Chapter II: Part 2

The National Bank had been abolished.

The National Debt had been paid off.

The Protective principle had been stricken out of the Tariff, and that infamous system had been reduced to a moderate revenue basis.

There was hardly a millionaire in the whole country.

There was hardly a pauper in the republic.

The individual citizen amounted to more, _as a man_, than he does now. Wages were low, but the money commanded a larger amount of the necessaries of life than the higher wages of today.

Strikes and lockouts were unknown. “WE HAVE NO POOR,” was the matter-of-fact statement made in Congress by Hugh S. Legaré of South Carolina.

“THERE ARE NO BEGGARS,” said the English visitor, Charles Dickens.

In the whole world there probably was not a people more contented, progressive, and generally well-off than we were in the Forties.

_Which were the naturally wealthy sections?_ The South and West.

_Which was the naturally sterile section?_ The East.

Where is the bulk of all the immense wealth that has been produced since the Civil War? _In the East._

How came it there? _Class-law took it from the sections where it was produced_, and gave it to those who were more cunning and selfish in framing national statutes.

There is no fouler chapter in the history of crime than that which is to be written concerning the manipulation of our National Debt. How many hundreds of millions have been made out of the government by the rascals who juggled with the bonds, it would stagger faith to state. The starting point, where Belmont, Rothschild, Sherman and the Bank of England compelled Congress to depreciate the Greenback, the exchange of bonds at par for Greenbacks at their full face value, the change of the terms of the bond from lawful money to coin, and from coin to gold, the huge commissions paid to favored bankers, the colossal deposits of public funds to be used in private speculations, the sudden and mysterious fortunes accumulated by Secretaries of the Treasury, like Sherman, and by Senators, like Gorman, the stealthy mission of Ernest Seyd, the covert influence of the Haggard & Buell circulars—all these are but high-points in a long journey of national shame, legalized robbery, ruinous prostitution of the powers of government to gorge the few on the life-blood of the many.

Who does not know that our Public Debt could be paid off at any time if the ruling class wanted it paid?

Who does not realize the anomaly of the richest nation on earth bearing a bonded debt as though it were a luxury?

Who does not recognize the grim irony of wearing a bondholder’s chain as though it were a string of pearls?

Wipe out the Public Debt and there would be no foundation for the National Banks. One form of privilege having been abolished, the other would follow. _And then others would follow!_ The bonds are the keystone to the arch. The Public Debt is the nucleus of the system by means of which Wealth runs the Government for its own benefit.

Who wants the Government to economize? Not the Privileged. By no means. If the Government were to economize there would be such a surplus in the Treasury that the Government, for very shame, _would have to pay itself out of debt_.

The Privileged are determined to keep the Government in debt, and hence there will be no economy.

The fields of expenditure shall widen, widen, and be kept on widening. Salaries shall increase, and increase, and be kept on increasing. Offices shall be multiplied, and multiplied, and be kept on multiplying.

The Panama Canal can get all it wants; let the Philippines cost what they may; give more to the Navy; give more to the Army; give more to Rivers and Harbors; give more to Pensions; give the Railroads four times as much as it is worth to carry the mails, and then give them a special subsidy to keep the contract; give $45,000 for carrying mail to the Island Tahiti when the “cussed foreigner” offered to do it for $3,500; give with so lavish a hand that even the South will get a pull at the sugar-teat, and shall join in the Hallelujah Chorus of “O, _ain’t_ it good!”

A child ought to be able to see the profound policy which underlies the extravagance of the Federal Government.

The Tariff must _not_ be lowered; the Public Debt must _not_ be paid off; the reign of the Trusts must _not_ be threatened:

“STAND PAT!”

That’s the watchword of heartless Plutocracy which has erected its powers upon the three bed-rock measures of Alexander Hamilton.

“STAND PAT!”—blares the bugle-note of Class-law leaders, for they know that _a system_ depends upon all of its component parts. If there should be a leak in the dike, _anywhere_, the angry ocean might come pouring in.

Where are the Democrats, and the Democratic Party?

What soldiers are pitching their tents upon the historic fields of Democracy?

What lines of battle are forming under the time-honored banners of Jefferson and Jackson?

Alas! The mighty strain and struggle of the Democratic Party during these degenerate days, has been to imitate every bad habit of the Republicans. Democrats vote with the Republicans to continue the National banks, to continue the Public Debt, to continue the Protective system, to embark upon an imperial colonial system, to perpetuate the rule of the Trust, to multiply objects and amounts of National extravagance.

Where do I see signs of life and hope?

In the rapid awakening of the people to the fact that _in the name of Party_ they are being stripped of everything that makes for the independence and prosperity and happiness of the average citizen.

_Talmage in Russia: Fourteen Years Ago_

After the downfall of Beecher, Doctor Talmage became the most conspicuous preacher in the United States. His sermons and his writings had an immense audience. “Talmage’s Sermon” was a standing headline, in American Monday morning newspapers, and they were widely known in Europe also. No visitor to New York thought of returning home until he had attended services at the Brooklyn Tabernacle and qualified himself to boast of the fact that he had “heard Talmage.”

The fact that Doctor Talmage had been engaged to furnish articles to any periodical, was sufficient to boost its circulation into the tens of thousands. No Lyceum, no Chautauqua, no Lecture Course was complete without Talmage. Formal banquets, in quest of oratorical attractions, never failed to urge the attendance of Doctor Talmage.

