Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

You are entirely mistaken about Walter P. Brownlow, to
whom you refer, being a son of the “famous Parson.” Parson
Brownlow has only one son living, Colonel John Bell Brownlow,
who commanded the regiment in which I was an officer, the
Ninth Tennessee Cavalry Volunteers of the Union troops during
the Civil War, and who lives in this city and is not a member
of Congress now nor has he ever been.

Please publish this in full in your issue for June and
greatly oblige me.

Respectfully,

W. R. MURPHY.

P.S.—I am a constant reader of your magazine and am enjoying
your articles very much; and not only yours, but those of
Frederick Upham Adams. Many of the truths which you utter
through the medium of your great magazine will prove to
be precious seed sown in the rich soil of the national
conscience, and the fruitage will be invaluable.—W. R. M.

_Mr. President!_

Won’t you _please_ quiet down now and get to business? _Don’t_ you think you can give us a rest on speeches and photographs?

_Can’t_ you leave it to the women to do as they think best on the baby question?

If you will just sit still a while and attend to your own business, you have no idea how many people will be thankfully appreciative.

Why don’t you _concentrate your efforts_ and peg away until you accomplish something?

Why start up so much game which you never bag?

You said you were going to compel the Cattle Kings to take their barbed wire fences off the public lands—and you haven’t done it.

Why don’t you give Colonel John Mosby free rein and let him cut the wire?

You said you were going to discipline the Railroads and the Trusts—and you haven’t done it.

Why don’t you have your prosecuting officers take out warrants for such men as Armour, the Rockefellers and Rogers?

You _know_ they are law-breakers; _deal with them as law-breakers_.

Don’t seine the pond for minnows when you can harpoon such whales as these.

Hit the big criminals—_hit them hard_—and eighty million people will cheer you on!

You led us to believe that you meant to revise the Tariff; why don’t you follow it up?

You _know_ that _the Trust exists because of the Railroad and the Tariff_.

The Railroad gives the _special favor_; the Tariff _prevents foreign Competition_—and there you are. _The Trust is born of these two Special Favors_, one given by the Tariff and the other by private contracts violative of law.

To break any and all Trusts _remove the Tariff on the articles controlled by the Trusts, and at the same time relentlessly prosecute as common criminals every Railroad Official, however high and rich, who grants to one shipper any sort of favor not granted to all_.

There isn’t a Trust in the United States that you can’t bust in twelve months if you go at it with these weapons.

The Free List for trust-controlled articles; Criminal Warrants for the Armours, Swifts, Harrimans, Rockefellers, Morgans, Belmonts—all who are “in the game.”

Here’s a work worthy of you, Mr. Roosevelt.

_It needs you!_

It wants your pluck, your energy, your honesty, your tenacity; won’t you buckle to the task?

Let the baby question alone. There will always be plenty of babies.

Don’t you fret about that. The women know what’s what.

Turn your head another way. Put your attention on _your_ job.

_A great man’s task invites you—demands you._

RISE TO IT LIKE A GREAT MAN!

_Did You Know It?_

Did you know that a private corporation got its clutch upon the Monongahela River generations ago and shut off free navigation?

Did you know that this private monopoly exercised the power of dictating to every dollar’s worth of produce transported upon that highway the terms upon which it should go to market?

Did you know that _the people at large_, who were robbed by this gigantic and unnatural monopoly, _complained vainly_ during all these long and dreary years of corporation tyranny?

Did you know that as soon as _the corporations which are working in coal and iron_ got tired of said monopoly and began to complain, our great and good Government at once had ears to hear and eyes that could see?

Did you know that patriots of the Carnegie stripe, who had to pay tribute to the Monongahela monopoly, were losing $425,000 per year to said monopoly; _and that Carnegie and Company went to our great and good Government and demanded that said Government buy out said Monongahela monopoly_?

Did you know that our great and good Government immediately harkened to the wails of Carnegie and his Company _and appointed a commission to assess the value of said Monongahela monopoly_?

Did you know that said monopoly, being wise in its generation, realized that its hour had come and that its best policy was to sell out at a high price?

_Did you know that the Commission appraised the monopoly franchise at more than three and a half million dollars, and that our great and good Government paid the money?_

Did you know that _your cash_ was thus lifted out of the Treasury _to pay for a free river for Carnegie and his Company_; and that nobody thought it worth while to say “Turkey” to you about it?

This buying-off of the private monopoly which throttled the commerce of a great section was a good thing to do. We are glad it was done. The people can now navigate the Monongahela as freely as Carnegie can do it; but is it not mortifying to reflect _that the PEOPLE were powerless against the wrong until the coal and iron kings took the case in hand_?

And isn’t it amazing to see how easily the doors of the Treasury fly open, and the millions pour out, when the Privileged Corporations want it done?

When it became a matter of self-interest to the Privileged Corporations to buy out the Monongahela monopoly the Constitution was not in the way nor was the money lacking.

Whenever it suits the same Privileged Classes to unload the Railroads on to the Government at fancy prices it will be done. When that day comes the Constitution will not be in the way nor will the means be lacking.

Whenever the Privileged Classes want ANYTHING done the Constitution approves and the cash box is full.

It is only when the masses want anything done that our Constitution becomes a fretful porcupine with quills erect and our cash box has a hollow sound.

If you want to have a jolly time with that gay old creature, the United States Constitution, join the Privileged Corporations.

If you want to frolic with the United States Treasury and pay for what you want with public money, join the Privileged Corporations.

