of mines in search of coal. They might have saved their money had they known that a certain fossil which they dug up in abundance belongs to a geological stratum below which no coal is ever found. They went on digging cheerfully and wasting their money. An acquaintance with that fossil and its meaning would have saved their cash. Some individuals spent one hundred thousand dollars trying to save the alcoholic byproduct that distils from bread in baking. They would have saved their money had they known that only a hundredth part of the flour is changed through fermentation. The study of biology is essential in the successful fattening of cattle. An "entozoon" seems to the practical man a foolish, imaginary creature. But millions of sheep have been saved by the discovery that one of these fancy scientific entozoa, pressing on the brain, caused the sheep's death. When you know the entozoon you can dig him out and save the sheep's life. "My son's going to be an artist," says one proud father. "He does not need to study a lot of scientific rubbish." This parent does not know that the difference between a good and a bad sculptor or painter is often based on knowledge or ignorance of anatomy and mechanical principles. ---- Education is important to the individual because it means development of the brain, development of capacity for production and increased chances of success. Education is important to the State because it means not only COMPETENT citizens, but MORAL citizens. The animal in us yields to the influence of education. Knowledge and brutality are enemies. They do not dwell together. The most important institutions in this country are the public schools--the gymnasiums of human brains. The most important citizens of the nation are the teachers. The greatest criminals are the employers of child labor, because they deny education, cut down in childhood the citizen's chance of progress and success. Work and vote for more and better public schools. POVERTY IS THE FATHER OF VICE, CRIME AND FAILURE These are days when men do their hardest work for money, when they scramble and struggle and strike each other down in the effort to reach wealth. And it is not possible to blame them. They are trying to escape from poverty, from a disaster worse than any prairie fire or other physical danger. Dire poverty is the worst of curses. It combines every kind of suffering, physical, mental, moral, and in the end it means either death or degradation. The great task of humanity is the abolition of poverty. The great benefactors of humanity are the great industrial organizers of this day, because, in spite of individual selshness,{sic} they are planning production on a scale that will in the end provide for all. It is worth while to discuss and to realize what real poverty means. If we can realize its meaning every one of us must be more anxious to relieve, as far as we can, the poverty around us, and especially anxious to work for the social betterment that shall one day wipe out poverty forever Poverty means dirt. The thoughtless and comfortable have a way of saying: "The poor might at least be clean." But cleanliness is a LUXURY; it demands leisure and peace of mind, as well as bathtub, soap, hot water and good plumbing. The very poor cannot be clean. Poverty means ignorance, and it means ignorance handed down from father to son. Poverty means drunkenness. The pennies of POOR men and POOR women pay for more than half the vile whiskey, gin and other poisons that men buy to help them forget. Poverty and its sister, Ignorance, fill the jails and the insane asylums. Poverty is the mother of disease, and it fills the hospitals. Tens of thousands of consumptives alone are murdered every year by poverty. They are too poor to do that which is required to save their lives. ---- The great men of the world do not emerge from poverty, from squalor. They come from very modest homes, from the log cabin, and from the towpath, as advertised. They come from those whose fathers and mothers and grandfathers and grandmothers had at least enough to eat, and enough fresh air to give them pure blood and proper nourishment for their brains. Poverty destroys ambition, inventive power and the capacity to struggle. A starved body produces a starved brain. The greatest genius that ever lived could not think better than a child of ten if you deprived him of food for ten days. What can you expect of the inferior minds that have been half fed through a lifetime, or through several generations? Do you know what made the Revolution and changed conditions in France? It was not poverty. Not a single poor man was a leader in that Revolution. Every one of them was well fed, had a well- nourished brain--Danton, Robespierre, Marat, Desmoulins, Mirabeau--every one a well-fed brain in a vigorous body. The labor unions and the great strikes, although sometimes unwise and unreasonable, are great blessings to the Nation. They compel the worker to get such pay as will feed himself and his children, giving the Nation well-fed brains. The Union is the enemy of poverty, and for that reason especially it is an agent for good. ---- As poverty breeds ignorance, so ignorance breeds poverty. The greatest enemy of poverty is the Public School. Work and vote, therefore, for public school betterment. Miserable women walk the streets by thousands on cold Winter nights--poverty has put them there. Hundreds of thousands of children are born only to struggle for a few years through a stunted infancy--poverty digs their graves. For one genius that has fought and conquered in spite of poverty ten thousand have sunk out of sight in the fight against the worst of enemies. Don't waste time extolling the blessings of poverty--use your energies to diminish poverty's curse, and to improve humanity by giving it the full efficiency which freedom from worry alone can give. THE IMPORTANCE OF EDUCATION PROVED IN LINCOLN'S CASE The very old and very foolish saying, "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing," is disproved every day. Whenever you hear a man talk about "a little knowledge" ask him what he thinks about the danger of a great deal of IGNORANCE. Tell him this: "THE SCHOOLING OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, ALL TOLD DID NOT AMOUNT TO AS MUCH AS ONE YEAR." The teaching was elementary, including reading, writing, ciphering, and very little of each one. It was picked up at odd times, when he could be spared from daily labor. Remember that when he was a lad his father used to hire him out to work on other men's farms for very little money. With that little learning he built himself up into one of the greatest men in history, saved the nation, ended once and for all civilized recognition of slavery. A little learning might possibly have been dangerous had he been one of the idiotic kind of men. It might have made him feel dissatisfied with the hard labor for which he was fit, without stimulating him to better things. But Lincoln's little learning gave him no rest--it kept him constantly adding more learning to his little supply. ---- The self-pitying young man who thinks he has no chance may be interested in Lincoln's methods of getting ahead. He walked about twenty miles through the wilderness to borrow an English grammar. He could get no other books, so he read and re-read the statutes of Indiana. He wanted to teach himself to write well and think closely. He had never heard Bacon's saying: "Writing maketh an exact man," but he felt the truth of the fact for himself, and he was bound to write. He had no paper and could not afford to buy any. At night, when his work was done, he would bend his huge six-foot-four frame close down by the firelight to write and cipher ON THE BACK OF A WOODEN SHOVEL. When the back of the shovel was covered with writing he would shave a thin layer from it and begin writing once more. ---- It is a very useful thing for men occasionally to feel ashamed of themselves. If you want to feel ashamed of yourself, if you are complaining and whining, just picture to yourself Abraham Lincoln in his father's little hut, with no windows and no flooring, crouching by the fire and developing his mind by laborious writing on the back of a wooden shovel. Children of twelve in schools, precocious little girls even of seven or eight, know much more than Abraham Lincoln knew when he was twenty-one years old. With his "little knowledge" he grew and did the work that was to improve the condition of millions of men. Don't be ashamed of your "little knowledge." But do be ashamed if you do not add to it whenever you can, and especially if you fail to make it useful to your fellow-men. KNOWLEDGE IS GROWTH Consider to-day the CHEERFUL side of conditions on earth. Every human being has his troubles and worries. The luckiest of us all yearns for what cannot be had, and sees much to regret. But one splendid fact should always be borne in mind: THE PROGRESS OF HUMANITY IS INCESSANT. WE ARE INFINITELY BETTER OFF NOW THAN WE HAVE BEEN BEFORE ON THIS EARTH, AND UNLIMITED POSSIBILITIES OF IMPROVEMENT ARE AHEAD OF US. The progress of humanity has been like that of an individual climbing the paths of a steep mountain. At every turn there are fresh dangers and difficulties to be overcome, fresh complications for which the traveler is prepared only by his courage and determination. But every step takes the traveler higher up, out of the dark valley, toward the light at the top, and every danger overcome makes it easier to deal with the dangers to follow. In its long fight the human race has encountered many enemies. At one time in Europe one single epidemic destroyed half of all the population. But we have struggled on; through science we have almost conquered disease, and the plagues of the past are unknown among us. In olden times brutal superstition, disguised as religion, dwarfed men's minds, punishing, with atrocious cruelty, the crime of independent thought and apparently making impossible any mental growth in the face of bigotry and monstrous persecutions. But to-day bigotry begins to give place to true religion; the burning alive and protracted torture which disgraced all the religions of Europe until recently have ceased, probably forever. Mankind in its travels has progressed as far as the stage of independent thought. If a creature still lives that would take the life of another because that other thinks differently from himself he dares not confess his criminal thought. A few centuries ago the great majority of all human beings were slaves or serfs. The noblest of human brains, those of the Greek philosophers, wrote and lived in the midst of slavery. Even as great a man as Aristotle could not conceive a society based on a non-slave-holding system. But except in some African jungle, here and there among savage and semi-savage races, no man is a slave now. And where slavery does exist it exists in stagnant pools of humanity, and it exists side by side with the other monsters, cruel superstition and widespread disease, that progressive humanity has left behind. ---- Every century of which the history has been preserved shows us its horrid side of life, its cruelties, its sufferings without number. But each succeeding century shows also some one point gained, some one hideous feature of life eliminated. The enemy of the world to-day, the monster in the path of progress, is organized greed, the insane desire of a few men to take from others, and for themselves, what they do not need. The trust, seeking through capital to reintroduce slavery under another form, and to establish the tyranny of money in place of the tyranny of swords and bullets, represents the present problem. This problem, like all the others, will be solved in its turn. It will be found that the great danger did good as well as harm, and that, on its overthrow, only good was left behind it. The diseases that once destroyed men forced them to live a decent life of cleanliness. Those diseases frightened human beings out of filth into respect for themselves as the rulers of the world. We owe the cleanness and decent temperate living of to-day, as well as our knowledge of medical science, to the diseases that formerly destroyed the people. The hideous travesties called religion which relied for their power on superstition, fire and sword appeared to block all spiritual development among men. These religions have passed away; only the vital, true religious principle is left--the command laid upon men to feel toward each other as brothers, to worship the ONE and benevolent power that rules the world. A few years or centuries from now the trust problem will be solved, and that particular monster will lie dead on its ledge of rock back in the pages of history. And men will know that to the great danger and brutality of to-day they owe much of their progress and happiness. When the trust goes commercial greed will go with it. It will have killed the hideous theory of competition, with its swindling of the public, its cutting of wages, its general mean, petty, treacherous tradesmen's warfare. ---- Every human being should read history intelligently, if only for the encouraging effect on the mind. In every direction, and in spite of foolish croakers, the human race has improved. Good men and women deplore the drunkenness of to-day, and they do right. But for their own satisfaction and encouragement they should know that in comparison with former times the drunkenness of to-day amounts to nothing. Where one man drinks too much in these days, a thousand men and a thousand women were frightfully drunk a few years ago. Drunkenness, which formerly attacked the most useful of human beings--doctors, statesmen, poets, the best mechanics--is confined now to a feeble fragment of humanity made weak by disease, hereditary influence, discouragement or imperfect organization. More important than this encouraging development is the changed attitude of the public mind toward the drinking habit. Twenty-five centuries ago a Greek philosopher, to make heaven attractive, described the table at which heroes sat in a never-ending, blissful state of drunkenness. To-day even the meanest man is ashamed to have it known that he is drunk, and the most hopeless drunkard would ask no greater favor than that some one should make it impossible for him ever to drink again. There is a criminal conspiracy, called the Beef Trust, which thrives on the needs and privations of the whole people. It is a blot on humanity. Do what you can to destroy this evil. But do not be made bitter by it. Your age is a happier one than others. In France, not so long ago, human beings were punished for eating the bodies of men that had died of the plague, and strict laws were issued to stop that kind of cannibalism. The Beef Trust age is an improvement on that age, is it not? High prices are bad, but not as bad as hideous, widespread starvation. ---- Human selfishness and heartlessness are criticised to-day, and the criticism is just. Yet, MORALLY, the human race has improved more than in any other way. We see to-day callous, heartless men spending millions upon their personal pleasures, paving insufficiently the laborers whose work enriches them, and robbing the public whose patience makes the great fortunes possible. But the worst plutocrat of to-day is an angel compared with the mildly vicious men of olden times. Your selfish man to-day only asks for a yacht and some race horses, mild forms of dissipation. A thousand years ago the vicious man demanded and exercised the power of life and death over those who surrounded him, and his mildest fit of irritation cost the life of some helpless human being. Men are ill-paid to-day, but their condition is Paradise compared to the slavery of their predecessors. ---- You should daily criticise yourself and others, and do what you can in your little sphere as preacher, politician, editor or private individual to help along humanity's progress. But remember always for your encouragement that the world is improving steadily. It never stands still; it never goes backward. And there are no limits to our future improvement, thanks to our inborn love of what is right and to the steady influence of EDUCATION. A WHISKEY BOTTLE How should a whiskey drinker talk to his son? If he talked as he feels he would hold up the flat, brown bottle and say: "My boy, you know that I am a poor man and have nothing to leave to you or your mother. "The difference between myself and the successful men who have passed me is this: "I have gone through life with this bottle in my hand or in my pocket. They have not." A man comes into the world prepared to do his share of the world's work, well or ill, as his brain and his physical strength may decide. Of all his qualities the most important practically is BALANCE. The whiskey in that bottle destroys balance, mental and physical. It substitutes dreaming and foolish self-confidence for real effort. It presents all of life's problems and duties in a false light. It makes those things seem unimportant which are most important. IT DULLS THE CONSCIENCE, WHICH ALONE CAN MAKE MEN DO THEIR DUTY IN SPITE OF TEMPTATION, AND STRUGGLE ON TO SUCCESS IN SPITE OF EXHAUSTION. Keep away from this bottle, and keep away from those who praise it. He who hands it to his fellow man is a criminal, and he who hands it to a young man is a worse criminal and a villain. ---- It is a well-established fact that in the usual order of events drunkenness would be handed down from father to son, and hundreds of thousands of families would be ultimately wiped out by whiskey. It is not true, fortunately, that the son of a drunkard actually inherits drunkenness fully developed. But a drunkard gives to his son weakened nerves and a diminished will power, which tend to make him a drunkard more easily than his father was made a drunkard before him. The great safeguard of a drunkard's children undoubtedly lies in the warning which they see every day in their home and in the earnest advice which the man who drinks will give to all young people if he have any conscience left. If the man who drinks would save his own children from the same danger, he can do so better than any other. He need not lose their respect by telling them of his own mistakes, if these mistakes have been hidden from them. Let him simply tell them, without personal reference, what he knows about whiskey, its effects on a man's happiness, success, self-respect and physical comfort. Whiskey gives a great many things to men. Of these gifts here are a few: Lack of friends, lack of will, lack of self-respect, lack of nervous force--lack of everything save the hideous craving that can end only with unconsciousness, and that begins again with increased suffering when consciousness is restored. ---- Fathers and mothers blessed with self-control and with good children should use the picture of a drinking man as a useful, moral lesson in talking to boys and girls from seven to twenty years of age. Children are impressed most easily through their imaginations. An intelligent father or mother can produce upon a child's receptive mind an impression that will last for years. With the fear of whiskey there should be impressed upon children sympathy and sorrow for the unfortunate drunkard. One of the ablest men, and one of the most earnest in America, said to his friends very recently: "I never drink, as you know. But when I see a man lying drunk in the gutter, I know that he has probably made that very day a harder effort at self-control, a nobler struggle to control himself, than I ever made in my life. He has yielded and fallen at last, but only because all of his strength is insufficient to overcome the disease that possesses him." Teach your children that drunkenness is a horrible disease, as bad as leprosy. Teach them that it can be avoided, that the disease is contracted in youth through carelessness, and that it is spread by those who encourage drinking in others. Tell them that the avoiding of whiskey is not merely a question of morals or obedience to parents, but a question involving mental and physical salvation, success in life, happiness, and the respect of others. THOSE WHO LAUGH AT A DRUNKEN MAN How often have you seen a drunken man stagger along the street! His clothes are soiled from falling, his face is bruised, his eyes are dull. Sometimes he curses the boys that tease him. Sometimes he tries to smile, in a drunken effort to placate pitiless, childish cruelty. His body, worn out, can stand no more, and he mumbles that he is GOING HOME. The children persecute him, throw things at him, laugh at him, running ahead of him. GROWN MEN AND WOMEN, TOO, OFTEN LAUGH WITH THE CHILDREN, nudge each other, and actually find humor in the sight of a human being sunk below the lowest animal. The sight of a drunken man going home should make every other man and woman sad and sympathetic, and, horrible as the sight is, it should be useful, by inspiring, in those who see it, a determination to avoid and to help others avoid that man's fate. ---- That reeling drunkard is GOING HOME. He is going home to children who are afraid of him, to a wife whose life he has made miserable. He is going home, taking with him the worst curse in the world--to suffer bitter remorse himself after having inflicted suffering on those whom he should protect. AND AS HE GOES HOME MEN AND WOMEN, KNOWING WHAT THE HOME-COMING MEANS, LAUGH AT HIM AND ENJOY THE SIGHT. ---- In the old days in the arena it occasionally happened that brothers were set to fight each other. When they refused to fight they were forced to it by red-hot irons applied to their backs. We have progressed beyond the moral condition of human beings guilty of such brutality as that. But we cannot call ourselves civilized while our imaginations and sympathies are so dull that the reeling drunkard is thought an amusing spectacle. LAW CANNOT STOP DRUNKENNESS-- EDUCATION CAN Everybody knows that until recently the average statesman, the majority of prominent men, in England, drank to excess. Pitt was a drunkard--and Pitt was the most remarkable statesman in England. Fox was a drunkard. In fact, to write a list of England's greatest men, who lived more than a hundred years ago, would be to make a list of famous drunkards. To-day the drunkard in public life is practically unknown in England, as well as in America. No legal pressure has been brought to bear upon the prosperous drunkard. He was not badgered by policemen or by blue-laws. He could get ALL that he wanted to drink WHENEVER he wanted it--yet, OF HIS OWN ACCORD, the prosperous drunkard has reformed and become temperate. ---- Our own great Daniel Webster was a