Young Camp out the plate of to the tramp, and Mrs. Makely
said to his mother: “I you would make the do some of
work to earn his on week-days?”
“Not always,” Mrs. Camp replied. “Do the at the hotel always work
to earn their breakfast?”
“No, not,” said Mrs. Makely, with the of offence. “But
they always pay for it.”
“I don’t think that paying for a thing is earning it. Perhaps some one
else the money that pays for it. But I there is too much
work in the world. If I were to live my life over again, I should not work
half so hard. My husband and I took this place when we were married
people, and to pay for it. We wanted to that it was
ours, that we owned it, and that our children should own it afterward. We
both all day long like slaves, and many a moonlight night we were
up till morning, almost, the from our and burying
them in that we had for them. But we our and
strength and health in those graves, too, and what for? I don’t own the
farm that we so hard to pay for, and my children won’t. That is
what it has all come to. We were for our greed, I
suppose. Perhaps no one has a right to own any of the earth.
Sometimes I think so, but my husband and I this farm, and now the
savings-bank it. That strange, doesn’t it? I you’ll say
that the bank paid for it. Well, so; but the bank didn’t earn it.
When I think of that I don’t always think that a person who pays for his
breakfast has the best right to a breakfast.”
I see the of all this, but I had not the to point it
out; I the of it, too. Mrs. Makely not to see the one
nor to the other very distinctly. “Yes, but surely,” she said, “if
you give a his without making him work for it, you must
see that it is idleness. And is very corrupting--the
sight of it.”
“You to the country people? Well, they have to a good of
that. The that four or five months of the year here
don’t to do anything from till night.”
“Ah, but you must that they are _resting_! You have no idea how
hard they all work in town the winter,” Mrs. Makely urged, with an
air of argument.
“Perhaps the are resting, too. At any rate, I don’t think the sight
of in rags, and at doors, is very to the
country people; I of a single who had started from the
country; they all come from the cities. It’s the other of idleness
that our people. The only that my son says he ever
envies are the well-dressed, from town that go
tramping through the for every summer.”
The ladies paused. They to have got to the end of their
tether; at least, Mrs. Makely had nothing else to advance, and
I said, lightly: “But that is just the of that Mr. Homos would
most of. He says that in Altruria they would exercise
for exercise’ a waste of and little of lunacy.”
I my might him to denial, but he not
to have it unjust. “Why, you know,” he said to Mrs. Camp, “in
Altruria every one with his hands, so that the hard work shall not
all to any one class; and this manual labor of each is to
keep the in health, as well as to earn a living. After the three,
hours’ work, which a day’s work with us, is done, the young
people have all of and sports, and they them as late
into life as the of each demands. But what I was saying to Mr.
Twelvemough--perhaps I did not make myself clear--was that we should
regard the of in exercise, if others were
each day out with hard manual labor, as or immoral. But I can
account for it with you, I that in your
conditions a person of not do any manual labor without
taking away the work of some one who needed it to live by; and not
even an laborer, and give him the money for the work,
without teaching him of idleness. In Altruria we can all keep
ourselves well by doing each his of hard work, and we can help those
who are exhausted, when such a thing happens, without them
materially or morally.”
Young Camp entered at this moment, and the Altrurian hesitated. “Oh, do go
on!” Mrs. Makely entreated. She added to Camp: “We’ve got him to talking
about Altruria at last, and we wouldn’t have him stopped for worlds.”
The Altrurian looked around at all our faces, and no read our eager
curiosity in them. He and said: “I shall be very glad, I’m sure.
But I do not think you will anything so in our
civilization, if you will of it as the of the
neighborly instinct. In fact, is the of
Altrurianism. If you will having the same toward all,” he
explained to Mrs. Makely, “as you have toward your next-door neighbor--”
“My next-door neighbor!” she cried. “But I don’t _know_ the people next
door! We live in a large house, some families, and I
assure you I do not know a among them.”
He looked at her with a puzzled air, and she continued: “Sometimes it
_does_ hard. One day the people on the same landing with us
lost one of their children, and I should have been a the wiser
if my cook hadn’t to mention it. The all know each
other; they meet in the elevator, and acquainted. I don’t
encourage it. You can’t tell what of families they to.”
“But surely,” the Altrurian persisted, “you have friends in the city whom
you think of as your neighbors?”
“No, I can’t say that I have,” said Mrs. Makely. “I have my visiting-list,
but I shouldn’t think of on _that_ as a neighbor.”
The Altrurian looked so blank and that I help
laughing. “Then I should not know how to Altruria to you, I’m
afraid.”
