COMMERCIALISM AND EXTORTION From Africa. Did God then sleep? The blacks still groaning 'neath the yoke! Is loaded upon ships that steam To Africa. What moves those ships Those great "leviathans of the deep?" A giant force the lust of gold! On board those ships freighted with rum 249 It is by what we term "exploitation" that millionaires' fortunes are built up. That is but another name for torture, starvation, robbery, murder! The crime of "holding up" a railroad train is the same as selling "for a dime a bun worth but one cent." It too is a "holdup." The arbitrarily raising of prices by merchants, grocers, beef trusts, etc., through a conspiracy, is as bad as to say to one at the muzzle of a gun, "your money or your life!" Crimes committed are not of individuals, but of society. All men and all women, under our present order, are equally guilty. Where lies the blame for all the crime That so disgraces now our time? It rests upon society It rests upon community; An education that will build, Into the edifice designed, The structure of the heart and mind; "As bent the twig the tree's inclined." That grows more deadly year by year; Oh, gather in the little ones, Nor feed them serpents and hard stones! The Levite on the other side Who is the tender-hearted man? Who is the good Samaritan? Say 'tis the State-the Commonwealth Shall give them food-restore their health; Her roof protect from angry storms! Time hurries by; these little ones Grow up to be her stalwart sons; Support her when her locks are gray Her love with gratitude repay! But education will not save us unless we give up commercial greed and exploitation. How may these be got rid of? In waves reform flows on-great waves that come and then recede; Return again;-but, Oh, beware the storm-fiend in the lead! O toilers! mighty is your power; I see you now combine And hold the helm, and guide the ship, O stalwart ninety-nine! The land of Beulah is in sight; the harbor now is near; The headlands and the rocks are passed; the dangerous shoals you clear. You land; Christ's Kingdom you set up (the Pagan ocean crossed.) Again descends the Holy Ghost-a Second Pentecost! YE 185TH LESSON. Nature and Environment. Nature or environment, which is paramount? Did our progenitors, when caves were their dwellings, the skins of wild beasts their clothing, and clubs and stones their only offensive and defensive weapons and their only implements of usefulness, neglect to conform to nature in marrying or mating and bringing up children? No. They peopled the whole earth-Asia, Africa, Europe, America and the islands of the Now society-social organization-determines conditions among men. Men, as a rule, are poor to-day not for want of industry or willingness on their part to work; but because of want of opportunity to labor and because of the exploitation of their labor by wicked ghouls for want of proper organization of society to prevent it. But how ought society be organized? seas. Nature's Lesson. Mark the working of the bee, All partakers of the store; Each his part assigned to do; Eden of the fertile earth Justice will be brought about When the drones are driven out. Who are drones? Whoever does not, when able, produce in one way or another, an equivalent of his support and who lives off the labor of others, seizing upon more of the natural wealth than he produces directly or indirectly by his own labor of hand or brain, is a drone, whether a millionaire or a hobo. These in some way ought to be driven out of the human hive. But, in the meantime, what is the duty of the individual handicapped by the environment? Must the young man say, because he is poor, he will not marry? A legislator of Iowa once introduced a bill before the general assembly of the state providing that no man not worth six hundred dollars should be permitted to marry. A good measure; for human law cannot abrogate divine law. It is a law of God that men and women marry and bring up children. "Be fruitful," etc. And if the law of the land say the groom must have wealth to the amount of six hundred dollars, or more or less, before he wed, the state would be legally and morally bound to make up the deficit even to supplying the whole amount. A good thing! But, unfortunately, the bill failed to pass. Should the poor marry at all? Yes; everybody ought to marry. whether able for want of work, to support a family or not. All should keep to nature. Let society suffer the consequences: for society to-day is altogether to blame for the condition of the individuals that compose it. There is produced in our country sufficient, I insist, to abundantly support all the children born. Much is shipped abroad that A TRUE ARISTOCRACY 251 should be consumed at home. By some equitable means "let distribution be made to all men according as every man has need." I will emphasize the statement: Let all marry without regard to conditions of wealth or poverty. For