Chapter XII (1)

At sixty Marshall, Maxwell Fair’s solicitor, found himself a bachelor, a solicitor with an income of twenty thousand pounds and a very decided attachment for his few wealthy clients and an aversion to new ones. Long past the necessity of accepting new clients, Marshall, like so many old Templars, asked for nothing but to be let alone among his books and cronies in the Inner Temple, and allowed to spend his brief holidays at his shooting-box by the Norfolk Broads.

It was with no very good grace, therefore, that he returned to town on that wet Sunday in response to an absurdly urgent telegram from Fair, whose usual business was exactly to old Marshall’s taste, since it consisted of drawing perfunctory documents having to do with real estate, and never involving critical issues of any sort.

But the snug thousands which Fair’s enormous interests brought to him annually made it impolitic to ignore his most uncharacteristic bit of hysterics. Accordingly, after dining in gloomy solitude at his quiet little chop-house, Marshall surprised his laundress by turning up at his chambers in the Inner Temple at nine o’clock on Sunday evening in a crusty temper. Fair would arrive at ten, so Marshall settled down for an hour with Browne’s “Religio Medici,” when to an irritating knock he sang out a curt, “Come in! come in!” and a lady entered.

“Mr. Marshall, I believe?” said the lady.

“Yes, madam,” replied Marshall, rising; “but my business hours—In fact, I am engaged—just leaving, you know—and, besides, I expect a gentleman by appointment at any moment.”

“I venture to think that, whatever his business may be, you will consider my case the one requiring immediate attention,” quietly answered the lady, seating herself, although the old solicitor had not suggested her doing so.

“Case? Case?” exclaimed Marshall. “Why, bless us all, I haven’t taken any new cases in years. Couldn’t think of it, madam.”

“But,” returned the lady vehemently, “a crime has been committed, and I——”

“Crime, you say?” shouted Marshall as if he were being insulted. “Good heavens, my good woman, do you imagine that I am interested in crime?”

“But Mr. Fair has, I think, some claim upon your advice and counsel?” replied the lady, with the assurance of one who trumps an ace.

“Mr. Fair has certainly every claim upon me,” answered Marshall, sitting down and becoming the cautious and alert barrister at once, “and I trust you will appreciate my unwillingness to discuss anything concerning my clients with strangers.”

“Strangers?” cried the woman, with such eagerness that Marshall began to fear all sorts of possible female entanglement. “Why, sir, I am his—I mean, I know Mr. Fair very well.”

“Really, madam,” protested the solicitor, now thoroughly certain that this woman and the urgent telegram were unpleasantly related. “Really, you know, I must beg you will call at some other time. Allow me to see you to your carriage.”

“It will be necessary for you to hear me,” replied the lady firmly. “I see that you do not remember me, but we have met before. You were at Mr. Fair’s place in Norfolk about five years ago. You were presented to Mrs. Maxwell Fair. Well, I am she.”

“Upon my word, dear madam,” exclaimed Marshall, jumping up, “I did, indeed, fail to recognize you. That’s a sign I’m getting old, is it not? This is an honor, really.”

“Alas, sir, I fear that you will think it anything but that,” replied Mrs. Fair nervously. “I desire to state before going into the matter which brought me here that I am not the wife of Mr. Maxwell Fair—Mr. Fair never married. I see that this fills you with amazement—pray, don’t misjudge him. Believe me, Mr. Fair deserves your deepest regard and admiration. My children are not his children. He has been a father, a brother, a chivalrous protector—that is all.”

“But, my dear madam, this is quite beyond belief,” stammered the solicitor.

“It is the truth, as you will learn presently from him. I came here simply to tell you that, whatever Mr. Fair may say, my crime does not involve him, as it would of course do if I were his wife. Now for my story.”

“I must remind you, Mrs. Fair,” interrupted Marshall sternly, “that if your crime, as you choose to call it, is to the prejudice to Mr. Fair, I must decline to hear your statement, as, in the event of any issue arising, I must, of course, act on his and not on your behalf.”

“But it is not a question as between Mr. Fair and me,” answered Mrs. Fair. “The simple and horrible fact is I killed a man yesterday—a Cuban named Pablo Mendes—a wretch who had blasted my life. He dared to pursue me even into my protector’s house. He heaped the foulest insults upon Mr. Fair and the children and me—so, in a mad access of frenzy and horror, I shot and instantly killed him. I desire to give myself up to the police. What shall I do, sir?”

Marshall was walking up and down now with his hands clasped behind his back, and for several moments he did not answer. Then he said as he stood confronting her: “If there were no witnesses, and the man can be proved to have been your traducer and persecutor, it would not be difficult to set up a powerful defense. He invaded your house, demanded money, threatened you—or, wait, wait—I have it! On failing to extort the money, he attacked you, and you, having anticipated just such an assault, had taken the precaution to be armed—and shot him down for the blackguard he was. Why, my dear Mrs. Fair, a jury would acquit you without leaving the courtroom.”

“Ah, but the facts are not as you state them,” cried Mrs. Fair, rising and grasping the old man’s hand feverishly. “There was no attack. And, oh, sir, I did it! I did it! I say I! Take me to the police—and make them believe that it was I—or—or—well, I can’t tell you now, but unless you make them believe me, something most horrible will occur. Do this—do this, Mr. Marshall, for God’s sake.”

