Chapter V: By A. J. Warner (3)

The standard represented by popular institutions will seldom be higher, and as time goes on may become lower, than that set for themselves by the majority of the people who established and are intrusted with the duty of maintaining them. They may represent noble aims and point to high ideals, but the extent of their duration and salutary influence must always be dependent upon a sufficient manifestation of the spirit which called them into being.

Institutions and laws, however perfect in other respects, cannot, therefore, safely omit from their functions provisions for the fostering and developing of the spirit which gave them birth. This spirit, it is to be remembered, may, and too often does, without extinguishment, actually become a thing so much apart from the machinery which it has established, as to have little appreciable influence in controlling its operation.

The institutions and laws of the United States, in their inception, represented the spirit of a people who were actuated by the highest concepts of human duty, and who sought to establish a political system which should realize the highest ideals. The possibilities of the system have been demonstrated by the experience of more than a hundred years. Functionally considered this experience has made painfully evident the failures which have attended the system in its operation. It is evident to every intelligent student of American history that these failures have been chiefly due to the fact that the spirit which gave life to the American Republic has too often and too far been supplanted in the control of its affairs by a spirit utterly hostile to that which it was intended to be, and which, if the partial or complete failure of the system is to be averted, must, everywhere and always, be dominant. It is undoubtedly true that citizens whose character and ability fit them for the service necessary for the proper control of political affairs, constitute a sufficient number in the voting population to assure the ascendency of right ideas if their efforts can be united for the purpose. The fact that intelligent and controlling convictions of duty are absent, and that they do not thus unite, however explained, clearly accounts for the subversion of the spirit which founded our institutions, and the ascendency of a spirit of chicanery, greed, and corruption.

It is also evident that the political evils which challenge our attention are primarily due, not to faults in our institutions themselves, but to failures in the assertion of the spirit of true Americanism by which they are intended to be controlled. How to secure ascendency for this spirit and thus to restore, in every part of the republic, the sovereignty of highest manhood, is the most pressing problem which can engage the attention of patriotic and intelligent American citizens.

For more than fifteen years this question has been a matter of profound interest to the writer. The fact that ordinary uprisings against political evils fail to accomplish permanent results, seemed to him to afford convincing evidence that attention must be given to the roots and not confined to the branches; and that this foundation work must represent patient, persistent, and unselfish efforts for the promotion everywhere of the basic virtues of true patriotism, intelligence, integrity, and fidelity in citizenship relations. Believing that this work could be best accomplished through a permanent national institution which should invite and command the coöperation of good citizens everywhere, regardless of party, creed, sex, or class, he sought the advice and coöperation of a few distinguished men in the preparation of plans for such an institution. The assistance sought was willingly extended by such citizens as Morrison R. Waite, William Strong, and S. F. Miller, then respectively Chief Justice and Justices of the United States Supreme Court; by Theodore Woolsey, Noah Porter, F. A. P. Barnard, Mark Hopkins, Julius H. Seeley, and Theodore W. Dwight, among educators; and by such other eminent Americans as U. S. Grant, William Fitzhugh Lee, Robert C. Winthrop, Hugh McCulloch, John J. Knox, Orlando B. Potter, A. H. Colquitt, George Bancroft, Hannibal Hamlin, John Jay, Right Reverend William I. Kip, David Swing, and Phillips Brooks.

The result of conferences and correspondence with these and other citizens of like character led to the founding, in 1885, of the American Institute of Civics, which was subsequently chartered under the laws of Congress, and was dedicated to the service of promoting the qualities in citizenship which Washington sought to promote by his latest labors and final bequests, and which he, in common with Jefferson, Hamilton, and Madison, believed to be necessary "to the security of a free constitution," and to the welfare of the government and people of the United States. Its distinctive purposes are succinctly set forth in its charter as follows:

1. To promote on the part of youths and adults generally, without
reference to the inculcation of special theories or partisan
views, a patient and conscientious study of the most essential
facts relating to affairs of government and citizenship, to the
end that every citizen may be qualified to act the part of an
intelligent and upright juror in all affairs submitted to the
decision of the ballot.

2. To promote, in the same spirit, such special attention to the
study of Civics[7] in higher institutions of learning, and
otherwise, as shall have a tendency to secure wise, impartial,
and patriotic action on the part of those who shall occupy
positions of trust and responsibility, as executive or
legislative officers, and as leaders of public opinion.

[7] Defined in the Standard Dictionary as follows: "The
science that treats of citizenship and of the relations
between citizens and the government: a new word directly
derived from the adjective _civic_, introduced by Henry
Randall Waite."

Organized under such auspices and with such purposes it represents the only practical and sustained effort which has been made by the people of the United States for the realization of the aims above outlined; and with persistency of purpose and increasing usefulness it has for more than twelve years prosecuted its mission for the safeguarding of American institutions.

Political conditions past and present clearly justify the views of Washington and his contemporaries, and the opinions of the Institute's founders, as to the need of a central source of salutary influences in the form of a national institution wholly devoted to a propaganda of the principles and ideas comprehensively described in Washington's words as "the fundamental maxims of true liberty."

The sole object of this national, non-partisan, non-sectarian, popular, and permanent institution, is to voice these maxims, to inspire the spirit and give force to the principles which should have supreme control in affairs of government, citizenship, and social order.

