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 Letters From 
 My Priend, The tonight. 
 
 Published by 
 
 H. C. Hensel, 
 
 327 DEARBORN STREET, 
 
 CHICAGO, ILL. 
 
Copyrighted. 1909, 
 
 by 
 
 H. C. Hensel, 
 
 327 Dearborn Street, 
 
 . Chicago, 111. 
 
 LIBRARY of CONGRESSi 
 Two Cooies Received 
 JUN 19 )«USi 
 
 •tLASS /^ AAc. No 
 
FOREWORD. 
 
 It has been amply demonstrated that the assembling of a party 
 of patriots and the adoption of a constitution does not form a perfect 
 system of government. The constitution may be ever so carefully 
 considered, yet the first thing necessary under it is the passing of 
 laws enforcing its provisions, qualifying or exaggerating its phrases. 
 A vast system of courts is maintained in an effort to make its broad 
 terms fit the varied and intricate interests of humanity. It is 
 acknowledged that a republic and constitutional government is the 
 best that can be secured in a world where selfishness and greed at 
 least have an equal chance with the better qualities of mankind, but 
 sometimes we are heart-sick at the evasion of proper regulation, 
 the contempt for law and order, the trampling upon the rights of 
 the weaker by the very fact of the law's imperfections. Sometimes 
 we wish there were a good king or a brave Knight going about 
 correcting these evils that a cold, inanimate force called law is not 
 able to remedy. Sometimes we wish there were a higher law that 
 would consider nothing but justice and equity. It is thoughts like 
 these that started the Knight of the Twentieth Century upon his 
 mission. Whether we approve of all his acts or not, we agree with 
 his reasoning and applaud his good intentions. 
 
Knight of the Twentieth Century. 
 
 The Knight weighs 270 pounds, stands six feet three, well built, 
 and has had athletic training. He had been an unostentatious car- 
 jienter, dreaming of the need of a muscular Christianity that would 
 go about the world pimishing meanness and rewarding virtu'3. Fall- 
 ing hetr to a sit all fortune, his dream was made real. 
 
 A MERRY GO ROUND. 
 
 One of the most often recurring dreams of the days when I 
 jrashed the plane, an exercise that is peculiarly prolific in dreams of 
 rather a fantastic character, was the punishment that ought to be 
 meted out to the automobile maniacs who have become so unbalanced 
 by the craze for speed as to have hecome a public menace — and their 
 name is legion. There is something about the swift motion of the 
 automobile that affects the nerves to demand more and more speed, 
 and acquiescence in the feeling brings a speed that paralyzes the 
 reasoning faculties of the brain and leaves it absolutely dominated 
 by the mad speed impulse. To nervous temperaments of a certain 
 daring character the physical effect of the rush through the air 
 stimulates and exhiliarates the diseased nerves, and as is usual with 
 stimulants, incieased activity in one direction overshadows or annuls 
 1 he activity of the other i)arts of the brain, and the result is that 
 the diseased nerves are in full control of the mind and body during 
 the temporary period of speed drunkenness. I own an automobile 
 und enjoy riding in it and have felt the speed imjiulse a thousand 
 times, so am not inclined to unreasonably condemn those who can- 
 rot resist an impulse that with thos3 who have healthy and steady 
 nervts is sometimes almost irresistible. Bat, like drunkenness, this 
 mania should be controlled by infiuences outside the individual. 
 We cannot prevent high-tension men from owning automobiles. 
 Tlie best we can ao is to i^unish when abase is made of them. The 
 laws are inadequate, and cannot well be made more severe because 
 oppression by la.v wjald sarely become common, and that is 
 
2 A MERRY GO ROUND. 
 
 even worse than the speed craz3. The small fines that are now 
 imposed are bat a joke to the rich men who are the worst offenders. 
 The occasional accident only seems to stimulate the diseased nerves 
 t(^ greater risks — vvhen the acoidents happen to other peoplf. At 
 the same time, it would be impracticable to kill or maim all these 
 sick men. What could be done has puzzled me not a little An 
 example ought to ba made that will be carried in mind by every 
 antomubilist as possible to happen to him, one that would temper 
 the spaed impulse at the critical moiidnt without baing toj severe 
 a paaishment to maet the approval of public opinion. 
 