“But we must consider this from every side,” replied Marshall, getting Mrs. Fair into a seat again and continuing his walk. “Give me a little time to think it out. Could you manage to return early in the morning? You are evidently very ill. Rest will refresh you—and, moreover, nothing can be done wisely tonight.”

“Very well—but tell me that you believe me—tell me that,” implored Mrs. Fair, rising to go. She was indeed nearly at the end.

“Of course I must accept your statement,” answered Marshall with much gentleness. “Yet it by no means follows that the consequences need be what you apprehend. Allow me to show you down to your carriage.”

“Here is my statement,” she said as she placed a document on the table and took the arm which the old solicitor offered her. “Act upon it, sir—it is a woman’s last story—written in her blood and that of her children. Act upon it, sir, act upon it—no matter what Mr. Fair says.”

“I promise nothing, madam,” replied Marshall, leading her to the door. “You are in no condition to take the best or the wisest view of this most incredible affair. Depend upon it, I shall act only for your best interest and that of Mr. Fair. Come.”

He led her down to the street and, after seeing her safely to her carriage, slowly retraced his steps into the quiet precincts of the Temple. When about to enter the door at the foot of his worn stairs, two men came walking quickly from the thoroughfare without, and one of them, recognizing him, said: “This is my friend Allyne—Lord Linklater’s son, you know, Mr. Marshall. May we have a few minutes of your time?—very urgent matter!”

“Travers?” said Marshall as he caught sight of his face under the gas lamp. “What on earth brings you to this old graveyard at this time? I know your honored father, Lord Linklater, Mr. Allyne. Come up, gentlemen.”

Once more the solicitor entertained no very pleasant conjectures as to the purpose of his visitors, whom he knew to be close personal friends of Maxwell Fair’s. The whole departure was as upsetting as it was sudden.

“Rather a beastly time to intrude upon you, Mr. Marshall,” said Travers apologetically as they seated themselves in Marshall’s library.

“And on the beastliest sort of business,” put in Allyne.

Mr. Marshall, finding nothing particular to say, remained silent.

“We were asked to come here this evening by Mr. Maxwell Fair,” said Travers, explaining. “He will be here at ten o’clock.”

“Yes?” softly remarked the imperturbable lawyer; “then we will wait.”

“The deuce you say,” protested Allyne in spite of the signal from Travers. “Why, we came ahead of him expressly.”

“Shut up, Allyne,” broke in Travers. “Fair knows that we are here, Mr. Marshall—in fact, we came rather at his suggestion. He gave us full permission to speak to you.”

“I shall, of course, be very glad to hear anything that you may deem it desirable to tell me. Pray proceed,” said Marshall not very eagerly.

“Well, then, sir, it is with the utmost sorrow that we have to tell you that we are convinced poor Fair has become suddenly insane on a certain dreadful subject,” went on Travers, irritated by Marshall’s manner.

“Ah, there we shall have to move very slowly—very—slowly,” said Marshall when Travers stopped. “Mr. Fair is thought to be of unsound mind on a number of subjects by a number of persons. He is so successful, you know—so original, that others who are merely British fail to understand him. Moreover, Fair is unselfish, sympathetic, altruistic—and of course appears mad to our smug, hoggish world.”

“Damn it,” exclaimed Allyne, “that’s all, as you say, but the dear fellow has gone clean off his head this time, you know. You just wait until Travers gives you the details.”

“I am waiting,” answered Marshall calmly.

“Before we come to that,” said Travers in answer to Marshall’s look, “I believe, Mr. Marshall, that you knew Fair’s father, did you not?”

“Intimately—and his grandfather also. What of them?”

“What sort were they?”

“Very much like Fair—both were thought mad.”

“In what way? They were men of tremendous will power and fixity of purpose, were they not? I have reason for asking.”

“Quite so. They were idealists, dreamers, monomaniacs—but why?”

“I thought as much. The stuff martyrs are made of. Tell us about them, if you don’t mind, Mr. Marshall,” said Travers, unaccountably insistent.

“Very well,” began Marshall, really glad to be able thus to kill time until Fair arrived. “His grandfather got it into his head that he was bound in honor to extricate his publishers—he was an author, you know—from their financial difficulties, although it was clearly proved in court that they had only their own speculative folly to thank for their failure. Well, poor old Fair lost his all and even mortgaged the Norfolk estates. In spite of his solicitors, he pressed forward eagerly to ruin, and died perfectly happy in the knowledge that he had lived up to his ideal. Mad—stark mad!”

“By Jove, it sounds like Fair all over again!” exclaimed Allyne.

“Yes,” went on the old lawyer, warming to his favorite work of decrying idealism of every sort. “Yes, gentlemen, and our Mr. Fair’s father was no better than his grandfather. He spent the first half of his life in freeing the estates from their heavy encumbrances—and the second half in throwing away all that he had accumulated in the first. His specialty was young geniuses—any kind of young genius, musical, literary, artistic. Any chap who could not get an editor to print his stuff could count on Fair bringing out an _édition de luxe_ at his own expense. And any young woman had but to get her mother to tell him with tears in her eyes that she had wonderful musical promise and away she would go to Germany to be educated—of course at Fair’s expense. You probably know that he died in lodgings in Mile End, where he had removed in order to live among those whom he, poor old dreamer, imagined would appreciate his sympathy. He left our Mr. Fair nothing but the estates heavily mortgaged again.”