What the national military establishments at West Point and Annapolis are intended to accomplish in the way of preparing a few citizens for useful service in times of war, it is the purpose of this popular civil institution, with patriotic insistency and through all available efficiencies, to aid in accomplishing through provisions for properly preparing all citizens for the highest service of their country at all times.

In the accomplishment of its objects, it directs its endeavors not so much to the creation of new agencies as to the giving of inspiration and energy to those already existing; and in pursuing this wise policy it has been a most useful factor in establishing the solidarity and increasing the power of the influences which represent civic virtue and true patriotism.

Its efficiencies include, beside its National Board of Trustees, composed of thirty-three members, and its advisory faculty, composed of twelve members, the following departments:

1. Department for the extension of information and activities promotive of good citizenship, through which provisions are made for home studies, and for lectures, discussions, studies, etc., in connection with schools, lyceums, civic associations, labor organizations, and institute clubs; this work being carried on with the coöperation and under the supervision of councillors in the communities where they reside, and with the aid of a corps of lecturers now numbering more than two hundred.

2. Department of Educational Institutions conducted in coöperation with State and local officers of public instruction, teachers in elementary and high schools, and members of faculties in nearly two hundred and fifty higher institutions of learning.

3. Publication Department, through which the equivalent of nearly twenty million pages of octavo matter has been issued under its auspices.

4. Department of Legislation, in connection with which councillors and citizens generally have efficiently aided in securing needed reforms in the administration of public affairs, the protection and elevation of the suffrage, and the conservation of the highest interests of citizens and the state in other respects.

5. Department of Applied Ethics, in connection with which efforts are made to properly and efficiently enlist the great body of citizens, including youths as well as adults, who profess to be governed by the highest concepts of duty, in practical labors for the establishment of wise, just, and salutary civic and social conditions.

It is obvious that an institution of this character cannot depend for its maintenance upon citizens of merely negative virtue, nor can it expect the sympathy of scheming politicians to whose plans and power it is in direct opposition. Its dependence must be solely upon the willing services and financial support of those members of the body politic who are animated by the spirit of Washington, and who believe that in matters affecting the highest interests of our free institutions, such as civic virtue and civic fidelity, formation is better than re-formation, and that to constantly maintain salutary political conditions is infinitely preferable to frequent and disappointing struggles with corruptible elements, which through neglect of civic duty have been permitted to secure controlling power; in other words, that it is better to safely guard our inheritance of freedom than to battle for its rescue from unworthy hands.

The Institute admits to membership in its National Body of Councillors all citizens who are commended to its Board of Trustees, by those already members, or by other citizens of known high character, as worthy of such membership by reason of their ability to contribute in some degree to the accomplishment of its purposes. It does not solicit the membership of citizens whose political affiliations are such as to rank them among those who are contributing to the evils which it seeks to correct. Its councillors are asked to share in an undertaking which tests the character of their citizenship by offering no rewards for their coöperation. It has employed no paid officers and no paid agents for the solicitation of funds. The united activities of its members have enabled it, and it is believed will continue to enable it, to present in itself an eloquent object-lesson in patriotism and a potent appeal to the spirit in citizenship--the true Americanism--which it seeks to foster. Its contributing councillors are asked for annual remittances of sums of from $2.00 upward, in accordance with their financial ability and the degree of their interest in its work. Those contributing $3.00 or more annually are entitled to receive all of its own publications, and also THE ARENA, whose aims are largely identical with its own, and through which its official announcements will hereafter be published.

It will be seen that the degree of responsibility resting upon its councillors financially and otherwise is a matter for their own determination, and one which will be decided in accordance with the disposition of each to recognize the truth, that the patriotic and unselfish labors of those who have gone before us, and of which we enjoy the priceless benefits, have laid upon us a sacred obligation which we can discharge only by the performance of similar labors.

The foregoing statements, however encouraging, are chiefly significant as indicative of what may be, rather than of what has been, accomplished. Gratifying as the results of the Institute's work have been, they represent but a tithe of what it might have accomplished with a larger degree of moral and pecuniary support. The extent of its field and the magnitude of the labors necessary in order to make it widely and effectively useful, when compared with the resources at its command, have constantly presented difficulties which would have discouraged its officers but for their abiding confidence in the ultimate willingness of the American people to give to it the measure of support warranted by the importance of the objects to which it is devoted. It has been not inaptly compared to a noble piece of enginery, whose highest possibilities in the way of efficiency and usefulness cannot be realized because the fuel furnished is insufficient for the supply of motive power. Its highest possibilities are, in truth, little more than dreams, the fulfilment of which may not be realized in the lives of those who are now giving it such unselfish service as they find possible in the midst of other pressing occupations.

The time must soon come when it will be necessary to make arrangements for the permanent establishment of its central efficiencies, with adequate provision for its maintenance, at some suitable point yet to be selected. The suggestion has been made by some of the most distinguished of its councillors, that the descendants of American patriots cannot more worthily honor the memory of their sires, or more effectively promote the safety and perpetuity of the institutions for which they battled, than by making it their mission to maintain the American Institute of Civics. The fact that it was conceived, established, and has been conducted in the spirit of truest patriotism, and the results which it has already accomplished through services rendered wholly in the spirit of the words upon its corporate seal, "Ducit Amor Patriæ," would seem to prove its title to the confidence and support of all who are proud of the fact that their forbears have been among the founders and defenders of our American institutions. It may not be a vain hope that this thought will, in some manner and at some time, take definite shape, perhaps in the form of a national memorial building at the capital, devoted to the collection and preservation of material illustrative of the nation's history and progress, and to memorials of its illustrious dead. As has been said elsewhere,