“Well,” she returned, lightly, “if it’s anything like as
I’ve it in small places, deliver me from it! I like being
independent. That’s why I like the city. You’re let alone.”
“I was in New York once, and I through some of the and
houses where the people live,” said Camp, “and they to
know each other and to be neighborly.”
“And would you like to be all in with one another that way?”
the lady.
“Well, I it was than as we do in the country, so far
apart that we see one another, hardly. And it to me better
than not having any neighbors at all.”
“Well, every one to his taste,” said Mrs. Makely. “I wish you would tell
us how people manage with you socially, Mr. Homos.”
“Why, you know,” he began, “we have neither city country in your
sense, and so we are neither so so together. You feel
that you a great in not one another oftener?” he asked
Camp.
“Yes. Folks out alone. It’s Human nature to want to get
together.”
“And I Mrs. Makely that it is nature to want to keep
apart?”
“Oh no, but to come together independently,” she answered.
“Well, that is what we have in our life at home. I should have
to say, in the place, that--”
“Excuse me just one moment, Mr. Homos,” said Mrs. Makely. This perverse
woman was as to about Altruria as any of us, but she was a
woman who would the of her own voice than any other,
even if she were dying, as she would call it, to the other. The
Altrurian stopped politely, and Mrs. Makely on: “I have been thinking
of what Mr. Camp was saying about the men, and their all
turning into tramps--”
“But I didn’t say that, Mrs. Makely,” the protested, in
astonishment.
“Well, it to that if the have all been blacklisted
men--”
“But I didn’t say that, either.”
“No matter! What I am trying to at is this: if a has made
himself a to the employers, haven’t they a right to him in
any way they can?”
“I there’s no law yet against blacklisting,” said Camp.
“Very well, then, I don’t see what they’ve got to complain of. The
employers surely know their own business.”
“They to know the men’s, too. That’s what they’re always saying;
they will manage their own in their own way. But no man, or
company, that on a large has any that are not
partly other folks’ affairs, too. All the saying in the world won’t make
it different.”
“Very well, then,” said Mrs. Makely, with a of which she
seemed to think was irresistible, “I think the had leave
things to the employers, and then they won’t blacklisted. It’s as
broad as it’s long.”
I that, although I with Mrs. Makely in to what the
workmen had do, her position had been at by such
extraordinary that I for her; at the same time, I wanted
to laugh. She continued, triumphantly: “You see, the have ever
so much more at stake.”
“Then men have at stake--the work of their hands,” said the
young fellow.
“Oh, but surely,” said Mrs. Makely, “you wouldn’t set that against
capital? You wouldn’t the two?”
“Yes, I should,” said Camp, and I see his and his jaw
stiffen.
“Then I you would say that a man ought to as much for his work
as an for his capital. If you think one has as much at stake
as the other, you must think they ought to be paid alike.”
“That is _just_ what I think,” said Camp, and Mrs. Makely into a
peal of laughter.
“Now, that is too preposterous!”
“Why is it preposterous?” he demanded, with a nostril.
“Why, it _is_” said the lady, but she did not say why, and
although I so, too, I was she did not attempt to do it, for
her to me much than her reasons.
The old clock in the to strike, and she rose briskly
to her and and the books she had been in her on
the table Mrs. Camp’s bed. “We must be going,” she said, as
she over and the invalid. “It is your dinner-time, and we
shall for if we go by the Loop road; and I want very
much to have Mr. Homos see the Witch’s Falls on the way. I have got two or
three of the books here that Mr. Makely me last night--I sha’n’t
have time to read them at once--and I’m in one of Mr.
Twelvemough’s, that he’s too to present for himself.” She a
gay upon me, and Mrs. Camp thanked me, and a number of civilities
followed from all sides. In the of their exchange, Mrs. Makely’s
spirits rose, and she came away in high good-humor with the
whole Camp family. “Well, now, I am sure,” she said to the Altrurian, as
we the long of the Loop road, “you must allow that you have
seen some very original characters. But how _warped_ people living
alone so much! That is the great of the country. Mrs. Camp thinks
the savings-bank did her a in taking a on her place,
and Reuben to have just of the world to it
all wrong. But they are the best-hearted in the world, and I
know you won’t them. That country bluntness--don’t
you think it’s perfectly delightful? I do like to Reuben up, and
get him talking. He is a good boy, if he _is_ so wrong-headed, and he’s
the most son and in the world. Very fellows
would waste their on an old farm like that; I suppose, when his
mother dies, he will and out for himself in some growing
place.”
“He did not to think the world out any very inducements
for him to home,” the Altrurian suggested.