“And Maxwell is a chip of the old block,” commented Travers when the solicitor stopped. “But Mr. Marshall, he has done more than either his father or grandfather in the way of self-effacement. His life is one long tragedy for an idea. That is bad enough. But now he proposes actually to destroy himself for it. Unless we can prevent it, he will die.”

“Good heavens,” cried Marshall, unable to treat the terrible intensity on Travers’s face with his customary calmness. “It’s not quite so bad as that. What, in the name of reason, is the man about now?”

“Listen,” said Travers, glad to have at last roused the stoical man of law from his leathery, noncommittal expression, “Fair declares that he has committed a crime which will send him to the gallows— Why, what ails you?”

Travers stopped and stared at the lawyer, who was strangely delighted by his last few words. Marshall’s acute mind had evidently been scouting.

“Nothing,” replied Marshall, regaining his quiet manner; “I was thinking of a similar case that once came to my notice. Go on.”

“There is no evidence against him, and yet the wretched victim of his own high-flown notions is determined to go ahead to destruction. For God’s sake, sir, help us to prevent this, even by placing him in a madhouse.” Travers saw that his words touched the old man, but that professional caution and habitual reserve were restraining him from avowing his purpose, whatever it might be.

This angered Allyne, who broke in with the sneering comment: “The law keeps no end of rascals from getting their richly deserved medicine. I think it’s a jolly beastly outrage if it can’t prevent an innocent man from hanging himself.”

“The ways of the law,” answered Marshall, with cold judicial accent, “the ways of the law, Mr. Allyne, are not as our ways. The law proceeds without sentiment or bias, and must go straight to its object in the light of fact.”

“But, I tell you, the facts can’t be as Fair states them to be, don’t you know,” retorted Allyne hotly, galled by the lawyer’s coolness and formality.

“Then Mr. Fair has nothing to fear,” quietly replied Marshall. “It is ten o’clock. Fair is a punctual man—he will be here immediately. Suppose that we allow him to explain himself.”

“I’ll be hanged if I will let him go too far. Why, gentlemen, this is monstrous! Do you mean to say, Marshall, that you——?”

A knock interrupted Allyne, and immediately Fair came in, looking not at all as though he could possibly be the subject of his friend’s anxiety.

“I’m awfully sorry,” Fair began, “to learn from your laundress, Marshall, that my telegram brought you back to town from the country. I promise you it won’t happen again.”

“Nonsense,” returned Marshall, studying Fair closely, “I was only too glad of an excuse to come back to town. You know, we old Templars don’t enjoy the country—been caged here too long for that. Sit down, dear fellow. What can I get up for you—sherry?”

“Thanks, nothing for me. Perhaps the others——”

“Lord, no!” roared Allyne before Marshall could ask.

“Well, then, to the point,” said Fair, seating himself calmly and lighting a cigar with the air of a director of a company about to discuss the treasurer’s report. “Travers has told you, Marshall?”

“Nothing,” answered the solicitor. “We were discussing peculiarities of temperament. I was just telling your friends what people used to say of your father. You know, we are all mad on some subject.”

“I see,” replied Fair, smiling. “Allyne has mentioned madness and madhouses, I should say, about once every five minutes all day long.”

“Yes, and we mean it,” thundered Allyne. “At it now. This is rum.”

“I can put the facts before you in a word, Marshall,” said Fair.

“Do so. I am all attention,” returned the lawyer, settling back into his chair with a puzzling look, in which there was certainly a trace of amusement not easily explained.

“Some Cuban gentlemen have been extorting blackmail from certain aristocratic families,” went on Fair in a monotone, “and they had, without my knowledge, frightened Mrs. Fair into paying them considerable sums. The leader of the gang, one Pablo Mendes, came to my house yesterday, and finding him in the library with Mrs. Fair I killed him.”

“Proceed,” said Marshall when Fair paused to note the effect of his announcement, speaking with so much coolness that Fair jumped up and went on fiercely: “I tell you, I shot him down like a dog—murdered him in cold blood. The servants heard the report of the pistol. Travers came in a moment after the shooting and saw the pistol still warm. I hid the man’s body in a chest in the library, from which it was taken by somebody today—so any effort on my part to delay the hand of justice would be ridiculous. What shall I do?”

“Nothing!” exclaimed Marshall. Then he added, as if regretting the unguarded word: “That is, I can’t advise you until I know more. Go on.”

“That’s the game, Marshall,” put in Allyne, pleased by the lawyer’s manifest incredulity. “Fair, you idiot, do you fancy that everybody has gone off his head just because you have?”

“Oh, please, Mr. Allyne,” said Marshall deprecatingly.

“You take this rather coolly, I must say, Marshall,” remarked Fair when Travers had succeeded in pushing Allyne into a chair.

“I find coolness conducive to clear thinking,” replied Marshall.

“Well, then, I have nothing further to say. I have murdered a man. I have neither the heart nor the wish to set up a defense. Were I to clear myself by technicalities, it would become the duty of the police to try to establish the guilt of someone else. Would you have me sit by quietly, while they drew the net of skilfully devised circumstantial evidence around some innocent person? And to whom else could suspicion point? My servants—or, God help her, the woman who is known as my wife, and who is the noblest soul I ever met? If you cannot meet my arguments, I shall go at once to the police and surrender myself.”