the individual in this day is not responsible, as a rule, for his poverty any more than was the cave-man. Let no condition prevent the healthful marrying. The sexes cannot be kept apart by any means. "Love defies locksmiths." Therefore let lovers be united in lawful marriage. Chastity will be the rule then and unchastity the exception. The rule is reversed in some countries (not, I trust, in ours) to-day. But in large cities the condition is deplorable. Let railroad and all other corporations or individuals that employ labor be compelled to give each of their employes wages sufficient for the support in comfort of the largest family, and make it incumbent on all whom they employ to be married and of habits strictly temperate. It should be the policy of state and society to encourage young people to wed and bring up large families of children. But where such encouragement is not forthcoming let marriages be not lessened, nor offspring restricted. Let the state do its part. All institutions, laws and social aims YE 186TH LESSON. A True Aristocracy. It is not an aristocracy of wealth. That ought to be held in the same esteem that Jesus held the rich. It does not occupy a place beneficial, but one injurious to society, holding out of reach of others what to themselves is of no use, but harmful. A true aristocracy is one of manhood and womanhood-the greatest wearing the brightest jewels in their crowns-the boast of Cornelia. "These are my jewels," she said, pointing to her sons, the Gracchi. I would rather be the father of noble sons and daughters than to possess a mountain of gold. The highest office is that of builder. Builder of what? Of greatness. Who are aristocrats? The great-great builders of greatness are greatcreators and imparters of ideas-teachers. There is nothing of value but ideas. To delve for ideas is of more importance than to dig for gold. Let this truth take possession of all minds and the world will have emerged from darkness into light; from barbarism into civilization. Mankind to-day are barbarians-commercialism is barbarism and commercialism is predominant now the world over. "We must make money," is the shibboleth of all. It ought not be so. It should rather be: "We must build." Build what? True men. What ails too many college professors and public school teachers? The same as ails too many preachers? Their aim is salary and not to build. We must drop this sandbag of money-getting. Long has Jesus been to us a divine example. To what extent have we been won to him? Who of all the eighty millions in America is as indifferent to moneygetting as he was? Is there one? Find him out among those who have an inheritance of healthful heart and healthful brain, above the inmates of a hospital for the feeble-minded or the insane, and is as earnestly devoted to the common weal as Jesus was as ready to die to redeem the world as he was, and you have found an immortal greater than Homer or Socrates-the only sort of men that ought to live on this planet, and the only sort that will live on it when Christ shall have "drawn all men unto himself." Our semi-savage state was made apparent in the lucid words of President Wright of the Iowa Teachers' Association, when he said to the teachers assembled in Des Moines in 1905: "The most demoralizing of the evil educational influences of the present time is undoubtedly found in the universality of the commercial spirit, and in the ideals which it creates in the political and in the social world. 'What is there in it for me?' is the paramount question upon the lips of children and of men to-day. The great men of the present who are placed on pedestals, looked up to and admired, the inspirers of youth with life ideals and purposes, the demigods who are eulogized by the press and apotheosized by the college, are no longer the poet, the seer, the sage-but the multimillionaire, the merchant prince, the king of finance, the successful gambler on the stock exchange; these and their financial successes are to the youth of the land the world's great object lessons in graft. The age is money-mad; and the money-getter is in evidence everywhere. His ambition is not to be known and honored for his incorruptibility and righteousness of life; not to serve humanity nor fatherland nor God; his single aim is to get from the world as much as he can, and to give to the world as little as he can in return. He has modernized Polonius' advice, 'Put money in thy purse.' Get money; honestly if you can-but get money'." No greater, no more imperative task can be set before the American teacher than to undo in the hearts of men and women, the pernicions influence of this all-pervading, all-dominating commercial spirit. This cannot be done by example alone; it must be reinforced by precept, by appeal to the moral nature of the child, to his conscience, to his sense of justice, to his sense of obligation to fellowmen and to