_Rural Free Delivery to Country People_

(Extract from the _People’s Party Paper_, March, 1893, Mr.
Watson’s paper, commenting upon the passage of the _first
appropriation_ for the R. F. D.)

The annual appropriations for the free delivery of mails was, until the present administration, confined to cities of over 10,000 inhabitants. At the suggestion of Mr. Wanamaker, an experiment was made in smaller towns enjoying daily mails, but as yet no country neighborhoods had obtained the privilege.

On Friday, February 17, 1893, when the annual appropriation was pending, Mr. Watson proposed an amendment as follows:

For free delivery service, including existing experimental
free delivery offices, $11,254,900, of which the sum of
$10,000 shall be applied, under the direction of the
Postmaster-General, to experimental free delivery in rural
communities other than towns and villages.

Mr. Watson urged that the paragraph proposed to be amended “provides for the expenditure of $11,254,943 for free delivery service. The amendment reduced the amount of that expenditure and simply directed that the Postmaster-General should apply $10,000 of the appropriation to experimental free delivery in rural communities.” The following discussion followed:

_Mr. Watson_—“Mr. Chairman, the present law provides for an experimental free delivery in rural communities; but as I understand it—and the chairman of the committee, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Henderson), makes the same statement to the House—_the law has been construed to mean cities, towns and villages_, and there are now in operation experimental free deliveries in certain towns and villages.

“The law expressly provides for ‘rural communities,’ and it seems to me where the general laws make such provision there is no hardship in taking a small amount from this appropriation, only $10,000, and appropriating it for _experimental free delivery in absolutely rural communities_, that is to say, _in the country pure and simple, among the farmers, in those neighborhoods where they do not get their mail more than once in every two weeks, and where these deserving people have settled in communities one hundred years old and do not receive a newspaper that is not two weeks behind the times_.

“The amendment proposes not to increase the appropriation; it actually diminishes it by a nominal amount, but takes $10,000 of it to be provided for _experimental free delivery in absolutely rural communities, instead of towns and villages, which the authorities construe to mean ‘rural communities.’_ In other words, I think that part of the money ought to be spent _in the country_, where the law provides it shall be spent, and having made this statement, if we can have another division, and the committee is against my amendment, I will yield to its will.”

_Mr. Henderson, of North Carolina_—“Mr. Chairman, the only law on the subject at all is in the very language used in this appropriation bill:

“‘For free delivery service, including existing experimental free delivery offices.’

“That is all the law now on the statute-books in regard to this question.

“_I do not want the statement of the gentleman from Georgia in regard to there being a law on the statutes as to rural free delivery to go without correction._”

_Mr. Watson_—“Mr. Chairman, _this delivery in the small towns and villages is called ‘rural free delivery.’_”

_Mr. Henderson, of North Carolina_—“But as a matter of fact _there is no law_ except that stated here in this appropriation bill.”

The amendment was adopted by the House. This opens up the way for the farmers to secure services on an equal footing with the residents of the towns and the cities. It is one of the first instances in which the Government has put itself in daily touch with the citizen of the rural community. If followed up by successive Congresses, this entering wedge may cleave the way for a system of intercommunication that will remove a great inconvenience and cause for dissatisfaction in country homes. As a first step its importance cannot be overestimated.

_Random Paragraphs_

You may say what you please about Castro, but I glory in his spunk.

President of Venezuela, he was sitting comfortably in his seat when, one day, another Venezuelan who wanted the job cooked up an Insurrection.

South American revolutions, like all other procedures in civilized communities, have to be financed.

The question with the leader of the Venezuelan insurrection was:

“Who will finance _me_?”

The Asphalt Trust stepped forward with necessary funds.

No doubt the Trust was assured by Matos, the Insurgent leader, that in the event his revolution succeeded the Trust was to have dominion over Venezuela, like unto that which Standard Oil has over our own Eden of Christian Civilization.

At any rate, the Trust put up its money on Matos, who turned out to be the wrong horse.

Castro won. But the Trust continued to help Matos even after he had lost. Died hard, you see, because death is not the law of Nature with Trusts. Usually they live and the other fellow dies.

The Asphalt Trust is composed, in part, of American experts in Frenzied Finance. These marauders who were seeking new worlds to conquer planned to catch Venezuela in the same net which holds _us_.

Castro defied them, fought them in the Courts, whipped them, took away the franchise for non-performance of contract, etc.

Then they had the brazen audacity to demand that our Government coerce Castro.

The Trusts rule the United States—shall little Venezuela check their career of conquest?

Away with the feeble Castro!

Said the Trust to Roosevelt:

“Shake your big stick at this South American crank and make him _Arbitrate_!”

Says Roosevelt to Castro:

“Arbitrate with the Asphalt Trust, or——”

Says Castro to Roosevelt:

“Arbitrate nothing! Hands off, or——”

In other words, our Government, friendly always to Frenzied Finance, put up a bluff on Castro.

Whereupon Castro stood pat and “called” Roosevelt.

And, all at once, Mr. Roosevelt went a-hunting, and left Taft—the portly, handsome, self-complacent Taft—“sitting on the lid.”

Bully for you, Castro!

Evidently you are “some punkins.”

* * * * *

Would to heaven we had a Castro to smash the Beef Trust!

Roosevelt and young Garfield don’t seem to know where to take hold. The legal proceedings do not advance half so rapidly as does the price of beef.

* * * * *

If you have never read Herbert Casson’s “Organized Self-Help,” do so. A brighter, braver, stronger book is not picked up often. No matter how much you may already know, your information will be greater when you shall have mastered this little volume.