Somehow the man became the fashion, the rage. He was the Caucasian Booker Washington. Everybody having agreed that he was a wonderful man, the ball kept on rolling by the law of inertia.

Nobody could tell you wherein he was great; nobody could quote anything remarkable from his writings or his sermons; nobody knew of anything phenomenal that he had done, or was supposed to be able to do. His capacity for the benevolent assimilation of an indefinite number of voluntary donations was strikingly like Booker Washington’s power in the same direction; but beyond the fact that Talmage preached to a large congregation, and wrote books which many people read, his greatness was hard to define.

* * * * *

However, Talmage had his day. He was the fashion. At home and abroad he was a man whom it was the correct thing to treat with distinguished consideration. Foreign potentates, princes and powers knew Talmage as a mighty man of the pen; likewise as a man of infinite capacity for talk; also as a man who traveled with a photographic outfit. Consequently a man to be handled with care; “this side up,” as it were.

His progress through a foreign land, was not merely an incident; it was an event. He was greeted with dress-parade formalities. Foreign princes, potentates and powers _knew_ that Talmage would write a book about them when he got home; that the book would be read by hundreds of thousands; that public opinion would be influenced by it; and that the photographs of the princes, etc., would appear in the book. Consequently the smiling faces which were turned toward the Talmage Camera by the helpless potentates etc., were almost distressing in their laborious amiability.

* * * * *

As to Russia, Doctor Talmage seems to have gone there by imperial invitation and prearrangement.

“Stepping from the Moscow train on returning to St. Petersburg, an invitation was put in my hand inviting me to the palace.... I had already seen the Crown Prince in his palace.... The royal carriage was waiting, and the two decorated representatives of the palace took me to a building where a suite of three rooms was appointed me, where I rested, lunched, examined the flowers and walked under the trees.” Then the royal carriage came again, took him through the magnificent and beautiful grounds to the palace of the Czar. During his stay, officials crowded around him, lavished attentions upon him, stuffed his ears with glowing accounts of the lovely conditions prevailing in Russia, and made Doctor Talmage feel good generally.

Russian autocracy laid itself out to capture Talmage, and it captured him completely.

From a picture on page 408 of his book, I infer that Russian enthusiasm broke from every restraint, and that he was caught up in the arms of a delirious populace, and borne triumphantly through the streets, on the shoulders of his worshipers. The picture represents Russian citizens (who bear a disconcerting resemblance to New York dandies), waving their hats wildly—(Derby hats)—and shows Doctor Talmage sitting gracefully upon the shoulders of two elegantly dressed enthusiasts; and the silk hat of the Doctor is held aloft in his eloquent right hand, while his left is extended in what I take to be his favorite gesture. The picture represents all the Russians with their mouths shut. It also represents Talmage with his mouth shut—a fact which arouses a suspicion that the picture is spurious. Under _such_ circumstances, Talmage could no more have kept his mouth shut than Bryan could.

Other pictures show Doctor Talmage in the act of responding from his carriage to a street ovation; also of rising to make a few remarks to a grand gathering in a hall draped with the Stars and Stripes; also of making a speech on the arrival of a ship from the United States bringing bread to feed the Russian peasants.

There are, also, pictures showing Talmage seated on one side of a small table and the Czar seated on the other; Talmage in the act of being received into the family circle of the Czar; Talmage standing erect in his carriage, hat outstretched, in the act of returning the salutes of hat-waving crowds which pause and look pleasant, apparently, until Talmage’s picture man can draw his focus, spring his slide, and say, “That’ll do.”

* * * * *

I state all this to show the readers how public opinion is sometimes made to order. The Russian autocracy knew that Talmage was the best possible press-agent they could use. He was intensely vain, easily flattered, a snob to the core, a man whose very soul quivered with delight under the smile of royalty.

There had been a great deal of abuse heaped upon Russia. The newspapers, magazines, political pamphlets had been telling the civilized world a vast deal about the barbarities practiced by the Russian government. George Kennan, the brave American traveler, had risked all the rigors of Siberia to see for himself how prisoners were treated there. His reports had thrilled the hearts of millions with furious indignation against the Czar, and with profound pity for the victims of imperial tyranny. Tolstoy, Stepniak, Kropotkin and many others had been heard.

Russian autocracy was in bad odor throughout the Christian world, and if such a man as Talmage could be enlisted for the defence, it would be a fine thing to do. His voice would carry weight throughout Europe and the United States. Therefore, it is reasonably certain that the Russian government had an axe to grind when it made the Talmage visit an occasion for a series of ovations.

At any rate, the Russian government got from Talmage when he came to write his book of travels, a chapter of the most fulsome, least discriminating praise that you will ever read.

Russia was all right, in every respect. Travelers were _never_ subjected to vexatious delays or examinations—for Talmage had not been delayed or vexed. He actually carried into Russia some books which criticised the government, and the magnanimous officials made no objection. There was no religious persecution in Russia! On the contrary, Jews and Gentiles, of all descriptions, could worship God in any manner that pleased them. The Government never interfered.

If a nobleman conspired against the life of the Czar, he was arrested, put into a carriage, blindfolded, driven about for many hours to make him believe that he was on his way to Siberia, and he was then set down, at his own door, safe, unharmed, free!

If a poet wrote scurrilous verses about the Empress, he was brought into the family circle of the Czar and asked to read the lines in the hearing of the lady. That was the worst.

Siberia was described as a country of Italian softness of climate; and banishment to the Siberian prisons, mines, etc., was altogether better for criminals than ordinary jails.