drunkard, as were many other great Americans. No man to-day could be a drunkard and at the same time be respected. Education, experience and common sense have done their work, and drunkenness is now left to self-indulgent fools, or to those whose lives are made dull by poverty, to whom alcohol affords the only escape from horrible monotony. It would, perhaps, be worth while for the advocates of temperance to study the causes which have practically eliminated drunkenness from the most intelligent classes of men. Education undoubtedly is the greatest factor. In nearly all the public schools now the evil effects of alcohol are taught. These evil effects are taught, not in a lackadaisical way, with sentiment or religious duty as a basis. They are taught as FACTS. Facts appeal to the mind, and they persist in their effect in later life, when moral suasion and religious appeals are forgotten. Teach every child that alcohol destroys his chances of success, impairs his muscular efficiency, inflames the substance of the brain and prevents development--MAKE HIM FEEL THAT A DRINKING MAN IS A SECOND-CLASS MAN, AND YOU WILL HAVE DONE MUCH TO DESTROY THE DRUNKENNESS OF THE FUTURE. ---- As a matter of fact, drunkenness, like dirt, is mainly an accompaniment of poverty and a sad, hopeless life. For the man or woman given to drinking, when the troubles of life are no longer to be borne, some relief must be had. Make the lives of human beings more comfortable, make good food more plentiful, spread education--and you will solve the problem of excessive drinking. THE DRUNKARD'S SIDE OF IT You lucky, well-balanced ones talk much, and sincerely, of the horrors of drink, and of the drunkard's weakness. You think the whiskey drinker ought to stop. Do you ask yourself whether or not he CAN stop? Let us consider to-day the drunkard's side of the case. ---- Very often physical weakness causes drunkenness. Many a man takes a drink because the task put upon him is heavier than he can bear. The whiskey does not help him--it hurts him. But it cheats him and makes him THINK that he is helped. You realize that whiskey drinking as a settled habit must be fought with weapons of some kind. WILL POWER is the great weapon to use in our own behalf. You tell the drunkard to use his will power. But you forget that the first thing that whiskey attacks is will power. You remind the drunkard that his weakness brings suffering on others, and you appeal to his conscience. But you forget that whiskey weakens conscience even more than it weakens the nerves. You forget, too, that whiskey makes its victims suffer. If he could free himself he would do so, if only for his own sake. And you must not forget that whiskey argues ingeniously, in addition to its telling of lies. A man is overcome with some great grief. Whiskey makes him forget, or at least it makes him not care. A man is suffering some great humiliation, some sense of personal shortcoming, that is intolerable to him. Whiskey offers to relieve him, and for the moment it does relieve him. ---- YOU who talk nobly of temperance and advocate laws governing other men are apt to be proud of your own self-control. Perhaps you have been a drinking man and have stopped. But you do not know how much lighter whiskey's hold may have been upon you than upon others. Suppose you worked hard every day, every week and every year. Suppose you had no pleasure in life, save the fictitious pleasure and excitement that come from whiskey. Suppose you failed, and failed and failed again--and suppose that whiskey was always ready to praise you, make you feel proud of yourself, make you hold others responsible for your failures--are you sure you could let it alone? ---- In your condemnation of those who persist in whiskey drinking you must remember that what is easy for one man is very hard for another. Suppose you should urge two animals to go without meat--one of the animals being a tiger and the other a sheep. Would you praise the sheep for its faithful keeping of the promise? Would you blame the tiger for breaking its word, if the temptation to eat meat were offered? In men's nervous systems, in their craving for alcohol, there is as great a difference between different temperaments as between the appetites of the sheep and the tiger. One man is dragged toward the gulf by whiskey with a force of which you have no conception. You look with contempt at a hopeless drunkard, shuffling along toward destruction. THERE ARE THOUSANDS OF SUCH MEN WHO EVERY DAY OF THEIR LIVES MAKE AN EFFORT OF THE WILL OF WHICH YOU WOULD BE INCAPABLE. But that effort, great as it is, is not great enough to save them--whiskey drags them too hard in the other direction. Fortunately, we can all congratulate ourselves on the steady falling off in drunkenness. To drink to excess is no longer respectable. Once it was a leading sign of respectability. Doctors in the old days wrote their prescriptions illegibly, because when called late at night they were usually drunk. To-day a drunken doctor cannot possibly survive. Work as hard as you can against drunkenness, for drunkenness harms every one, even the saloon-keeper himself. The drunkard soon comes to ruin and ceases to be a profitable customer. Argue with young men, and talk to children ABOUT THEIR OWN WELFARE in the matter. But remember also that the drunkard often has tried harder than you could try to overcome the enemy that has conquered him. Remember that unless you have lived his life you cannot know his excuse and cannot judge him. DRINK A SLOW POISON Often a man talks about like this: "I am a regular but moderate drinker. No one ever saw me drunk, and yet I drink every day. And what's the harm of it? Can you see anything the matter with me?" The man would seem to have the advantage of you. You cannot SEE anything wrong with him. So far as outward appearances go the case is squarely against you. The man APPEARS to be all right. But is he? The effects of drink upon the system do not show themselves to the extent of attracting very marked attention, at least until the conditions are fairly ripe. In the man who comes out on to the street after a PROTRACTED DEBAUCH the effects of whiskey are visible; even the little children notice him. He may not be drunk. It may have been hours since he touched a drop. But any one can see that his physical system has received a severe shock. In the moderate drinker these signs are not visible, but the alcohol which he daily imbibes is doing its work, and slowly but surely his constitution is being undermined. Now and then we run across some old man who is hale and hearty, notwithstanding the fact that he has been a moderate drinker all his life. But no one will think of denying the fact that this old man is an exception--a very rare exception. Many old men who SHOULD be hale and hearty are suffering from ailments born of the drink habit, by which, in their earlier days, they were enslaved. In the "rheum, the dry serpigo and the gout" which rack their frames, make their bones ache and render miserable and thankless the evening days which should be so full of peace and beauty, they are reaping the fruits of their "harmless" moderate drinking. Two or three weeks ago we made reference to the report by Mr. Mesureur, Director of the Department of Charities, Paris, upon the results of alcoholism in France. That report was no sooner made public than the French liquor dealers were up in arms against it. Indignation meetings were held. The mails were flooded with all sorts of protests against the truth of Mesureur's claim that alcoholism was slowly but surely destroying the French people. The discussion at last became so heated that the government took it upon itself to subject the offensive report to a careful scrutiny, with the result that it was CONFIRMED in every particular. We quote from a poster, issued by the "Investigation Council for Promoting the Public Welfare," and now displayed all over France: "Alcoholism is the chronic poisoning resulting from the constant use of alcohol, even if it does not produce drunkenness. "It is an error to say that alcohol is a necessity to the man who has to do hard work, or that it restores strength. "The artificial stimulation which it produces soon gives way to exhaustion and nervous depression. Alcohol is good for nobody, but works harm to everybody. "Alcoholism produces the most varied and fatal diseases of the stomach and liver, paralysis, dropsy and madness. It is one of the most frequent canses of tuberculosis. "Lastly, it aggravates and enhances all acute diseases, typhus, pneumonia, erysipelas. "THESE DISEASES ONLY ATTACK A SOBER MAN IN A MILD DEGREE, WHILE THEY QUICKLY DO AWAY WITH THE MAN WHO DRINKS ALCOHOL. "The sins of the parents against the laws of health visit their offspring. If the children survive the first months of their lives they are threatened with imbecility or epilepsy, or death carries them away a little later by such diseases as meningitis or consumption. "Alcoholism is one of the most terrible plagues to the individual health, the existence of the home, and the prosperity of the nation." TO THOSE WHO DRINK HARD-- YOU HAVE SLIPPED THE BELT Men have explained variously their reasons for drinking to excess. An able architect drank too much every night. He said that he HAD to drink. If he went to bed perfectly sober his mind went on working and dreaming, after he had gone to sleep, and he woke up fatigued and unable to attend to his work. "I don't want to drink," said he, "but in order to do my work I must have the sleep that follows what is ordinarily called taking too much." Other men explained excessive drinking as follows: "I must have the mental excitement that comes from drinking." "You can't imagine the delightful agility of the mind under the influence of alcohol." "The brain works more quickly, more energetically, more freely." "After drinking a certain amount I can live more in an hour than I could ordinarily in a month," etc. ---- These men who believe that alcohol improves the mind, stimulating it to better effort, constitute a very large class, perhaps the largest class of those who drink to excess. We wish we could persuade such men that they are mistaken in believing that excessive alcohol feeds the brain. The man who has drunk too much, and thinks that his mind is working splendidly, might learn something by studying any sort of machinery when the belt slips off the wheel, or the screw of a steamer when the power of the waves throws the screw out of the water. While the belt is securely attached, doing its works, it turns slowly and monotonously. While the screw is buried in the water, fighting its way and pushing its load ahead, it turns slowly and laboriously. When the belt slips off or the screw comes out of the water, the whole thing is changed. The screw whizzes around like lightning. The belt rattles and dances. The screw in the water and the machinery doing its work properly are like the sober brain. The brain that is made abnormal by alcohol is simply the screw out of water, the misplaced machine belt. The brain is no longer connected with the working realities of life. It has lost its balance and its function. It works rapidly and aimlessly. It moves with wonderful swiftness, but it accomplishes nothing. Let men who drink too much, believing that the action of their minds is improved by drinking, think over this proposition about the machinery and see if there is not something in it to interest them. How much actual work does this alcoholized brain turn out? What do they actually DO "next day"? TRY WHISKEY ON YOUR FRIEND'S EYEBALL Your friend drinks too much, or drinks temperately but unwisely. You may entreat, or argue, or abuse, or threaten. You may show your friend the happy home where rum never enters. You may lead him through the alcoholic ward at Bellevue. Such sights may produce an impression. But usually they do not. The man who possesses, indulges and keenly enjoys an overwhelming passion--for drink or any other vice--is rarely moved by your fine talk, for the reason that he believes in his wily soul that you do not know what you are talking about. Mr. Lecky, in his history of European morals, page 135, volume I., observes: "That which makes it so difficult for a man of strong, vicious passions to unbosom himself to a naturally virtuous man is not so much the virtue as THE IGNORANCE OF THE LATTER." You are naturally virtuous. Your drinking friend is naturally and proudly bad. He thinks you do not know what you are talking about when you ask him to give up drink. ---- When you start out to cure a vicious friend by arguing with him, do you ever reflect how little you know what goes on within him? Suppose that in his nerves there is a craving ten thousand times louder and stronger than your most virtuous arguments? What good will those arguments do? No use whispering poetry to a man in a boiler shop. No use humming a love song in a whirlwind. The poetry, the song, are out of place. Any sort of argument save the most powerful is wasted on a man whose soul is filled with the racket of a dominating passion, such as drink or gambling. ---- Just two things can cure a drunkard--two things, and nothing else on earth. First, his own cold reason and strength of will. Second, the growth within him of some passion stronger than his love of drink. Love of his children, love of a woman, will cure a drunkard (but we earnestly advise any woman to make sure he is cured before trusting her future to him). Ambition--which includes every form of vanity and self-delusion--will cure a drunkard, and has cured many thousands. Even the miser's passion of economy may outweigh love of drink and cure the lesser desire. ---- To cure a drunkard, try to arouse within him some desire stronger than his desire to drink. Any boy will stop smoking to play football or to excel in any sort of athletics. You reach his vanity. What preaching could produce the same effect? If you feel that you must use argument, try such arguments as will appeal to the man himself, not such as seem sound to you in your fine state of virtue. The American drunkard is usually manufactured by the vile American habit of drinking pure whiskey or cocktails. No other race, except among the most degraded classes, absorbs crude spirits as stupidly as this race. ---- Suppose you have a young friend whose tendency to drink "straight" whiskey makes you nervous. You see what it is leading to. Instead of trying to make a teetotaler of him, try to transform him into a sensible drinker. ---- When your friend orders his whiskey, start off as follows: Tell him you take it for granted that he knows all about the mucous membrane. He will say that he does--for it is our American mania to want to appear wise. Casually state that of course he knows the covering of his eyeball is identical in all important respects--especially as regards sensitiveness--with the lining of his stomach; in fact, of his whole interior from his mouth down. He will assent and gravely pour out his poison. Then say to him: "Just dip the tip of your finger in that whiskey and put the finger to your eye-ball." If he does so he will feel the eye smart. The eyeball will become inflamed, and sight for a moment will be difficult. Then let him dilute the whiskey with water--four or five parts water to one of whiskey. That dilution, rubbed into the other eye, instead of irritating it, will act as a gentle stimulant. It will produce an agreeable effect. When your friend has experimented with the whiskey "straight" and diluted, deliver to him this little lecture: "One drop of pure whiskey on your eyeball makes it hard to use the eye. That glass of whiskey that you are now pouring into yourself would blind you absolutely, at least for a time. If straight whiskey has such an effect on the covering of the eyeball, must not its effect be equally injurious to the covering of the stomach and intestines, which is the same as that of the eye? "If diluting your whiskey makes it so much better as an eye-wash, would not diluting it make it better also as a 'stomach-wash'?" One other thing: When you argue with a drunkard don't tell him that any man can cure himself if he will "only be a man." The drunkard knows that that is not so. Tell him, on the contrary, that not one man in fifty, not one woman in a hundred, can overcome the drink habit. He will wink his tired eyes at you and say: "I want you distinctly to understand that I'm one in a hundred." Tell him how difficult it is--not how easy--and thus stir up his ambition. ---- Above all, when you start out to admonish or despise the victim of bad habits, just remember that you have no notion whatever of what you criticise. Not one drunkard in a hundred has will power to cure himself. Not one "virtuous" man in a thousand has imagination enough to realize the drunkard's temptation and suffering. We offer to your consideration this other extract from Lecky's book, quoted above: "The great majority of uncharitable judgments in the world may be traced to a deficiency of imagination. * * * To realize with any adequacy the force of a passion we have never experienced, to conceive a type of character radically different from our own, * * * requires a power of imagination which is among the rarest of human endowments." WHAT ARE THE TEN BEST BOOKS? An interesting discussion progresses in Chicago. Mr. Sam T. Clover has asked this startling question: "If you were bound for a desert island, and could take with you only ten books, which ten books would you select?" Whoever is refined and well read in Chicago seems to have answered Mr. Clover's question. Mr. Clover introduces each guesser with a graceful speech; then the guesser solemnly names ten books. The selections are, from the moral viewpoint, admirable. The Bible is omitted rarely, and the Rubaiyat never. It is amazing to see how many inhabitants of Cook County would be unhappy on a desert island without Col. Omar. ---- It may not be permissible for a Yellow Editor to break into a Cook County literary fiesta. We dislike to run the risk--but we shall run it. First we remark that a man living on a desert island needs no books at all. Reading books is an idle occupation unless you make your reading profitable to other human beings, and that you cannot do on a desert island. The trouble with many readers is this: They read as though they WERE on a desert island. They sop up literature or facts as a sponge sops up water; then, like human sponges, do nothing with their wisdom. They read for themselves; they read to increase their egotism and self-approval, and for no other purpose. ---- But, after walking into an intellectual parlor above our station in life, it certainly does not become us to be finicky. We'll tell as quickly as possible what it is that surprises us: NOT ONE COOK COUNTY THINKER MENTIONS A BOOK ON ASTRONOMY. A man on a desert island has a little sand, some goats and a few miles of ocean around him--nothing else in sight. But above him, and on the low plains of the horizon, the great universe is spread out. Vega flashes overhead, beckoning to this little solar system that is rolling on toward her. The old, benevolent stars look through cold space at our little sun that was not even hatched in their yesterday. The Milky Way, that Mississippi of the sky, rolls across the thousands of billions of miles of space. The messenger-boy comets go on their long, elliptical errands. The colored planets and moons, the nebular masses and the cold, dead worlds lying in the silent morgue of eternity tell the wonderful story of cosmic grandeur. We should think that a man on a desert island, living constantly in contemplation of God's real work, would want to study that work. The greatest book ON MEN that ever was written on this earth is but an analysis of the emotions of imperfect human minds. A good ASTRONOMY is a guide book of GOD'S kingdom. Many Cook County litterateurs select Carlyle for a desert island companion. Have they not observed that Carlyle's mind was fixed on contemplation of the universe?