* * * * *

The reason why Sir Plausible Voluble, of Nebraska, is so mixed up on the Railroad Question is that his talk-talk-talk commenced, as usual, before he understood his subject. At first he advocated state ownership, which would have given us forty-odd different systems. Now he has reached the point where he wants the Nation to own national lines of transportation while the states are to own “local lines.” _Wouldn’t_ we have a sweet time deciding which roads are national and which are local?

* * * * *

Under the present system every line of transportation has a double character, partly national and partly local, and _the traffic_ on every line is partly state and partly inter-state.

You can no more separate what is national from what is local in the railroads than you can in the Post-Office.

_Every_ postal route is at once local and national. A letter may come five miles, five hundred or five thousand—the _system_ carries it to its destination.

So with freight and passengers. The so-called local railroad will carry freight from the adjoining county, from the adjoining state, from the remotest section of the Union, and from the lands beyond our borders. So with passengers.

Why, then, should anybody be talking tommyrot about “_local lines_”?

Said Betsy Prig to Sairey Gamp, concerning the alleged existence of a certain Mrs. Harris, “_I don’t believe there is no sich a person._”

Says I to W. J. B., concerning the alleged “local lines of transportation,” I don’t believe there is any such thing as a local line of transportation.

* * * * *

The reasoning which sustains government ownership of a part of the railroads inevitably leads to the ownership of all.

At _such_ a cherry, why take two bites?

Why have a system where there is certain to be a clash between state management and national management?

Why leave the gaps down for inequalities in rates?

Why not insure _uniformity_ by unity of ownership and management?

Why not learn a lesson from the German Empire, and avoid state ownership altogether?

* * * * *

However, I am glad to see that our Nebraska friend is making progress. Give him time, and he will arrive.

For a convert who jumped on our platform of Government Ownership so recently as last July, he does fairly well. But if he would use his thinking apparatus a little more, and his organs of speech a little less, he would get on faster.

“Local lines” of transportation—_at this time_?

He might as well say that the artery in his left hind leg is a “local artery.”

* * * * *

The New York _World_ says:

“If Judge Parker is a Democrat, Mr. Bryan is not. If Mr. Bryan is a Democrat, Judge Parker is not.

“No party-name is wide enough to blanket two such irreconcilable theories of government.”

That’s where the _World_ falls down.

The Democratic party-name is wide enough to blanket anything and everything, anybody and everybody.

I’ve seen it cover the Prohibitionist and the Saloon-Keeper, the Gold-Bug and the Free-Silverite, the corporation lobbyist and the Bible-class expert, the Free Trader and the Protectionist, the Bank men and the Anti-Bank men, the Income Tax men and the Anti-Income Tax men, the Expansionists and the Imperialists, the Inflationists and the Contractionists, strict Constructionists and those who sent the United States Army to quell a local disturbance in Illinois over the protest of a Democratic Governor.

There is no earthly difference, antagonism, variance of creed, or policy, or purpose, or persons that the Democratic party-name is not “wide enough to blanket.”

* * * * *

The Democratic party-name not wide enough to blanket Judge Parker and W. J. B.?

Oh, yes, it is.

It did so in 1904, and it will do so again.

If Bryan whips Parker in the Convention of 1908, Parkerites will knife Bryan as they did in 1896 and 1900.

If Parker beats Bryan in the Convention, Bryan will “come across” in 1908, as he did in 1904.

This play of politics is a very pretty game, and the politicians get a good deal out of it.

The people are kept interested and excited, but the people don’t get anything out of it.

It is not seriously intended that they should.

Primarily, the game is played for the benefit of the players.

* * * * *

Tom Taggart, the gambling-hell man of Indiana, must feel very funny when he looks back and sees the imposing lines of Democratic preachers, Bible-class graduates, Amen-corner grunters and family-prayer brethren who are meekly following _him_, Taggart, as he, the official Commander-in-Chief of the Democratic Party, bravely leads his loyal hosts upward and onward.

If Tom T. has any sense of humor he must enjoy such a situation with exquisite relish.

_The Gods We Worship_

The savage African, in the wilds of his native home, takes a few sticks and some cloth and makes an idol which he calls Mumbo Jumbo, and before which he falls prostrate, in devout worship.

Whereat we civilized fools all laugh at said African, and call him a barbarian—as indeed he is.

Nevertheless, it is quite apparent that while we make no gods out of sticks and calico, we worship Mumbo Jumbos of our own just the same.

Take, for instance, the Gold Reserve. Nature did not produce it; it has no life, no motion other than that which we lunatics give it.

One day it occurred to John Sherman to stack up, in the Treasury, a cool hundred million dollars, and keep it there, idle.

He straightway created the _Gold Reserve_.

Any law for this? No.

Any necessity for it? No.

Any popular demand for it? No.

His excuse was that he wanted a Gold Reserve out of which to pay off the $346,000,000 in Greenbacks “when presented for redemption.”

Was anybody clamoring for the redemption of Greenbacks? No.

Was there any law under which anybody had a right to go to the Treasury and demand gold for Greenbacks? No.

Was there any custom or policy which authorized this setting apart of gold to redeem Greenbacks? No.

But Sherman did it, just the same, and it soon appeared that he had made us a Mumbo Jumbo which we all worshiped and before whose mysterious power we all fell prostrate.