Doctor Talmage defended Russian autocracy, Russian police, Russian prisons, indignantly hurling back upon the slanderers of Russia their foul accusations.

Listen to him—Talmage:

“But how about the knout, the cruel Russian knout, that comes down on the bare back of agonized criminals? Why, Russia abolished the knout before it was abolished from our American navy.”

Think of reading this stuff at a time when the ears of the world are yet tingling at the sound of the Cossack whips!

Think of reading this _when we know_ that before Talmage’s book was written, and while it was being written, and ever since it was written, Russian peasants, by thousands, _have been flogged every year for non-payment of taxes_!

“The Emperor received me with much heartiness. And at the first glance, seeing him to be a splendid gentleman, with no airs of pretension and as artless as any man I ever saw, it seemed to me that we were old friends from the start.”

Doctor Talmage did not visit the Russian prisons which he defended; did not go to Siberia, which he compared to Italy; did not make any investigations of peasant-life; did not go among the working classes; did not talk with Tolstoy, nor any man of the dissatisfied elements. In fact, Talmage declares, in effect, that nobody was dissatisfied.

Listen to Doctor Talmage, Page 422:

“He who charges cruelty on the imperial family and _the nobility of Russia_, belies men and women as gracious and benignant as ever breathed oxygen.”

Shades of von Plehve!

When we read such lines as the above and recall how that gracious and benignant nobility have drenched Russia with blood of peasants, Jews, city workingmen, republican agitators—littering the streets with ghastly heaps of murdered men and women and children—we may well stand amazed at the success with which the wool was pulled over the eyes of the Rev. T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.

“There are no kinder people on earth than the Russians, and to most of them cruelty is an impossibility.”

Of the Czar, Doctor Talmage says:

“He’s doing the best things possible for the nation which he loved, and which as ardently loved him.... Things are going on marvelously well, and I do not believe that out of 500,000 Russians you will find _more than one person_ who dislikes the Emperor, and so that Calumny of dread of assassination drops so flat it can fall no flatter.”

According to Doctor Talmage the story that the Czar dreaded the assassin was a base Calumny, and he, Talmage, flattened it out in his book “so flat it can fall no flatter.”

I wonder what the present Czar would feel, think and say if he could _now_ read Talmage’s comfortable assurances on the subject of “dread of assassination.”

* * * * *

While in Russia, Doctor Talmage saw the Rulers, and no others. He talked with the governing class, and no others. He saw a ship from the United States bringing bread to the Russian farmers, but it never occurred to his mind that a drouth in one portion of the huge Russian Empire was no good reason why the New World should have to save Russian peasants from starvation.

Looking only on the surface, seeing only what his “old friend” the Czar, wished him to see, he praised the Russian government in terms of the most unqualified eulogy.

Before the Talmage book was ready for the press, Prince Cantacuzene, the Russian Minister Plenipotentiary at Washington, summoned Doctor Talmage to the deck of a Russian man-of-war, in Philadelphia harbor, and presented to the enraptured American “a complete gold-enameled tea service accompanied by a message of love which I cannot now think of without deep emotion, since Emperor Alexander has disappeared from the palaces of earth to take his place, as I believe, in the palaces of heaven.”

In behalf of the Czar, the formalities of a trial on Judgment Day, were waived, it would seem; and the Czar went direct from Peterhof to his mansion in the skies.

The Emperor Alexander, it is well-known, was succeeded by his son Nicholas, the reigning Czar.

Talmage’s book was published in 1896. Here is what he predicted:

“_I prophesy for Nicholas the Second a long and happy reign!_”

That was a very natural inspiration. Talmage had delved into Russian affairs and found conditions ideal. The government was mild, just, progressive. The people were contented, and devoted to the Czar. There was no cruelty in the administration, and no suffering among the peasants, excepting the locality affected by the drought. The bread had been sent to feed the peasants, and all would be well. The Knout had been abolished. The serf, freed, was happy. Religious toleration was in practice; the circulation of political literature unhampered.

There was not a cloud upon the horizon. George Kennan, Stepniak, Tolstoy, Kropotkin had been slandering vilely the most humane Government of Europe—a Government which Talmage compared to ours, to our discomfiture in various respects.

With a Podsnapian wave of his hand, Talmage said to Europe, “_Let this international defamation of Russia cease._”

With that Royal welcome fresh in his memory, with those public ovations still ringing in his ears, with that “complete gold-enameled tea service” gladdening his eye, with the “message of love” conveyed by the Prince Cantacuzene still warming his heart, how could Doctor Talmage prophesy otherwise?

The spirit of the occasion demanded prophecy, and there it stands recorded, page 432:

“_I prophesy for Nicholas the Second a long and happy reign!_”

_A Prophet Whose Voice Was Not Heeded_

Almost in sight of where I live, there is a heap of stones that marks the spot where stood the hut in which George McDuffie was born.

His folks were “poor folks.” Concerning his ancestry nothing is known.

When I was a boy somebody told me a story to this effect:

Little George McDuffie was at the cowpen where his mother was milking, and he had a calf by the ears holding it away from the cow. A traveler, in a buggy, drove up and stopped. Seeing the boy, and not realizing the absorbing character of the boy’s job, the wayfaring man called out:

“Come here, Bubbie, and hold my horse.”

To which the lad replied: “If you’ll come here and hold my calf, I’ll go there and hold your horse.”

According to the story, the traveler was so tickled by the boy’s readiness of wit, that he took a fancy to him and secured him a position as clerk in a store in the city of Augusta.