“Oh, let him one of these lively, pushing Yankee girls for a wife, and
he will think very differently,” said Mrs. Makely.
The Altrurian that afternoon, and I saw little or nothing of
him till the next day at supper. Then he said he had been the
time with Camp, who had him something of the farm-work, and
introduced him to of the neighbors; he was very much in
it all, at home he was, at present, in farm-work himself,
and he was to the American and Altrurian methods. We
began to talk of the again, later in the day, when the
members of our little group came together, and I told them what the
Altrurian had been doing. The doctor had been called to
town; but the minister was there, and the lawyer and the and the
banker and the manufacturer.
It was the banker who to on what I said, and he to be
in the of the Saturday night before. “Yes,” he said, “it’s a
hard life, and they have to look if they to make ends
meet. I would not like to it myself with their resources.”
The smiled, in the Altrurian: “Did your agricultural
friends tell you anything of the little traffic in votes that they
carry on about election time? That is one of the means they have of
making ends meet.”
“I don’t understand,” said the Altrurian.
“Why, you know, you can votes among our from two
dollars up at the ordinary elections. When party high, and
there are questions at stake, the votes cost more.”
The Altrurian looked at us all aghast. “Do, you that Americans
buy votes?”
The again. “Oh no; I only that they sell them. Well,
I don’t wonder that they to the fact; but it is a
fact, nevertheless, and notorious.”
“Good heavens!” the Altrurian. “And what have they for such
treason? I don’t those who sell; from what I have of the
bareness and of their lives, I well that there
might sometimes come a pinch when they would be of the dollars
that they in that way; but what have those who to say?”
“Well,” said the professor, “it isn’t a that’s to be
talked about much on either side.”
“I think,” the banker interposed, “that there is some about
that business; but it exists, and I it is a evil
in the country. I it arises, somewhat, from a want of, clear
thinking on the subject. Then there is no but it comes, sometimes,
from poverty. A man sells his vote, as a woman sells her person, for
money, when neither can turn into cash. They that they must
live, and neither of them would be satisfied if Dr. Johnson told them he
didn’t see the necessity. In fact, I shouldn’t myself, if I were in their
places. You can’t have the good of a like ours without having
the bad; but I am not going to that the is bad. Some people like
to do that; but I don’t my account in it. In either case, I confess
that I think the is than the seller--incomparably worse. I
suppose you are not with either case in Altruria?”
“Oh no!” said the Altrurian, with an horror, which no of
his can give the of. “It would be unimaginable.”
“Still,” the banker suggested, “you have and ale, and at times the
ginger is in the mouth?”
“I don’t that we have from error; but upon such terms as
you have we have none. It would be impossible.”
The Altrurian’s voice no contempt, but only a sad patience, a
melancholy surprise, such as a might in being
suddenly with some and of the Pit.
“Well,” said the banker, “with us the only way is to take the business
view and try to an somewhere.”
“Talking of business,” said the professor, to the manufacturer,
who had been smoking, “why don’t some of you take hold
of here in the East, and make a of it as they do in the
West?”
“Thank you,” said the other; “if you me, I would not invest.”
He was a moment, and then he on, as if the were
beginning to win upon him: “It may come to something like that, though. If
it does, the natural course, I should think, would be through the
railroads. It would be a very easy for them to up all the good
farms along their lines and put on them, and them in their own
interest. Really, it isn’t a scheme. The waste in the present method
is enormous, and there is no why the should not own the
farms, as they are to own the mines. They manage them
better than the small farmers do in every way. I wonder the thing hasn’t
occurred to some man.”
We all laughed a little, the semi-ironical of his talk;
but the Altrurian must have taken it in earnest: “But, in that case,
the number of people out of work would be very great, wouldn’t it?
And what would of them?”
“Well, they would have their to make a new start
with else; and, besides, that question of what would of
people out of work by a is something that capital
cannot consider. We used to a of in the mill,
every now and then, that out a dozen or a hundred people; but we
couldn’t stop for that.”
“And you what of them?”
“Sometimes. Generally not. We took it for that they would light on
their somehow.”
“And the state--the whole people--the government--did nothing for them?”
“If it a question of the poor-house, yes.”
“Or the jail,” the lawyer suggested.
“Speaking of the poor-house,” said the professor, “did our rural
friends tell you how they sell out their to the bidder, and
get them sometimes as low as a and a a week?”
“Yes, Mr. Camp told me of that. He to think it was terrible.”
“Did he? Well, I’m to that of Mr. Camp. From all that I’ve
been told before, he to his for the use of
capitalists. What he to do about it?”
“He to think the ought to work for them.”