“There will be plenty of time for all that,” replied Marshall, showing so little feeling that Allyne was on the point of breaking out again. “The police would not believe your story, I fear. You see, my dear fellow, your case is by no means unique. Only a very little while ago one very much like it was brought to my attention. A murder—or at all events, a death, had occurred. Suspicion pointed strongly to one of two persons—a gentleman of eccentric character, and the woman whom he had loved in early youth. Now mark the dramatic interest. Each of them confessed the crime to save the other, but, of course, as they both could not have been guilty, the court refused to entertain the charge against either. There was no evidence except the bogus confession of the two. I mention this case only to show you that too hasty action on your part now may spoil everything—and you may not be allowed the luxury of hanging.”

“But, Marshall,” said Fair, “the cases are not even remotely similar. Others will testify that I had the most powerful motives for my crime, and, unless I should be dastard enough to lie, nobody else can be suspected. Lopez knows that Mendes was my enemy. Janet knows that I was in the room when the murder was done. Travers knows that a pistol, which he identified as mine, had been discharged a few minutes before he saw me—at the very time that the servants heard the report in the library. Moreover, somebody discovered the body of my victim where I had hid it. On top of all this I confess the awful fact. What more can the law possibly require? You believe what I tell you, do you not?”

“Not one word of it!” fairly cried Marshall.

“Marshall,” Fair replied with terrible earnestness, “you say you doubt my word. Such a statement must be explained.”

“Certainly,” returned Marshall, now thoroughly in control of his feelings. “I will explain. I doubt your story because of its inherent improbability. Further, I doubt it because I knew your father, because I know yourself, and am aware that not even a shameful death on the gibbet could deter you from any purpose which you had come to think your destiny. Again, I doubt it because I know who the real murderer of Mendes is.”

The three men who heard these last slow, calm words sprang to their feet together, Fair quivering with a nameless horror, and his two friends delirious with joy.

Fair steadied himself against the lawyer’s table and said: “Marshall, this is not the time when you can play with me. I tell you to your face, that when you say that you know who the murderer is, you lie.”

The old man showed how deeply the insult cut into him, and facing the young man with his own face as white as Fair’s, he retorted: “Your father’s son can go very far with me, but no man can give me the lie. Recall that word, Fair.”

Travers looked imploringly at Fair as he replied.

“I do recall it—and beg your pardon,” said Fair eagerly. “I also demand an explanation of your singular conduct.”

“If you will all sit down,” replied the solicitor, “I will prove that I am right. But before I do so I want to say that in all my life I never heard of such sublime devotion, such utterly disinterested heroism. Gentlemen, nothing will ever be more of an honor to us than to be called the friends of Maxwell Fair.”

“Hear, hear!” shouted Allyne, but Travers said quietly to Marshall: “I fear this is scarcely kind of you just now—look at his face.”

The old lawyer looked at Fair, and going over to him grasped his hand.

“Forgive me, boy,” he said, “but I meant each word. To end this dreadful business I have merely to state that the unhappy creature who sent the scoundrel to his doom came here not an hour ago and made a full confession.”

“And on my honor I swear that every word she said was false,” said Fair.

“You, at least, believe me?” asked Marshall, turning to Travers.

“Most assuredly,” replied Travers.

Fair wheeled round at him, saying: “My God, are you men English gentlemen and going to allow an innocent woman to be hanged in order to save me?”

“I seem to hear your father speak in you,” remarked Marshall, “yet there is this difference, Fair. He would have died for a great purpose, but never for a lie or to defeat the ends of justice.”

Fair winced at this, and Travers said: “That’s the line, Marshall.”

“Not a word he has said can move me,” went on Fair, rising. “I want no man’s forced friendship. I have decided on a course. You choose to allow me to pursue it alone. Good-bye.”

He spoke with such feeling, and moved toward the door with so much majesty, that none of them attempted to stop him.

Before he reached the door it was opened and a closely cropped head appeared, and a soft, insinuating cockney voice said: “Beg pardon, I’m sure. Ferret, gentlemen; Ferret, of Scotland Yard.”

“You see, Marshall, others are not as incredulous as you. I am the man you want, Mr. Ferret,” said Fair as the detective came in and sat down.

“I’ll attend to you, sir, in a minute,” replied Ferret jauntily. “Perhaps these gentlemen will try a cigar in the gardens for a few minutes.”

“Oh, never mind them,” quickly returned Fair; “they know all. Proceed.”

“But you see, sir, they _don’t_ know all,” replied Ferret.

“I think, Fair, that we would better let this man speak to you alone,” said Marshall, rising.

Ferret interposed: “I shall ask you to stop, if you don’t mind, Mr. Marshall.”

“As you like,” answered Marshall.

Travers and Allyne went downstairs after shaking Fair’s hand with very much mixed feelings.

Marshall and Fair turned to Ferret when the door was closed, and Fair said sternly: “I see that you have been rather impudently examining that sworn statement on the table there. It will save time if I tell you that it is false. The lady wrote it under a nervous strain. It is totally false.”

“Sure. It’s just as false as your own statement, Mr. Fair,” replied Ferret, winking knowingly at the solicitor, who failed to appreciate the fellow’s humor and resented his apparently unconscionable impertinence.

“What the devil do you mean?” asked Marshall angrily, yet with relief.