Well, George McDuffie wasn’t much of a clerk. He loved to read books better than to wait upon customers. It came to pass that his fondness for books attracted the attention of one of the Calhouns—_not_ John C., but his brother, I believe—and Mr. Calhoun placed the boy at the celebrated school of Dr. Waddell to be educated.

The balance is history. McDuffie became one of the greatest legal advocates and political orators this country has ever known.

Later in life he became involved in a newspaper controversy which drew him into two duels. In one of these he received a wound which injured his spine and affected his brain.

In his melancholy decline, and not long before his death, McDuffie was moved by a yearning to come back to Georgia and visit the spot where his boyhood home had stood. He came from South Carolina by private conveyance, and spent the night with my grandfather. Next day he went on down to the Sweet-water Creek neighborhood where the McDuffie hut had been. My father used to tell me that when they led the broken statesman to the spot, pointed out the remaining shade tree and the dismantled chimney, they drew away, leaving him alone with his memories. After awhile they returned to find Mr. McDuffie sitting upon the stones of the ruined hearth, crying like a child.

When the boy, George McDuffie, left the store in Augusta and went over into South Carolina to go to school, he carried all of his earthly possessions in one little pine box.

When he became a man he made much money, owned large estates and moved as a peer among the proudest leaders of his day.

But he never parted with the little pine box. It was a souvenir of the old days of youth and poverty. It was sacred in his eyes, and he treasured it. When his mind was almost gone, he would put his arms about the box, and tell again the story of how it had held all that he owned when he came into South Carolina—a poor boy, on his way to the great battle-field of life.

Did you know that to this almost forgotten statesman, George McDuffie, belongs the distinction of having made the most powerful and most prophetic speech that was ever made in Congress against our damnable Tariff System?

Well, it does. Such men as Nelson Dingley and Joseph H. Walker were good judges in such a matter, and they regarded McDuffie’s argument as the strongest ever made against the New England scheme of enriching its Capitalists by plundering other sections. Dr. Goldwin Smith should also be a competent judge, and you will find that McDuffie’s speech is the one he quotes from in his “Political History of the United States.”

Mr. McDuffie’s great speech against the protective system is too long to be reproduced here; but in the concluding paragraphs he predicted with such clearness of vision the reign of rotten business and rotten politics which now afflicts us that his words read like inspired prophecy:

“Sir, when I consider that, by a single bill like the present, millions of dollars may be transferred annually from one part of the community to another; when I consider the disguise of disinterested patriotism under which the basest and most profligate ambition may perpetrate such an act of injustice and political prostitution, I cannot hesitate, for a moment, to pronounce this system _the most stupendous instrument of corruption_ ever placed in the hands of public functionaries.

“IT BRINGS AMBITION AND AVARICE AND WEALTH INTO A COMBINATION WHICH IT IS FEARFUL TO CONTEMPLATE, BECAUSE IT IS ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO RESIST.

“Do we not perceive, at this very moment, the extraordinary and melancholy spectacle of less than one hundred thousand capitalists, by means of this unhallowed combination, exercising an absolute and despotic control over the opinions of eight millions of free citizens and the fortunes and destinies of ten millions?

“Sir, I will not anticipate or forbode evil. _I will not permit myself to believe that the Presidency of the United States will ever be bought and sold._ But I must say that there are certain quarters of this Union in which, if the candidate for the Presidency should come forward with this Harrisburg tariff in his hand, nothing could resist his pretensions if his adversary were opposed to this _unjust system of oppression_.”

* * * * *

“Indeed, Sir, when I contemplate the extraordinary infatuation _which a combination of capitalists and politicians_ have had the heart to diffuse over more than one-half of this Union—when I see the very victims who are about to be offered up to satiate the voracious appetite of this devouring Moloch, paying their ardent and sincere devotions at his bloody shrine; I confess I have been tempted to doubt whether mankind was not doomed, even in its most enlightened state to be the dupe of some form of imposture, and the victim of some form of tyranny.

“Sir, in casting my eyes over the history of human idolatry, I can find nothing, even in the _darkest_ ages of ignorance and superstition, which surpasses the infatuation by which _a confederated priesthood of politicians and manufacturers_ have bound the great body of the people of the farming States of this Union as if by a spell, TO THIS MIGHTY SCHEME OF FRAUD AND DELUSION.”

* * * * *

Bear in mind that this speech was made in 1824.

Then look around you and see how prophetically Mr. McDuffie pictured the future.

The Presidency is bought and sold. Congress is bought and sold. The confederated priesthood of politicians and manufacturers do dominate an infatuated people whom it deludes and plunders.

The Trusts are nothing in the world but the legitimate children of Privilege and Protection.

Campaign boodle-funds are nothing in the world but the sop which the Corrupt Combination of Capitalists pay to renew the lease which they hold on the Government.

And, as Mr. McDuffie said, the most astounding feature of the whole diabolical system is the completeness with which the politicians and the Privileged can dupe the victims of Protection into the belief that _Privilege_ benefits the unprivileged.

With the doors of immigration standing wide open vomiting into our industrial world all the cheap white labor of the universe, our Protected capitalists are still able to convince our wage-earners that American capital protects American labor from the competition of foreign “pauper” labor!

Having ground down the price of factory labor to such a low point that they can undersell foreigners in the foreign market, our Privileged and Protected Capitalists can nevertheless convince American laborers that the motive for high tariffs is to enable the Capitalist to pay big wages!