As long as Sherman was Secretary of the Treasury the Gold Reserve was sacred. Congress looked upon it with awe. The President did it reverence. The newspapers bent to it in speechless adoration. The politicians rubbed the skin off their stomachs groveling before it. The people—the great inert mass within which is irresistible might if they but had courage and co-operation—patiently padded their knees and, likewise, knelt in mute submission.

The Gold Reserve was a national institution—like the Washington Monument—not to be desecrated, but recognized, supported, defended.

Senators alluded to it as they would to Plymouth Rock or Mount Vernon. It was a fixed fact which nobody disputed and all respected.

Statutes referred to it, in passing, as they did to West Point or Yellowstone Park—something that was permanent, national, inseparable from the life of the Republic.

There never was a law for the Gold Reserve, there never was a necessity for it, there never was an antecedent discussion in regard to it, and there never was a particle of financial sense in it. Nobody ever presented Greenbacks for redemption until Mr. Carlisle made his infamous ruling, and gold was paid out for paper and bonds issued to get the gold back.

The Gold Reserve was useless until it became, under Carlisle’s ruling, a bait to set the bond trap with.

To show that it has no influence upon the value of Greenbacks we need only to point to the fact that although the size of the Gold Reserve constantly fluctuated for about a year after Carlisle’s ruling, the value of the Greenbacks has not varied at all.

If the Greenbacks depended on the Gold Reserve, their value would have risen and fallen with the Gold Reserve.

The Greenbacks do not, and never did, depend on the Gold Reserve. They depend on the credit of the Government, and the known fact that the credit of the Government is based on $80,000,000,000 of national wealth. Their legal tender quality, their usefulness as money, their receivability for taxes and public dues, make them good in the eyes of the people irrespective of any Gold Reserve.

John Sherman had no more right to make a Gold Reserve than he had to make a Silver Reserve.

Greenbacks were no more redeemable in gold than they were in silver. But why argue the case? The verdict is already made up in the minds of the jury. Both the old parties pay their vows to the Gold Reserve. Mumbo Jumbo is shrined in the hearts of both Democrats and Republicans. Sherman’s god rules.

We quake every time they tell us that anything bad has happened to the Gold Reserve. We used to toss in our sleep, muttering distressfully, when the news would come that the Gold Reserve “is dwindling.”

What good does Mumbo Jumbo do the naked African? None.

But then, you see, the African doesn’t know it. Therein he is a fool.

What good does _our_ Mumbo Jumbo, the Gold Reserve, do _us_? None.

But then, you see, we do not know it.

Wherein _we are bigger fools than the African is_.

_Poverty_

BY JOHN H. GIRDNER, M.D.

I have just read Mr. Robert Hunter’s book entitled “Poverty.” It contains much valuable information, mostly in the form of statistics and references to other publications concerning the poor in different parts of the United States and England. It is a good book of reference; but to my mind its principal virtue is as a thought provoker. The question, “What are you going to do about poverty?” stares the reader in the face from between the lines on every page, and it haunts him after he has laid the book aside.

We of the United States are accustomed to boast of our material wealth and prosperity. When the writer or the orator wishes to wring the hearts of his audience and deceive them into the belief that ours, as conducted at present, is the very best of all governments, he draws a harrowing picture of the dreadful suffering of the poor of London; and then we pull the Stars and Stripes a little more closely about us, and, as that other Pharisee, we thank God that we are not like other men. Before we shed any more tears over the poor of London let us see if we cannot find use for our tears nearer home.

Mr. Charles Booth made a thorough and exhaustive investigation into the conditions of poverty in London in 1891. He found that 1,300,000, or about 30 per cent. of the population of that city were unable to obtain the necessaries of life. This 30 per cent. were “living in conditions, if not of actual misery, at any rate bordering upon it.”

Mr. B. S. Rountree made a similar investigation in the typical provincial town of York, England. He found that about 28 per cent. of the inhabitants of York were living in destitution. Mr. Rountree adds: “We have been accustomed to look upon the poverty of London as exceptional, but when the result of careful investigation shows that the proportion of poverty in London is practically equaled in what may be regarded as a typical provincial town, we are forced to the startling probability that from 25 to 30 per cent. of the town populations of the United Kingdom are living in poverty.”

Let us turn from England to the United States, and see how much poverty there is in our own country, among our own workmen, or producing class.

The report of the State Board of Charities for New York State shows that an average of about 26 per cent. of the population were aided, by both private and public charities, during each of the three years 1897, 1898 and 1899; and according to the report of the official statistician of the city of Boston for 1903 more than 20 per cent. of the entire population of that city were aided by the public authorities alone. This does not include private charities. In fact, all statistics of charitable works are defective, because they can never include the efforts to relieve suffering and poverty made by those who do not let the left hand know what the right hand is doing.

Commenting on the above statistics from Boston and New York State, Mr. Hunter says: “If the figures are correct as published, the persons in New York State in distress in 1897, and in Boston in 1903, would equal proportionately the number of those in poverty in London.”

Here are other facts about poverty worth remembering: “In the face of widespread poverty, there have not been for over half a century in England so few paupers, either actually or proportionately, as there are now. The population of England has increased from 18,000,000 persons in 1851 to 29,000,000 in 1889. During this period the number of paupers actually fell off. London has lost in pauper population fifteen times as fast as she has gained in general population.”

On the other hand, the returns from the almshouses in the United States show that the number of paupers increased almost as fast as population during the decade from 1880 to 1890. In Hartford, Conn., which is said to be the richest per capita city in the United States, the number of paupers increased 50 per cent. during this same decade.