 I had to do a quick acrobatic stunt the other day to avoid being 
 run do A'n by one of these fiends, and whether the action or subse- 
 quent anger stira ilated the brain, the proper punishrawnt for these 
 men flashed into mind, and I soon set about arranging for it. I 
 recognized the two men in thn automobile as a lich man who had • 
 paid and laughed at numerous fines for speeding, who had killal an 
 elderly woman with his machine but the incident having had no 
 se'-ious personal results except a moderate cash outlay, had only 
 t^eemed to make him more reckless. The chauffeur who was riding 
 with hiin had a similar record, the chief difference being that his 
 viccim was a little boy who would never walk again without 
 crutches, this incident costing his employer a pretty sum but 
 becretly resulted in a raising of his own wages. 
 
 I happened to know that it was the custom of this man to drive 
 his au:omobile at high speed from the city to a suburban home pa.st 
 a farm owned by a friend of mine and where other houses were not 
 nearer than a mile. This friend also has a farm adjoining and I 
 happened to know the farm I had in mind had no tenant this year, 
 tlie work being done by hired men who lived at the house on the 
 main farm, about a mile away. 
 
 I drove out to this farm with the vacant building to see what 
 arrangements could be made to punish these men in a Ltting mmner. 
 Returning to the city I purchased the longest 2x12 board that I could 
 find at the lumber yard, with some other necessaries, and returned 
 to the farm with a little biid singing in my heart a song that 
 sounded suspiciously like "They'll get it plenty. They'll get it 
 plenty." 
 
 AVith the plank and a post I constructed a beautiful "flying 
 dutchman" with ball-bearings and a belt that could be connected with 
 
A MERRY GO ROUND. 3 
 
 the power of my automobile. I finished my labors about the time 
 the capitalist and his chauffeur were due, and dragging a wagon to 
 the road I pulled it across the roadway in front of a small bridge 
 just as I recognized the swiftly coming automobile in the distance. 
 They arrived in a very short time, and just as I had hoped, there 
 was no one in the choo-choo car except the capitalist and his chauf- 
 feur. Both dismounted to see what was the matter and pjrhaps 
 express an opinion of a moment's delay. I did not seem to notice 
 them until both had come close to where I was tinkering with a 
 \sheel. Then without warning I grabbed one by the back of the 
 neck and threw him to the ground and in a second with my powerful 
 right I had the other one on top. They struggled, of course, but I 
 am a large and strong man and they weie both light-weights, and I 
 soon had a pair of handcuffs on each of them and had them fastened 
 together. 
 
 "What does this outrage mean?" almost screamed the capitalist. 
 
 "I ain not goin..? to hurt you or take any mjney away from 
 you," I repliei, "and the best thing you can do for yourself is to 
 take matters quietly until I can explain." 
 
 The chauffeur emitted a yell that was intended to attract the 
 attention of anyone in the neighborhood, bat fortunately there was 
 no one coming on the road at the time and he might as well havj 
 saved himself the trouble. 
 
 "I am glad I did not tell you I was not going to hurt you." I 
 .said to the ch mffeur, "for I am going to kick you for that yell so 
 you will not do it again." And I planted a good one where the 
 little Willie did not get as many as he she uld have had as a boy or 
 he would not have bsen oo naughty when he grew up I ho;)e it 
 hurt, and guess it did. 
 
 "Now behave, both of you, " I said. "I don't want to hart 
 you, but I want you to come along with me for awhile, as I think 
 yoa need some fatherly advice api^lied with the proper accompani- 
 ment in true tatherly style. Come along with me." 
 
 The chauffeur was willing but the capitalist pulled back a little. 
 With the great strength I hope Providence gave me for just such 
 lise, I hustled the two of them along at a dog-trot until I had them 
 the other side of the barn and sufficiently tar from the road to be 
 free from interference should they make a noise. 
 
 Going back to the gate, I pulled the wagon inside, brought their 
 
4 A MERRY GO ROUND. 
 
 automobile in and shut the gate, and the farm resumed its deserted 
 appearance to outsiders. Taking the automobile with me to beyond 
 the barn, so it would not attract attention, I was ready to admin- 
 ister a treatment for speed madness that I hoped would prove effec- 
 tive. 
 
 "Now," I said to the two captives, who had been vainly trying 
 to free themselves from their bonds, "it is only necessary to explain 
 to you that the abuse of a good thing, the automobile, has gone far 
 enough at the hands of speed maniacs and the time has come when 
 an example is to be made of two of the worst offenders. I am going 
 to give you both enough speed to last you all the rest of your lives, 
 and if the publication of your experience does not result in correct- 
 ing the abuse you will have a lot of companions in misery. ' 
 
 "Don't you dare touch us." shouted the capitalist. "I'll spend 
 my last dollar but I will have the law on you." 
 