And they swallowed it—the wage-earners swallow it, meekly, blindly, trustfully.

The record of a Century teaches them nothing.

The evidences of their own senses are ignored.

The very factory hands who at Fall River lived off the soup of the Salvation Army devoutly believed that if it hadn’t been for the Protective system they wouldn’t even have got the soup.

The factory girl who is paid five dollars per week, and who, when she complains that she cannot live on the wage, is sardonically advised to get a gentleman friend, actually believes that were it not for Privilege and Protection she would not get the five dollars.

God in heaven! No wonder that George McDuffie expressed his doubt as to whether the masses could ever be enlightened. No wonder his prophetic speech vibrated with an undertone of despair.

Less than one-tenth of the laborers of this country own their homes; yet _they_ have been Protected for a hundred years.

Less than a quarter million men own practically the entire wealth of the whole United States; yet Privilege and Protection are _not_ for their benefit.

You go to the millions of Unprivileged and Unprotected citizens and you point out to them how they are plundered by being made to pay twice as much as they should on every article which they buy.

They understand it; they admit the fact; but the corrupt politician has taught them what to say.

This is the lesson:

“Yes; we pay twice as much as the goods are worth, but it is patriotic and humane, because we thereby enable millions of American wage-earners to get big wages.”

Fine, isn’t it?

If the man who repeats that little lesson, and believes it, would go into the districts where Protection is and where the system has been at work longest he will find himself in precisely the places where wages are lowest, where Capitalists are harshest, where squalor and vice are rankest, and where the maddened victims of our soulless wage-system are nursing in their hearts the passions of hell.

_The Highest Office_

Let seasons come and go, let the sunlight and shadows fall where God’s pleasure puts them—do your duty as conscience and reason reveal it to you. Let no other man measure your work or your responsibilities; let no artful sophistry, in favor of the expedient, veil from your steadfast eyes the summits of Right. Let parties rise and fall; let time-servers flop and flounder, let the heedless praise of the hour lay its withering garlands at the feet of him who will purchase them by bending to every passing breeze, every popular whim, every local prejudice.

Do thou look higher if joy and strength and peace and pride are to be thine. In this brief life (hardly worth the living) know this one thing: that a man’s honor should be just as dear to him as a woman’s virtue is to her. Did the Roman girls not go gladly to the lions, to the bloody death in the arena, rather than to recant their Christian faith, or to accept a lawless lover? Did not the Armenian woman, a few years ago, leap to death over the precipice, rather than to apostatize or to be violated? Isn’t the ground still wet with the life-drops of poor Else Kroegler, who let her white throat be gashed, and gashed, and gashed, by the black devil who assailed her, till her life was gone, rather than to live dishonored? And shall a man be less heroic than a woman? Is there nothing within us that cannot be bought? Is there no Holy of Holies of conviction and principle, into which the corruptor shall not enter? Is there nothing that we hold sacred as the citadel of proud, fearless, upright manhood?

Once upon a time a barbarous peasant worked his way upward and onward, until he wore the imperial purple of Rome; and he said: “I have gained all the honors and none of them have value.” Did not Cæsar, himself, grow sick at heart of the eminence he had wickedly won, and say that he had lived long enough?

If we must bow to what is wrong, flatter what we despise, preach what we disbelieve, and deny what we feel to be true, is success thus won anything but a gilded dishonor?

To be a man, such a man as you know God would have you be—manly, truthful, honest—scorning meanness, hating lies, loathing deceit, meeting the plain duties of life, and shirking none of its plain responsibilities—is not that the highest office you can fill?

_Editorial Comment_

The Washington Post is generally accurate in its statements of facts, but it erred in saying that one of the legal grounds for divorce in Georgia is insanity occurring _after_ the marriage. Our statute book is not disgraced by a provision of that kind.

Insanity is a misfortune for which, as a rule, the victim is not to blame. Besides, it is a disease which is often cured, or a terrible visitation which sometimes passes away as suddenly as it came.

Suppose the Legislature deprives the afflicted wife of possibly her only protector by granting the husband a divorce; suppose the wife then regains her sanity—would not the situation be horrible?

When I reflect upon the shameful things the Wall Street millionaires have led our Legislature to do, I am by no means certain that some Ryan or Morgan, tired of his old wife, might secure from the Hamp McWhorter machine a legislative license to go and buy a fresh one—but such a deal has not, as yet, been consummated.

* * * * *

Congress is beginning to catch on to the enormous frauds in the weighing of the mails. In the first issue of this Magazine, I called attention to the notorious fact that certain Congressmen, who belong to the railroads, were in the habit of lending to their bosses the frank whose mark on mail matter entitles it to go through the mails without payment of postage.

For example: Suppose the Southern Railroad wants the use of the frank of the Honorable Leonidas F. Livingston, whom “the Democratic Party” of the Atlanta, Ga., District sends to Congress. In that case, the Honorable Leonidas will lend his bosses his rubber stamp which, being inked and pressed upon a sack of mail matter, leaves thereon this inscription:

_L. F. Livingston, M. C._

This inscription being placed upon the sack, the postal authorities are compelled by law to carry the sack to any part of the United States free of charge. The magic letters “M. C.” which stand, of course, for “Member of Congress,” are as good as gold in the postal service. Now why does the Southern Railroad want to use the frank of the Honorable Leonidas?