--"the eternal silences" were his friends. And when he seeks monkeyfied human soldiers, booted and spurred, he asks, "What thinks Bootes of them, as he leads his hunting dogs across the zenith in a leash of sidereal fire?" O, Cook County thinkers, inhabitants of a small corner of this small ant-hill, drop your alcohol-loving tentmaker--Omar--forget your half-hearted fondness for Milton. Buy "Ball's Story of the Heavens," or even some simpler astronomy; spend four dollars and four weeks finding out how grand is our real home, the boundless, beautiful universe. THE MARVELLOUS BALANCE OF THE UNIVERSE--A LESSON IN THE TEXAS FLOOD A tidal wave and hurricane combined have destroyed thousands of lives in one small corner of the globe. After the first excitement and horror, the creditable outpouring of help, there should be thankfulness in the hearts of the many millions who live on safely. Do you ever think of the wonderful protection, the marvellous precision in celestial mechanics that guard you as you travel through space? ---- The oceans, seas and lakes contain water enough to cover the entire surface of the earth to a depth of six hundred feet, if the earth's surface were actually round. In huge reservoirs, which we call oceans, the earth's waters are stored for our use. Those vast volumes of water rest on the surface of a whirling sphere travelling through space at fearful speed. The slightest derangement, the slightest lack of balance in our motion round the sun, the slightest shifting of the poles, and mountains of water miles high would sweep over the continents and wipe out--not only one small city--but the entire human race. ---- Our existence here requires a precision so great that our minds can but feebly grasp it. Change the temperature of your body by but a few degrees and you die. But you travel through space safely, with a freezing ocean of ether about you. You travel in company with suns that throw out endless billions of degrees of heat. You are protected in a travelling hothouse, regulated exactly to suit your feeble strength and all your wants. ---- Did you ever see the small, black nose of a pug dog pressed against the window of a flying express train? Have you ever seen that pug barking at the landscape whirling by? Have you ever reflected on the utter inability of that pug to realize the marvellous intelligence and power that are whirling him along as he barks and wags his tail and enjoys himself calmly? Kind reader, you and all of us, whirling along in this magnificently conducted express train called the earth--whirling onward to a destiny worthy of our habitation--are so many poor little pug dogs looking out at nature's marvels and looking out with less than pug-dog appreciation. THE EARTH IS ONLY A FRONT YARD The philosophers, political economists, lawmakers, editors, sociologists, and all the other would-be deep thinkers of this earth, are really engaged in a pretty small business. We are like a swarm of human beings cast away on some desert island. This earth is our island, a little island in space, and it is a desert island and a badly arranged island in more ways than one. Many of us lack good dwellings, some of us lack food, all of us are worried about the future. The island is infested with mosquitoes and with diseases that we have not learned to conquer. There are many criminals on it that prey upon the honest people--criminals at the top and criminals at the bottom of society. And all of those who think and sympathize with their fellow creatures are busy with the problem of putting things right on this little desert island that carries us along in the wake of the sun. Most of us imagine that the most important work for men is the organization of life on this little planet. That is a very small and mean idea of man's real destiny. When a man builds a house, the planning of sanitary arrangements must first be attended to. After that begin the real life and the real interests. That real life and those real interests are not confined to the front yard or the back yard of the man that owns the house. ---- So it will be some day with us who are now engaged in the detailed organization of the little home which we call the earth. We are fixing up our moral plumbing--fighting poverty, injustice, and, above all, ignorance. We are fighting the meanness that comes of competition and the greater meanness that is based upon the dread of poverty in the future. Some of us are piling up millions that we can never use, while others suffer for lack of that which could be abundantly supplied. All these little earthly questions that seem so big will be settled in time. But a few years in the sight of Time--a few hundred centuries, perhaps, as we count them--and our earthly habitation will have been made fit to live in. We shall have eliminated the unfit--not by killing them off, but by educating them. We shall have solved the question of poverty by solving the question of production, and especially of distribution. We shall have developed a citizenship capable of earnest work, of sobriety and of moral decency, without the spur of want, imprisonment or the scaffold as necessary adjuncts. In time the human race will have solved its little problems here--the problems that seem so vast to-day. When that time comes we shall be like the man who has put his house in order, and our thoughts will not be confined to this little piece of ground. Then we shall appreciate the cosmic wisdom which has divided our day into darkness and light--the light for the enjoyment of the material beauties of our earthly home; THE NIGHT FOR THE STUDY AND ENJOYMENT OF THE VAST, MYSTERIOUS UNIVERSE SPREAD OUT AROUND US. Everybody knows that the aged require less sleep than the young. In the future, this will make old age what it ought to be, a blessing, because it will give to the old more hours of the night for contemplation of the Infinite and all its wonders. Those of us who now think themselves very abstract when they speculate on the North Pole, or when they discuss the possibility of reclaiming the Desert of Sahara, will have their minds many millions of miles away from this earth a great deal of the time. We shall communicate, perhaps, with our sister-planet, Venus--the planet most like ours in physical arrangement. We shall be intensely interested in that world, where it is always night on one side of the planet, and always day on the other. We shall realize with deepest envy the fact that the constant, terrific currents of air whirling around Venus, in consequence of the extreme heat and the extreme cold on opposite sides of the planet, have developed a race as far superior to us as the trout in the swift-flowing brook is superior to the heavy-eyed catfish in the bottom of the pond. ---- We shall humbly beg for information from the superior inhabitants of other worlds, and perhaps wait with impatience for release from duty here which shall take us to a higher planetary existence. If we look backward at all, we shall consider our present selves simply as refined cannibals, who lived upon the labor and the suffering of our fellows instead of feeding upon their bodies. ---- It may seem ridiculous to predict that the time will come when the intelligent man's interests will be nearly all outside of the earth on which he lives. But to the savage of the Congo, squatted beside a decaying hippopotamus, gorging himself with the meat, with not a thought beyond that carcass or beyond the edge of the river, it would seem preposterous to speak of men whose interests range out over the entire world. We look upon a man as very small to-day unless all knowledge interests him, unless his mind roams daily all over the civilized globe, sharing in the interests of all nations, in the literature, the discoveries and the activities of all nations. To-day we, with our minds on little, material problems, our thoughts centred on this one little planet, as we lead our selfish lives, are like that Congo savage hacking away at the dead hippopotamus. When night comes, we shut our eyes like the chickens, waiting for the light that means money-making or pleasure of the senses; or we go to theatres or to balls, or elsewhere, to shut out as far as possible all knowledge of that marvellous, unlimited creation to which we belong, and which it is our greatest privilege feebly to study. ---- The geography class of the future will be a class in astronomy. The real problems of the future will be the problems outside of this earth, and the real interests of the future will be interests connected with the universe at large. We shall make of this earth a beautiful garden, inhabited by safe, happy human beings. We shall take pride in it, and enjoy it by day. Our intellectual lives will begin with the going down of the sun and the gradual appearance of those mighty neighbors in space that alone will interest the thinking man of future days. LAST WEEK'S BABY WILL SURELY TALK SOME DAY It is believed by scientists that the planet Mars may be striving at this moment to communicate with us. Lines of light are seen on her surface--on the border of that part of Mars known as Lake Iscarie--and men of learning believe that the Martians are trying to signal our earth. Possibly they are trying. Of this you may be sure: Sooner or later we shall communicate with all the planets, and perhaps through the giant sun receive news of outside solar systems. We have lived comparatively but a few hours on this earth. The civilization on Mars is millions of years older than our own. Although we are still primitive savages, we have done wonders already. We can talk instantaneously with a Chinese sitting cross-legged on the under (or upper) side of our earth. We can send a message around the earth in a few seconds. Of course we shall talk to Mars as soon as we get out of our cradle down here. Look into an ordinary cradle where a week-old baby lies nursing his wrath or trying to talk to his toe. There are around him eighty millions of other human beings--fourteen hundred millions if you count all on earth--and he, the baby, cannot say one word to any of them. He does not even know his own mother. Like humanity on this earth, he is busy growing up. He has not had time to spread out and get an interest in his surroundings. His liver must get small--at the end of his milk diet. His legs must get straight and strong. He must learn to creep and walk. After a period as extensive in his life as a thousand centuries in the life of the race, he begins to talk to those about him. We do not believe that the time has yet come for us to talk to the Martians, or to the inhabitants of any other older planet. They may possibly be signalling to us up there, as a man inexperienced will signal to a new-born baby or even try to make it understand what he says. It is probable, however, that Mars, far advanced in science, as superior to us as we are to new-born infants, would use the light only to attract our interest and let us know that when the time comes we have an old brother planet anxious to chat with this baby earth. It will be most interesting when the talking time does come. The men who have lived, studied, experimented millions of years ahead of us will be able to tell us many things that we need to know. Like the baby in the cradle, we are compelled now to discover everything for ourselves. Our old brother Mars, as soon as we can understand, may help us to take giant steps forward, just as a younger brother, as soon as he can speak, is taught by his elder in one of our families. ---- It will be interesting, also, to observe how we shall probably reject the good advice given us, as the young person here rejects the words of experience. Suppose we could talk to Mars, and suppose the wise old people up there should tell us that millions of years of experience had made clear the fact that making money is a foolish occupation. How many of us would cease striving for money? The very scientist giving us the message would patent his interstellar talking process and die happy with a huge fortune. How cheerful also will it be a million or so years hence! We shall then be like a very young child among the planets. Two of the older worlds will be talking, and we shall be permitted to listen, but not to interrupt. We shall hear questions put as to our origin and destiny. We know now that the sun, flying through space, is dragging us toward some unknown spot in the universe. Our older brothers in space will have definite ideas as to where we are going and why we are going there. It will be interesting to follow their speculations, and occasionally, if permitted, to offer our feeble little ideas, as the smart boy occasionally speaks up before his elders. Our future as one of a family of planets freely communicating with each other cannot be doubted. He must have a dull imagination who believes that the eternal Law regulating matters here has put such limits to our possible development as would shut us out from a share in the big solar family life to which we belong. THE GOOD THAT IS DONE BY THE TRUSTS THE MAMMOTH MADE OUR FIRST PATHS THROUGH THE FOREST Every big movement in this world in some way or other does solid good in the long run, however irritating it may be before it is understood. The saddest period in a child's life is undoubtedly the period of teething. If you saw a baby for the first time and didn't understand that period, you would denounce the cruelty which inflamed its gums, upset its digestion, kept it awake, condemned it to incessant torture. But we all know that a full set of teeth under the control of the child is to reward the suffering of teething, and this reconciles us to the teething age. We tell you--and we don't want you to forget this--that all the trust impositions and suffering and thievery now agitating us constitute a teething process through which we must pass. The result will be a full set of industrial teeth owned and controlled by the nation, which now suffers the torments of the teething baby. ---- You will realize that individuals must at first do that which nations do later. The despotic, irresponsible rule of the savage chief, of the able individual fighter, was a forerunner of the present system of government. We have now taken the governing power from the individual, bestowing it on the whole people, but at first we had to have our Attilas, our Napoleons and Alexanders. ---- As individual control of the government has been superseded by collective control, so individual control of industries will be followed by collective control. That is the natural order. Why does not the government take full charge at once? Why does not the hen lay a hen all covered with feathers, instead of laying an egg? Everything must have its crude beginning and its perfect ending, for on this basis we are organized. The French government to-day makes millions from the national control of the match industry. But a solitary individual working in Batavia, New York State, had to create the match and make his little money out of it before the French government could take it and make its millions. That same French government derives millions from its tobacco business, incidentally giving the people good tobacco cheap instead of poisonous tobacco dear. The red Indian dodging bears and using his squaws as slaves had to start that great tobacco industry before the French government could get it. Don't waste your time and energy joining the thoughtless crowd that howls against trusts. Use your vote and your voice to put those trusts under government control as soon as may be. Be glad that an old Vanderbilt had brains enough to build great railroad systems. Don't denounce him or begrudge him the fortune he made. His work was worth the money. Let us say to his little descendants the pee wee Vanderbilts of to-day: "You have had enough now. Although you have done nothing, we shall pay you generously for what your great-grandfather did, and with your kind permission, or without it, we shall transfer these roads to the people whose patronage gives them value." ---- In due time this pleasant message of just appropriation will be delivered to all the various trust owners. They will all be well paid for their work. They deserve to be, for they have done as individuals the work which the collective commonwealth could not do. But they will be made to see that they cannot forever keep what they have created. If a man invents a steam engine worth to the world at large ten thousand billions, he is allowed to keep his property only seventeen years, under our patent laws. Shall we allow a clever highway robber of a commercial organizer to keep the proceeds of his energy for himself and his descendants forever? ---- We had almost forgotten the mammoth mentioned at the top of this article. That mammoth, dead and forgotten, is the forerunner of to-day's trust. The mammoth was hated by all created things around him. An accidental blow from his left hind foot would break up any family in existence. But his vast weight and power ploughed the first paths through the swamps and forests. The paths made by the mammoth through unexplored tracts were a great boon to half-savage man. In fact, man followed along those paths after awhile and learned how to kill the mammoth very neatly. The trusts are marking out organized paths through the hitherto chaotic, disorganized systems of industry. Those paths will be useful to all men through all time. The trust will be killed when his day comes, as the mammoth has been killed. Let us be patient meanwhile, and not forget that, though a monster, he was a monster absolutely necessary and very useful. TRUSTS AND THE SENATE If you are willing to assume your responsibilities as an American citizen you should study seriously the question of the trusts. Already trust organization has assumed very real and very threatening proportions. Every family in the United States knows of the existence of the Meat Trust, which cuts down the food supply of the people to add to its bank account. Every merchant feels keenly the existence of half a dozen trusts on which he is absolutely dependent, and from which there is no escape. We all have seen the Coal Trust keeping ready armed men to shoot working citizens whenever it should give the order. This Coal Trust, in a calm, matter-of-fact way, boasted that it would, if necessary, "call out the United States Government troops" to shoot the miners. Here is one trust already talking as though it controlled the army and all the other forces of Government. The trusts believe themselves already in control, and their national power is very great. The crisis of trust development has not been reached. The present power of concentrated, organized money is very great, but it is nothing to the power which money will exert in the future. This future development of the trust force should be discussed and studied calmly, rationally and dispassionately by all Americans. There is no use in denouncing or in hating the trusts. It is true that they are entirely selfish; it is NOT true that they represent evil, pure and simple. The trust is a necessary development in humanity's journey toward organization, concentration and the simplifying of industry. The first locomotive ever built was a trust. It performed the work of a thousand four-horse teams, deprived four thousand horses and a thousand drivers of a livelihood. The railroad trust is simply an extension of the concentration of labor, the simplifying of industrial operation, represented in the building of the first locomotive. THE TRUSTS IN THE END WILL DO INFINITE GOOD. They will destroy the mean competition which for centuries has made liars, swindlers and slavedrivers of men. They will practically eliminate the great number of large private fortunes, and thus compel men to devote their energies to pursuits nobler than the accumulation of money. At first a few enormous fortunes will dominate the nation--the beginning of these great fortunes you may see already. Then will come the owning of the trusts--that is to say, of all the great national industries--by the nation itself. The people of the land will own and operate their own necessities. These necessities, instead of making a few men enormously rich at the expense of many, will contribute to the comfort of many without injustice to the few. ---- The development of trusts must run its course, like every other great feature of human history. Its beginning--in corrupt legislation, watered stocks, human selfishness--was inevitable. Its ending--in national ownership, competition eliminated, and industrial life vastly improved--is also inevitable. But thousands of struggles, thousands of economical battles, thousands of ruined men, will mark this evolution of human industry from the control of individual selfishness to the service of the nation. The duty of the people is to study and, as far as possible, to foresee and regulate this enormous and inevitable development of the trusts. The trusts cannot be destroyed, and they should not be destroyed. But they can be regulated, and with proper vigilance they can be kept from commanding and controlling absolutely this nation, which sees the birth of their great development. ---- We believe that the most pressing public duty at present is the reorganization of the Senate of the United States on the basis of popular election. It has been said truthfully: "You cannot indict an entire people," and, fortunately for us, it may truthfully be said, "You cannot PURCHASE an entire people." The trusts of the United States base their hopes of continued and growing power upon the United States Senate. The trusts own absolutely many United States Senators. Of those Senators whom the trusts do not own, many are deeply interested in the trusts, which is the same thing as though the trusts did own them. Under the present system, the public elects State Legislatures, and these Legislatures choose the United States Senators. If a trust can buy the Legislature--which, as we all know, it usually can--the trust can control the Senatorial representatives of the State. The State of New York in the National Congress at Washington is represented by thirty-four Congressmen and two Senators. The thirty-four Congressmen are elected by the people and two Senators are chosen by the trusts. And with these two Senators the trusts can absolutely veto every bill passed by the thirty-four Representatives elected by the people. Does anybody believe that Mr. Depew and Mr. Platt could possibly have been elected to the United States Senate by the PEOPLE of the State of New York? Does anybody question the outrageousness of a system which forces upon the people as representatives two Senators whom they would not have chosen and whom they actually believe to be inimical to their interests? This condition prevails practically throughout the Union. The upper house of our National Legislature is the real ruling power in the United States. It controls all of the President's appointments. According to the Constitution, he is compelled to appoint "by and with the advice and consent of the Senate." The trusts buy the Legislatures, they own the Senators, and therefore the Constitution of the United States now reads practically as follows: "The President appoints national officers by and with the advice and consent of the trusts." As an American voter, you have no more important duty than to work for the election of Senators by the people. You should not tolerate the selection of Judges of the Supreme Court, United States Ambassadors, Federal Judges throughout the country, and all the great executive forces subject to the approval of the trusts that notoriously make, break and destroy laws. A small trust can buy the Legislature of the State of New York. But the biggest trust can scarcely buy New York's six million inhabitants. And, thanks to our secret voting system, we are protected even against ourselves and our own selfishness. If a trust buys the ordinary voter it cannot be sure that it gets what it buys. But if a trust buys the legislators it can count votes and secure delivery of the goods purchased. Use your influence to curb the power of the trusts by taking away from venal legislators that power to sell to trust managers the Senate of the United States. This subject you should discuss with your neighbors. You should urge it upon all of those voters with whom you come in contact. You should influence legislators in your State to vote for a Constitutional amendment causing popular election of Senators--and no legislator will resent your suggestion if he be an honest man. Everybody knows that the United States Senate to-day does not represent the people. There are exceptions among the Senators, but they are in the minority. Every year the Senate is less and less representative of the nation, more and more representative of organized capital. Good Americans, irrespective of party, will strive to work for this change in the national machinery. Take away from the trusts now the power to tamper with national laws through the Senate. THE PROMISING TOAD'S HEAD The head of a toad, like the head of a trust, is superficially a hideous thing to look at. Sometimes it is alleged that valuable jewels are found in a toad's head, and on this account the hideousness even of