Such a building, dedicated by enfranchised manhood to the cause
of human freedom, may include a Hall of History and Civics, for
the collection of appropriate relics, manuscripts, and books of
colonial, continental, revolutionary, and subsequent periods; an
Army and Navy Hall, devoted to exhibits illustrative of military
and naval affairs, including battle-flags, arms, accoutrements,
and similar material; a Memorial Hall, where the memory of
illustrious Americans, statesmen, soldiers, philanthropists, and
other great leaders, may be honored, and their memory perpetuated
in statuary, paintings, mural tablets, and other appropriate
ways, and which shall be to the people of America what
Westminster Abbey is to the people of England--a place where the
great exemplars of virtue, wisdom, and patriotism, the noblest
citizens of the passing years, though dead, shall yet speak and
have salutary influence, through successive generations; and a
Hall of Instruction, which shall be the centre of the nation-wide
activities of this noble American institution, and also of a
school of civics to which American youth may come from every part
of the land to avail themselves of exceptional opportunities for
studies and investigations which shall qualify them for highest
usefulness in the public service and in all the walks of
citizenship.

However this may be, the Institute, by its many years of patient, persistent, and, in view of the circumstances, remarkably successful activities, has established a claim upon the confidence and support of good citizens which must in due time receive suitable recognition. Further than this, these activities may be regarded as a necessary and fitting preparation for labors which shall be more fruitful in results, and in the hope of which those who have hitherto directed its affairs have found inspiration and encouragement.

It has been truly said that,

If any honor attaches to the citizenship in which intelligent,
loyal, and unselfish devotion to the highest interests of country
are made paramount, the names of those who have united in efforts
for the establishment of this Institute of Patriotism constitute
a roll of honor. Its ability to fully realize its objects is
dependent upon the number and the efforts of those whose names
are upon this roll.

Here is an opportunity for, and an appeal to, citizens of wealth.
Money cannot be more worthily or wisely bestowed than in feeding
the streams in whose life-giving power is the strength of the
republic. Honorable names may find their noblest memorials by the
gifts and endowments which shall forever connect them with this
National School of Patriotism.

AN INDUSTRIAL FABLE.

BY HAMILTON S. WICKS.

The King of a certain country, whose power was absolute and whose will was despotic, issued an edict that all the laborers of his dominion who were engaged in honorable toil should exchange places with those persons who did no work or were engaged in dishonorable or merely speculative avocations, so that the laboring man should fare sumptuously and the non-laborer poorly. Those who worked up in the sunlight on the tall buildings should sit down in the evening to bountiful banquets and should sleep in fine linen on luxurious couches; while those who crawled below in the bleak valleys between the beetling cliffs of architecture should go to frugal meals and sleep amid the rough surroundings of the abodes of the poor. The monarch reasoned that those who did the world's work were more deserving of the good things of the world than were the idle or the vicious, however wealthy. He imagined that the world was turned upside down socially and economically, and he proposed to turn it back again by his royal fiat.

Backed by his sword, "which is the badge of temporal power wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings," he apprehended no failure in his plans, which had been worked out in their minutest detail. His army was the largest of any nation, and was to a man devoted to its King. His genius had won many victories and extended the borders of glory. Through his impartial system of promotion men from the ranks had risen to be commanders. The soldiery were well fed, well housed, and well paid. A word, a nod, from their King would set in motion this mighty machine to crush out all opposition. Supplementing the military arm of his government the King had organized the most elaborate system of _espionage_, so that all secrets were open to him, and no whisperings in the street or the club but were conveyed distinctly to his royal ear by the microphone of his spy system. The press was gagged or inspired; the legislature was composed of fawning sycophants; his judiciary was merely a reflection of the royal will; and Holy Church itself displayed its purple robe and golden bowl but to ornament his processions or to hallow his feasts.

Thus matters stood on the evening of the day this great social revolution was inaugurated. It fell out that a group of honest laborers were descending the elevator that carried the brick and mortar to the twentieth story of a certain downtown sky-scraper. While all of them knew of the edict of their King, none had taken it seriously or imagined for a moment that it would be carried into effect literally. On their arrival at the ground floor, a policeman stationed there stopped them and, motioning to an elegant equipage standing across the way, informed them that it was the King's command that they should enter it and be driven to one of the avenue clubs which had been assigned for their accommodation. Into it they were thrust, dinner-pails and all. They had scarcely time to recover their equanimity, as they were rapidly whirled through one thoroughfare after another, till the avenue in question was reached and they were deposited in front of a stately brownstone mansion. Their coming had been expected, and the great doors swung open as they alighted, whilst a uniformed lackey motioned them to enter. Their astonishment was redoubled at the splendor of the interior furnishings. Each was assigned a room, where they were bathed and groomed and dressed in garments suitable for their surroundings. Dinner was served by the time they were ready, and into the glittering _salle à manger_ they were duly ushered. A fashionable _table d'hôte_ was a new sensation to every man of them, and they certainly astonished the _table d'hôte_. It (the _table d'hôte_) never realized before what it was to be fully appreciated. An evening of cigars, wine, and billiards followed; and then they stretched their tough and sinewy workmen's legs between the whitest of silken sheets, spread over the springiest of hair mattresses, on the brightest of brass bedsteads. There we leave them to such dreams as their surroundings invited, to turn our attention to four bachelor brokers on the stock exchange, whose apartments at the club our bachelor workingmen were inhabiting.