For this reason:

The Government pays the railroads for carrying the mails, at so much per pound; to get at the “average” for the whole year, the Government weighs the mail for ninety days; therefore it is hugely to the advantage of the railroads to make the “average” as high as possible; and consequently the railroads themselves crowd into the mails, _during those ninety days_, every God-blessed piece of old junk they can lay their hands on.

See?

But if the railroads had to pay postage on that old junk, their profits would be cut down to just that extent. They would have to pay thousands of dollars to the Government, in postage, during the ninety days.

By getting from the Honorable Leonidas the use of his frank, the railroad can escape payment of postage on the old junk. By the collusion of the Honorable Leonidas, the Southern Railroad is not only enabled to swindle the Government in the creation of a fraudulent “average,” but _they even unload on the Government the expense of carrying the bogus mail which constitutes the swindle_.

In the first number of this Magazine, I gave Livingston’s name as that of one of the rascals who help the railroad swindle the people.

_I give it again._

The Honorable Leonidas is one of the unscrupulous knaves who covers the multitude of his individual sins with the generous, rubber-coat mantle of “the Democratic Party.”

The time is rapidly approaching in this country when a scoundrel will be treated as a scoundrel, regardless of his being a member of the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. Thieves and corporation doodles will not forever escape detection and infamy by crying out “I am a Democrat,” or “I am a Republican.”

* * * * *

The gaping world is told that the Princess Ena, of the Royal House of Great Britain, is about to marry Alfonso, the decadent lad who is King of Spain. The Royal House of Great Britain holds the throne upon the Parliamentary Condition that it shall be Protestant. The Act which recognized the Hanoverian succession reads: “The Princess Sophia and the heirs of her body _being Protestants_.”

But the crown of Spain would not be allowed to rest upon the head of a heretic. No, indeed! The King and Queen of Spain must be Catholics.

But King Alfonso wants the fair Princess Ena, and the ambitious Ena wants to become Queen of Spain.

Is there any way out? Oh, yes. The Princess Ena, of the Royal House whose Protestant faith is a matter of Parliamentary measure, being determined to marry a King whose crown depends upon his being a rigid Catholic, happily solves the problem by “turning” Catholic.

Very well. If to Henry of Navarre “Paris was well worth a mass,” why shouldn’t the throne of Spain be worth as much to the fair Princess Ena?

* * * * *

And, by the way, the Princess Ena has had some illustrious examples set her in the matter of changing one’s creed.

Did not unhappy little Anna Gould “turn” Catholic to ease the conscience of her precious Castellane?

And did not the daughter of the American “house” of Mackay “turn” Catholic when she became an Italian princess?

Human motives are pretty much the same everywhere, and to many people religion is a mere matter of respectable conformity to the manners and customs of those who make up the environment.

* * * * *

John D. Rockefeller is running about from one hiding place to another, to keep from being found by the officers of the law. How silly. Why does he not come into court with a shattered memory and a pack of perjuries like some of the other high-rolling rascals who have been before the courts recently?

As to one-third of the things which might land him in the penitentiary, if he admitted them, he can say, “I decline to answer on advice of counsel.”

To another third he can say that he does not remember.

To the remaining third, he can make perjured replies.

Then old John will be in line with Rogers, McCall, McCurdy, Depew and some others who have recently figured in the New York legal proceedings.

* * * * *

While Rockefeller is hiding out like a common criminal, would it not be appropriate for one of his high-priced preachers to come forth in another sermon, or interview, or signed article, explaining to us common mortals, what a good and pious, and benevolent man old John D. is?

The Recording Angel must have a busy time trying to keep straight the accounts of some of our high-priced city preachers.

There was Bishop Potter, for instance, who choked off the Reverend Mr. Chew when that subordinate divine wanted to give us a piece of his mind concerning Life Insurance rottenness in New York. The high-priced Bishop put himself in the attitude of warding off attack from the robbers of widows and orphans.

* * * * *

The Constitution of the United States expressly declares that no money shall be taken from the Treasury without an appropriation by Congress.

Therefore, when Lyman Gage and Leslie Shaw, Secretaries of the Treasury, took $15,000,000 out of the Treasury and placed it in the Standard Oil Bank in New York City they violated the supreme law of the land. The $56,000,000 which Mr. Roosevelt’s administration has been allowing the National Banks to hold and to use is held and used in violation of the Constitution. What do our big men care for the law? Nothing. The law is for the small and the weak.

* * * * *

It was not _your_ mother or sister or wife, _but it might have been_, and therefore the thing that happened to her should stir your blood.

A lady who is every bit as good, so far as anybody knows or says, as Mrs. Roosevelt, went to the White House to see the President on business. She wanted to plead for her husband, who had been arbitrarily thrown out of a good office at the instance of a very contemptible cur named Hull, who happened to be a Congressman, and chairman of the House Committee on Military Affairs.

A swell-head White House official named Barnes, told the lady that the President was engaged and could not see her.

She remarked that she would wait until the President was disengaged—that she meant to stay until she _did_ see him.

In other words, she placed herself in the position of “the importunate widow.” She was desperately in earnest; her husband had been foully wronged; it was a matter of vital importance to her; and her wifely heart made her brave the rebuff of asinine Barnes.

Mr. Roosevelt had recently returned to the White House from a “progress” through the Southern provinces, during which progress he had exhibited himself to his admiring constituents as the most affable, approachable, genial and generous of men. What was more natural than for Mrs. Morris to think that a little persistence on her part would bring the gallant Teddy to the front, beaming with that glorified grin and extending that cordial hand which had so recently enraptured the people of the South?