the far-famed horned toad of the West becomes less repulsive. The trust toad, as you will find by examining it closely and studying events, has a head equipped with jewels of a very fine quality. Many years from now men will be very glad that the trust toad was born, because of the good that will come from it. ---- Already we see that the trusts are inevitably strengthening labor unions. They are bringing the men into closer relationship and forming them into greater and more closely united bodies of workmen. The trusts organize admirably the great industries and prepare the day when all of these industries will be owned by the Government--that is to say, by the people themselves. The trusts eliminate competition, which is a stupid, out-of-date form of barbarism, leading to cheating, thievery and adulteration. The trusts do away with the vast armies of middlemen, and, by diminishing every day the number of those who live on the work of others, they compel an ever-growing number to enter the fields of useful production. ---- Just at present the jewel that stands out most prominently in the ugly trust toad's head is "FREE TRADE." Men have argued and fought and voted and made speeches and paraded for Free Trade--and all in vain. The more they talked and paraded, the heavier were the duties. But when the TRUSTS want Free Trade, they will have it, for the trusts control legislation. And we SHALL have Free Trade, for the trusts WILL want it very soon. A trust engaged in manufacturing wants to buy as cheaply as it can the raw materials used. The trusts will soon own all the industries, all the manufactures, and they will want freedom from the duties which are now paid on the material. Already there is in process of formation a great Clothing Trust. The small man who makes clothing now must pay a duty on wool to protect the American farmer who raises sheep. How long do you think the Clothing Trust will tolerate this duty on wool? How long do you think the Trust engaged in making cloths in America will tolerate a duty on wool that makes the industry so expensive? Some of the duties will be retained, of course--at least until the trusts shall be powerful enough even to despise foreign competition. But one thing after another the trusts will want free from duty, and these things will be freed as fast as the trusts' order is given. ---- The trusts are going to do a great deal of good to the masses of the people in time. They will end by forcing universal Government ownership of monopolies upon the people. TRUSTS WILL DRIVE LABOR UNIONS INTO POLITICS A workman should use the best tools at his command--the workman's best tool is his ballot. Everything that men want it can give them if used intelligently. The reasons urged against its use by labor unions are conscientious but not strong. They are based upon the fact that labor men fear to trust each other, and fear especially to trust their leaders. They will not vote as unions because they fear that they may be sold out--that is the plain, unpleasant fact. We cannot believe that their fears are well founded. We know that leaders both able and honest can be found among American workingmen, and we say that they should be found and trusted promptly. ---- For mark this: THE TRUSTS WILL INEVITABLY COMPEL THE LABOR UNIONS TO BECOME POLITICAL UNIONS. TRUSTS WILL MAKE IT CLEAR TO UNIONS THAT THEIR ONLY HOPE IS IN POLITICAL ACTION WHICH SHALL GIVE THEM THE POWER TO CONTROL LEGISLATION. When individual firms are competing the injustice of one firm may be punished and controlled by a strike. THE TRUST WILL RENDER THE STRIKE LAUGHABLE AND USELESS. Suppose all the shops or manufactories of a certain kind to be under the control of one trust. What good will a strike do? The concern in which the strike occurs will simply stop work. Its business will go to other concerns in the trust; the firm in which the strike occurs will calmly draw its share of the trust profits and laugh at the strikers. The latter will lose their wages and time--no one else will lose anything. What does one paper mill care for a strike if all the other mills in the Paper Trust are running, and making the money which it nominally loses? ---- Perhaps the workingmen think they can stop ALL the manufactures of a certain kind. In the first place they probably cannot--with trusts that reach across 3,000 miles of country. And if they could, what about the TRUST OF TRUSTS? If the trusts are not already formed into a formal union for mutual support they soon will be. And the union of trusts already exists so far as practical sympathy goes. Havemeyer will gladly spend millions of trust money--not his own--to help Morgan in a coal-trust fight. Rockefeller will spare a few hundred thousand if necessary to buy a small State Legislature and prevent passage of laws threatening a weak little trust now and dangerous to him in the long run. ---- Jealousy, mistrust, and the lack of really competent leaders may delay political union among workmen for a time. But the political union must come. Bigger work must be done by American workmen than chattering about little local wage regulations or quarreling about hours or overtime. The question at issue is: SHALL ORGANIZED CAPITAL CONTROL THE PEOPLE, OR SHALL THE PEOPLE CONTROL ORGANIZED CAPITAL AND LIMIT ITS POWER? The workingmen are the people. They are the interested parties, and they have got to vote together pretty soon or fight together a little later. THE TRUSTS ARE NATIONAL SCHOOL TEACHERS Look at the coal strike, the opinions that it calls forth, and notice how respectability dances and hops from one foot to the other when the RESPECTABLE shoe pinches and the RESPECTABLE toe suffers. A little while ago the man who spoke against trusts and general monopolies of public necessities was called demagogue, socialist, anarchist, inciter of the masses against the classes, and so on. But along comes the Beef Trust and begins to punish even the respectable "upper" classes. Double prices for food mean a serious difference even in a very respectable income. Then you have the respectabilities also suddenly developing signs of demagogism, socialism and anarchy. They want the tariff taken off of foodstuffs. They want the managers of the Food Trust put in jail. The Beef Trust teaches the nation one interesting lesson--namely, that by excessive extortion the trusts will lose soon their respectable friends and unite all of the people against them. The Beef Trust also teaches that the language called socialistic and anarchistic, when confined to working people, becomes profound political economy when uttered by some respectability with a pinched toe. ---- The Coal Trust is a later and even more radical national teacher. The respectable individual who a short time ago could see no difference between advocating Government ownership of national resources and communism or thievery has seen a wonderful light while gazing on his coal fire at Twelve Dollars a ton. Judges on the bench, eminently respectable newspapers--by which we mean those newspapers representing the interests of men who think with their pockets--are expressing the most radical out-and-out socialistic ideas. One of the mildest suggestions made by these respectabilities is that the Government should seize the coal mines and work them for the benefit of the people, setting aside the preposterous claims of the Coal Trust. Papers like the Springfield Republican, the Philadelphia Ledger and other solemn organs of antiquity are advocating, without knowing it, ideas which mean inevitably universal government ownership of monopolies. The Coal Trust as a public educator is an undoubted success, more of a success than it would like to be if it could understand the nature of its teachings. If the Government has a right to seize coal mines and work them for the people, as respectability now declares, why has it not a right to seize railroads, telegraphs and all the other great industries whose value depends entirely upon the national population? ---- Many men in this world hated their teachers while they were being whipped in the old- fashioned way, but look back with gratitude later on to those same teachers and those same whippings. Our national teachers, the trusts, are severe teachers. Their lessons are hard lessons, and they believe in very unpleasant forms of corporal punishment--inflicting hunger and cold upon their pupils. This nation in time will look back with gratitude to the lessons and to the whippings of the trusts. The trusts are teaching us inevitably that competition is antiquated; that organization is the real basis of industry. They are teaching us that it is feasible and necessary for the nation eventually to take possession of and manage its own properties, industrial as well as others. A WOMAN TO BE PITIED Why is it that comparatively few women find intense enjoyment in life after middle age? Why is it that you cannot duplicate among women such careers in old age as the careers of Spencer, Gladstone, Huxley, or any of the great men whose interest lies in mental activity and mental achievement? One reason is this: A great majority of women are inclined to accept and adopt without question the ideas formed for them. THEY GIVE UP THINKING EARLY IN LIFE. When a human being stops thinking, that human being's life practically ends. All over the country you may see thousands and hundreds of thousands of calm, settled, placid-faced, middle-aged women. They admire themselves and they are admired generally. They ought to be pitied. They think now on all subjects just as they thought ten or twenty or thirty years ago. They view with horror things which they know nothing about. They reject opinions which they don't understand; they have unlimited faith in matters of which they know absolutely nothing. ---- Every one pities a man whose existence and enjoyments are limited to the physical, sentimental side of life. We all feel that a man of fifty, unless hard conditions and want have ground interest and vitality out of him, ought to be at his best. He ought to be active, alert, OPEN TO NEW IDEAS. His mind is his one asset, and he should be constantly adding to his knowledge, to his observation, and therefore he should be constantly changing his mental point of view. Many women suffer undoubtedly from the sentimental, physical and intellectual reaction caused by the cessation of the responsibility of maternity. Such passionate affection, devotion and self-sacrifice are lavished upon the children that when they grow up nothing more seems worth while except to set them a good example. Many other things are worth while: And as improving civilization frees women more and more from the endless cares of the petty household and the worries of poverty, the field for their mental development will steadily expand. When woman shall have accomplished her greatest material duty, that of fully populating the earth, big families will no longer be known, not more than two years of any woman's life will be devoted to the worries of infancy, and then woman will have to do her share of the world's thinking and its original intellectual work. ---- For her own sake and for the sake of those about her, every woman, whatever her age, should realize that there is no old age for the brain well cared for. Many men and women view with sentimental reverence the picture of a middle-aged lady, old before her time, sitting in her rocking-chair, knitting placidly, without one original thought in a month. This sentimental idea is a false one. The type of woman to be admired is Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, eighty-four years old, filling Carnegie Hall with her wonderful voice, thrilling with admiration all of those who listened to her, reciting with the greatest mental power her splendid battle hymn, "Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory of the Coming of the Lord." THERE is a woman who enjoys her life. It is safe to say that the eighty-fourth year of her existence is as happy as any year that preceded it. She is an old woman, and to most women that means sorrow and dulness. But she is happy, admired and useful, BECAUSE SHE THINKS. There are in the United States hundreds of thousands of splendid brains going to waste among our women, because they do not realize the duty of using, to the last, all the intellectual power within them. WHEN WILL WOMAN'S MENTAL LIFE BEGIN? It is pathetic to hear women of intelligence arguing in support of woman's claim to "equality" with man. Of course, woman is really man's superior in important matters. She is vastly superior morally, beyond any question. She does the greatest work in the world; she gives to earth its thinking population and creates every one of the great men that move civilization along. ---- But otherwise, in the way of MATERIAL accomplishment, woman cannot be said to equal man at present, and she cannot be said ever to have equaled him. Many of the most intelligent women demand recognition for woman as equal or superior to man in all ways. They are deeply hurt if in gentle, patient reply you ask them to mention a female equivalent to a Newton, Archimedes or Shakespeare. It annoys them to tell them that a million autopsies prove fundamental differences between male and female brains in favor of the former--at least as regards volume and depth of cerebral convolutions. Sometimes, after you have listened to a proud, high-spirited woman trying to prove that women would equal men in material accomplishment, if only they had a chance, you get so sad that you find yourself helping her out--digging up De Sevignes, De Staels, and other "great" women who have made up in brains for what they perhaps lacked in femininity. ---- It is necessary to bear in mind that this earth, when man was turned loose upon it, was really a sort of desert island. It was a conglomeration of swamps, forests, deserts--all filled with wild beasts. Even the human beings, struggling feebly toward better days, were not far from the beasts at first. (They are not very far from them even now.) Two kinds of work had to be done. The men had to fight, dig, hunt, drain marshes and murder each other. The women had to SUPPLY THE MEN to do all the working and fighting and killing. Beasts, wars, fevers killed off the sons of women almost as fast as they could bear them. Women must supply the demand for soldiers and workers and at the same time a surplus big enough to populate the globe. Thus far she has put on earth fourteen hundred millions of her own kind. Quite an achievement, we should say, when the career of a Napoleon or an Alexander called for a couple of million of men extra, or a plague like the black death, due to man's stupid lack of cleanliness, wiped out two-thirds of Europe's people. ---- Men were the material workers--of course they exceeded in material achievement the women nursing babies at home. But woman, caring for her children, sacrificing her life for them, developed on earth the moral sentiments, started each generation on its career a little better than its predecessor. She could not do all this and do the material things as well. In fact, she could not even THINK except on matters very near to her cradle, or her affections. Remember that throughout the world's history it has been the lot of a vast majority of women to be constantly caring for young infants, or young children. Families of twenty children, or even more, have been common. It is probable that woman from the beginning of our racial existence until now has been the mother of from fifteen to twenty-five children on an average. The dullest mind can see what that means. Atrocious suffering. Endless worry about the children. Constant warfare against the man's selfish brutality. How could woman rear her twenty children and at the same time do other work? How could she keep every thought, every effort of her brain on her offspring and develop her mind in other ways at the same time? Give a man one young child to take care of FOR ONE DAY, and when you return to him you find a semi-imbecile, half-tearful creature. In every great man's life you hear some remark of this sort: "How can I work, Maria, if you let the children make such a noise?" Well, how could the millions of Marias work with the children hanging to their skirts all through history? ---- But a better day is ahead for woman, and we are proud to point it out to her. Wise men begin to wonder what we shall do when the earth is fully peopled? Shall we kill surplus babies, or what shall we do? There will be no surplus babies. Nature will arrange that. For every two human beings on earth two new ones will be born. Wars will be ended. Common sense will have done away with the unnecessary illness which now robs millions of mothers. No woman will have more than two children. Education will be understood. Women will not be slaves to their babies. They will be admired and thanked and made happy before the babies arrive --instead of being half ashamed, as at present. The rearing of children will be simple. Each woman, instead of devoting twenty years of her life to child slavery, will have practically her whole life to devote to other things. She will be able to cultivate her mind. She will have more of a hold on Mr. Selfish Man, and he will have to pay more attention to her. WOMAN'S hour of full mental development will arrive with the final and complete population of the globe, just as man's day of real mental growth will come after he shall have mastered the forces of nature and learned the elements of true social science. ---- Even then we do not anticipate that repulsive "equality" between men and women which is so much prated about. The complete human being is not A MAN, nor is it A WOMAN. The COMPLETE human being is a man AND a woman. The TWO MAKE ONE. Each will contribute a share to the perfection of the whole. That was the way it was planned from the beginning, and we think we could prove it, if this column were six feet longer. THE COW THAT KICKS HER WEANED CALF IS ALL HEART An estimable and very intelligent lady criticises modern education, saying, "So much brain is forced into the girl nowadays that it crowds out her heart." ---- At the risk of shattering the foundations of romance and poetry, it must be said here once and for all that the heart has nothing whatever to do with the emotions. It is simply a pump, and a large part of its work consists in pumping blood to the brain. The greater the brain, the greater and more active the heart must be. A serpent, with little or no brain and a cold disposition all around, gets along very nicely with little or no heart. Those who speak of the heart as opposed to the mind mean to speak of unreasoning sentiment as opposed to intellectual strength. The lady quoted and many others say that the woman and mother should be all affection, and that development of the mind diminishes the affection. We wish to lay down a few rules; we invite criticism. The best thing, the only important thing about a woman, a man, a baby, or any other human being, is the intellect. Affection is a beautiful thing, but affection is BORN in the brain and CONFINED to the brain. A young woman looks at a splendid creature in a soldier's uniform. Her heart beats fast, and she imagines, as all antiquity has imagined, that the heart is the seat of the emotions. Nonsense! The emotion is in the BRAIN, which has just received, through the optic nerve, a conception of the lovely vision in brass buttons. The heart is ordered to pump more blood to the head of the young girl, to supply mental activity and the becoming blush. If you hear bad news you feel the effect on your heart; sometimes you fall unconscious. That is because the brain sensation is so strong as to interfere with the heart's action. You feel the shock that the brain sends to the heart. ---- The idea that cultivation of the mind interferes with a woman's moral, sentimental, or motherly qualities is foolish twaddle. The idea that mere sentiment, ignorant, vague affection are sufficient without education to make a first-class human mother is false and feeble. Have you ever seen a cow follow the wagon that carries her calf to the butcher shop? It is a very sad sight, the plaintive lowing of the poor mother as she follows behind begging for her child to be restored. Every farmer knows that there is no necessity for hitching the cow to the wagon when her calf is inside. She will follow that calf until she drops. There is your loving, devoted mother without education. The cow's heart, to use the old expression, is all right. Her mental equipment is perfectly suited to a cow. Nature and society require that she should give the utmost love to her calf this year, and give all of that same love to another calf next year. Bring back in three months that calf that she follows now with such pitiful appeals. If the weaned calf tries to re-establish the old relationship, its mother, "all heart and no head," will kick it in the ribs and then butt it across the lot. ---- It's all right for the COW to be all heart and no head; she does not need the higher education. It is all right for the humble savage mother in the dark African jungle to be built on the same lines. Like the cow, all that she has to do is to take care of the baby until it is able to run around and forage for itself. But the civilized mother, the woman who must do her duty in the present and in the future as well, requires a good mind, love based upon knowledge and a sense of justice, affection that follows the child from the cradle to maturity, gradually substituting for intense motherly physical care an equally intense and loving intellectual companionship and guidance. ---- It is important, of course, that mothers of all kinds, human or animal, should be cheerful, and above all healthy, able to feed their babies themselves and feed them well. But as the brain in a human being is above the stomach, so the intellect in a mother is above the mere maternal affection inspired by babyhood. The great mothers are those who, when they cease feeding the child's body, can begin to feed the child's brain. The great men are great, and they were lucky, because they had mothers who did not cease to feed them when they were weaned, but kept on feeding them mentally into their manhood. ---- The woman with a big brain is the best IN EVERY WAY. She is better before she is married, for she attracts the man of intelligence, and establishes a family of intelligent beings. She is better as a young wife, because the ambition and intelligence in her call out the ambition and intelligence in her husband. Hers is the happy home that needs no divorce lawyer. Pink cheeks, small