“Oh, paternalism! Well, I the won’t.”
“That was his opinion, too.”
“It a hard fate,” said the minister, “that the only the
law makes for people who are out by or a life of work should
be something that them with and lunatics, and such
shame upon them that it is almost as terrible as death.”
“It is the only way to and individuality,” said the
professor. “Of course, it has its dark side. But anything else would be
sentimental and unbusinesslike, and, in fact, un-American.”
“I am not so sure that it would be un-Christian,” the minister timidly
ventured, in the of such an authority on political economy.
“Oh, as to that, I must the question to the clergy,” said
the professor.
A very little followed. It was by the lawyer,
who put his together, and, after a at them, to say:
“I was very much this by a I had with
some of the in the hotel. You know most of them are
graduates, and they are taking a of this
summer they into the of life in the autumn. They were
talking of some other fellows, of theirs, who were not so
lucky, but had been to the at once. It that our
fellows here are all going in for some of profession: medicine or law
or or teaching or the church, and they were commiserating
those other not only they were not having the
supernumerary vacation, but they were going into business. That
struck me as odd, and I to out what it meant, and, as
nearly as I out, it meant that most college would not
go into if they help it. They to a of
incongruity their education and the life. They the
fellows that had to go in for it, and the that had to
go in for it themselves, for the talk to have about a
letter that one of the here had got from Jack or Jim somebody,
who had been to go into his father’s business, and was groaning
over it. The who were going to study were hugging
themselves at the their and his, and were making
remarks about that were, to say the least, unbusinesslike. A few
years ago we should have a of the matter, and I
believe some of the newspapers still are in about the value of a
college education to men who have got to make their way. What do you
think?”
The lawyer his question to the manufacturer, who answered, with
a satisfaction, that he did not think those men if they
went into would that they too much.
“But they pointed out,” said the lawyer, “that the great American fortunes
had been by men who had had their advantages, and
they to think that what we call the education of a was a
little too good for money-making purposes.”
“Well,” said the other, “they can themselves with the reflection
that going into isn’t necessarily making money; it isn’t
necessarily making a living, even.”
“Some of them to have on to that fact; and they Jack or
Jim the were so much against him. But they pitied
him mostly in the life him he would have no use for his
academic training, and he had not gone to college at all. They said
he would be none the for it, and would always be when he
looked to it.”
The did not reply, and the professor, after a preliminary
hemming, his peace. It was the banker who took the word: “Well, so
far as is concerned, they were right. It is no use to pretend
that there is any relation and the higher education.
There is no man who will that there is not often an
actual if he is honest. I know that when we together
at a or financial dinner we talk as if great merchants and
great were geniuses, who the of
mankind by their from the that would otherwise have
remained barren. Well, very likely they are, but we must all that
they do not know it at the time. What they are looking out for
then is the main chance. If follows, all well and good;
they are to be the for it. But, as I said, with
business as business, the ‘education of a gentleman’ has nothing to do.
That education is always the old Ciceronian question: the
fellow at a city with a of is to tell
the people he them that there are a dozen other
fellows with just the horizon. As a he would have to
tell them, he not take of their necessities; but,
as a man, he would think it to tell them, or no
business at all. The goes all through; I say, is
business; and I am not going to that will be
anything else. In our we don’t take off our to the
other and say, ‘Gentlemen of the French Guard, have the to
fire.’ That may be war, but it is not business. We all the
advantages we can; very of us would actually deceive; but if a fellow
believes a thing, and we know he is wrong, we do not take the
trouble to set him right, if we are going to anything by undeceiving
him. That would not be business. I you think that is dreadful?” He
turned to the minister.
“I wish--I wish,” said the minister, gently, “it be otherwise.”
“Well, I wish so, too,” returned the banker. “But it isn’t. Am I right or
am I wrong?” he of the manufacturer, who laughed.
“I am not this discussion. I will not you of the
floor.”
“What you say,” I to put in, “reminds me of the of a
friend of mine, a novelist. He a where the failure of
a man on a point just like that you have instanced. The
man have himself if he had let some people that
what was so was not so, but his in and him to
own the truth. There was a good of talk about the case, I suppose,
because it was not in life, and my friend criticisms. He
heard of a group of ministers who him for a case of common
honesty, as if it were something extraordinary; and he of some
business men who talked it over and said he had the case up
splendidly, but he was all in the outcome--the would never
have told the other fellows. They said it would not have been business.”
We all laughed the minister and the Altrurian; the manufacturer
said: “Twenty-five years hence, the who is going into may
pity the who are him for his hard now.”