Now, when you hear a Republican spellbinder draw harrowing word-pictures of poverty among the English workmen, and paint glowing pictures of the marvelous wealth and happy condition of the workmen in our own country, and when you read editorials in subsidized protectionist newspapers about the “miseries of the working classes” in free trade England and the great prosperity among the highly protected workmen of the United States, just remember that according to the best information obtainable about twenty-five to thirty persons out of every hundred living in the towns and cities _both in England and the United States_ suffer from poverty. And for the past forty years poverty has steadily _decreased_ in England and steadily and rapidly _increased_ in the United States. And no amount of ranting by the spellbinder or misrepresentation by the editor can alter these facts.

Mr. Hunter is of the opinion that 70,000 New York children go to school underfed. This statement caused astonishment and doubt in some quarters. But I contend that any trained physician who will note the very large percentage of anemic faces among the children as they issue from the public schoolhouses of this city will agree with me that Mr. Hunter’s estimate of 70,000 underfed children is most likely far below the mark.

The Children’s Aid Society and other charitable organizations maintain a number of industrial schools for poor children in this city. The total daily average of children attending these schools is 10,707. Inspector Lecktrecker recently made a thorough investigation into the condition of these children. Mr. Lecktrecker’s report goes into great detail. Summed up, the report shows that of the 10,707 children attending these industrial schools 8,852 are actually underfed by reason of poverty at home. It was found that the best breakfast that any of these 8,852 children had was a piece of bread and a cup of tea or coffee. A diet not only inadequate for nourishment, but actually destructive to a child’s nervous system.

A grown-up person only requires enough nourishment to repair the waste, wear and tear incident to the daily activities of brain and muscle. A child not only requires this, but it requires added nourishment for the growth and development of all the tissues of its body. No wonder we are raising up a class of people in this city which I have called in another place “Newyorkitics.” No wonder there is an ever-increasing procession of broken-down brains and nervous systems heading for the hospitals for insane. No wonder that crime is on the increase. What better can be expected from adults whose brains and nerves have been starved and stunted from birth?

But what exactly is poverty? Destitution of property; indigence; want of convenient means of subsistence; need. That is what the dictionary says poverty is. Want of convenient means of subsistence is the want of some one or all of the five chemical substances called proximate principles, which we take and must have to sustain animal life. The continual absence of these chemical substances from the human stomach, together with lack of clothing sufficient to protect the body against the elements, causes physical pain or suffering with degeneration and final death of the animal body. This is a literal scientific definition of the word poverty as applied to the animal or material man.

The adulteration of food which is carried on to such an alarming extent in the United States is an important factor in this poverty or underfeeding question. Even those who are able to buy a sufficient _quantity_ of food have no assurance that the _quality_ is such as will properly nourish their bodies.

When you satisfy the cravings of hunger by putting into the human stomach watered milk, or cheese which is part wax, or sugar mixed with plaster of Paris, or chocolate which contains only a suggestion of the rich cacao beans, or any of the adulterated articles of food for sale especially in the poorer sections of the city, you not only tax the system to digest and dispose of a quantity of useless and maybe poisonous material, but every tissue in the body is thereby robbed of its proper nourishment.

It is as much, or more, poverty and underfeeding to fill the stomach with material which does not contain the five _proximate principles_, _i.e._, nourishment, as not to fill it at all. The laws against substitution and adulteration of human food and drink ought to be more stringent than the laws against horse stealing. Yet, as I am informed, all efforts at such legislation are invariably met with the cry that it will interfere with the _business interests_ of the country. Here, as in so many other instances, when an attempt is made to secure common justice and protection for the lives and property and rights of the plain people, we run up against the _business interests_. The curse of this country today is that everything, even human life, must be sacrificed when necessary to the BUSINESS INTERESTS.

The industry captains are killing and maiming the people now just as the military captains used to do, and for the same objects—to satisfy greed and selfishness.

The negro slave in the South in slavery days was further removed from poverty and the fear of poverty than any man I have ever known. When his day’s work was finished he came home from the field or the shop and he found a substantial, well-cooked dinner awaiting him. After dinner he went to his comfortable cabin and sat before a blazing log fire, or, in warm weather, he sat out under the stars, fanned by the night winds. His wife and children were nearly always around him, as were his companions, the other slaves belonging to his master and the plantation.

This man did not have a single care or responsibility on earth. He did not have to meet a grinding landlord next day demanding rent. He did not have to cudgel his brains to find a way to meet a note due next week. He did not have to pay for food, clothes, light and heat for himself and his family. That pang of anguish so familiar to us all when we think of the possibility of our loved ones suffering from want and the fear of want when we are gone never wrung the heart of that black man. Child labor as it exists under the present system was unknown to the children of the black slaves. “Over the hills to the poor-house,” when age and decrepitude had made him no longer useful, had no terrors for the black slave. The “system” of slavery made it perfectly certain that his owner would provide food, clothes and shelter for him in his old days, and for his children, no matter what happened. This black man, slave as he was, had a better guarantee against poverty and the fear of poverty for himself and family than any life insurance company can give. Even Mr. Tom Lawson could not find fault with the security of this policy.