 "Ah, there, my friend, you are one of the class who have no 
 regard for law except when they want to use it, who have done 
 more to cause disrespect for law and the courts than any other single 
 influence because disrespect and defiance has been more conspicuous 
 than with other oft'enders. Well, you have tried to make the whole 
 United States a so-t of no radii's land where there is no law, and 
 jaht to show you how nice it will be when it is accomplished we 
 will play that for a short time this barn yard is no man's land and 
 there is no law. As far as the consequences to me are concerned, I 
 will take my chances. For the present, there is no law." 
 
 "Now," I continued, "I have constructed at some labor and 
 expense to myself a lovely 'flying dutchmau' especially for you. 
 You know what it is, because both of you as boys perhaps got the 
 first taste of that pleasure in speed that resulted in madness and the 
 death of one of your victims and crippling of another, to say nothing 
 of daily defiance of law and a decent regard for the limbs and lives 
 cf others. ' ' 
 
 "But let me explain," said the capitalist, now taking the mat- 
 ter more cooly but evidently not enjoying the prospect. 
 
 "No explanations are necessary," I ;epliea. "One incident 
 might be explained, but this is a disease and we are going to euro 
 it." 
 
 With tnis, I carried the chauffeur to one end of th.3 flying dutch- 
 man and with straps firmly bound him to it. Then I did likewise 
 
A MEURY GO ROUND. 5 
 
 with the capitLilist. 
 
 When they were firmly seated I saitl : "Now I am goingto give 
 yoa a nice ride. You have been sensible enough not to make a 
 noise and I am glad to not have to gag you. It is too far from the 
 road for your cies to attract attention, and I do not want to hurt 
 you unneccessarily. But after the first few whirls your minds may 
 not b3 as clear as they are noA^. and I want you to clearly under- 
 stand what I shall expect as a result of this day's sport. IE you do 
 not want a repetition of it, you," speaking to the capitalist, "will 
 never provoke it again by reckless speeding, and in testimony of 
 your good faith you will spend during the next two years at least 
 five thousand dollars in helping to enforce the speed laws. And 
 you," turning to the chauifeur, "within thirty days after an account 
 of this affair has been published, will walk for au hoar on the 
 streets of Chicago inside the loop with a large placard on your back 
 containing the words, 'I am the man. ' I will probably never see 
 either of you after today, but faithful carrying out of these instruc- 
 tion will be the only thing t) prevent a repetition of the ride of 
 today. ' ' 
 
 "Please don't, " shouted the capitalist. "I will give you ten 
 thousand dollars if you will let me oM" this thing." 
 
 "Your money is no good here," I replied. "This is no man's 
 land, where there is no law, no money, no nothing but have a good 
 time today for tomorrow you may not live long. Hurrah! Who 
 cares for expense'? Zip! Run down the constables!" and I put on 
 the power, slowly at first, bat those liall- bearings worked beauti- 
 fully and I soon had the flying dutchman spinning around at a great 
 rate. In a minute the man woi'th his millions and the chautfeur 
 were but a blur on the landscape, emitting yells that soon changed 
 to sobs and mutterings and threats that sounded like the angry 
 approach of a cyclone, followed by its gradually growing lower 
 until the sound died away as it the wrathful force of the whirlwind 
 had been spent. 
 
 Not knowing how much of this sort of thing they could stand, 
 I slowed the power and stopped it. 
 
 "You dastardly scounih-til," said thi capitalist. "I'll have the 
 law on you for this!" 
 
 "Oh, you will, will you?" and I touched her up for an )ther 
 whirl. It was a tood one that tims. After a time that suemed au 
 
6 A MERRY GO ROUND. 
 
 age to me and must have seemed several eternities to the poor fellows 
 on the whirligig, I again stopped it. This time there was no fight 
 in either of them. The tears were running down their cheeks and 
 they were sobbing like whipped children. And how they begged! 
 Thev promised me everything they had, promised to be good, prom- 
 ised to break up their automobilf:, promised never to ride in one 
 again, and all the time crying and sobbing in a mamer that raally 
 did e.Kcite my pity in spite of their many crim-^s. 
 
 "Well, my boys, this little !^peeding won't hurt you, and jast to 
 make your lesson a thorough one I am going to give you one mo'"e 
 whirl and then leave you. I will send someone at ones to release 
 you. " 
 
 "Ob, don't, don't, please don't," they i3lead, bat with that aged 
 woman and poor crippled bjy in my mind's eye, I tai'ued on the 
 power once more. 
 