God. Such instruction is more needed in the school than are any lessons in language, history or science." YE 187TH LESSON. Tradition and Evolution. Habit (tradition) stand, in the way of evolution. Edison says: "The great majority of men are controlled by habit. They have always seen a thing done one way and that way seems to them the only way. But there are some of us who have a little of the spirit of evolution, and we bother and trouble the others by not letting them alone. "It is curious to see how long it takes men to get in motion when anything new turns up," said he. "And it doesn't seem to make much difference how important the thing is, or how obvious it is. There is the new electric locomotive which has been built for the New York Central railroad. It could have been produced twenty years ago. We look upon it as a wonder, and it is a wonder; but a still greater wonder is that it has taken twenty years to get it built." The benefits of invention have placed the possibility of want beyond the reach of all on this mundane globe, if only habit stood not in the way to prevent the people "getting in motion" to accept the benefits TRADITION AND EVOLUTION 253 conferred by Watt, Fulton, Edison and the rest. They were bestowed for the good of all and not of the few. Truly there exists longer no foundation for greediness but instinct-which is inherited habit. Why do hogs climb into and lie lengthwise in the trough, keeping others in the pen from eating, and swilling, till they burst with greed? Animal instinct controls them. The work done now by machinery should inure to the common benefit and not alone to that of the few, to make of them millionaires, and of the many dependents, and, in the end, paupers or slaves. Here, in our town, for example, is a great factory. Four hundred and more grown people, mostly young women, are employed. The wages paid most of them, notably the women, would not meet the cost of their board at a second-class hotel. But the owners of the establishment are well on their way to become millionaires. This is wrong. All business should be Co-operative and every one connected with its operation-all the workers-yea, all that have to do with it should have like interest in it and share equally in the profits of the concern, the means for setting up the business, or industry, being advanced by society, through the government, as now it is advanced to the national banking firms. Deposits by the people or their earnings, advances by government, and the privilege of issuing "currency" these aids are the foundation of banking. The same care and assistance should be bestowed on all pursuits-the whole should stand behind each, as the government and the people stand behind the banks. Of course the banking business should be entirely a governmental affair; for it involves the issuance of money, solely a governmental function; and the only money afloat ought to be as good as the best, that is to say, legal tender. To set up co-operative industry in all lines of production and distribution, a few words changed, of the law establishing the national banks would accomplish the purpose; for those institutions are purely co-operative. The machinery of production, transportation and distribution should be under public control for the common benefit alone and no special benefits or privileges remain, accrue or be extended to private persons or corporations, and but one corporation, except benevolent and religious institutions, should be permitted to exist at all and it should comprehend every man, woman and child of the nation, and that corporation the state itself, or the community of states. We have come upon the time when each individual will be an essential part, a brick in the wall of the commonwealth, and of as great importance as any other individual part. The laws, institutions and every movement of society will be directed to the end that all the imperfect be perfected. As to-day, the public schools, colleges, blind asylums, schools for the deaf and dumb, and the church (the spontaneous sun-burst of the good it should be), everything will have one and only one local point of brilliancy-the perfecting of the imperfect. This single thought is worth more than all the inventions and discoveries that have ever been made or ever will or can be made; than all there is or ever was of value, or ever will be on earth or in heaven besides, or can be. It is the heart of Christ-the all, and in all-love-as God is love. The Laura Bridgmans and the Helen Kellers will be the brightest stars of the firmament, lighted by the dynamo of infinite love. "The last shall be first and the first last"-those most lacking will be rich beyond those who have most-a paradox and the highest truth; for the Altruistic Spirit (God) will rule this mundane world, as He rules the world above, and so the prophecy will be at last fulfilled: "And God shall dwell with men." |