Stage-play, however, is one thing and “business” is another. Teddy is a genial democrat when playing to the grand-stand, and a bumptious autocrat in some of his White House moods.

To cut the long story short, the lady was ordered out of the White House, and when she kept her seat she was seized upon by three white men and one negro and forcibly dragged out. Her silk dress was torn, her ornaments scattered, her flesh bruised. The white men pulled her by the arms and shoulders, the negro held her by the legs; she was dragged through the mud to a cab, thrown into it like a common criminal and driven off to a criminal’s resort, the House of Detention.

A more shocking outrage has never been committed at the White House. It was indecent, it was brutal, it was despotic, it was violative of all democratic usage and of every human consideration. The poor lady was so terribly frightened, so rudely handled, subjected to such a public and unprovoked humiliation that she was thrown into a fever and confined to her bed for many days.

No—I have already stated that it was not _your_ sister, or _your_ mother or _your_ wife whose legs were held by Roosevelt’s nigger while his three white ruffians dragged her, screaming, through the mud, and flung her, bruised and frantic, into a cab to be driven off as criminals are driven.

_But it might have been._

And when you consider the incident from that point of view you will admire the courage with which Senator Ben Tillman denounced the outrage, while you regard with utter scorn the cowardly attitude of the great majority in both branches of Congress who were afraid to say what they thought.

Mr. Roosevelt was not originally responsible for the outrage, but he chose to become so by his refusal to express any regrets at the occurrence, and by his failure to rebuke the brutes who were guilty of such needless violence to a respectable visitor at a public office which belonged as much to her as to anybody else on this earth.

_There is talk of congress adopting the maximum and minimum
tariff plan. Haven’t we something of that sort in force now._

_Bart., in Minneapolis Journal_]

_Tom L. Johnson_—“_That, sir, is the root of all municipal
mischief, and it must be dug out clean!_”

_Bengough, in The Public_]

_F. Opper, in N. Y. American_]

BY HELEN FRANCES HUNTINGTON]

“No, we ain’t a’needin’ any more hands right now,” said Polly Ann in a brisk, business-like voice that discouraged prolixity on the part of the loitering applicant whom Polly knew to be unreliable from a working point of view, for he bore all the outward marks of shiftlessness which her eyes had been trained to discern at one comprehensive glance.

“I reckon I’d as well wait an’ see the boss,” was the hopeful answer.

“It won’t do no good to wait, ’cause he ain’t got no work for you,” Polly reiterated with dry patience. “’Sides, the boss is too busy to waste any time outside o’ business.”

“Oh, well, then I’ll call again,” the applicant observed amiably. He shuffled out, hands in pockets, and Polly Ann eased back in her chair behind the railed-in desk that overlooked the long rows of pallid, expressionless faces bowed over the spindles that whirred monotonously through the dull roar of machinery. Polly was used to the noise; its absence, during the brief Sunday rests, made her nerves ache dimly as if their rightful functions had been forcibly suspended, for she had grown up within the mills. Her mother had been first to succumb to the insidious fever which sooner or later fastens upon the unsound, poorly nourished slaves of the great White Despot known to the world as the Southern Cotton Mill industry. Polly’s young sister had followed their mother to her quiet rest within a year, after which the overburdened, inadequate father “aimed” to return to the upland, clayey farm which he had so hopefully abandoned two years before; but before he could save enough money to cover his debts he added to his burdens by marrying a factory widow with four pallid, old-young children. Polly lived with them until they moved to Atlanta in hopes of financial betterment, then she assumed the brunt of home-making for her two undisciplined brothers. Meanwhile, her industry had increased as her thin, deft fingers became more and more proficient. Her interest in her fellow-slaves broadened into a mute, protective supervision which the keen-witted boss recognized and rewarded by placing her in a position of trust which, humble though it was, relieved her of the bitter grind of mill labor.

Spring was in the air. It looked in at the dim windows and drifted through the open doors where the sunlight drenched the worn, splintered floor with fine gold. Polly recognized something familiar—the sweet, far-reaching scent of wild azaleas that grew thick and tall along the distant Chattahoochee hill; she closed her eyes and let her fancy drift back to the green pastures and still waters of the old haunts of her heart’s desire, until her revery was shattered by a human appeal.

It was a sunny young voice that recalled Polly to tangible things, and it belonged to a very young girl of the “cracker” type, with a face of spring-like innocence, who introduced herself as “Mis’ Lomux, from Lumpkin,” with a smile of such irresistible sweetness that Polly’s thin, sallow face lighted with answering pleasure.

“You-all’s got a job fer me this time, ain’t you?” the stranger asked anxiously. “I was here last Chuesday, an’ the boss said he ’lowed he’d have a place fer me by today. I aimed to git here right soon this mornin’ so’s to start work on time, but the chillun give out in spite of all I could do, an’ I was jest obleeged to stop along with ’em at a house where the folks promised to keep ’em till they got rested.”

“The boss is right busy now,” said Polly in very kind voice. “I don’t much believe he needs any more hands, ’cause he tuk in a new batch Saturday, but you can wait an’ see what he says. Set down an’ rest yourself till he comes along.”

“He surely will give me _somethin’_ to do,” Mis’ Lomux said hopefully, “’cause he done promised he would.”

“Well, mebbe he will, then. Did you ever work in a mill afore?”

“No’m, but I can learn real fast. They say ’tain’t hard.”