 Presently I stopped it again, and this time the men were too 
 much overcome for words. They leant forward as far as the strajis 
 would permit, hopelessly dejected and without spirit enough to hold 
 up their heads. I looked at each carafuUy, and as neither was 
 iinconsciou^ or in worse than a dazed cmdition, I got into ray auto- 
 mobile and left them, stopping at the first farm house to telephon3 
 a physician to come there. As I had given a physician friend a 
 pointer and he was waiting less than two miles a^'ay, they were 
 soon released. I afterward learned that except for their nerves they 
 were none the worse for the whirlwind ride, but were nervous 
 w.'ecks aid in bed tor several days. They recovered, however, and 
 were thoroughly cured of the speed madness. 
 
 I heard that the capitalist said that he would not take the ride 
 again for a million dollars, but he would also not give up his peace 
 of mind f ro n again getting his nerves under control and free from 
 the speed craze for a hundred million. There is no doubt about his 
 carrying out my instructions to spend money to prosecute other 
 olfenders, and the chauffeur is only waiting for the publication of 
 this letter to appear on the streets of Chicago between two boards 
 bearing the words, "I am the man." 
 
 The best antidote for poison is sometimes too muc'.i poison. 
 
Knight of the Twentieth Century. 
 
 The Knight weighs 270 pounds, stands six feet three, well built, 
 and has had athletic training. He had been an unostentatious car- 
 penter, dreaming of the need of a muscular Christianity that would 
 go about the world punishing meanness and rewarding virtue. Fall- 
 ing heir to a small fortune, his dream was made real. 
 
 A COMEDY IN ONE ACT. 
 
 I happened to drop into one of the largest theaters the other 
 evening. I was not looking fir filth on the stage, as there are said 
 to be several small places where that is made a specialty and to the 
 few depraved people who want that sort of thing, by going out of 
 •their way and seeking it they can find it. But theoretically the siza 
 and character of the theater building, the character of the crowds 
 that patronize the attractions there, and the general decency of the 
 public mind should have been assurance that none but morally clean 
 shows would be given there. I had no thought of anything except 
 to pay for the privilege of spending an evening pleasantly. 
 
 I have been much disgusted with the performances given the 
 last few years. Since the trust has obtained control of the theatri- 
 cal business there have been very few really meritorious perform- 
 ances staged. Even tiie costumes and stage settings have been 
 chsap and much of it having the ajipearance of having been culled 
 trom the store-r()om of abandoned productions. The trust seems to 
 be willing to take chances on drawing crowds merely frotn the fact 
 that there is a large patronage regardless of merit, because Ameri- 
 cans are a theater-going people, and they are cleaning up enormous 
 profits on small investments — the true trust idea. In this play the 
 chief attraction, if there could be a chief attraction in a whole so 
 mediocre that a barn-storming aggregation with nothing better 
 \vould soon be counting the ties, was a thirteen-year old boy's 
 attempt to show ho»v silly he coald act. It cari'ied ma back to the 
 
A COMEDY IN ONE ACT. 8 
 
 days wlien the Cherry sisters won a world-wide fame because their 
 acting was so crude as to be laughable and interesting and when 
 crowds thronged to see them for the purpose of laughing- at the per- 
 formers. It seems to me, however, that the trust is rather over- 
 doing that feature. When nearly all the performances for several 
 seasons are that kind of shows it is time for protest. 
 
 However. I was not disposed to care particularly about that 
 matter, but when a suggestive song was introduced it brought to 
 mind the anger I had felt at another performance where actual inde- 
 cency was shown at another high-class theater. The anger may 
 have been ciimnlative, at least tho incident of this evening formed 
 the decision that I would do something to keep such things off the 
 legitimate stage and away from the sight of the innocent and moral 
 minded who have a right to patronize such theaters. 
 
 The next day I made inquiry and learned the name of the man 
 who was responsible for placing the former indec3nt act on the 
 stage, and commsnced preparations foi' his treatment. Since he 
 enjoyed filth, I was going to give him enough of it to last him for a 
 time, at least. 
 
 I rented a stable in the outskirts of the cit\' where we would be 
 free from possible interference. In the stable I dug a pit varying in 
 depth from three to .seven feet. In the pit I mixed some clean earth 
 with w:iter until I had a nice paddle of mud, thin, but as clean as 
 clean inud could be. Then I made a pole with a small sharp steel 
 point in the end. Then I called on a druggist friend and bought a 
 pint of the vilest smelling compound that he could find among his 
 bottles. 
 