Another thing the slave father did not have to worry about was sickness in his family. When one of his children became ill an ambulance from a charity hospital did not back up in front of the negro quarters, cart the child off to become one patient more in Ward No. ——, and serve as “material” for a clinical lecture while it lived, and as “material” for the dissecting-table after it was dead. No, nothing of the kind happened. When the slave became ill the best medical skill and nursing were provided, and, if need be, the patient was taken to the “big house” where the master lived so the mistress could superintend the treatment, and in case of death the body was put in a neat coffin, and a procession composed of all the blacks and whites on the plantation followed the remains to the colored graveyard on the hill, burial services were read, a hymn sung and the body lowered to its final resting-place. This is a glimpse at the condition of the slave in life and death in slavery days. I am not putting in a brief in favor of chattel slavery. I was born an abolitionist. My father was a slave-owner and my early life was spent in the midst of it, yet I abhorred the system as a child, and that abhorrence has grown with years. But I am now writing about poverty, and my point is: that chattel slavery as it existed in the South is the only state of society I know of in which poverty and the fear of poverty among the workers or producing class were absolutely abolished by law.

Under the old system the negro was a slave, you say. So he was. But if I read Mr. Hunter’s book aright, the laborer under the present industrial system is also a slave. The laborer has a vote now and the slave did not. Yes, but the slave had a full dinner-pail _all the time_ and the white voting laborer has not. The comparative value between his vote and a full dinner-pail in the mind of the white laborer under the present system was demonstrated in the election of 1896 and 1900, when he gladly gave his vote to the Republican Party for the _mere promise_ of a full dinner-pail.

_Tuck-of-Drum_

BY ALFRED TRESIDDER SHEPPARD
(Copyright in Great Britain by A. T. Sheppard.)

At nine o’clock Josephine beat a vigorous reveille on the drum that had led old troops into action. It was the second of December; the sun of Austerlitz shone on the grass and trees in the little front white garden, and was fast melting the delicate tracery of fern and frond on the oval window of Monsieur Tuck-of-Drum’s bedroom.

A curious name, Tuck-of-Drum; the echo of an ancient story told round camp-fires long burned out; a scrap of wreckage floating, like its owner, when the seas of years held so much that was forgotten. Dominique Laplume was proud of the name; for even the village children, whispering “Monsieur Tuck-of-Drum” behind his back, brought the flicker of a smile to his grizzled face and the ghost of a flash to eyes dim and watery with age.

On Austerlitz day, for many years, the drum had roused him from his slumbers. He had slept heavily, this old warrior; “a thousand thunders!” he said sometimes in self-excuse, “when one has made one’s bed as often on straw or the solid ground——”

His son, growing from childhood to manhood, plied the drumsticks in his time; he fell at Solferino. His son’s son held them in his turn; the earth still lay bare and trampled over him at Gravelotte. They had given much to France, these Laplumes. Now Josephine, with her black sleeves rolled high on her thin white arms, and her dimpled face set into desperate earnestness, took her dead father’s place, and thundered at the parchment until the old man’s husky voice answered the summons.

Her sabots clattered down the stairs. Coughing and grunting, Monsieur Tuck-of-Drum began to dress. The clothes he had worn the day—and many days—before hung from their pegs in a chintz-covered recess. On a rush-bottomed chair near the bed, carefully brushed and pipeclayed, lay coat, and belts, and breeches, and gaiters that had gathered mud, in their time, from half the kingdoms of Europe. On the dressing-table the cross of the Legion of Honor rested in its little leather case.

At last his shaking fingers opened the door. The drum lay outside; the drum, and, on the drum, the gigantic bearskin, bullet-bitten in old fights, moth-marked during long, idle years. He came downstairs in full regimentals. Madame Laplume was talking to the village postmaster at the open door. She ran to meet him. Her eyes were misty, for she remembered last year’s reveille; but there was a ring of gladness in her greeting.

“Good morning, grandfather!” she cried, kissing him on both cheeks; “a happy Austerlitz day. There is news, too——”

“News?” Dying fires flamed up for a second in his old eyes.

“D’Aurelles de Paladines is driving them back,” she said. “We won everywhere yesterday—everywhere. Chanzy has forced the Bavarians back on Orgères. We have taken Guillonville, Terminiers, Monnerville—and—and—where else, Josephine?”

“Goniers, Villepain, Faverolles,” little Josephine chimed in, repeating the names glibly, like a well-conned lesson.

“And they say the brave General Duerot has broken out of Paris, and is marching to join the Army of the Loire!”

“Good!”

Monsieur Tuck-of-Drum sat down stiffly, the joints in his long limbs cracking; he held the coffee-cup to his lips, but the coffee danced and splashed out. He jerked the cup down quickly, and brushed a drop from his mustache with an impatient hand.

“It is just as I have said,” he cried suddenly and fiercely, springing to his feet. “We have them like trapped rats! Did I not say so, Héloïse? Even the little Josephine has heard me. Listen, Josephine. These Germans, these enemies of our dear France, begin to pay for their folly. They hated us because our great Emperor led us once to all their capitals—to Stuttgart, to Dresden, to Munich, to Berlin—because their kings bowed hats-in-hand before the soldiers of France; because we cut up their country with our swords as I—look you!—cut this bread of mine.” And with nervous hands he sliced white, crust-ringed circles from the roll. “But now—ah, the Emperor, our great Emperor, is dead; and the Marshals and the Grande Armée have marched away. They found us asleep, unready; like rats, like locusts, they swarmed into our cornfields and our vineyards. But we are awake at last! We are ready at last! The revenge begins!”

“It begins,” echoed Madame Laplume. “But come, grandfather, your coffee grows cold, and——”

“The punishment begins!” he continued, his voice shrill as the neigh of an old war-horse. “Look you!” He held up a gnarled hand. “Here is Duerot, with the troops of Paris. Here”—he raised the other, its knotted fingers stretched out—“are De Paladines, Chanzy, De Sonis, Jauréguiberry, with the Army of the Loire. Now see; the Germans are between them.” He snatched a morsel of the bread he had been cutting and brought his palms together. “The Germans—the Germans——”

“You have cut your hand, grandfather,” cried Josephine.