feet, squeezed waists, curly hair and such things disappear or get tiresome. And all pink cheeks are very much alike, as Dr. Johnson said of the green fields. But intelligence never gets tiresome; no two brains are ever at all alike if well developed. A woman of intelligence always develops new qualities; she can never be monotonous. There is no such thing as too much education, although educating us primitive men and women is apt to develop unexpected littleness. and thus create prejudice. ---- Note this important fact: The bigger the brain, the bigger the heart, not only physically, but sentimentally and morally. It takes brain to feel real emotion; a well-developed mind to develop real sentiment, real affection. A foolish, ignorant young woman may be pleasant enough to look at, but she is like a white, pink-eyed rabbit--ornamental, but a poor companion. RESPECTABLE WOMEN WHO LISTEN TO "FAUST" You know what happens in Gounod's great opera, "Faust," which is based on Goethe's work. An old man--his name is Faust--yearns for youth. He gets the youth, makes the devil's acquaintance, sells his soul to the devil for the devil's help. In the opera the devil is politely called Mephistopheles. Everybody is beautifully dressed, from the devil and Faust, the peasant girls and the ballet dancers, to the old grandmothers, with their diamonds and pearls, in the boxes. If you want to study human nature, you ought to look at the respectable old and young women at the opera while "Faust" is sung. The centre of the whole thing is a young woman named Marguerite. When the curtain goes up she has the best of intentions, the best character, the prettiest of faces, and two long, yellow braids down her back. She is dressed very prettily indeed, and in the opera house she has a high-sounding name, like Melba, Nordica, Calve or Patti. Every night that "Faust" is sung this young woman goes to the bad. Every night that "Faust" is sung every woman in the audience sympathizes with Marguerite, who behaves so badly. Many shed tears over her misfortune. All forgive her, feel sorry for her, and know that she is not to blame. The most severe old woman in the most expensive box would put her arms around Marguerite's neck and tell her not to fret. ---- How does that old lady act if on the way to her carriage she finds the sidewalk obstructed by some unfortunate creature who has Marguerite's sorrows without Marguerite's good clothes? Does she not say that it is an outrage for the police to allow such things? Possibly she will observe that in the opera Marguerite has not a fair chance. Faust has such beautiful silk tights, one leg striped and the other leg covered with spangles; and, besides, he has a devil to bring a box of jewels to tempt Marguerite. But we should like to tell the conservative old lady that the erring housemaid whom she may have judged so severely had greater temptation and a better excuse than did Marguerite, even though she could not get her voice up quite so high. Mephistopheles is just as busy with housemaids and poor, overworked shopgirls as with any Marguerite that ever lived. And his work is made easier by long hours, dull routine and hopeless future. It is strange and sad that moral women find it so easy to sympathize with the Marguerite whose sins and life end in the beautiful "Anges purs, anges radieux" aria written by Gounod, and not with the Marguerite who ends in the hospital, the morgue and the Potter's Field. It makes a great difference, apparently, to moral and virtuous women whether the erring Marguerite has a famous tenor on one side of her and a famous basso on the other, or whether she has on one side of her Bellevue Hospital and on the other side Blackwell's Island. WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE In this country and throughout the world women progress toward the full possession of the ballot, and toward equality with men in educational facilities. In one State after another women are beginning to practise law, they are obtaining new suffrage rights, they flock to newly opened schools and colleges. In England and Scotland, but a few years ago, only a few men in the population were allowed to vote--money was the requisite quality. To-day, in those countries, women vote at county elections, and in many cases at municipal elections. In Utah, Colorado and Idaho women as voters have the same rights as men. They have certain rights as voters in nine other States. In the great Commonwealth of New Zealand, so far ahead of all the rest of the world in humanity and social progress, the wife votes absolutely as her husband does. ---- The woman who votes becomes an important factor in life, for a double reason. In the first place, when a woman votes the candidate must take care that his conduct and record meet with a good woman's approval, and this makes better men of the candidates. In the second place, and far more important, is this reason: When women shall vote, the political influence of the good men in the community will be greatly increased. There is no doubt whatever that women, in their voting, will be influenced by the men whom they know. But there is also no doubt that they will be influenced by the GOOD men whom they know. Men can deceive each other much more easily than they can deceive women--the latter being providentially provided with the X-ray of intuitional perception. The blustering politician, preaching what he does not practise, may hold forth on the street corner or in a saloon, and influence the votes of others as worthless as himself. But among women his home life will more than offset his political influence. The bad husband may occasionally get the vote of a deluded or frightened wife, but he will surely lose the votes of the wives and daughters next door. Voting by women will improve humanity, because IT WILL COMPEL MEN TO SEEK AND EARN THE APPROVAL OF WOMEN. Our social system improves in proportion as the men in it are influenced by its good women. As for the education of women, it would seem unnecessary to urge its value upon even the stupidest of creatures. Yet it is a fact that the importance of thorough education of girls is still doubted--usually, of course, by men with deficient education of their own and an elaborate sense of their own importance and superiority. Mary Lyon, whose noble efforts established Mount Holyoke College, and spread the idea of higher education for women throughout the world, put the case of women's education in a nutshell. She said: "I think it less essential that the farmers and mechanics should be educated than that their wives, the mothers of their children, should be." The education of a girl is important chiefly because it means the educating of a future mother. Whose brain but the mother's inspires and directs the son in the early years, when knowledge is most easily absorbed and permanently retained? If you find in history a man whose success is based on intellectual equipment, you find almost invariably that his mother was exceptionally fortunate in her opportunities for education. Well educated women are essential to humanity. They insure abler men in the future, and incidentally they make the ignorant man feel ashamed of himself in the present. ASTRONOMY WOMAN'S FUTURE WORK In the centuries to come, perhaps a thousand centuries from now, perhaps a little sooner, woman will get her chance on earth. Population will have reached its normal limit, and nature's wise law, dealing with a really civilized race, will automatically limit children to two in each family. Schools and nurseries will be scientific and perfect. The care of children will be the duty of the State. Very poor women will be unknown, and unknown will be the woman burdened with the isolated care of children in an isolated household. In those distant days woman will do her share of the world's intellectual and artistic work. Physical work of all kinds will have been practically annihilated by machinery. Our big, muscular bodies, developed hitherto with an eye to pursuing wild animals, carrying heavy burdens and fighting each other like dog-apes in the forest, will be refined and very different from their present brutality. It will be an agreeable earth, a very agreeable and much improved human race. ---- Those millennial days, which are sure to come, will find us with our little earthly problems solved. We shall have outgrown our infancy, and, like a child that has learned to walk and balance itself, we shall understand the forces of nature and use them. Our principal occupation will be harmonious life on this planet and persistent investigation of the marvels of the universe outside of our own little sphere. As centuries have gone by on earth, power has dwelt with different classes of human beings. In the days of the Troglodytes, when one gentleman would crack another gentleman's thigh-bone to get at the marrow, the most important man of course was the one best able with physical force to murder his fellows. At various times the great explorer, the great military strategist, has been the most important of men. To-day the most important man is the organizer of industry. He is really the most important, not only in the size of his reward, but in the service which he renders. Nature gives the biggest reward to him who does the most important work. A thousand centuries from now the most important human being will be the most efficient astronomer. The man who shall bring us accurate news of other worlds will be welcomed as was Christopher Columbus or Drake or Raleigh in his day. Women will be very important factors in astronomical research. The work of the astronomer is especially the work of patience, of enthusiasm, of devotion. Patience, enthusiasm and devotion are more highly developed in women than in men. Already, in view of her extremely limited opportunities, woman has done admirably well in the field of astronomy. We note that it is a woman at Cambridge whose stellar photographs first located the new star in Perseus. In England, in Germany and in France women astronomers are doing work almost equal to that of the best men. Everybody will remember the faithful labor of Herschel's sister, working all through the night and sleeping through the day, month after month and year after year, helping her great brother in his studies. There is a kind of small-fry man who dislikes the idea of mental development among women. He is a mouselike kind of creature, so thoroughly conscious of his own smallness, so thoroughly in love with his own importance, that he dreads the intellectual woman, who makes him feel microscopic. Despite the protests of such men, some of whom are editors, women are making progress. When they shall give to science, especially to astronomy, the passionate, devoted attention which they have given for ages to the care of children, they will rank among the highest on earth. WOMAN'S VANITY IS USEFUL We'll waste no time in proving that women, from the cradle to the grave, at all hours and all ages, are sincerely interested in their personal appearance. No man should object to this--the constitutional guarantee referring to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness covers the ground fully. But it is not enough for men NOT TO OBJECT to woman's various innocent vanities. Every man should be delighted that women are vain. Each man should do what he can to keep the vanity alive. FOR WOMAN'S VANITY, DEARLY BELOVED, IS THE ONE AND INDISPENSABLE PRESERVER OF HER HEALTH. A woman cannot be pretty, according to her own notions, unless HEALTHY. If too fat, she is not pretty--and she is miserable until, through self-control, she gets thin. If too thin, she is not pretty. At present she has a crazy sort of idea that to be "skinny" is to be attractive. That is a passing delusion. In the long run women realize that there is nothing beautiful about a female living skeleton, and they strive through normal living to become normal. Above all, no woman can have a good complexion unless she have good health and live normally. This one absorbing question of complexion does more for woman's health; it gives us more strong mothers, and more sensible girls, than all the preachings, beseechings, prayers and expostulations of all the world's male advisers. A woman's instinct is to eat buckwheat cakes, adding boiling hot coffee and iced water. She likes to eat candy between meals, and her idea of a fine luncheon is lobster salad and ice cream. But small spots appear. Those fine pink cheeks get too pink or too pale, and sensible eating is adopted as a life rule. Even the hideous corset squeezing is counteracted by the power of complexion. Woman likes to look like a wasp, and if she could she would move her poor system all out of place for the sake of a waist hideously small. But, providentially, a waist squeezed too mercilessly gives a bright pink tip to the end of the nose; and for the sake of the color of that nose-tip the poor waist gets a rest--the corset is let out. It cannot be denied that among idle, nervous women to-day there is a tendency to take stimulants to excess, and even to smoke abominable cigarettes. Alcohol, fortunately, ruins the complexion. And for the sake of their looks women often deny themselves and show a strength of resolution that would not be called forth by any moral appeal. Cigarettes in short order make the face sallow, spoil the shape of the mouth, make the eyes heavy, fill the hair with permanently unpleasant nicotine suggestions, develop a mustache--and women are cured of cigarette smoking by a look in the glass, when they could not be cured by tearful appeals of the wisest philosophers. ---- Do not, therefore, O men, despise the vanity of women. Praise and cherish it rather. Be grateful that nature works in a wonderful way through the power of attraction, making woman do for good looks' sake that which is most important to her welfare. If you want to cure your wife or some other female relative of lacing, don't moralize. Say to her six or seven times: "Isn't the end of your nose a little red?" Should she act in any way unwisely, staying up too late, living foolishly, trying the silly and unwomanly habit of cigarette smoking, don't criticise the habit. Criticise her complexion, or the look of her eyes, or her general lack of youthfulness. She will soon be cured, if you can follow this advice astutely. TO EDITORIAL WRITERS--ADOPT RUSKIN'S MAIN IDEA His pen is rust, his bones are dust (or soon will be), his soul is with the saints, we trust. Ruskin is to be buried in Westminster Abbey. It is a fine home for a dead man, with Chatham and his great son Pitt in one tomb, and the other great skeletons of a great race mouldering side by side so neighborly. The death of a wolf means a meal for the other wolves. The death of a great man means a meal--mental instead of physical--for those left behind. Wolves feed their STOMACHS--we feed our BRAINS--on the dead. There is many a meal for the hungry brain in Ruskin's remains. We offer now a light breakfast to that galaxy of American talent called "editorial writers." Editorial writing may be defined in general as "the art of saying in a commonplace and inoffensive way what everybody knew long ago." There are a great many competent editorial writers, and the bittern carrying on his trade by the side of some swamp is about as influential as ten ordinary editorial writers rolled into one. Why is it that we are so worthless, O editorial writers? Why do we produce such feeble results? Why do we talk daily through our newspapers to ten millions of people and yet have not influence to elect a dog catcher? Simply because we want to sound wise, when that is impossible. Simply because we are foolish enough to think that commonplaces passed through our commonplace minds acquire some new value. We start off with a wrong notion. We think that we are going to lead, that we are going to remedy, that we are going to DO THE PUBLIC THINKING FOR THE PUBLIC. Sad nonsense. The best that the best editorial writer can achieve is to make the reader think for himself. At this point we ask our fellow editorial men--our superiors, of course--to adopt Ruskin's idea of a useful writer. In a letter to Mrs. Carlyle, written when he was a young man, he outlined the purpose which he carried out, and which explains his usefulness to his fellow-men: "I have a great hope of disturbing the public peace in various directions." This was his way of saying that he hoped to stir up dissatisfaction, to provoke irritation, impatience and a determination to do better among the unfortunate. He did good, because he awoke thought in thousands of others, in millions of others. Editorial writers, don't you know that stirring up dissatisfaction is the greatest work you can do? Tell the poor man ten thousand times: "There is no reason why you should be overworked. There is no reason why your children should be half-fed and half-educated. There is no reason why you should sweat to fatten others." Tell them this often enough, stir up their determination sufficiently--they will find their own remedies. If you want to drive out the handful of organized rogues that control politics and traffic in votes, don't talk smooth platitudes. Tell the people over and over again that the thieves ARE thieves, that they should be in jail, that honest government would mean happier citizens, that the INDIVIDUAL CITIZEN is responsible. Keep at it, and the country will be made better by those who alone can make it better--the people. ---- On the front platform a fat policeman said, after deep thought: "Well, it's an ill wind that blows nobody good." The driver, this writer and an Italian workman looked at the policeman in deep admiration. It was so evident that he had the making in him of an expensive editorial writer. He could say so solemnly and authoritatively what every living man knew by heart. Suppose you stop spouting platitudes, editorial gentlemen, and try your hand at stirring up plain, everyday antagonism to existing false conditions. "Disturb the public peace," as Ruskin put it. You must know that you can't win the fights individually, so be like the Norse maidens that stirred up the real fighters to do their duty. Keep singing to the public that it is their duty to fight. They will fight and win, and thank you for the suggestion. IMAGINATION WITHOUT DREAMING THE SECRET OF MATERIAL SUCCESS "Marconi has imagination without being a dreamer." Thus Mr. Serviss gave an explanation of material achievement and material success on big lines. WITHOUT imagination a man may prosper relatively. He may live comfortably and die contented. But at best such a man will only follow in beaten paths. He will only do what others have done before him. He will not receive any of the great rewards which humanity offers to those whose IMAGINATION opens for the benefit of all new fields of thought, of successful material effort. ---- In material achievement there are two elements--executive force (which may be sub-divided into an indefinite number of classifications) and the great creative power, IMAGINATION. Imagination enabled Marconi to see the possibility of sending electric messages without wires. Had he been a dreamer, had he allowed his imagination to wander on indefinitely into notions of talking to other planets, the power of his imagination might have been in vain. His imagination enabled him to SEE the possibility, and the lack of the dreamer's quality enabled him to REALIZE it. There were many men centuries ago who, in an abstract kind of way, knew that the earth was round. Their imaginations led them to the discovery of facts--and long before Galileo's recantation many men knew vaguely the truth of what he taught. It took Galileo, a man of great imagination, not a dreamer, to demonstrate his truth to all the world. It took Columbus, with imagination and courage, but none of the dreamer about him, to sail around the world to America and prove practically what is now known to every child. Wherever you see great material success on a new line, you see imagination without dreaming. It took real power of imagination in Rockefeller to conceive and execute the construction of the Standard Oil monopoly. It took the financial imagination of Morgan to conceive the idea of taking $500,000,000 worth of steel mills and welding them into the Steel Trust--no dreamer could have done this thing. Many a dreamer had foreseen the steam engine, the steamboat and other great inventions, without result. At the right moment a man of imagination like Fulton came along and did the actual work that the dreamer could not do. If you want to succeed in the world, cultivate your imagination. And if you want your children to succeed encourage them in the development of their imaginations. But let your imaginings and the imaginings of your children stop this side of dreamland. Your brain's activity is divided into the conscious and sub-conscious departments. The conscious side of your mentality puts you into communication with the world, enables you to meet and to cope with conditions and individuals. If you are to succeed materially the conscious mind must control, direct and limit the activities of the sub-conscious mind with which the imagination does its work. If your sub-conscious brain, in the departments of abstract thought, imagination and dreaming, be allowed to run away with the practical side, you may be a very great man in the far-distant future, but you may be sure that you will not succeed now. ---- THE EARTH'S GREATEST MEN ARE DREAMERS. The world never recognizes these dreamers. The successful man admits limitations. He accepts conditions as they are. He uses his imagination only as long as it can carry him to individual success and comfort. But the very greatest spirits among men are the spirits of dreamers. These are the men who refuse to acknowledge any limitations save the limitations of absolute truth and of absolute possibility. When nine-tenths of human beings were slaves, these dreamers refused to recognize slavery, and they died for their belief. Every man who led a great moral reform ahead of his time was a dreamer. And these dreamers, whose lives are scattered through history, each a tragedy and each a milestone on the path of civilization, did for civilization what a frontiersman does for a new country. Jesus Christ was a dreamer. He saw the truth and preached it, although it meant death, and He knew that it meant death. The brotherhood that He preached nineteen hundred years ago has not yet been realized, but it WILL be realized in His name, and His teachings and His death will be eternal factors in its realization. Slowly through the centuries the men of imagination