“I mean,” answered the cool one, “that, thanks to my little chum, it now becomes my painful duty to admit that I suspected Mr. Fair until about two hours ago. I now know that Mrs. Fair’s statement is false—and likewise Mr. Fair’s also. It’s the other gent’s statement that is the true one.”

“The other gentleman’s statement?” asked Fair fiercely. “Why, man, there was no other man in the room when the shot was fired.”

“Oh, I say, come now, Mr. Fair,” smilingly protested Ferret. “The gent as fired the shot was there, you know. You see, Mr. Marshall, it was this way. Mendes had threatened Mrs. Fair, and she went out and got the pistol, and at that moment Mr. Fair came into the room. Mendes shot himself, and Mr. Fair, hearing the shot and seeing the smoking pistol in Mrs. Fair’s hand, snatched it away from her and declared that it was he and not her that did the killing. She came here tonight and swore it was her, and now he comes and swears it was him. But Mendes swore just as he was dying that it was himself—and the priest will testify to that.”

“But, my heavens, man, Mendes died at once. I hid his body in——”

“In the chest,” interrupted the detective, grinning. “Yes, I know all about that. But, you see, Mendes did not die. He came to while you were at dinner. Our fellows followed him to his lodgings in Soho—and today my chum got hold of a letter that gave her the address, and she and I were with him when he died an hour ago—yes, and Mrs. Fair is there now.”

While he was speaking Fair sank back into his chair, as if unconscious of what was passing, but when Ferret paused he sprang up, crying, “Marshall, did you ever hear of anything so unspeakably glorious as Janet’s devotion?”

“Yes—once,” answered Marshall, with streaming eyes. “Your own, Fair.”

“But, Ferret,” went on Fair, when he had recovered his voice, “who is the chum who so materially assisted you? And where is Mrs. Fair now?”

“Mrs. Fair is by Mendes’s bedside. My chum is——”

The door opened and Kate Mettleby came hurrying in, breathless and worn. Ferret finished by saying: “My chum, gentlemen.”

“Oh, Mr. Fair,” began Kate, after Fair had presented Marshall to her with a word of explanation, “have you heard? Janet is with him—with Señor Mendes—it was awful—it was unbearably touching.”

“He is the father of her children, Kate,” said Fair gently, when Marshall and Ferret quietly stole out, leaving them together.

“Yes, I know—and—Maxwell—there is something—oh, how can I tell you? She came in and knelt by his bed with his head in her arms when the priest told her that he was dead. She knelt there half an hour, and when it was time for us to start to come here to meet you—Maxwell, can you bear it?—when I went and touched her shoulder and told her to come away—she—was dead.”

Kate’s head fell upon her folded arms on the table and her body shook with the strain of the awful day’s events. Fair suffered her to cry herself into a quieter state. Then he stooped and laying his hand on her head, he said: “Kate, the children have no mother now.”

THE END

_All Gain_

TAPESON—How much did he make out of that stock company he formed?

TICKERLY—All that was put into it.

Educational Department

There are thousands of boys and girls, some in the schools and colleges, some not, who are anxious to learn to develop themselves and RISE. Many, many things they yearn to know which the class-room teachers do not teach. Many a subject they are eager to study, if somebody will but show the way. Often there are speeches to be made, essays to be written, debates to be prepared, and the boys and girls simply do not know how to start about it. For instance, they are suddenly required to write or speak on the question: “Should the Government own and operate the railroads?”

They have never read anything about it, perhaps. Therefore they inquire: “Where can we get some literature on the subject?” These young people do not want someone else to write their speeches or essays; they want nothing more than to be told where to get the materials to work with—the data upon which to construct their own argument.

When I was a boy I felt the need of that kind of help very keenly. How was I to know what books contained the information sought? Who could tell me? I soon found that teachers did not love to be bored by inquiries of that character, and therefore I had to browse around in the library at random for what was wanted. If the book needed was there, I generally found it, after wasting much time in the search. If it was not there, as frequently happened, I was at my row’s end. I had to debate without the full preparation which should have been made.

To help out many a student who may be troubled as I used to be, I am going to improvise and conduct in this Magazine a modest little Educational Department. Primarily it is meant for the young people. But the rule will be made as flexible as I feel like making it. Age limits are not fair—no matter whether Osler was joking or not. It is not my plan or purpose to write anybody’s speech or essay; but, where there is a subject of real importance to be discussed by word or pen, I am willing to direct the preparation of the student by telling him or her where the necessary information can be had. It would, perhaps, not be improper for me to suggest some general ideas on the subject to be discussed—these ideas to be worked out and put in form by the student. Often I may render good service to the boys and girls by telling them where the books they need can be bought at the lowest price. It took me many years to learn how to buy books, and it is a thing worth knowing—unless you have more money than I ever had.

The letters written to me in this department will be published as written; but the names of the writers will be withheld. Therefore, no correspondent need be embarrassed in making inquiries. My replies will be given in the Magazine.

Hereafter all letters asking for information—historical, literary, political, economic—will be answered through the EDUCATIONAL DEPARTMENT.

T. E. W.

* * * * *

UNIVERSITY SCHOOL, STONE MOUNTAIN, GA.,
April 17, 1905.

_Hon. Thos. E. Watson, Thomson, Ga._

DEAR SIR: Would you kindly contribute to your magazine an
article something like this:

“Should a young man enter politics?”