With as little thought of the reality of the great King's edict as the workingmen themselves, they were sauntering forth from the exchange at the hour of 3 P. M., when they were pounced upon by a quarter score of stalwart policemen and landed inside a rough luggage conveyance. Baxter Street was a Garden of Eden compared to the slums to which they were driven, and they were finally sheltered in a dirty tenement that arose in a series of rickety stories to a dizzy height. Their fastidious taste would not permit them to indulge in sleep amid such commonplace surroundings, where the only furniture of their room consisted of two dirty beds and a filthy sink. So they sat up all night smoking the cigars they happened to have in their clothes when captured, and muttering deep curses against their eccentric ruler.

The following morning the awakening of the laborers resembled that of Christopher Sly in "The Taming of the Shrew." They were bewildered with astonishment at the appointments of their surroundings and the service of their attendants. A champagne headache was a natural accompaniment to the previous night's drinking and gorging; so that fashionable "coffee and rolls," though served in the most delicate of faïence, seemed but meagre fare upon which to commence the arduous labors of the day. At precisely 5:30 A. M. the same carriage they had occupied the previous evening, with its crested panels, its liveried coachman, and its spanking span of bays, was at the door to convey them back to work.

The same routine was substantially carried into effect each day, a natural consequence of which was that they became weary of their enforced luxury, and their hearts yearned for the humble living of their tenement, with its rough and hearty jollity, and its freedom from constraint and the supervision of lackeys, however well dressed or polite. In the case of the fastidious brokers kept under surveillance, tired nature at last, reluctant, yielded. There came a day, or rather a night, when even they were able to sleep--an uneasy, troubled sleep, it is true--amid the mean surroundings of the tenement.

The determined will of the monarch so ordered affairs that the conditions under his edict were kept in force for many days. He proposed to give a thorough test to his quixotic ideas. The portion of the workmen was hard manual labor by day in the upper regions of air and light, and by night the relaxation of enervating luxury; and the portion of the brokers was deep dejection, deep curses, and haggard sleeplessness.

The culmination of this condition of unrest occurred at a great ball which another royal edict had blazoned forth to be given as a tribute to the laboring masses, and at which the non-producers would be compelled to assist, not indeed as menials, but as experienced advisers. Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars at least would be expended on the pomp and glory of the occasion. The sage counsellors of state, men deeply versed in the lore of the past, were called together to devise costumes for the crude working people and to frame rules of etiquette for their behavior. The most elaborate descriptions appeared in the daily press of what was proposed. For weeks the vast preparations went steadily forward. Everything of luxury and ornament that the commerce of the empire sucked up from the farthest confines of the earth was made to minister to the great event.

At last the auspicious day arrived. One of the grandest palaces of the King himself was the scene of the festivity. The costumes worn represented many of the great names of history, from Julius Cæsar to Napoleon Bonaparte, and from Cleopatra to Marie Antoinette. The height of the great occasion was reached somewhat after midnight when the _quadrille d'honneur_ was announced. The great King sat upon a raised dais, or throne, the better to view the gorgeous pageant. A mighty fanfare of trumpets, which seemed to whirl the feelings for a moment into the forces beyond mortality, invited to the initial movements of the quadrille. It was as though an army with banners was about to launch its squadrons upon the foe in some majestic Friedland or Gettysburg. As the sound died away, there was a pause. The great King looked up in amazement, and stamping that foot whose heel had rested upon the necks of mighty potentates, now his willing vassals, he arose with frown black as midnight.

Suffer me, O reader, to recall the elements of this unparalleled occasion: On the one hand, almost omnipotent power, backed by transcendent though wayward genius, a will that hitherto had never been balked, an unsullied prestige, a front of Jove to threaten and command, upon which great thought registered every varying expression, one of the least of which would have endowed an ordinary prince with lasting renown. On the other hand, "fantastic compliment strutting up and down tricked in outlandish feather." A motion from the hand of majesty, now fully erect, sent another mighty wave of martial music flying on invisible wings, in thousand forms, throughout every corridor. As this second summons for the masterpiece to be set in motion died away in turn, two bands of men detached themselves from the distant throng massed in the farthest background, and came slowly forward with bowed heads and deferential tread. At the same instant a hundred brilliant officers of the household stepped out of the corridors behind the King with drawn swords, and other hundreds crowded behind them prepared to do their master's instant service.

The Great Strategist comprehended the situation with a single sweeping glance of his eagle eye, and drawing himself up full height motioned his servitors with his left hand back into their concealment, while with his extended right hand he encouraged with benignant gesture the approach of the representatives of the people, who had shrunk back in dismay when the King's guard sprang forth so abruptly. It was now seen that the approaching bands were composed in equal parts of the gaudily caparisoned workmen and their plainly dressed advisers. Each party bore in its midst an enormous roll, whose weight impeded anything like rapid progress. On arriving at the front of the throne, they deposited their burdens and then prostrated themselves before the King. When bidden to arise and state their purpose, a stalwart son of toil stepped forward in front of his comrades. He was attired in a $10,000 costume, representing Henry of Navarre. This costume sat upon his rugged limbs as though they had been melted into it. The King gazed complacently upon his manufactured nobleman and bade him proceed.