He stopped, and looked dumbly at his palm. A splinter of crust had grazed the skin. The bread rolled to the floor.

“They are crushed,” he mumbled, bringing down his heel. “Miscreants! that they should dare to enter France! But they will pay for their folly; ah, they will pay well! I knew; I said it. ‘Wait,’ I said, when they came to us with their long faces and their stories of defeat. ‘France has slept; but she will shake herself and awake.’ _Mon Dieu_, yes. Why I—I who speak, my little Josephine, put a hundred to flight when I was young, with this little drum alone: that is why they call great-grandfather Monsieur Tuck-of-Drum, my dear. See, it is the sun of Austerlitz that shines on the white trees. Sixty-five long years ago—sixty-five long years ago—the great Emperor pinned this cross on my breast; ‘Ah, this is Monsieur Tuck-of-Drum,’ he said, pinching my ear, ‘who beat the charge in the village, and put a hundred to flight.’ That was nothing; we did those things. And again—today—the sun of Austerlitz——”

He broke off suddenly as the door opened and a fat old man, with a large, hairless, foolish face—the face of a great baby, still eying the world with wonder—entered the room. He, too, wore the uniform of the Emperor’s Guard. The veterans embraced.

“You have heard the news?” cried Laplume. “Ah, it is arranged. Austerlitz day—the day of Austerlitz—sees victory again for France, my dear Hippolyte. Sit down, sit down. Héloïse mixes the salad. Héloïse! Here is Monsieur Bergeret. It has been a struggle, my friend, but we have saved a bottle and a snack for today; we have arranged it, I say.” He sniffed, nudged his comrade and chuckled. A pleasant smell of cooking already pervaded the sitting-room, floating in from the kitchen in the rear.

Madame Laplume, who had vanished while Dominique was telling the child of France and its ancient glories, reappeared, with bare and powdery arms; Sergeant Hippolyte saluted, and passed a wavering hand over his foolish chin. Monsieur Tuck-of-Drum, talking garrulously all the while, patted his old comrade’s accoutrements into shape; fastened a button; untwisted a red shoulder-knot; rearranged an ill-adjusted strap. Age was dulling the Sergeant’s brain a little; “he does not wear as well as I,” thought Tuck-of-Drum, with the pathetic pride of age.

There was a metallic “tap-tap” and a clatter of sabots on the cobbles of the village street. “Jacques Dufour arrives!” cried Dominique Laplume, and flung the door open with a flourish.

It was like the gathering of ghosts from the past. It _was_ a gathering of ghosts from the past. These three, with their wrinkled cheeks, their quavering voices, their scanty white hair, their battered uniforms and weapons—these three were all that were left of that band of young recruits who, in the great days of France, had marched down the village street, shouting the songs of the Empire, blowing kisses to fair faces in the windows and the roadsides, exchanging glances with bright eyes that had grown dim at last and closed on earth and all its color and glitter. Like spars, they floated still, scarred and encrusted by the waves of time that had engulfed a generation so heroic, stupendous.

Dufour, wrinkled, wizened, twisted with rheumatism, limped to his place. His grandson carried his musket and placed it in a corner by Bergeret’s; the old man had lost a limb at Quatre Bras and needed a stout stick to aid the wooden leg.

“I will come again at six, grandfather,” the boy piped shrilly in his ear. “I say I will come again to fetch you at six.”

“No, no; Pierre must stay,” interrupted Monsieur Laplume. “Eh? He must stay, too, and hear the stories of the olden days—the days of the glories of France.” The boy’s eyes lit up. “Come, we are ready. He shall sit by the little Josephine.”

By and bye Madame Laplume brought in the meal, steaming from the oven. Bottles of red wine were ranged on the table.

“There were five of us last year,” Dufour muttered. “Buffet and Deyrolles have dismissed.”

“Eight the year before,” said Bergeret, rubbing his hands and smiling vacuously.

“The ranks grow thin, comrades,” said Laplume. “Well, the first toast!”

They rose, and drank in silence to the memory of that great man whom they had fought and bled and suffered for long since—and still remembered and adored. They drank to the old Marshals, to the Grande Armée, to village comrades whose bones lay in the Peninsula, in Germany, in Belgium, in the churchyards of France, but whose faces, dim and mournful, still looked at them through the mists of years, and whose voices still echoed in their memories. They lit cigars and pipes; but the room was full of the smoke of ancient battles. They talked of Desaix, Bessières, Junot, Murat, Lannes, Masséna, Ney—the old, unforgotten names. If they could come again! Ah, if _he_ could come again—how the scattered remnants of his lost legions would rally round him, and young France hurry to the eagles, and the glorious days return!

“But we are making an end; we are making an end,” cried Tuck-of-Drum fiercely, bringing down his fist and making plates and bottles jump with the vehemence of the blow. “Chanzy and Duerot have them in the trap at last. I said so—did I not? Even the little Josephine remembers. On the day of Austerlitz——”

An ominous booming, distant, sullen, like an echo of old years of strife, sounded in their ears.

“It is thunder!” cried Pierre. Little Josephine clutched her mother’s arm.

The veterans exchanged glances. “What the devil—” began Laplume. They flung open the door and stepped into the village street. Two or three people, white-faced, had stopped to listen.