I have always had a strong desire to enter politics, and
have thought the matter over a long time, but have as yet
failed to reach a conclusion. If you can do me the very
great favor to advise me on this line you may feel assured
of my hearty appreciation.

Faithfully your friend,

C—— W——.

It all depends on the motive. A young man who feels the inclination to enter politics for the purpose of contributing his share to honest administration should, by all means, do so.

Government does not take care of itself any more than a cotton crop does. Both require cultivation, management, head-work and hand-work.

We can never have good government unless good men become interested in politics. Perhaps there is not a nobler calling known to man than that of working for the public welfare in matters governmental—and this is politics.

A high-minded, warm-hearted philanthropist, like Mr. J. G. Phelps-Stokes, of New York, acts admirably when he ministers to the poor in the slums; but his work is still more effective when he gives his thought and his work to the removal of those abuses of government which produce the greater part of the miseries of those slums.

The grandest task which human intellect can set for itself today is the redemption of the government from the usurpers who have used the machinery of government to enrich themselves and to plunder their less fortunate brothers.

It is true that Henry Clay advised his sons, “Be dogs rather than politicians,” but this exclamation was made when Mr. Clay was in a fury of disappointment because he could not get to be President.

It is true that John C. Calhoun and Daniel Webster died broken and disappointed men, but Mr. Webster had also set his heart upon being President, and Mr. Calhoun had devoted himself to an impossible program.

If a young man enters politics for the mere sake of getting office or personal advancement, his motives are sordid, and his life will be worth nothing to his fellow-man and nothing creditable to himself; but, if in conjunction with honorable ambition, he entertains the earnest desire to be useful to the community in which he lives by exercising his energies in political work, there is a glorious field for him.

If this combination of motives inspires you, my young friend, by all means yield to your inclination and “enter politics.”

* * * * *

DICKINSON COLLEGE, CARLISLE, PA.,
April 1, 1905.

_Mr. Thomas Watson,
121 West Forty-second Street, New York City._

DEAR SIR: Being in the midst of preparations for a
scholastic debate to be held here on the —th, kindly permit
me to ask your views on the following: Our question is,
“_Resolved_, that the Government should own and control all
the railway lines.”

What, in your opinion, are the strongest arguments to
sustain the affirmative side of this question?

Thanking you for this favor, I remain,

Very respectfully,

E——.

The strongest arguments in favor of government ownership of railroads are:

_First._ Under modern conditions, the railroads are simply the public highways over which freight and passengers must pass, and public highways should never be owned by private citizens.

If freight and passengers go by water route, they must use navigable rivers, bays, gulfs, oceans. These public waterways belong to the public, and all men admit that they should.

Under modern conditions, freight and passengers are compelled to go by rail. We have to use the railroads whether we want to or not. In traveling any distance, it is no longer possible for the public to transact business by the use of the dirt roads, consequently the transportation lines are public in their nature and their uses, and should belong to the public.

They were not built by private capital, as a rule. In almost every case the railroads were paid for by public and private donations, and the charters granted represented simply a license issued for a public purpose; and of course that license can be revoked at any time, just compensation for vested interests first having been paid.

_Second._ As now operated, the railroads are ruinously oppressive in their charges. Enormous sums of money are being wrung from the people to pay dividends on watered stock—a fictitious value which has no existence except in ink on paper.

_Third._ Under the present system, the railroads have co-operated with excessive tariff rates in building up the trust, which publicly says to the people: “Pay my price for food, or starve”; “Pay my price for tools to work with, or let your fields become deserts.”

By the secret rebate, by discriminations of one kind or another, the independent operator has been driven out of the field everywhere and the tyranny of the trusts established.

_Fourth._ It would remove the greater part of the corruption which is the bane of our politics.

Railroad corporations maintain their lobbyists at the capital of the nation and at the capital of every state. They corrupt representatives, judges, aldermen, editors, politicians.

They finance national and local campaigns; their filthy finger-prints are to be found on almost every page of our public record.

The only possible way to get rid of this is to remove the motive. Put the railroads where the Post-Office Department is, and there will be no more motive for rebates, discriminations and wholesale bribery than there is in the operation of the Post-Office Department.

_Fifth._ Government ownership would make the service uniform, simplify it in every way and save vast sums by the consolidation of all the various lines into one great national system.

It would not need so many high-priced presidents, high-priced lawyers and high-priced lobbyists.

One very intelligent writer upon this subject, C. Wood Davis, figures out a saving of $160,000,000 on this item by consolidation.

Government ownership would abolish deadheadism.

Under our present system, the men who are most able to pay their way on the railroad ride free. The man who is least able to pay, not only has to pay for himself, but in the long run has to pay also for the deadheads who ride free. This will become obvious to anybody who will think about it for a moment.

_Sixth._ It would take away the power of the railroads to destroy any individual, any business or any community. It would save the thousands of lives which are now lost every year for lack of double tracks, safety appliances and reasonable hours of labor.

It would enable the cotton grower of the South to exchange his products with the corn grower of the West in such a way that the railroad would not get more for hauling the corn than the man who raised it got for it when he sold it.

At present the Southern farmer pays seventy-five and eighty cents per bushel, cash, for corn which the farmer of the West sold for thirty-five cents. The transportation companies get the lion’s share of that enormous difference.