"August and Sovereign King!" thus began the blacksmith, for such he was when not intoxicated or attending a costume ball--"August and Sovereign King, I have been pushed forward by my fellows who have joined in this petition, with a vast multitude of their co-workers, similarly gorged with hateful luxury. They ask me to state plainly to your Majesty that they now know from actual experience how hollow and worthless are all the glories of the merely rich, whose time is devoted to vain shows and in devising new delicacies for the palate. They beseech your Majesty that you, in accordance with your gracious pleasure, should restore them to their simple and humble paths of life, wherein they will dwell in reasonable contentment hereafter."

The workman ceased, and the spokesman for wealth and idleness stepped forward and pleaded his case very eloquently. He showed, in the petition which many thousands of his class had signed, that through their recent experience they all had been made to feel the weight of life as it rests upon those under them. He averred that he and his fellows were heartily sick of their lives thus ordered, and that they petitioned the King to send them beyond his confines, or place them in his army, or, better still, allow them to seek honorable employment in vocations more in accord with their taste and inclination.

The King, esteeming that he had sufficiently disciplined the wealthy and had measurably cast out the "daimon of unrest" from the mind of labor, while at the same time he had given a notable illustration to all his people of the folly of outrunning too far the sentiments of your age, and the arrant rot of placing edicts upon the statute books that at once become a dead letter unless backed by despotic force, and feeling the security of his position, stood before his petitioners, lightly leaning on his left foot, with his right hand in the breast of his coat, and thus addressed them:

"My people, the results flowing from my edict are not otherwise
than I fully believed would result; I am satisfied at the real
good that has been accomplished. Many there are who would like to
see human nature changed by an equally absurd upheaval of the
social fabric, which would instantly place the limbs of labor
between cambric sheets and line their stomachs with sweetmeats.
The truly wise base their expectations for the race upon no such
sudden revolution, but rather see salvation for their fellows in
a gradual and natural betterment of conditions, a growth upwards
that can be maintained through all the spasms of reform, a
lifting of the whole fabric of society by the great forces of
education, faith, and persistency, which are and have ever been
the architects of the race."

PLAZA OF THE POETS.

REPLY TO "LOCKSLEY HALL SIXTY YEARS AFTER."

BY BARTON LOMAX PITTMAN.

Nay, my grandsire, though you leave me latest lord of Locksley Hall,
Speak of Amy's heavenly graces and the frailty of her fall,
Point me to the shield of Locksley, hanging in this mansion lone,
I must turn from such sad splendor ere my heart be changed to stone.

While you prate of pride ancestral and the dead dreams of your youth,
I, despite my birth and lineage, am a battler for the truth.
To the work-worn, half-starved peasants of this realm my heart goes
out--
Those who, plundered and forgotten, find this life a ruthless rout.

In the rustling robes of Amy bloomed the roses that had fled
From the cheeks of pauper maidens forced into the brothel-bed;
In her saintly smiles and glances flashed the sunlight that was shut
By the iron-hand injustice from the cotter's humble hut.

Nay, 'tis wrong that we should range with science glorying in the
time,
While we force our brother mortals into squalor, need, and crime;
Wicked we should pose as Christians singing songs to God on high,
Heedless of his tortured creatures who in pauper prisons lie.

Christless is the crime of turning creed-stopped ears to teardrops
shed
By the women whom oppression robs of virtue for their bread.
Satan's blush would mantle crimson could he see the stunted child
Slaving in our marts and markets, helpless, hopeless, and reviled--

See its pallid face uplifted from the whirling factory wheels,
Tear-stained with the grief and anguish of a baby brain that reels,
Tortured in life's budding springtime, toiling on with stifled cries,
Seeing, through its tears refracted, rippling cascades, azure skies;
Skies and birds and flowery meadows made for children wealthy-born,
While God's outcasts, with their parents, robbed and drudging, live
forlorn,
Men in whom the fires of hope have sunk into a sordid spark,
Mothers rearing helpless infants for the brothel's dawnless dark.

While this world seems far too crowded to provide us work for all,
Acres spread their untilled bosoms, while the nations rise and fall.
Nature's storehouse, made for all men, is monopolized by some,
Robbing labor of its produce, making almshouse, jail, and slum.

Side by side with art and progress creeps the haggard spectre,
Want--
Creeps the frightful phantom, Hunger, with its bloodless body gaunt.
Wider, wider spreads the chasm 'twixt the wealthy and the poor,
Social discontent declaring that such wrongs cannot endure.

And this yawning of the chasm is the curse of every race,
As it saps and kills its manhood ere it reach the zenith-place;
Spartan valor, Grecian learning, Roman honor had their day,
But land plunder rose among them, dooming death by slow decay.

Shall we wait for evolution, let it right these monstrous wrongs,
While the helpless, young, and tender writhe and groan 'neath social
thongs?
Nay, 'tis better all should perish in a battle for the right,
Than let philosophic cowards keep us in this stygian night.

Locksley Hall has now a master who would claim the earth for all,
Who would make the titled idler cease to rob his tenant-thrall;
Wreck the Church and State if need be (better such in time will
rise),
But who from this glorious purpose nevermore will turn his eyes--

Never, till the arms of nature clasp in joy her outcast child,
Long since driven from the meadow and the dell and woodland wild,
Till to each belongs the produce of his hand and heart and brain,
And glad heralds of millennium thrill along our path of pain.