“No, ’tain’t to say hard, but it’s turrible wearin’,” Polly answered. “You don’t look real stout, nuther.”

“That’s one reason why I come,” Mis’ Lomux admitted frankly, “though I’m stout a’ plenty to putter all day without restin’ any bit. Last fall I was tuk with a spell o’ fever an’ sence then I jest ain’t been able to do like I uster. Plowin’ an’ sech-like beats me plum out in no time. I tried my best to take Tobe’s place after he left, but I jest couldn’t make out no way.”

“Who’s Tobe?” Polly interrupted with deepening interest. “Your brother?”

“No’m, he’s my husband.”

“Your husband!” Polly echoed surprisedly. “You look dreadful young to be married. How long _have_ you been married?”

“Be ten weeks on Sunday,” the bride replied unenthusiastically.

“An’ he’s left you a’ready!”

“Yes’m.” Mis’ Lomux nodded her blond head solemnly. “He done broke his promise an’—an’ I don’t aim to live with him no more, ever.”

Polly Ann searched the flower-like face with something akin to pity. “You ain’t a’ carin,’ are you?” she asked in a whisper.

Mis’ Lomux’s denial was emphatic, but unconvincing. “I ’lowed all husbands was like pa,” she admitted sadly, “an’ that’s why I married Tobe so quick after he axed me. You see when pa died that throwed me an’ the chillun onto the county, with me not able to do fer ’em like I would a’ been if I hadn’t had the fever. What to do I didn’t know ’cause the chillun couldn’t work by their selves to do any good. When Tobe Lomux sent me word that he’d tak the hull lot of us if I’d have him, I was glad enough to marry him on that account, no matter what come. Not that I got ary thing agin Tobe—no one ain’t fer that matter,” she interrupted herself to say extenuatingly, “for he’s a real steady, honest person. Tobe’s high-tempered, though. Fust thing I knowed his folks come meddlin’ round talkin’ about him havin’ to do fer a’ passel o’ lazy chilluns an’ sech-like an’ it warn’t no time fore Tobe had put the chilluns to work like a gang o’ niggers. Me! Why, I jest couldn’t stand that not fer a minit! I up an’ told Tobe to hire his own niggers or quit us, ’cause them pore chillun warn’t goin’ to be nobody’s slaves. An’ he went”; she finished, growing very white and cold.

“He warn’t much or he wouldn’t a’ acted that way,” was Polly’s stern verdict.

The bride winced. “I aim to show ’im we can git on without him an’ his uppidy folks,” she retorted, with a flame of delicate color. “That’s why I come here, jest to make a livin’ fer us all till I can stouten up agin crap-making time next spring. By that time the two little boys’ll be big enough to help with the plowin’. Boys grows a heap in a year.”

“Did you say you brung the chillun along with you?” Polly wanted to know.

“Yes’m, we all set out together yesterday mornin’. Tain’t to say so dreadful fur—jest eighteen miles—but they ain’t used to travelin’ steady, an’ they give plum out early this mornin’, so I left ’em along with some folks while I come on ahead to git work.”

Polly Ann’s interest was of a keenly personal order, which admitted of vast concessions in favor of the second applicant for the already crowded ranks of mill laborers. She had turned the first comer away almost at sight, but Mis’ Lomux was different—her plaintive needs appealed to Polly Ann’s warm, starved little heart in a fashion quite unknown to her since her mother and sister had passed beyond her faithful care.

“Where’s your things?” Polly asked after a museful pause.

“We’re totin’ all we’ve got,” Mis’ Lomux answered frankly. “Pa didn’t have much of anythin’ when he died an’ I sold what little there was to git the chillun fit close to come down here in.”

Polly rose and stepped from the little platform with an air of decision. “You set there while I go hunt the boss,” said she.

So Mis’ Lomux waited hopefully until Polly returned from the fore part of the great building to say that there would be a vacancy in the spindle department the very next day. “You’d better fetch the chillun right along,” Polly advised, “’cause you’ll have to be ready to go to work at seven o’clock tomorrow mornin’. There’s a’ empty shack at the end of Factory Row that you can rent real cheap. I’ll see about rentin’ it while you’re gone.”

Polly saw them pass the mills late that afternoon, a dusty, tired band of wayfarers, each carrying small, queer-shaped bundles which contained the sum of their meager possessions, and felt herself glow with satisfaction as she thought of what she had contrived to put into the rough little shack, in the way of household furnishings. She went over after work hours to assist with the setting to rights.

By the end of the first week Mis’ Lomux and the two little boys, who were to help with the next year’s crop, had obtained steady employment in the mills. Their bright faces gleamed out among the listless, pallid, faded faces of the “old hands,” with primrose freshness that attracted Polly Ann’s eyes many, many times during the long noisy day; but soon their morning glow waned and the difference grew less and less marked except for Mis’ Lomux’s illuminating smile which never dimmed or wavered, early or late, while the little loved faces turned towards hers. The delicately rounded girlish figure grew thin, and Mis’ Lomux drooped more and more just as Polly’s mother and sister had drooped before doom overtook them, yet never a word escaped her patient lips. There was, indeed, no time for self-pity, for all her thoughts were centered upon the children whom she sheltered from every harsh word and look with a maternal zeal that never failed of its loving purpose, in spite of the children’s wilfulness apparent to every one but Mary Lomux. Polly realized shrewdly how it had been with Tobe, whose judgment had lacked the softening influence of love, for although the children were of naturally lovable disposition, Mary had undeniably spoiled them from a man’s view-point.