It would put an end to strikes, and would put into the hands of the people a weapon with which they could destroy any combine among capitalists in any article of commerce.

Among other things, it would save the tremendous sum of $65,000,000 which the Federal Government now pays to the railroads every year for the carriage of the mails, and that saving could be applied to extending the Rural Free Delivery to the remotest parts of the country.

If the Government owned the railroads and carried its own mails in steel cars, the Post-Office Department would show a profit instead of a loss, and railway mail clerks would be able to insure their lives. At present they cannot insure their lives, for the reason that the Government allows them to be hauled around in flimsy dry-goods boxes, whose cost of construction is less than the annual rent which our Government pays for their use and which invariably get smashed to splinters whenever there is a collision.

* * * * *

LOCUST GROVE, GA.,
April 21, 1905.

_Hon. Thomas E. Watson,
Thomson, Ga._

MY DEAR SIR: As affirmative debaters on the subject:
“_Resolved_, That the democratic principles of the United
States are in danger of being superseded by those of an
aristocracy,” we have secured very valuable help from your
articles in the April number of TOM WATSON’S MAGAZINE,
and knowing that you, being a student of political
economy, could give us some personal suggestions, we would
appreciate your sending us material on the subject at our
expense.

Very respectfully yours,

—— ——.

A Democracy—it being the government of all by all and for the benefit of all—cannot continue to be a true democracy unless the laws conform to the democratic standard laid down by Thomas Jefferson—namely, “_Equal and exact justice to all men, without special favors to any_.”

An Aristocracy is a government in which the few make the laws for their own benefit, and rule the country for their own good.

Therefore it must be apparent to the most casual student that if we, by law, confer special favors upon any class of our citizens, we are building up an aristocracy and are departing from democratic principles.

(1) For instance, the power to create money and to regulate the volume thereof is a sovereign power belonging to the state.

In countries ruled by kings that power has always been one of the prerogatives of the crown, as was the power to make war and peace, to negotiate treaties and to levy taxes. It was recognized that the king could not continue in the full exercise of his kingly authority if he parted with the tremendous power of creating money.

Not until the English crown rested upon the head of the most dissolute of the Stuarts, Charles II, and he had become the slave of an abandoned woman—who was in turn the tool of a grasping corporation, the East India Company—was the power to create money transferred from the king to a corporation.

Ever since that day Great Britain has suffered from this surrender of sovereign power, and it was this mistake of the king which Alexander Hamilton, either through mistake or by design, adopted when he came to frame a financial system for the American people.

It was his express purpose to create an aristocracy of wealth, and he must have realized that when he took from the government the power to create money and put it into the hands of a private corporation he was creating an aristocracy of wealth.

The national banks of today represent an aristocracy of wealth, supported by the governmental function of creating currency.

There are, in round numbers, 5,000 national bankers who have in circulation $400,000,000 of their “promises to pay,” which the law practically makes legal tender.

In other words, their _“promises to pay” are used as money_.

There are 80,000,000 natural persons in this country; there are 5,000 corporations called national banks! The 80,000,000 natural persons may sign promissory notes for five dollars each, and these notes are simply commercial paper, having no circulation as money. The 5,000 national banks sign their promissory notes to the same amount—$400,000,000—and these notes constitute, for all practical purposes, a national currency—a national money.

_The law gives them the special privilege of getting rich on what they owe._ They have also the more dangerous power of _enlarging and contracting the volume of currency, thus unsettling values, destroying markets and producing panics, as they did in 1893_.

(2) The democratic principle of equal and exact justice to all men requires that the government should derive its revenue from a system of taxation which deals fairly with every citizen. Each man should contribute to the support of the government in proportion to his ability. And taxes should not be laid for the purpose of building up one man’s business at the expense of another’s.

Our tariff system, from which the government derives the greater part of its revenue, violates democratic principles.

Its purpose and result is to build up manufacturers at the expense of everybody not engaged in manufacturing. It gives the manufacturer a price which he could not get without the law which insures him the monopoly of the home market. _All the world can compete with our laborers by sending immigrants to our shores; all the world can compete with our farmers; but nobody is allowed to compete with our manufacturers_, AND THE RESULT IS THE TRUST, under which Americans combine to rob the helpless American citizen, who is not allowed to buy his food or his clothing or tools to work with from anyone except the American manufacturer.

By this system, which lays the taxes on the things which man buys, a citizen who is worth only a few hundred or a few thousand dollars pays just as much to the support of the Federal Government as is paid by the man who is worth tens of millions of dollars.

Consequently the inevitable tendency of the tariff system is to create a class which controls the government for its own enrichment; _in other words, an aristocracy_.

(3) Consider our corporation laws. Early in the history of our Government Chief Justice John Marshall decided that a charter granted to a corporation was a contract and could not be changed by the sovereign power of the state. This decision was not good law, and no good lawyer has ever considered it so. John Marshall had a great mind, but he was one of the rankest partisans that ever lived. He stretched every constitutional power in the effort to build up what Hamilton wanted—an aristocracy of wealth.