“Very possibly, but not necessarily,” said the banker. “Of course, the
business man is on top, as as money goes; he is the who makes
the big fortunes; the lawyers and doctors and ministers are
exceptional. But his are tremendous. Ninety-five times out of a
hundred he fails. To be sure, he up and goes on, but he gets
there, after all.”
“Then in your system,” said the Altrurian, “the great majority of those
who go into what you call the of life are defeated?”
“The killed, wounded, and missing up a total,” the banker
admitted. “But the end is, there is a great of on
the way. The are correct, but they do not tell the whole truth.
It is not so as it seems. Still, looking at the material
chances, I don’t those for not wanting to go into
business. And when you come to other considerations! We used to cut the
knot of the sharply; we said a college education was
wrong, or the and American spread-eaglers did. Business is the
national ideal, and the successful man is the American type. It
is a man’s country.”
“Then, if I you,” said the Altrurian, “and I am very to
have a clear of the matter, the of the university
with you is to a for life.”
“Oh no. It may give him great in it, and that is the and
expectation of most fathers who send their sons to the university. But,
undoubtedly, the is to life distasteful. The
university all of ideals, which has no use
for.”
“Then the is undemocratic?”
“No, it is unbusinesslike. The boy is a when he
leaves college than he will be later, if he goes into business. The
university has him and him to use his own gifts and powers
for his advancement; but the lesson of business, and the last, is to
use other men’s gifts and powers. If he looks about him at all, he sees
that no man rich by his own labor, no how a
genius he is, and that, if you want to rich, you must make other men
work for you, and pay you for the of doing so. Isn’t that true?”
The banker to the with this question, and the other
said: “The is, that we give people work,” and they laughed.
The minister said: “I that in Altruria no man for the profit
of another?”
“No; each for the profit of all,” the Altrurian.
“Well,” said the banker, “you to have it go. Nobody can deny
that. But we couldn’t make it go here.”
“Why? I am very to know why our so to
you.”
“Well, it is to the American spirit. It is to our love of
individuality.”
“But we prize individuality, too, and we think we secure it under our
system. Under yours, it to me that while the of the
man who makes other men work for him is safe, from itself, the
individuality of the workers--”
“Well, that is their lookout. We have that, upon the whole, it is
best to let every man look out for himself. I know that, in a certain
light, the result has an aspect; but, nevertheless, in of all,
the country is prosperous. The of happiness, which is
one of the to us by the Declaration, is, and
always has been, a dream; but the of the tangible
proceeds, and we a good of out of it as it goes on.
You can’t that we are the nation in the world. Do you call
Altruria a rich country?”
I not make out the banker was or not in all
this talk; sometimes I him of a mockery, but the Altrurian
took him upon the surface of his words.
“I know it is or not. The question of not enter
into our scheme. I can say that we all have enough, and that no one is
even in the of want.”
“Yes, that is very well. But we should think it was paying too much for it
if we had to give up the of having more than we wanted,” and at
this point the banker his laugh, and I that he had
been trying to the Altrurian out and upon his patriotism. It
was a great to that he had been joking in so much that seemed
a give-away of our position. “In Altruria,” he asked, “who
is your great man? I don’t personally, but abstractly.”
The Altrurian a moment. “With us there is so little for
distinction, as you it, that your question is hard to answer.
But I should say, speaking largely, that it was some man who had been able
for the time being to give the to the greatest
number--some artist or or or physician.”
I was to have the banker take this preposterous
statement seriously, respectfully. “Well, that is with
your system. What should you say,” he of the of us
generally, “was our of greatness?”
No one at once, or at all, till the said: “We will
let you continue to it.”
“Well, it is a very inquiry, and I have it over a good
deal. I should say that a our has twice.
Before the war, and all the time from the Revolution onward, it was
undoubtedly the great politician, the publicist, the statesman. As we grew
older and to have an life of our own, I think the
literary had a good of the that were going--that
is, such a man as Longfellow was a type of
greatness. When the came, it the soldier to the front, and
there was a period of ten or fifteen years when he the national
imagination. That period passed, and the great of material prosperity
set in. The big to tower up, and of another sort
began to to our admiration. I don’t think there is any but
the is now the American ideal. It isn’t very to think
so, for people who have got on, but it can’t very be
denied. It is the man with the most money who now takes the prize in our
national cake-walk.”
The Altrurian toward me, and I did my best to tell him
what a cake-walk was. When I had finished, the banker resumed, only to
say, as he rose from his chair to us good-night: “In any average
assembly of Americans the would take the of all
from the statesman, the poet, or the soldier we
ever had. That,” he added to the Altrurian, “will account to you for many
things as you travel through our country.”