Though the world has piled its fagots round the great and good and
brave;
Thrust its Socrates the hemlock, scourged its Jesus to the grave;
Though its sneer has chilled the tender, and its frown has cursed
the good,
While its Nero sways the sceptre and its Emmett dies in blood;

Yet in Truth there is a power that through ceaseless cycles slow
Will inscribe the doom of Error in an ever-fadeless glow,
That will trample on oppression, burst the chains and crush the
throne,
Rearing on the blood and ruin justice-reign from zone to zone.

Idealistic dreamer, say you? In your youth you once felt so?
Well, I only pray life's sunset, bowing down my head with snow,
Shall not swerve me from my purpose, though the victor-laurels twine
In my reach, and if forsaking my convictions they are mine.

Do not so condemn the realists, rhymesters, authors, and their way,
Just because they point about us to the errors of to-day;
Spare them, though they gaze not upward from our self-wrought
piteous plight,
For, though blinded and despairing, they are struggling toward the
light.

Let the realist dip his falcon in the boiling blood of life,
Tracing in heartrending horror all the hoary wrongs and strife,
Till the world shall sick and sadden of its folly and its sin,
Hearkening through the roar of traffic to the still small voice
within--

Voice which murmurs Christ's own message as we circle round the sun:
That, though greed and creed divide us, still humanity is one--
One in all its godlike longing, one in all its hopes and fears,
With its calvaries, scaffolds, hemlocks, and its seas of unshed
tears.

Then this star of sorrow swinging through the vast immortal void
Shall, regenerated, slumber while man's heart is overjoyed,
Thrilled with yearnings altruistic, triumphing o'er clods of clay,
As we march into the love-light of the grand Millennial day.

JOHN BROWN.

BY COATES KINNEY.

The Great Republic bred her free-born sons
To smother conscience in the coward's hush,
And had to have a freedom-champion's
Blood sprinkled in her face to make her blush.

One Will became a passion to avenge
Her shame--a fury consecrate and weird,
As if the old religion of Stonehenge
Amid our weakling worships reappeared.

It was a drawn sword of Jehovah's wrath,
Two-edged and flaming, waved back to a host
Of mighty shadows gathering on its path,
Soon to emerge as soldiers, when the ghost

Of John Brown should the lines of battle form.
When John Brown crossed the Nation's Rubicon,
Him Freedom followed in the battle-storm,
And John Brown's soul in song went marching on.

Though John Brown's body lay beneath the sod,
His soul released the winds and loosed the flood:
The Nation wrought his will as hest of God,
And her bloodguiltiness atoned with blood.

The world may censure and the world regret:
The present wrath becomes the future ruth;
For stern old History does not forget
The man who flings his life away for truth.

In the far time to come, when it shall irk
The schoolboy to recite our Presidents'
Dull line of memorabilia, John Brown's work
Shall thrill him through from all the elements.

DEMOS.

BY W. H. VENABLE, LL. D.

America, my own!
Thy spacious grandeurs rise
Faming the proudest zone
Pavilioned by the skies;
Day's flying glory breaks
Thy vales and mountains o'er,
And gilds thy streams and lakes
From ocean shore to shore.

Praised be thy wood and wold,
Thy corn and wine and flocks,
The yellow blood of gold
Drained from thy cañon rocks;
Thy trains that shake the land,
Thy ships that plough the main!
Triumphant cities grand
Roaring with noise of gain!

Yet not the things of sense,
By nature wrought, or art,
Prove soul's preëminence,
Or swell the patriot heart;
Our country we revere
For that from sea to sea
Her vast-domed atmosphere
Is life-breath of the free.

Brown Labor, gazing up,
Takes hope, and Hunger stands
Holding her empty cup
In pale, expectant hands.
Brave young Ambition waits
Thy just law's clarion call,
That power unbar the gates
Of privilege to all.

Trade's fickle signets coined
From Mammon's molten dust,
With reverence conjoined,
Proclaim "In God we trust."
Nor doth the legend lie:
The People, patient, bide,
Trusting the Lord on high,
To thunder on their side.

Earth's races look to thee;
The peoples of the world
Thy risen splendors see,
And thy wide flag unfurled;
Kelt, Slav, and Hun behold
That banner from afar,
They bless each streaming fold,
And cheer its every star.

For liberty is sweet
To every folk and age,--
Armenia, Cuba, Crete,--
Despite war's heathen rage,
Or scheming diplomat
Whose words of peace enslave.
Columbia! Democrat
Of Nations! speak and save!

As mightful Moses led
To Canaan's promised land;
As Christ victorious bled,
Obeying Love's command;
So thou, Right's champion,
God's chosen leader strong,
Gird up thy loins! march on!
Defend mankind from Wrong.

THE EDITOR'S EVENING.

Leaf From My Samoan Notebook. (A. D. 2297.)

In that age (_siècle_ XIX, _ad finem_) great attention was given on the continent of Am-ri-ka to increased speed in locomotion. Men and women went darting about like the big yellow gnats that we see at sundown on the western coast of our island when the bay is hazy. The whole history of that century in both Am-ri-ka and Yoo-rup might well be written around the fact of _transit_, for transit was the spinal cord of the whole social, civil, and political order. Man-life then seemed to oscillate more rapidly than ever before, as if in sympathy with the vibration of the universal ether.