_Just as a natural person is born into a community and lives in it subject to having his status changed by the will of the majority, expressed in a legal way, so a corporation, born into a community through its charter, should have been required to take the same chance of having its status changed, in a legal way, by the will of the majority._

A railroad corporation comes to the legislature and procures a charter to build a railroad; _but the state cannot compel the corporation to build that railroad._ In other words, the state cannot compel the execution of the powers granted under the charter; therefore _such a charter lacks the very first element of a contract, because a contract is one in which each party can be compelled to perform his part or pay consequent damages_. But, in pursuance of the decision of John Marshall in the Dartmouth College case, our state and national governments have erected a rule of the corporations, and they are now more powerful than the governments which created them.

The great transportation companies exercise the power to tax, and the people, who pay the taxes, have no representation in the councils of those who levy the taxes. This surely constitutes an aristocracy of the most powerful kind.

The railroads have the power to tax the life out of any industry, out of any section, out of any city or town; _with rebates and discriminations they build up the Trusts which plunder the people_.

By reason of the fact that they enjoy the privilege of taxing other people, _they pay no Federal taxes to support the government_. Whatever they may pay in the way of tariff on material which they use in the construction of roadbeds and rolling stock, they simply charge up to expense account and levy their rates so as to make the utmost possible profit over and above what they have paid out. The public cannot escape the freight rates and the passenger rates which the corporations levy. The public cannot help itself. The public is made to pay, in those freight and passenger rates, every dollar of tax which the railroads have paid to the state and Federal governments. Therefore, as in the case of the national banks and the manufacturers, we have a great class of corporations given special powers by law which are exercised at the expense of the masses of the people, and which escape all the burden of supporting the national Government by reason of the immunities and privileges which the law has made for their exclusive benefit.

Here, then, we have a complete illustration of aristocracy—the government of the few, by the few and for the few, instead of the ideal of Jefferson and Lincoln, “government of the people, by the people and for the people.”

* * * * *

The man who makes a corner in wheat thinks he can relieve all the suffering he caused by endowing a bed in a hospital.

_The Track Walker_

BY THEODORE DREISER
_Author of “Sister Carrie”_

TRACK WALKER KILLED

WESTFIELD, N. J., April 14.—John Long, a New Jersey Central
track walker, was killed by a train today.

If you have nothing else to do some day when you are passing through the vast network of tracks of, for example, the great railway running northward out of New York, give a thought to the man who walks them for you, the man on whom your safety, in this particular place, so much depends.

He is a peculiar individual. His work is so very exceptional, so very different from your own. While you are sitting in your seat placidly wondering whether you are going to have a pleasant evening at the theatre or whether the business to which you are about to attend will be as profitable as you desire, he is out on the long track over which you are speeding, calmly examining the bolts that hold the shining metals together. Neither rain nor sleet can deter him. The presence of intense heat or intense cold has no effect on his labors. Day after day, at all hours and in all sorts of weather, he may be seen placidly plodding these iron highways, his wrench and sledge crossed over his shoulders, his eyes riveted on the rails, carefully watching to see whether any bolts are loose or any spikes sprung. Upward of two hundred cannon-ball flyers rush by him on what might be called a four-track bowling alley each day, and yet he dodges them all for perhaps as little as any laborer is paid. If he were not watchful, if he did not perform his work carefully and well, if he had a touch of malice or a feeling of vengefulness, he could wreck your train, mangle your body and send you praying and screaming to your Maker. There would be no sure way of detecting him.

Death lurks in this tunnel. Here, if anywhere, it may be said to be constantly watching. What with the noise, which is a perfect and continuous uproar, the smoke, which hangs like a thick, gloomy pall over everything, and the weak, ineffective lights which shine out on your near approach like will-o’-the-wisps, the chances of hearing and seeing the approach of any particular train are small. Side arches, or small pockets in the walls, are provided for the protection of the men, but these are not always to be reached in time when a train thunders out of the gloom. If you look sharp you may sometimes see a figure crouching in one of these as you scurry past. He is so close to the grinding wheels that the dust and soot of them are flung into his very soul.

And yet for all this the money that is paid these men is beggarly small. The work that they do is not considered exceptionally valuable. Fifteen cents an hour is all that they are paid, and this for ten to twelve hours’ work every day. That their lives are in constant danger is not of any point in the matter. They are supposed to work willingly for this, and they do. Only when one is picked off and his body mangled by a passing train is the grimness of the sacrifice emphasized, and then only for a moment. The space which such accident gets in the public prints is scarcely more than a line.

And now what would you say of men who would do this work for fifteen cents an hour? What estimate would you put on their mental capacity? Would you say that they are only worth what they can be made to work for? One of these men, an intelligent type of laborer, not a drinker, and one who did not even smoke, attracted the writer’s attention by the punctuality with which he crossed a given spot on his beat. He was a middle-aged man, married, and had three children. Day after day, week after week, he used to arrive at this particular spot, his eye alert, his step quick, and when a train approached he seemed to become aware of it as if by instinct. When finally asked by the writer why he did not get something better to do he said, “I have no trade. Where could I get more?”

This man was killed by a train. Sure as was his instinct and keen his eye, he was nevertheless caught one evening, and at the very place where he deemed himself most sure. His head was completely obliterated, and he had to be identified by his clothes. When he was removed another eager applicant was given his place, and now he is walking in the tunnel with a half-dozen others. If you question these men they will all tell you the same story. They do not want to do what they are doing, but it is better than nothing.

_The House of Cards_

So high I built it, high—
With love and tenderness to make it strong,
And thought me—foolish, blind—
That I should keep it all the ages long.