who do not dream are working and striving, each doing his little part to realize the prophecies of the Great Dreamer. Each compared to Him is as a tiny tallow dip compared to the noonday sun, but each is necessary. THE ONE WHO NEEDS NO STATUE A movement is started in Italy to celebrate religiously the close of the nineteenth century. The idea is to erect at different points on the Peninsula nineteen colossal statues of Christ. The statues, one for each century, are to be of cast-iron, gilded, heroic in size. There can be no objection to the idea, since it gives expression to proper religious feeling. But should it fail of execution, that would be quite as well. ---- For one Man only in all the history of the world no statue is needed. To the glory of one Man we can add nothing save through obedience to the laws which He brought on earth. ---- Where a weak woman is kindly treated, where children are received with tenderness, where the hungry are fed and the old cared for, there is a monument to Christ--such a monument as He would ask to have built. The wisdom of Confucius, the self-abnegation of Gautama, the lofty idealism of Zoroaster, may be fitly commemorated and perhaps magnified by human monuments or human praise. But men can build nothing that shall add to the glory of that life which is the basis of good among all men. THE VAST IMPORTANCE OF SLEEP MIschievous stories are told about the ability of great men to do without sleep. The foolish young man reads that Napoleon slept only three or four hours at night--and he cuts down his hours of sleep. He might better open a vein and lose a pint of blood than lose the sleep, which is life itself. Most of the stories told about great men doing without sleep are mere lies. Some of them are true. For instance, it is undoubtedly true that Napoleon--an inconceivably foolish, reckless man in matters affecting his physical welfare--did deprive himself of sleep in his early years. But he paid for it dearly. In his last battles his power of resistance was so slight that he actually went to sleep during the fighting. Chronic drowsiness weakened his brain, weakened his force of character. The foundation of his final ruin was laid in Russia, when lack of sleep, and unwise living generally, had taken away his mental elasticity and deprived him of the power to form and carry out resolutions. ---- It is mainly the young man who needs the lecture on sleep, for the experience of years soon proves to every human being the folly of cheating nature by adding a few hours of drowsy consciousness to the day. You begin life with a certain amount of vitality, a certain initial vital VELOCITY, which carries you through life and makes possible certain accomplishments. When you deprive yourself of sleep you squander this original capital. Just as surely as the young spendthrift ruins himself financially when he throws away his money, just so surely you bring irreparable loss upon yourself when you go without sleep. THE FOOD WHICH YOU EAT IS DIGESTED AND TRANSFORMED INTO NEW TISSUE, INTO BLOOD, NERVE, MUSCLES AND BRAIN WHILE YOU ARE SLEEPING. Look at the men who engage in the atrocious six-day walks and bicycle races. They eat enormously, absorbing in one day five times as much as the ordinary man can possibly swallow. But the end of their task finds them extremely emaciated. Lack of sleep has made it impossible for them to TRANSFORM THE FOOD INTO NEW TISSUE. Any man or woman who has suffered from insomnia will confirm this statement, that lack of sleep decreases weight and diminishes vitality more quickly than anything else. ---- Remember this when you brag foolishly about going without sleep! A man can go forty days without solid food. He can live seven days, or even longer, without food or water. He cannot live seven days without sleep. The Chinese, ingenious in torments, discovered no worse death than killing their victims by depriving them of sleep. Of course, every young man can go without sleep for a whole night occasionally and go on with his work. He can do this because, from his father and mother, he has inherited a certain amount of vitality, which, if he knows no better, he can squander stupidly, just as he can squander, if he will, what money is left to him. But no man can deprive himself of sleep, or sleep irregularly, without suffering permanently, without diminishing his chances of success in the world. ---- Many a woman among those called "fashionable" looks at the healthy child of a gardener, and wonders that her child is so different. The reason is simple. The gardener's wife did not cheat her child by giving to balls and late hours the vitality needed by her babies. The woman who loses sleep will make a failure of her children. The man who loses sleep will make a failure of his life, or at least diminish greatly his chances of success. WOMAN SUSTAINS, GUIDES AND CONTROLS THE WORLD Of all events here on earth, the greatest is the birth of a baby. Great battles are fought, won and lost. Nations and religions rise and fall. Great cities flourish to-day, and to-morrow the sand lies heavy over them. And of all these events the eternal Niagara of new babies is the first and essential foundation. He knows little of real life, its greatest happiness, deepest devotion, intensest suffering, who has never witnessed the arrival of a new human being in this life of progress and struggle. There lies the new baby at last, its black face gradually turning pink, its first gasping breaths changing the color of its blood, its tiny fists opening and closing--reaching out for nourishment already, its face tying itself into the first philosophical, cosmos-interrogating knot. Its feet turn inward and its legs are crooked. Its head is so shapeless as to discourage any one but a mother; it has three years of gurgling, ten years of childhood, ten years of foolishness, ten years of vanity--and possibly a few years of real usefulness ahead of it. Some one must be patient, hopeful, interested, proud, never discouraged, always devoted, through all these years. That "some one," the mother, lies there weak and white on the bed. Her forehead and all her body are wet with agony--but she thinks no longer of that. She has heard her baby's first cry, and whether it be her first or her tenth, the feeling is the same. Her feeble, outstretched arms and her hollow, loving eyes are turned toward the helpless little creature. Those arms and that love will never desert it as long as the mother shall live. The mother's weak hand supports the heavy, dull baby head and guides it to its rest on her breast. And that hand which supports the head of the new-born baby, the mother's hand, supports the civilization of the world. THE STORY OF THE COMPLAINING DIAMOND The Rev. David James Burrell, in "A Quiver of Arrows," presents a very interesting parable on the benefit of trials. Here is the parable: Trials are profitable. The rough diamond cried out under the blow of the lapidary: "I am content; let me alone." But the artisan said, as he struck another blow: "There is the making of a glorious thing in thee." "But every blow pierces my heart." "Ay; but after a little it shall work for thee a far more exceeding weight of glory." "I cannot understand," as blow fell upon blow, "why I should suffer in this way." "Wait; what thou knowest not now, thou shalt know hereafter." And out of all this came the famous Koh-i-noor to sparkle in the monarch's crown. ---- There is a lesson in the story of the diamond for every man, and there is an ESPECIALLY good lesson for the young man who is succeeding too fast. That diamond became the extraordinarily beautiful stone that we read about, and that many of us would foolishly like to own, because of the trials through which it passed. We do not mean to suggest that men, to succeed, should NECESSARILY undergo repeated poundings and hammerings, although, as a matter of fact, the really great men of the world have undergone such grinding and polishing and hard knocks as no diamond was ever submitted to. But we do say distinctly that almost every man needs in the course of his life a FIRST-CLASS FAILURE. No man is more unfortunate than he who succeeds too quickly and too easily. His success makes him exaggerate his own importance and ability. It makes him underestimate the strength of those who compete with him, and the difficulty of winning in the long run. The world is full of all kinds of disappointed beings--artists, writers, business men--workers of all sorts, who lead disappointed lives. Of these men, a great many started out hopefully and promisingly. But fate failed to do for them the work of the polishing lapidary that we all need. They succeeded too soon, they made money too easily, they rose too suddenly. Failure at the right time would have made them think, work and do better. But failure came too late, and when the energy to fight and overcome was no longer there. If every young man who thinks well of himself will realize that he mistakes good fortune for great ability, and that the failure that has been put off will come sooner or later, unless he thinks of it and struggles to improve himself in spite of success, many disappointments will be saved in the future. Discount your failure. Don't wait for it to discount you. DON'T BE IN A HURRY, YOUNG GENTLEMEN There are many young men on earth who fail because they lack ambition and determination to advance. There are many more whose trouble is hasty ambition. They fail to realize their present chances in their hurried reaching out for something better. You may see in any club, pool-room or other resort for wasting time crowds of young men smoking and deploring their lack of success. "I've been working three years at the same job and the same salary," one will say, "and I don't see what chance I have for getting ahead." The young man who talks in this way does not realize that success depends on developing the qualities which are in him. He can develop them if he will, no matter what his place in the world. Once he is ready to do good work, once he is developed, the work will find him out. ---- When Napoleon Bonaparte was resting from his labors at St. Helena he used to tell this story: "One day on parade a young lieutenant stepped out of the ranks much excited to appeal to me personally. He said to me that he had been a lieutenant for five years and had not been able to advance in rank. I said to him, 'Calm yourself. I was seven years a lieutenant, and yet you see that a man may push himself forward, for all that.' " ---- Napoleon, when he preached this lesson to the young, dissatisfied officer, was the self-made Emperor of the French and of a great many other nations. He had come to Paris a thin, hollow-cheeked, under-sized boy from the conquered and despised island of Corsica. He stuck in the humble grade of lieutenant for seven years. When the time came he blossomed out. When he was lieutenant he was developing himself. He studied and mastered the art of war. He wrote the history of Corsica, and no one would publish it. He wrote a drama which was never acted. He wrote a prize essay for the Academy of Lyons, and did not win the prize. On the contrary, his effort was condemned as incoherent and poor in style. These were a few failures; enough to make your ordinary young man throw up his hands and say: "I've done all I can do; now let the world look out for me." Just as he became hopeful about the future when he knew that he had real military genius, he was dismissed from the army, and his career seemed to be ended. He made the thin soup upon which he and his brother lived. He could afford to change his shirt only once a week. He said: "I breakfasted off dry bread, but I bolted the door on my poverty." He kept at it, and all the time, successful or otherwise, he was developing himself. He developed into an emperor. Young men will please notice that fact, and the fact that Napoleon worked and tried under adversity and monotony instead of grumbling. ---- The newspaper reporter who does not get ahead very fast, the author whose manuscripts are treated as were Napoleon's first efforts, may study with considerable profit a young American writer named Richard Harding Davis. That young man had been a reporter in Philadelphia for seven years when he went to work on a New York evening newspaper at a small salary. He had written and was writing some of his best stories, but could not get ahead, apparently. Nevertheless, he kept on trying, and developed himself. When other young men were busy talking about themselves or deploring their lot Davis was writing and grinding away out of working hours at the effort to get out and realize what was in him. He succeeded. ---- A few cases have been mentioned for young men to think over. They are selected at random. No young man need worry about himself so long as he can honestly say that he is doing his best. Being in the same place at the same salary for seven years can do you no harm, if you are developing during that time what is in you. But you may well worry if you are drifting aimlessly, pitying yourself, making no effort. If your mind stays in the same spot for years, that is dangerous. But don't worry about anything else. WHEN THE BABY CHANGED INTO A FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD Nothing is more common than to hear men--especially great and moral men--deplore the results of civilization, of mechanical, industrial and scientific progress. We quote a typical lament by a noble and sincere man, the Reverend Charles Wagner, author of an admirable book called "The Simple Life." The author says: "If it had been prophesied to the ancients that one day humanity would have all of the machinery now in use to sustain and protect natural existence, they would have concluded therefrom, first, an increase of independence, and in the second place, a great decrease in the competition for worldly possessions, They would have thought that the simplification of life would have been the result of such perfected means of action, that there would follow the realization of a higher standard of morality. Nothing of this sort has come to pass--not happiness, nor social peace, nor energy for good has increased." Naturally, from a superficial point of view, it is discouraging to see poverty, ostentation of wealth, injustice and the love of money increasing, instead of declining, with the great developments in human power. Suppose it had been said two hundred years ago that some day one single man, with a loom, would be able to make cloth enough to clothe scores in one day; that a few children working in a stocking factory would be able to produce more stockings than a million women could knit. It would, of course, have been prophesied that when these great inventions came everybody would be well clothed, every woman and child would have warm stockings--and so on. But we find, as society's powers increase, as machinery improves, and the means of producing and distributing wealth develop, that the struggle for existence and the display of avarice are accentuated. The pessimistic man, observing these conditions, is filled with despair for the future of humanity. He predicts worse and worse times ahead, while he longs for the peaceable old days before the steam engine had appeared among us. ---- Now, in order to map out a parable, we must ask you to do a good deal of supposing. Suppose, in place of the human race, one single human baby. Suppose that its mother had never seen another baby, and had no idea of the laws governing a baby's development. And suppose, as the helpless baby lay on its back in the cradle, waving its arms, kicking its legs, gasping and blinking, that the following prophecy had been made to the mother: "Some day that baby of yours will be five feet high. Some day it will be able to walk and run, and throw stones, and carry weights, and fight, and do all kinds of things." Of course, the mother, hearing this, would have been very much rejoiced, saying to herself: "My baby now is feeble and helpless, and I must watch it all the time to see that it does not roll out of the cradle, or that the cat does not bite it. When my baby gets to be five feet high and able to fight and run and jump, of course it will be free from danger, it will live happily, and I shall be free from anxiety." Now, suppose that fourteen years have passed. The mother has seen the baby grow to be five feet high and fourteen years old, and the prophecy is fulfilled. Is the mother happy? She is weeping bitterly. The baby has certainly improved in its powers most wonderfully. It can run and jump and fight. As a result of its abilities, it comes back one day with a black eye, the next day with a broken nose, the next day with a sore toe. It is always in trouble. It has even developed vicious traits of its own. It tells lies, it steals, it is even disrespectful to its mother. You supposed, don't forget, that this mother never saw another baby, and knew nothing about the development of human beings along certain lines. Would she not be horrified at her child's condition? Would she not think it getting worse and worse, and that it must end horribly and tragically? Would she not sigh for the old days of the cradle, and wish that her baby might go back to its babyhood and live comfortably once more, on its back, with its hands and feet in the air and a vacant look in its eyes? ---- The human race has gone ahead, as that supposititious baby goes ahead in fourteen years. We have obtained many new forces, many new accomplishments. We have learned to use steam and electricity, as the child learns to use its legs and its hands. But, like the child of fourteen, we have not developed morally or mentally in proportion to our physical development. But just as surely as the child passes on from childhood, with its follies, its quarrels, and its accidents, to mature, self-respecting manhood, just so surely will the human race go through its babyhood, through its boyhood, and on into years of wisdom, justice, self-control and real accomplishment. ---- At present we are in a childish condition as a race, just about able to walk and run around a little. We do not see our future clearly, and many of us look back regretfully to the simple days of industrial babyhood. But those days can never be brought back, even if we wanted to bring them back. The thing for us to do is to remember that great progress and a great future are ahead of us, and do all we can to prepare for the future and hurry it along. We should refrain especially from feelings of pessimism. We should study and work to control ourselves as well as we can, and look ahead into the future. Remember this very true saying and apply it in your attitude toward the world: "It is not enough to believe in God; one must believe in man, in humanity and its future." THE EYE THAT WEIGHS A TON All our fussing and fuming about little matters must end in time. It is a comfort to feel sure that the time will come when questions of wages, starvation, justice, supply and demand, finance, and all the miserable worries of to-day, from Presidential elections to the digging of sewers, will be things of the past. Had we been intended for such things exclusively, we might as well have been put in a hole in the ground or in some cool corner of Hades to fight out our troubles. We should not have needed for our home a beautiful globe, swinging through endless space, bathed in sunlight or blessed with the companionship of other suns and planets whirling with us on mysterious errands. Man's work of to-day--the fighting, the sweating, the starving, the cheating and lying, the miserable births and the dull, stupid, monotonous living--will end soon. Real HUMAN life will dawn and end the period of savage life. Control of nature's forces will supply every man with what he needs to keep his body alive, his soul and his brain free from care. Then men will cease their animal lives, cease eating to live and living to eat. They will live to think. The brain, which differentiates them from the animals, will give the real interest to their lives. Mental work--art, science and things worth while--will occupy them. ---- Does it not seem probable that when the day of organized life comes our chief interest will be the study of the universe--the other worlds outside of our own? The great man will be he whose genius shall cross interstellar space as Columbus crossed the ocean. The great newspaper editor will be the first to get a signed statement from Mars. The discoverer of that day will get from some older planet information millions of years ahead of our own. As the dull mind of the field-plodder now looks toward the great cities--toward the vast movement outside his own little life--so shall men look away from this little, limited, but by that time well regulated, planet, to the mysteries and the grandeurs of the worlds outside. Life will be complete in those coming days. Men will look back with pity to the time when they quarreled about little metal money tokens, locked each other up in jail, or choked each other to death legally. Let us hope and believe that we may come back then to share the pleasure of the world's mature days, since we are sentenced to exist here to-day in the greasy, clammy period of struggle and half-bakedness. ---- While the infant sits drawing milk, with never a dream of solid food, the teeth are growing beneath its gums. And while we crawl around here now, with no conception of our future state, some of the forces at work among us are preparing for the days when real life shall begin. Among these forces you may count the constructors of the great cosmic eye--the huge telescope that is now building in Paris. Compared with all other exhibits at the Paris Fair, that great instrument will be as a giant among babies, a Corliss engine among children's toys. It is the precursor of the great instruments which in the future will take man on his travels through space. Imperfect as it is, it fills the mind with awe and the imagination with delight. ---- Think of the great celestial eye, flint and crown glass lenses more than four feet in diameter, weighing a ton, and suspended at the end of a tube one hundred feet long! It will reach out thousands of billions of miles into space, giving us, perhaps, new secrets of the universe. Yet it is but a child's toy compared to the instruments which must follow it. And you who read this, if your mind is fresh and your imagination not jaded, may be the man who shall add to the power of this instrument as Galileo added to that given to the world by Lippershey, the humble Dutchman. We invite the young American of ambition to study this latest