The struggle for the increase of speed began in the early part of the century referred to--about 1822. Scarcely had the wars of Na-Bu-Leon subsided when the matter of getting over the earth's surface at a greater velocity was taken up as eagerly as if life consisted in going quickly to a certain point. Men, it would appear, had not yet learned that the principal aim of this existence is the _going_, and not the _getting there_. Then it was that the steam En-jo-in was invented. The Bah-lune had been frequently tried, but always with ludicrous or fatal results. A young man by the name of Dee Green once essayed this method in Am-ri-ka, with a most ridiculous catastrophe. A poem was written about the affair beginning thus--

An aspiring genius was Dee Green.

For more than half a century locomotion by steam prevailed in Am-ri-ka, though it did not satisfy the demand for swiftness. When this method no longer sufficed, several expedients were found to _avoid_ going anywhere. It was observed that the necessity of going depended upon the limitation of the human voice; that is, of hearing vocal utterances. The voices of human beings could not then be heard beyond a certain limit. To hear the voice of a man from Am-ri-ka to Ing-land was then thought to be impossible. The possessors of voices, therefore, had in that age to _get together_ before they could communicate. True, there were some men upon whom this necessity did not rest, for they could be heard at a great distance. It might be noted, however, that this kind, called _Homo politicus_, had so little sense that nobody cared to hear them, so that their success in vociferation amounted to nothing.

All the people of Am-ri-ka who were civilized spoke in a low tone, and any who cared to communicate must seek each other's presence. This had been the reason for the old invention of E-pistol-ary correspondence. This method, however, was not satisfactory, since it required much time to say only a little, and since what was said in this manner was found so wide of the mark as to produce disastrous results. Society was, on this account, frequently rent with lawsuits, having no better foundation than a bundle of Let-yers.

To avoid this trouble another invention, called the Far-talker (or Tel-ef-oan), was made; and by means of this conceit the people of Am-ri-ka could speak to one another many miles apart. The Far-talker was a remarkable sort of invention by which one merchant, by stretching a copper thread across the country to the ear of another merchant, could talk to him _through the wire_. The other merchant could reverse and talk back! Sometimes a young woman would tiptoe up to the box where the wire ended and say the most absurd things to her favorite fop down-town; this was often overheard. People had not yet learned the method of understanding each other's thoughts without the ridiculous contrivance of speech, written scratches, wires, and Fo-ny-grafs.

It was at this time that men, in their effort to carry themselves from place to place, seem to have taken the first hints from nature. It was remembered that _between_ swimming and flying, and _between_ flying and walking, certain forms of locomotion, quite rapid withal, are used by our poor relatives on land and sea. Thus the flying-fish rises from the water and shoots, quite parabolically, for some distance through the air. The genus Cheiroptera also gives a hint of progress by means of wings that are not made of feathers. The flying lemur, nearly akin to _Homo bifurcans_, shows how one may rise and go by a sort of aërial progress along the ground.

Out of these hints the men of Am-ri-ka, at the epoch of which we speak, sought inventions by means of which they might keep close to the ground for safety, but otherwise fly; for the age was very fast! Under these conditions some Unknown Man invented what was called the By-sigh-kel. It was a sort of flat-sided, rotary ground-skimmer, very thin and notorious. It came coincidently with another invention called the Trol-lee. The latter was an electrical wagon for general travel in cities and suburbs, while the By-sigh-kel was a personal carriage for one or possibly two. The passenger in this case had to start his machine and then jump on. The propulsion was effected by a pump-like action of the legs, very tiresome and elegant. The passenger generally leaned forward in a position strongly suggestive of the favorite attitude of his arboreal ancestors. It was the peculiarity of the Trol-lee that it made a sort of humming roar as it went that sounded like a hundred prisoners groaning in unison; but the By-sigh-kel made no noise in going except in collisions and wrecks. The latter were so frequent that a whole cycle of restorative arts had to be undertaken of which the principal was dentistry. At the close of the century there were few front teeth remaining--except artificials.

Many accounts of the Age of the By-sigh-kel and Trol-lee have been preserved among the old records of Am-ri-ka, and traditions of it are found in the antiquarian papers of other countries. We have seen pictorial representations made by Fo-to-graf-ure of scenes from the age referred to. The streets of extinct cities are found pictured in this way. There was an instrument called the Cow-dack which was used in taking pictures in an instantaneous manner, so that the scene would look like life.

A busy street, thus pictured, in that time, shows many Trol-lees rushing by, filled with merry people. Along the side-ways scores of passengers are seen, mounted on their 'Sigh-kels, going in divers directions at full speed. The passengers present many aspects; for riding the 'Sigh-kel was an art which had to be acquired; and by some this could not be done--at least not gracefully done. Many tried, but few were chosen. Two classes of people suffered much in this particular, namely, the very fat and the very bony. Those whom nature had favored in form and feature, and who had acquired the art of sitting upright, look well enough in these old pictures of a past age. But the clumsy and obese, the slender and angular people may well be laughed at even through the shadowy retrospect of four centuries.

One of the 'Sigh-kel machines was made _double_; and an old cartoon which is now before me gives to this kind the name of Tan-doom. On this men and women frequently rode together, the woman going before, for that was the age in which the woman, becoming new, showed her newness by being forward.

Nor may we leave these reminiscences of a bygone age without reflecting upon the absurdities of our ancestors, who had not yet imagined the ease and excellence of our own method of locomotion by skimming at will the surface of the earth. The facile beauty and natural art with which we now rise from the ground and propel ourselves by our own thought and wish to any distance--thus vindicating our superiority to all other creatures in our method of excursion--are facts so obvious and ever-present that we fail to reflect upon the impediments and hardships of the people of Am-ri-ka and indeed of the whole world in the nineteenth century....