The distant guns roared again. What were they doing there—then—in that direction? Tuck-of-Drum looked puzzled, doubtful. This day of all the year, this great day of his life, was bound up with all his thoughts; one hope, one conviction, possessed him, and had shone steadily through all the gloom of the last few months. The day of Austerlitz would see the eagle turn upon its foes; the sun of Austerlitz would look down upon the invading army scattered like chaff before the wind—crushed, rather, like grain between the two millstones, the armies of Paris and the Loire. The previous day’s successes confirmed him. But what were the guns doing there? The fighting should be far beyond Orgères by this time. He beat down a flicker of uncertainty.

“Bah, it goes well,” he muttered. “They make their last stand. Come, comrades, let us drink to Chanzy and the Army of the Loire.”

Poor, foolish Bergeret soon fell asleep, huddled in his chair; but the wine put fire into the veins of his comrades. Pierre and Josephine listened round-eyed as they talked of bivouacs and camp-fires; of ancient comrades and conquered cities; of Austerlitz and the heights of Pratzen, and the Menitz Lake.

“Sixty-five years ago at this very hour”—so the talk went on. “Do you remember? Have you forgotten?” They argued, they shouted, in their old voices that broke from gruffness into shrill quavers, ludicrous under other circumstances, but now pathetic. They moved bottles, glasses, salt-cellars, to illustrate the disposition of troops; in the blue smoke-clouds the children, drinking in their words, could almost catch the glint of the Cuirassiers’ breastplates, the glittering gold-lacing of the Hussars, the rise and fall of green epaulets as the voltigeurs moved into line, the yellow facings of Oudinot’s Grenadiers, the clamorous mêlée of horse and foot. They discussed the present fighting, the mistakes of generals; and here Héloïse, eager as they for the success of the cause which had cost her husband’s life, joined in with the names and dates and figures at her tongue’s tip. In the distance the sullen guns were booming.

“If I were with them!” sighed Tuck-of-Drum. “They had no room for the old soldier; yet I can beat a charge as well as ever! I—I who speak, could fire a musket with the best of them!”

“Grandfather volunteered,” piped Josephine.

“Yes,” said Héloïse, eying the old man proudly; “but they wanted him to take care of us. ‘You must look after the women and children for us, Monsieur Laplume,’ said the officer. ‘You have done your share for France in the field. You know what our great Emperor wrote, “It will be sufficient for you to say, ‘I was at the battle of Austerlitz,’ to authorize the reply, ‘Behold, a brave man.’”’”

Dominique Laplume waved a hand in depreciation, as if to brush aside the praise. “A brave man? Every Frenchman is brave. It is in the blood of France. We need not be proud of what we cannot help. We have been unfortunate, yes; badly led, yes; but the men—the men——”

The door opened suddenly. The village postmaster stood again at the entrance, his eyes starting, his face lemon-colored, his lips livid under the straggling beard. “All is lost!” he cried. “We are betrayed, defeated! Chanzy is driven back! The enemy advances!”

The door rattled in the grasp of his shaking hand. He limped off to spread the news of the disaster, which grew with his terror. Laplume, Dufour, Madame Héloïse, started to their feet and looked at each other blankly. The sudden, awe-struck silence woke Bergeret, who looked round with wide, foolish eyes. Josephine’s mouth twitched and tears gathered. Pierre clenched his brown fists.

“Come,” cried Monsieur Tuck-of-Drum suddenly. He donned the great bearskin, the others followed his example, Bergeret fumbling foolishly with its heavy chain. His baby face expressed wonder rather than the alarm, the bitter disappointment, the wrath, written on the faces of Madame Héloïse and Laplume and Dufour. Tuck-of-Drum girded on his sword and slung the straps of his drum over his old bent shoulders. He thrust Bergeret’s musket into the Sergeant’s hand. Dufour motioned to Pierre, and hobbled out; the boy followed him. Madame Héloïse Laplume ran to the door to intercept them. “Where are you going, grandfather? Where are you going?” she gasped.

“Stand back, Héloïse. We go to call the village. Stay here; stay with the little Josephine.”

She paused irresolute. After all, though they could do no good, what harm could they do—these three old men? They were going to call the village. Yet there was a look on the ancient soldier’s face she had not seen since the day of the first great reverse, when he had gone, with his head erect and old fires flashing in his dim blue eyes, to offer his feeble services to France.

Suddenly, loud and distinct above the distant booming of the guns, his drum sounded—beating an assembly in the quiet village street. She put her hand to her breast and ran out. If the Germans were really coming——

She clutched his arm.

“Are you mad, grandfather?” she gasped. “Come in; come in and finish your wine and pipes together. There are only boys and women and old men in the village. They can do nothing——”

He shook her off.

Well, even the enemy, cruel though they were, could never harm men so old, so feeble and defenseless. They would ride through, laughing in their beards, mouthing their uncouth jokes at the faded uniforms from which their sires had once fled in terror; but—no, they would never harm them. Josephine was crying softly within. She turned back to the house.

Up the centre of the village street marched Tuck-of-Drum, drumming, drumming with an energy surprising and pathetic, as though he could call from their weed-grown graves the lads who had once jumped so smartly to the rattle of the parchment.

“_Rat-a-plan! rat-a-plan!_” sounded the summons; his hands had not lost their cunning, though they ached and grew weary with the unwonted strain. Behind him staggered Bergeret, his great bearskin toppling forward over the fat, smooth, foolish face; Dufour hobbled in the rear, his stick and wooden leg tapping the cobbles; little Pierre, beside him, dragged the heavy musket.