proof of man's growing skill, and see whether he can imagine anything to add to it. ---- "I have not seen it" say you. If you are the right man, you do not need to SEE it. Galileo only HEARD of Lippershey's discovery. He thought hard on the problems of refraction for one night, and as a result produced a telescope capable of magnifying threefold. He finally produced a telescope of thirty-two-fold power. This French telescope magnifies six thousand times, but it is only a baby telescope, full of faults. It is rendered imperfect by the wavy motion of the air, which affects our sight just as the motion of the waves affects the sight of a fish. It lacks any adequate arrangement for light supply. The great trouble of the astronomer is the getting of more light in his telescopes. You may be the man to tell him how to do it without adding to the diameter of his object glass. Anyhow, think about the big telescope. If it does not make you an astronomer or a great inventor, it may stir up your brain to the pitch of inventing a really good chicken coop. That is still lacking, and in great demand. WHAT ANIMAL CONTROLS YOUR SPIRIT? Of all animals upon earth man came last. All of earth's animal creations are bound up in man. As to the first statement there is no difference of opinion. The Bible and Darwin agree that man was created last of all the animals. Very superficial observation will convince you that man contains in his mental make-up all of the "inferior" animals, or at least a great many of them. You, Mr. Jones, or Smith, who read this are in your single self a sort of synthesis of the entire animal creation. If you could be divided into your component animal parts there would be a menagerie in your house, and you, Smith or Jones, would be missing. That thing we call a "soul" would be floating around, impalpable, looking for its house to live in. ---- Of course, you can see the animal make-up in your neighbor more readily than in yourself. How do men describe each other? Do they not speak as follows, and mean exactly what they say "He is as sly as a fox." "He eats like a pig." "He has dog-like faithfulness." "He is as brave as a lion." "He is as treacherous as a snake." "He was as hungry as a wolf," etc. ---- Our good and our bad qualities alike are mapped out in our humble animal relations. The horse stands for ambition, which strives and suffers in silence. The dog represents friendship, which suffers and sacrifices much, but whines loudly when injured. We have no doubt that of the twelve passions which enter into Fourier's complex analysis of man each has its prototype in some one animal. ---- To rebel at the animal combination which makes up a man would be folly. The Maker of us all, from ants to anti-imperialists, naturally gathered together the various parts in lower animal form before finishing the work in man. A harmoniously balanced mixture of all the animals is calculated undoubtedly to produce the perfect man. ---- Therefore, study your animal make-up. Analyze honestly and intelligently the so-called "lower" creatures from whom you derive your mental characteristics. If you have not yet done so, study at once some good work on embryology, and learn with amazement and awe of your marvelous transformations before birth. Then do your best to control the menagerie that is at work in your mind. Stultify Mr. Pig, if he is too prominent. Circumvent Mr. Fox, if he tries to rule you and make of you a mere cunning machine. Do not let your Old Dog Tray qualities of friendship lead to your being made a fool. In short, study carefully the animal qualities that make up your temperament and prove in your own person the falseness of Napoleon's irritating statement that a man's temperament can never be changed by himself. ---- It may interest you to note that when man becomes insane, the fact is at once made apparent that his mind, dethroned, had acted as the ruler of a savage menagerie. Many crazy men imagine themselves animals of one sort or another. Nearly all of them display the grossest animal qualities, once their mind is deranged. Women of the greatest refinement sink into dreadful animalism when insane. Heine tells of a constable who, in his boyhood, ruled his native city. One fine day "this constable suddenly went crazy, * * * and thereupon he began to roar like a lion or squall like a cat." Heine remarks with calculated naivete: "We little boys were greatly delighted at the old fellow, and trooped, yelling, after him until he was carried off to a madhouse." There is, by the way, much of the natural animal in "little boys." It takes years to make a fairly reasonable creature of a young human. For that reason many ignorant parents are foolishly distressed at juvenile displays of animalism, which are perfectly natural. ---- The same Heine, whose writings you ought not to neglect, describes beautifully a human menagerie. We'll quote that, and then let you off for the day. Heine was living in Paris in the forties, and used to visit a curious revolutionary freak named Ludwig Borne. Of this man's house Heine wrote: "I found in his salon such a menagerie of people as can hardly be found in the Jardin des Plantes (the Paris zoological garden). In the background several polar bears were crouching, who smoked and hardly ever spoke, except to growl out now and then a real fatherland 'Donnerwetter' in a deep bass voice. Near them was squatting a Polish wolf in a red cap, who occasionally yelped out a silly, wild remark in a hoarse tone. There, too, I found a French monkey, one of the most hideous creatures I ever saw; he kept up a series of grimaces, each of which seemed more lovely than the last," etc. If Heine's polar bears, wolf and monkey had studied themselves, as we advise you to study yourself, they might have escaped the sarcasm of the sharpest tongue ever born in or out of Germany. FROM MAMMOTHS TO MOSQUITOES --FROM MURDER TO HYPOCRISY You are standing with this writer on the edge of a stagnant pool in Northern Europe, fifty thousand years ago. The trees are strange, the life is strange. There are certain familiar things visible. For instance, on one side of the pool there is an angry mammoth, with long hair and long tusks. He is a huge, savage beast, monster of power with tiny, vicious eyes, and a curled trunk of unlimited force. You recognize his resemblance to the modern elephant, and you feel at home. In the middle of the pool, standing up to his waist in water, there is another queer creature. He has long, red hair, and through his lips you can see that in his rage he is grinding a large set of teeth with the canine incisors abnormally developed. He is a shaggy, savage-looking brute, with a bloody and an apprehensive eye. You will recognize him as a human being. As he stands in the pool there is a familiar slap of his right hand on the back of his left shoulder--he has killed a mosquito. That is the picture. We leave the mammoth, primitive man and the mosquito to settle their troubles. We call your attention to this. If you really witnessed that scene you would have undoubtedly said to the red-eyed savage in the pool: "My friend, you can kill that mosquito easily, and possibly in time you will kill all the mosquitoes. But that MAMMOTH is a problem that you will not solve for a long time, if ever." Had you known that the red-eyed human animal in the middle of the pool was sent there by Providence to regulate the globe, cultivate it, destroy the noxious forms of animal life, etc., you would certainly have believed that that person would have got rid of the mosquitoes long before getting rid of the mammoth. As a matter of fact, the mammoth has gone, the woolly rhinoceros of Northern Europe has gone, the sabre-toothed tiger prowls no more. Even wolves have disappeared, and the mosquito is still flourishing in his millions and billions. We have only just learned that it is he who gives us malaria, that it is he who spreads yellow fever and undoubtedly many other diseases. The human race, which in its earliest, incapable childhood easily managed to dispose of the mammoth and his huge fellow-monsters, still stands helpless before the little mosquito, deadliest of VISIBLE animals on earth. Is it not interesting to realize that the hardest work of the human race, as of the individual, is the most minute work; that the intellect, which easily copes with the heaviest and the biggest problems, is baffled by the tiniest? Ultimately, and perhaps soon, we shall send the mosquito, the house-fly and the other buzzing pirates to join in the grave's silence their big brothers--the mastodon and the rest. Then our fight will begin against invisible animal life, against the actual microbes of disease which the mosquito has been carrying around and injecting into us. It is a long fight, but, of course, we shall win it. ---- And is it not interesting, also, to reflect that in the moral, as in the physical, battles of life man requires the longest time to deal with his smallest enemies? Morally we are still primitive savages. We are still combating murder, arson, theft--like the cave-dweller fighting the physical mammoth, we are fighting the mammoths of moral deformity. Eventually they will disappear. Murder will be unknown, and theft, rendered unnecessary by decent social organization, will have disappeared also. At that time we shall be fighting the smaller and more dangerous, more elusive and more persistent moral troubles--HYPOCRISY, CONCEIT, UNCHARITABLENESS. These are the mosquitoes and flies of the world of immorality that will pursue us when the big fellows--murder and theft--shall have been killed off. THE MONKEY AND THE SNAKE FIGHT We wish to tell you of the monkey and the snake fight, described by a witness in the Lahore Tribune. ---- Before men arrived on earth, when all the animals were racing for supremacy, the monkey seemed to have the smallest chance. No one would have guessed that the descendants of this feeble, defenseless little brute would eventually rule the earth, killing off tigers, lions and the other huge monsters at pleasure. We have before called your attention in this column to the fact that the monkey, or some animal like him, had the honor of contributing our proud human services as the world's rulers BECAUSE HE COULD USE HIS BRAIN. That fight between the monkey and the cobra illustrates this quite clearly. The monkey was a little monkey, with scarcely enough muscle to strangle a hen. His little black finger-nails could hurt nobody. His teeth were fit only to nibble fruit or to chatter in rage at his fellow monkeys. This monkey had the misfortune to annoy a huge cobra. Mr. Cobra is the most dangerous, the most formidably armed, of all living animals. He is a solid mass of muscle, gifted with lightning speed. The slightest touch of his fangs means death. The brain of the cobra is about as big as a mustard seed. The brain of the monkey--even a small one--is several hundred times as big as the brain of the largest snake. We refer to the cerebrum, the front brain, which does the thinking. The monkey annoyed the snake, and the snake chased him. Mr. Monkey, shrieking and chattering, rushed over the ground until he came to a rock. He stood still in front of the rock. The snake dashed its head at him to annihilate him; the monkey jumped to one side and let the snake beat its head against the rock. Over and over, this operation was repeated, the monkey with lightning speed avoiding the dart of the snake, and the snake, with never-ending stupidity, dashing its head against the rock. Eventually the powerful, dangerous snake was stretched out at full length, bleeding and tired out. The monkey was not bleeding and not tired. He was extremely cheerful. He seized the snake by the neck, just back of the head, and placidly proceeded to rub its head off on the stone. When he had rubbed the head to a pulp. incidentally destroying its primitive brain, he left the dead snake lying there, and gratefully accepted the Indian corn and sugar-cane donated by the admiring humans-his relatives-who had witnessed his performance. ---- The monkey used his brain--the snake did not. The monkey did not say, but he might as well have said: "You need not wonder that my half-sister, Eve, crushed the serpent's head. We monkeys and humans have soft hands and no poison sacs, but WE KNOW HOW TO MAKE OUR BRAINS WORK, and that means that we rule creation." TOO LITTLE AND TOO MUCH Here is a quotation from a very wise person called Aristotle. This Greek philosopher was the teacher of Alexander the Great, and incidentally he has been the teacher of millions of men since he began to talk philosophy, more than twenty centuries ago. "First of all, we must observe that in all these matters of human action the too little and the too much are alike ruinous, as we can see (to illustrate the spiritual by the natural) in the case of strength and health. Too much and too little exercise alike impair the strength, and too much meat and drink and too little both alike destroy the health, but the fitting amount produces and preserves them.... So, too, the man who takes his fill of every pleasure and abstains from none becomes a profligate; while he who shuns all becomes stolid and insusceptible." The next time you fall into a philosophical mood, and begin reviewing the causes of your troubles, see if you can't find some useful suggestion in the common-sense statement of Aristotle we give today. How about the "too much" of one thing and "too little" of another? Are you quite sure that you don't do too much talking and too little thinking? Are you sure that you don't do too much drinking and playing and idling, and too little reading? Are you sure that you don't do too much of things you like that do you no good, and too little of things that you ought to like, and that would help you to succeed? ---- We believe that every one of our readers has some friend or brother or son who can be really helped by the reading of this quotation from the old Greek wise man. You can state to any young man or woman to whom you send this advice that the man who gave it formed the character and judgment of Alexander, the world's most successful young man. DO YOU FEEL DISCOURAGED? A young man lost his money in stocks the other day and killed himself. Other young men lose heart when things go against them and drift through life helpless, useless derelicts. Let us give such men a bit of advice: Don't let failure discourage you. Almost all the brilliantly successful characters of history have known early trials and reverses. The great philosopher, Epictetus, was a slave. Alfred the Great wandered through the swamps as a fugitive and got cuffed on the ears for letting the cakes burn. Columbus went from court to court like a beggar to try to raise money for the discovery of the New World and when he finally won the favor of the Spanish Queen he was so poor that he could not go to court until Isabella had advanced him money enough to buy decent clothes. When Frederick the Great was fighting all Europe he fell into such desperate straits that he carried a bottle of poison about with him as the last way of escape from his enemies. If he had taken that dose the whole history of our time would have been different. Instead of shaking a "mailed fist" at the world, young William of Hohenzollern might have been a mediatized princelet on the lookout for an American heiress; there might never have been a Leipzig or a Waterloo, as there certainly would not have been a Sedan, and the heirs of Napoleon might now have been ruling over an empire covering all Central Europe, from the Tiber to the Baltic. Nobody ever had greater cause for discouragement than George Washington had when he led the straggling remnants of his army across the Delaware in December, 1776. But in the very darkest hour, when absolute ruin seemed inevitable and a British gallows appeared the probable ending of his career, he struck a blow that cleared the way to the highest place in the world's history. Andrew Jackson was born in a cabin, suffered every sort of adversity, lost his mother and two brothers from the sufferings of war, was cut with a sword for refusing to clean a British officer's boots, and grew up almost without education. Abraham Lincoln, poor, ignorant, sprung from the lowliest stock, deprived of all advantages for culture or for money making, distressed by domestic troubles, might have had some excuse for discouragement. But he kept on, with what results the world sees. If ever there was a man who seemed doomed to failure it was U. S. Grant in the spring of 1861. He had cut loose from the profession for which he had been trained, and, after drifting from one occupation to another and failing in all, he was now, at thirty-nine years old, a clerk in a country store and unable to make ends meet at that. Three years later he was Lieutenant-General of the armies of the United States, and five years after that he was President. Solon said it was never safe to call any man happy until he was dead. Unhappiness is equally uncertain. If you are poor now you may be rich to-morrow. If you are unknown now you may be famous to-morrow. If you are even in the penitentiary now you may be running a street-car system to-morrow. So don't be discouraged if your fortunes are in temporary eclipse. The savage is in despair when the sun goes into the moon's shadow, for he thinks that some monster has swallowed it, and that there will never be any daylight again. But to the astronomer an eclipse is merely an interesting opportunity to make scientific observations. Be as sure of the coming of daylight as the astronomer is, and your moments of darkness will trouble you no more than his trouble him. TWO KINDS OF DISCONTENT Emerson says: "Discontent is the want of self-reliance; it is infirmity of will." Another individual, at least as solemn if not as wise as Emerson, says: "Discontent is the foundation of all human effort." Both are right, for there are two kinds of discontent. Almost everybody is afflicted with one kind of discontent or the other. It would be well for you, Mr. Reader, to decide what kind of discontent afflicts you. If you have the wrong kind, hurry and get the other as fast as possible. THE DISCONTENT THAT WHINES This is the kind of discontent which Emerson refers to when he says that "discontent is the want of self-reliance." The WHINING discontent ruins many lives; it is used as the excuse for much foolish conduct, much neglect of duty. It is the discontent which reflects the feeble soul, the self-indulgent, worthless being. A young man who gets drunk or dissipates otherwise, who offers as an excuse, "Well, I was feeling kind of DISCONTENTED and had to do something," is afflicted with the wrong kind of discontent in its most virulent form. The office boy with small wages who is caught smoking cigarettes, or evading his duties, or undermining his moral character by gambling, will also say, "I was discontented and had to do something." If you have THAT discontent, try to get rid of it and get the other kind. THE DISCONTENT THAT MEANS AMBITION Alexander the Great lived and died discontented, but Emerson would scarcely have attributed that gentleman's discontent to lack of self-reliance. Alexander was discontented, first, because he could not conquer the whole world, and, second, because there were no others that he could conquer. He was a vast genius, almost humorous in his ambitious discontent sometimes--especially when he looked at the stars and said, as alleged, that he was ashamed to look at all those other worlds when he had barely conquered this one little world that he lived on. If you have in you Alexander's brand of discontent you may well be grateful. You are still more to be envied if you have the discontent which has impelled thousands of great men to devote their lives ceaselessly to the discovery of truth, working for others. ---- When Taglioni, the great ballet dancer, was a little girl, with skinny legs and a skinnier future, being extremely homely and with no prospects of success, she was discontented. Other skinny-legged little ballet dancers of her class were discontented also. But Taglioni's discontent impelled her to spend every spare moment whirling on her big toe, practicing her entrechat, or laboring over the art of smiling, naturally, with aching toes, aching back, aching thighs, and solar plexus almost exhausted from the unnatural strain. The other skinny-legged discontented ones exercised their discontent on their patient mothers, instead of exercising it on their own big toes. THEY never were heard of, whereas Taglioni pranced on HER big toe before every court in Europe, and her smile, which ultimately became natural, attracted the opera glasses of all the great men. There are thousands of young musicians, young business men, young singers, young electricians--thousands and hundreds of thousands of human beings engaged in all kinds of effort in all directions. ALL OF THEM ARE DISCONTENTED. Those that have the right kind of discontent will go at least as far as their natural capacity can take them, and those that have the wrong kind will collapse, achieve nothing and devote wasted lives to wasting pity on themselves. ---- Try to acquire the discontent of Alexander, Carlyle, Pagallini, Taglioni, or even that of the honest bootblack who "shines them up" so hard that the perspiration comes through his check jumper in cold weather. WHAT THE BARTENDER SEES A young man with a cold face, much nervous energy and a tired-of-the-world expression leans over the polished, silver-mounted drinking bar. You look at him and order your drink. You know what you think of him, and you think you know what he thinks of you. Did you ever stop to think of ALL THE STRANGE HUMAN BEINGS besides yourself that pass before him? He stands there as a sentinel, business man, detective, waiter, general entertainer and host for the homeless. In comes a young man, rather early in the day. He is a little tired--up too late the night before. He takes a cocktail. He tells the bartender that he does not believe in cocktails. He never takes them, in fact. "The bitters in a cocktail will eat a hole through a thin handkerchief--pretty bad effect on your stomach, eh?" and so on. Out goes the young man with the cocktail inside of him. And the bartender KNOWS that that young man, with his fine reasonings and his belief in himself, is the confirmed drunkard of year after next. He has seen the beginning of many such cocktail philosophers, and the ending of the same. The way NOT to be a drunkard is never to taste spirits. The bartender knows that. But his customers do NOT know it. ---- At another hour of the day there comes