Thinking on these things I can but imagine that I have myself seen them in some previous epoch of my existence. The facts which I have recorded appear dimly, as if in memory of what I once beheld; but the vision of it is so obscure that I still doubt whether it be dream or reality. I have long imagined that we retain from one epoch of our existence to the next a vague recollection of our experiences in the remote ages of the past. I sometimes think that it is not impossible that I myself, in some forgotten avatar, used to sit alone at the window of my office, looking into the street of one of the old towns of Am-ri-ka where the Trol-lees were going one way and the By-sigh-kels the other way, crossing and darting hither and yon, according to the wills of the riders; but the vision is so dim that it looks like the fictions of sleep.

Vita Longa.

The question is not how long this bodily life may last, or how long the mind, so conditioned, can endure. It is not even how long the mind may continue to produce; for the mind, like a poor, half-exhausted field, urged with rain and fertilizers, may produce only potatoes, mullen, and cockle. The real question--the deep-down essence of it--is how long the mind, or soul, may retain the enthusiasm and passionate power of _creation_. That is the only true test of longevity; and when that ceases there is nothing left. The real duration of man-life is measured only by the persistency of creative power.

Longfellow, standing in the old pulpit, on the fiftieth anniversary of his class at Bowdoin, and saying to those who would introduce him, "I wish the desk were large enough to conceal me all," makes a beautiful section of this theme by citing some of the most inspiring instances of the long life of the soul:

Cato learned Greek at eighty; Sophocles
Wrote his grand OEdipus, and Simonides
Bore off the prize of verse from his compeers,
When each had numbered more than fourscore years;
And Theophrastus at fourscore and ten
Had but begun his "Characters of Men;"
Chaucer at Woodstock with his nightingales,
At sixty wrote the Canterbury Tales;
Goethe at Weimar, toiling to the last,
Completed Faust when eighty years were past:
These are indeed exceptions; but they show
How far the Gulf Stream of our youth may flow
Into the arctic regions of our lives,
Where little else than life itself survives.

Measured by this test of creative power and its persistency, how variable is the duration of human life! Sometimes the creative power appears in early youth; but when that happens there is generally an early surcease. Sometimes the power comes late and remains long. Sometimes it flashes forth in the early morning and remains in the after twilight. Estimated by years this productive power (which goes by the name of genius) sometimes reaches only to a few score moons. Sometimes it reaches to a score of years. Sometimes, though rarely, it extends to three-score years or more.

Thomas Chatterton went to a suicide's grave in Potter's Field when he was only seventeen years, nine months, and four days of age. I know of no other case of so great precocity; it is beyond belief. His mind had been productive for about three years. Byron's productive period covered sixteen years--no more. Pope began at twelve and ended at fifty-six.

In our own age, Tennyson has done well. Making an early effort to begin, he, like Dryden, did not really reach the creative epoch until he was fully thirty. His creative period covers about fifty-nine years. It extends from "A Dream of Fair Women," in 1833, to "Crossing the Bar," in 1892.

The best example, however, in the history of the human mind, is that of William Cullen Bryant; that is, Bryant has real creations that lie further apart in time than can be paralleled, so far as I know, in the case of any other of the sons of men. The date of "Thanatopsis" is not precisely known. It belongs, however, to the years 1812-13. Bryant was then eighteen--in his nineteenth year. Add to 1812 sixty-four years and we have 1876, the date of the publication of the "Flood of Years." The two poems in question lie apart in production by the space of fully three-score and four years. It is a marvel! And why not?

To him who in the love of nature holds
Communion with her visible forms,

why should not life, productive life, enthusiastic fruitful life, be extended until its last acts of creation, shot through with the sunshine of experience and wisdom, shall flash in great bars of haze and glory over the landscape of the twilight days?

Kaboto.

Old John à Venice in his cockleshell
Breasted the salt sea like an Englishman!
He saw the bleak coast of the Tartar Khan
To left-hand in the distance. "All is well!"
He cried to Labrador. The roaring swell
Bore him to shore, whereon his hands upran
The Lion flag and flag republican
Of the old Doges' wave-girt citadel.

Dominion and Democracy are ours!
From the first day unto the last we hold
To Liberty and Empire! We shall be,
Under the Star-flag, for eternal hours,
Even as Cabot's two flags first foretold,
Both free and strong from mountain crag to sea!

A STROKE FOR THE PEOPLE.

Here is a message for all: FROM AND AFTER THE ISSUANCE OF THE NUMBER FOR JULY THE REGULAR SUBSCRIPTION PRICE OF THE ARENA, THE MAGAZINE OF THE PEOPLE, WILL BE REDUCED TO $2.50 A YEAR. The reasons for this reduction are not far to seek. The stringency of the times, the hardships of the people,--their lack of money, the decline in the prices of their products, the relentless grip of the mortgages on their homes,--and the absence of any symptom of present relief from a Government under the domination and dictation of the money power, have induced the managers of THE ARENA to bear their part of the common burden and distress, and to express in a practical way their sympathies with the masses by reducing the price of the magazine to the lowest possible figure consistent with its maintenance at the present standard of efficiency and excellence.

One of the immediate causes and suggestions of this course will be found in the following private letter written to THE ARENA by a plain Kansas farmer. We have obtained his permission to use his letter as an appeal to the public:

"SYLVAN GROVE, KANSAS, May 22, 1897.

"_To_ THE ARENA.