in the older man. This one is the fresh-faced, YOUNG oldish man. He has small, gray side-whiskers. He shows several people--whom he does not know--his commutation ticket. He changes his mind suddenly from whiskey to lemonade. The bartender prepares the lemon slowly, and the man changes his mind back to whiskey. Then he tries to look more dignified than the two younger men with him. In the midst of the effort he begins to sing "The Heart Bowed Down with Weight of Woe," and he tells the bartender "that is from 'The Bohemian Girl.'" He sings many other selections, occasionally forgetting his dignity, and occasionally remembering that he is the head of a most respectable home--partly paid for. The wise man on the outside of the bar suggests that the oldish man will get into trouble. But the bartender says: "No; he will go home all right. But he won't sing all the way there. About the time he gets home he'll realize what money he has spent, and you would not like to be his wife." The bartender KNOWS that the oldish man--about fifty-one or fifty-two--has escaped being a drunkard by mere accident, and that he has not quite escaped yet. A little hard luck, too much trouble, and he'll lose his balance, forget that there IS lemonade, and take to whiskey permanently. ---- At the far end of the bar there is the man who comes in slowly and passes his hand over his face nervously. The bartender asks no question, but pushes out a bottle of everyday whiskey and a small glass of water. The whiskey goes down. A shiver follows the whiskey and a very little of the water follows the shiver. The man goes out with his arms close to his sides, his gait shuffling and his head hanging. It has taken him less than three minutes to buy, swallow and pay for a liberal dose of poison. Says the bartender: "That fellow had a good business once. Doesn't look it, does he? Jim over there used to work for him. But he couldn't let it alone." The "it" mentioned is whiskey. Outside in the cold that man, who couldn't let it alone, is shuffling his way against the bitter wind. And even in his poor, sodden brain reform and wisdom are striving to be heard. His soul and body are sunk far below par. His vitality is gone, never to return. The whiskey, with its shiver that tells of a shock to the heart, lifts him up for a second. He has a little false strength of mind and brain and that strength is used to mumble good resolutions. He THINKS he will stop drinking. He thinks he could easily get money backing if he gave up drinking for good. He feels and really believes that he WILL stop drinking. Perhaps he goes home, and for the hundredth time makes a poor woman believe him, and makes her weep once more for joy, as she has wept many times from sorrow. But the bartender KNOWS that that man's day has gone, and that Niagara River could turn back as easily as he could remount the swift stream that is sweeping him to destruction. ---- Five men come in together. Each asks of all the others: "What are you going to have?" The bartender spreads out his hands on the edge of the bar, attentive and prepared to work quickly. Every man insists on "buying" something to drink in his turn. Each takes what the others insist on giving him. Each thinks that he is hospitable. But the bartender KNOWS that those men belong to the Great American Association for the Manufacture of Drunkards through "treating." Each of those men might perhaps take his glass of beer, or even something worse, with relative safety. But, as stupidly as stampeded animals pushing each other over a precipice, each insists on buying poison in his turn. And every one spends his money to make every other one, if possible, a hard-drinking and a wasted man. ---- You, Sir. Reader, have seen all these types and many others, have you not? WHY did you see them? What REASON had you for seeing them? The bartender stands studying the procession to destruction, because he must make his living in that way. He is a sort of clean-aproned Charon on a whiskey Styx, ferrying the multitude to perdition on the other side of the river. But what is YOUR business there? You might as well be found inside an opium den. The drink swallowed at the bar braces you, does it? If you think you need a drink, you REALLY need sleep, or better nourishment, or you need to live more sensibly. Drink will not give you what you need. It may for a moment make your nerves cease tormenting you. It may do in your system for an hour what opium does in the Chinese for a whole day. But if it lifts you up high, it drops you down HARD. And remember: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS MODERATE DRINKING AT A BAR. You THINK you can take your occasional drink safely and philosophize about the procession that passes the bartender. But the bartender KNOWS that you are no different from the others. They all began as you are beginning. They all, in the early stages, despised their own forerunners. They were once as you are, and the bartender KNOWS that the chances are all in favor of your being eventually like one of them. Even like the poor, thin, nervous drinker of hard whiskey, who once wondered why men drink too much. ---- The bartender's procession is a sad one, and you who still think yourself safe are the saddest atom in the line, for you are there without sufficient excuse. It is a long procession, and its end is far off. It is born of the fact that life is dull, competition is keen, and ambition so often ends in sawdust failure. A better chance for strugglers, a more generous reward for hard work, better organization of social life, solution of the great unsolved problem of real civilization, will end the bartender's procession. Meanwhile, keep out of it if you can. And be glad if it can be suspended, temporarily at least, on Sundays. WHAT SHOULD BE A MAN'S OBJECT IN LIFE? Sermons in stones are familiar, but few take the trouble to dig them out. Certainly none looks for sermons in a one-cent evening newspaper. At the same time, will you kindly think over and answer the question that heads this column? Here we are, marooned for a few days on a flying ball of earth. We don't know how we got here. We don't know where we are going. We are full of beautiful and satisfying FAITH. But we don't KNOW. Into this Universe, and WHY not knowing, Nor WHENCE, like Water, willy-nilly flowing; And out of it as Wind along the Waste, I know not WHITHER, willy-nilly blowing. That's the way Omar, the old tent-maker, puts it. ---- We drift from dinner to the theatre, thence to bed, thence to breakfast, thence to work, and so on. Or, if in hard luck, we struggle and wail, "cursing our day," or more frequently cursing society. We rarely stop to think what it is all about, or what we are here for. ---- We know the pig's object in life. It has been beautifully and permanently outlined in Carlyle's "pig catechism." The pig's life object is to get fat and keep fat--to get his full share of swill and as much more as he can manage to secure. And his life object is worthy. By sticking at it he develops fat hams inside his bristles, and WE know, though he does not, that the production of fat hams is his destiny. ---- But our human destiny is NOT to produce fat hams. Why do so many of us live earnestly on the pig basis? Why do we struggle savagely for money to buy our kind of swill--luxury, food, etc. --and cease all struggling when that money is obtained? Is fear of poverty and dependence the only emotion that should move us? Are we here merely to STAY here and EAT here? A great German scientist, very learned and about as imaginative as a wart hog, declares that the human face is merely an extension and elaboration of the alimentary canal--that the beauty of expression, the marvellous qualities of a noble human face, are merely indirect results of the alimentary canal's strivings to satisfy its wants. That is a hideous conception, is it not? But it is no more unworthy than the average human life, and the average existence has much to justify the German's speculations. What SHALL we strive for? MONEY? Get a thousand millions. Your day will come, and in due course the graveyard rat will gnaw as calmly at your bump of acquisitiveness as at the mean coat of the pauper. Then, shall we strive for POWER? The names of the first great kings of the world are forgotten, and the names of all those whose power we envy will drift to forgetfulness soon. What does the most powerful man in the world amount to standing at the brink of Niagara, with his solar plexus trembling? What is his power compared with the force of the wind or the energy of one small wave sweeping along the shore? The power which man can build up within himself, for himself, is nothing. Only the dull reasoning of gratified egotism can make it seem worth while. ---- Then what IS worth while? Let us look at some of the men who have come and gone, and whose lives inspire us. Take a few at random: Columbus, Michael Angelo, Wilberforce, Shakespeare, Galileo, Fulton, Watt, Hargreaves--these will do. Let us ask ourselves this question: "Was there any ONE THING that distinguished ALL their lives, that united all these men, active in fields so different?" Yes. Every man among them, and every man whose life history is worth the telling, did something for THE GOOD OF OTHER MEN. Hargreaves, the weaver, invented the spinning-jenny, and his invention clothes and employs hundreds of millions. Galileo perfected the telescope, spread out before man's intellect the grandeur of the universe. Wilberforce helped to awaken man's conscience. He freed millions of slaves. Columbus gave a home to great nations. We thrive to-day because of his noble courage. Michael Angelo and Shakespeare stirred human genius to new efforts, and fed the human mind--a task more worthy than the feeding of the human stomach. We ride in Fulton's steamboats, and Watt's engine pulls us along. Men who are truly great have DONE GOOD to their fellow-man. And the greatest Soul ever born on earth came to urge but one thing upon humanity, "Love one another." ---- Get money if you can. Get power if you can. Then, if you want to be more than the ten thousand million unknown mingled in the dust beneath you, see what good you can do with your money and your power. If you are one of the many millions who have not and can't get money or power, see what good you can do without either. You can help carry a load for an old man. You can encourage and help a poor devil trying to reform. You can set a good example to children. You can stick to the men with whom you work, fighting honestly for their welfare. Time was when the ablest man would rather kill ten men than feed a thousand children. That time has gone. We do not care much about feeding the children, but we care less about killing the men. To that extent we have improved already. The day will come when we shall prefer helping our neighbor to robbing him--legally--of a million dollars. Do what good you can NOW, while it is unusual, and have the satisfaction of being a pioneer and an eccentric. CRUEL FRIGHTENING OF CHILDREN The most acute suffering is that produced by FEAR, and those who suffer most acutely from fear are YOUNG children. Who does not remember the intense agony in youth based upon the superstitious teachings of some foolish older person? And how many children are made miserable through the hideous fear that comes from threats and from punishment postponed? If a man should be whipped incessantly for three or four hours he would think his tormentor a monster of brutality. Yet you say to a child: "I will whip you for that to-morrow." You sentence that child to hours of the most acute mental suffering, and if the child be nervous and unusually sensitive, you may permanently injure its health. ---- Here is a scene unfortunately not rare in this country: A thin, nervous little boy, perhaps ten years old, was walking along a suburban street. Suddenly, on turning a corner, he was confronted by a man, apparently his father. The child stood trembling. The man, in a voice of cold, concentrated anger, said: "Didn't I tell you to come early. You go to the house and WAIT THERE TILL I COME BACK AND FIX YOU." The man walked on, to get the drink of beer or whiskey that should add to his natural cruelty, and the poor child, without a word, started for home to await the coming punishment. No more cruel treatment was ever endured by any human being than the punishment inflicted by that thoughtless man on the nervous, helpless child placed in his power. Later, of course, there followed the punishment; a huge, powerful man striking repeatedly the delicate body of the child, emphasizing the brutality of his blows with more brutal words, and feeling when it was over that he had gloriously done his duty as a typical American father. Of course, the actual brutal beating was only a small part of the child's ordeal. The most horrible part was the waiting for the punishment. No man in the death cell ever suffered more than thousands of children suffer every day waiting for the brutality which is to exemplify our savage notions concerning the education of children. If such a monstrous parody on a father should be met in some lonely wood by a huge gorilla and treated as that father treats his own son, he would complain bitterly of the gorilla's ferocity. Yet it would not equal in any way his own brutal and less excusable cruelty. ---- If a parent says that he cannot bring up his children and control them without beating them, you may say to that parent: You never struck a child in your life except when you were angry, and you would not have dared to strike it if it had been of your own size. Children born of decent parents can be brought up, and ARE brought up, without beatings, and if yours are a different kind of children it is a reflection on YOU, and on your whole brood and family. The poor, ignorant hen can teach its young ones to scratch and hunt worms, and acquire whatever education they need without hurting them, and a human being should be able to do for his own as much as a hen can do. IT IS NATURAL FOR CHILDREN TO BE CRUEL You have perhaps read that Mrs. Isabelle Bailey, of Palmyra, N.J., was cruelly tortured by three little girls. The unfortunate woman was eighty-five years old, paralyzed, and confined to her bed. The three children, two of them eight and one eleven years old, tormented the poor woman in a brutal manner, of which details shall not be published here. The helpless woman ultimately died, and the children were charged with murder. ---- This horrible story is mentioned in the hope of concentrating the minds of mothers and fathers on the fact that children are naturally more cruel, more vicious, than grown people. The children mentioned in this case were, perhaps, abnormal and unusual monstrosities. But they serve to illustrate the fact that infancy and childhood duplicate, in the individual, the primitive animal life on earth. Many children are brutally punished and ruined for life because ignorant parents imagine that childhood is naturally pure and innocent and good, and that a child which misbehaves must be abnormally wicked. If parents knew more about the physical and mental development of their children, they would be better fitted to have charge of them. ---- It is a fact taught by embryology that the human body before its birth passes through numerous stages of development which correspond exactly with the lower forms of animal life. After birth the child develops MENTALLY in the same way, passing through inferior mental stages and reaching a state of benevolence, honesty, truthfulness and self-restraint only as a result of long education and wise control. A perfectly truthful child probably never existed. All childish races of savages are incessant liars and thieves. All children passing through the primitive stages of mental development are naturally given to deception, and even to theft, especially when they are frightened by the consequences of truth, and when things which they desire are denied them. All children are cruel--and there is no greater brutality than confiding a helpless animal to the tender mercies of a young child. There may be a few exceptions, but they are very rare, and there is no reason why parents should expect their particular children to be the exceptions. You may see a man of mature age, kind-hearted, absolutely benevolent and just. And you may learn that when he was a baby he bit his nurse, lied, and was cruel to animals and to other children. But parents are stupidly egotistical, and believe that their pretty children ought to be born morally perfect. This moral perfection can be obtained only as the result of education. Don't expect your children to be models of virtue. Don't brutalize them by punishments and contempt because you discover that their primitive mental life duplicates the mental conditions of inferior animals. Set them a good example, and by education make them what you want them to be. The ignorant and stupid belief that children are born naturally good accounts for the brutality of many fathers and the ruin of many young lives, making cowards of children, accentuating their untruthfulness and cowardice and their cruelty through a desire for revenge. TWO THIN LITTLE BABIES ARE LEFT The authorities of New York City, at this writing, have two babies to give away. A few days since there were about two hundred babies in the city foundling asylum to be had for the asking. Of all these little ones there remain but two whom nobody seems to want. These two forlorn little things are described as "thin and nervous; inclined to cry, and not taking kindly to those who come to pick out free babies for adoption." Hundreds of women anxious for children have gone to the asylum, have passed by the two little skinny babies, and have asked to be informed as soon as fat babies should be on hand. Presently we shall tell childless persons--especially bachelors--why they should get a baby and bring it up. But first, learn that the best possible choice would be one of those two despised "thin" babies. In all the world's history, the greatest men have begun life as THIN babies. You must know from common observation that in babyhood the head is big out of all proportion to the rest of the body. A baby one year old has in its brain alone at least one-third of all the blood in its body. THE BIGGER AND MORE ACTIVE THE BRAIN the more blood is required to nourish it, and THE MORE THE REST OF THE BODY SUFFERS. A baby luckily born may combine a good brain and a fat body. But such luck is very rare. Nine times out of ten the best baby MENTALLY is the poorest-looking baby PHYSICALLY. We have told you in this column about the pathetic babyhood of the great Voltaire. Had he been in the foundling asylum during the recent selection of babies, he would surely be among the despised and rejected. Yet what a glory to have picked out and raised the wonderful Voltaire! Voltaire, whose name as a baby was Arouet, was the thinnest and most nervous of babies. He had a disease very much like rickets; he cried night and day, and there was little hope of keeping him alive. Pitt, the great British Prime Minister, was as sick and skinny a baby as was ever seen. Pope, when a baby, would not have seemed worth keeping alive to anybody but a loving mother. We advise the women who have spurned the two thin babies in the asylum to take another look at them. They may be the best two babies in the entire lot. A BABY CAN EDUCATE A MAN If you will read Drummond's beautiful work "The Ascent of Man," you will learn that we owe to children the good that is in us. It is the child that educates the father and mother. If you are a solemn bachelor, gradually drying up in your selfish life, try having a baby around for a while. Get a despised thin one from the asylum. Get some good, kind old woman to take care of it. Give the woman and the baby the quietest room in your house or flat, and then watch the improvement in your character. You can feed the baby for the cost of one or two cocktails daily. Your health will improve if you give up the cocktails, and watch the effect of their substitute, milk, on the little child. When you get up in the morning, if the hour is early, you will find the old woman giving the baby its bath. The poor, little thin thing will wriggle joyously in the warm water, once it gets used to the daily bathing. Its head will be soaped first, then sponged. It will be dried with a warm towel, and you can hit the tin bathtub with your keys to keep it from crying while its clothes are put on. Hold the baby for a while each morning, letting its head rest on your shoulder that its neck may not be strained. (This will give the nurse a chance to prepare the bottle that follows the bath.) It will get used to you after a few mornings. The first time it shows affection for you, you will be the proudest man in your office. If asked to take a cocktail you will say: "No, thank you. My cocktail money is spent to make a thin baby fat." If others boast of their friends, you will know that YOU have a friend whom money cannot influence, one skinny little admirer at home whose affection is genuine. If a man shows delight in the love of his dog, you will say to yourself: "Any dog will like any man. But there are few that could get a baby to like them in six days as that thin Jimmy likes me." If you go home early, before the baby is put to bed, you will find him trying to crawl along the floor, or trying to eat the pattern in the carpet. He will look at you out of his pale, little, blue eyes and reach his skinny arms toward you. See if that does not make you glad that you tried the baby experiment. Gradually the thin body will get fatter, and the small, busy mouth will begin a mumbling language of its own. The old nurse will pretend to understand everything it says and will insist that it knows your name. The first tooth piercing the heated, suffering gum; the first feeble steps with the help of a chair; the first tottering effort all alone, with arms outstretched toward you, ending in a flabby collapse, will delight you more than much experimenting with race horses, if you are the right sort of man. It will not be long before you will decide that the bringing up of babies is your destiny, and a good one. But when you bring a wife into the house, and she brings you other babies, thin or fat, of your own, don't forget the original thin Jimmy baby. Provide for the old nurse and for the youngster. Say to your wife: "Be fond of that Jimmy baby, for it was he who taught me that I could not get along without you." [End Project Gutenberg Etext of Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers by Arthur Brisbane]