 The theatrical manager is a morose sort of chap and it has been 
 his habit to take almost daily spins alone in his automobile past the 
 stable where I had made preparations for his entertainment. When 
 my arrangements were coinjileted I sat down to wait for his appear- 
 ance. But unfortunately for me he did not come that day. 
 
 The next day I was waiting for him again, and about the usual 
 time I saw his big red automobile throwing up the dust in the dis- 
 tance. Spilling the vile smelling stuff in a corner of ihe stable (not 
 in the pit) and stuffing cotton in my nostrils as a final preparation, 
 I waved a cloth at him as he came along the road within sight of 
 the stable. He saw the signal, and as I seemed to be tinkering with 
 my automobile he evidently thought I needed some help ana drove 
 
i) A COMEDY IN ONE ACT. 
 
 his machine into the yarJ. I was workin,^ with the machinery 
 when he arrived, and he alightsd and came to ma before asking an 
 explanation of the signals. 
 
 "Ah, Mr. Blank," I said. "You are jast the man I want to 
 see. I want to have a talk with yon. " 
 
 "But what did you mean liy signaling to me?'' 
 
 "Oh, I just wanted to talk vvitii you " 
 
 "Well. I don't want to tcdk with you," he said, fear creeping 
 into his eyes as he noticed my size, and the lonely character of the 
 surroundings for tlie first time attracting his attention. With this 
 he started to clamljer into his automobile, but a quick movement 
 caug'it him and pinioned his arms to his side, while I made a hasty 
 search to see if he was armed. Finding a revolver, I threw it away 
 from us. 
 
 He screamed for help, but almost before the scream had died 
 away I had forced him into the stable and closed the door. 
 
 Loosening him, I said : 
 
 "Now you can yell all you want to bat it will do no good. I 
 want to have a talk with you and will not hurt yoa if yon will be 
 good. It is an informal way to secure a talk, bat you are here and 
 I am liere and the talkfest will surely take place. " 
 
 "What do yoa mean by these high-handed proceedings, anyway? 
 Take me out of this vile smelling pi »ce. Why, it is awful!" and he 
 started to coughing and made a break for the door, but it being 
 locked he could go no further. 
 
 "Never j'ou mind about the filthy smalling place," I said. "I 
 am convinced that yoa like filth and am going to give yoa enough 
 of it. Sit down, sit down and behave yourself." 
 
 Evidently thinking that the bast way out of it was to seem to 
 humor me. he slowly sat down. 
 
 "You remember when yoii gave the vaudeville i^erformance 
 called 'The Black Cat' a few weeks ago?" 
 
 ' ' Yes. ■ ' 
 
 "You remember that in one part of the perfor nance there was 
 an incident coarsely suggestive and decidedly immoral?" 
 
 "Well, some jjeople might think so." 
 
 "Don't you know it was?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Why did you perpetrate such an outrage upon the people who 
 
10 A COMEDY IN ONE ACT. 
 
 who might innocently come into the theater for an evening's amuse- 
 ment?" 
 
 "Well, they did not have to como, and that act advertised tho 
 show more than all the others combined, and brought the crowds." 
 
 "Did it? Don't you know that immoral shows are not usually 
 successful and are not even iirofitable at the disreputable places 
 where they are regular features?" 
 
 "Yes, but lots of people will go to a first-class theater to see 
 such things who w(juld be ashamed to b3 seen at the other places, 
 and the advertising that the goody-goody kickers give us is much 
 cheaper than paid press notices." 
 
 "Don't you know that the public mind is naturally clean and 
 that clean shows with mjrit are the onei that wins the patronage 
 that makes for profit?" 
 
 "Yes, but clean talent costs money." 
 
 "Then you confess that yo;i are willing to poison the minds of 
 thousands of young people ana disgust many others who are attracted 
 to b theater by its general I'eputation for decency hy an immoral act 
 the sole excuse for which is that it will make money for you?" 
 
 "Well, there is police supervision over plays, and if anyone 
 makes complaint a play can he suppressed." 
 
 "There, now, I was just waiting for that defense. You 
 know it is just as rotten as your show. Suppression of a play means 
 giving it an advertisement that only makes it attract more ]>ation- 
 age. and results in a host of imiiators that try to take actvantage of 
 the temporary excitement. Why, I have known jnsfances when sup- 
 pressing a play has attracted such general comment that no matter 
 how clean a man might wuat t.) be in his mind, there was so much 
 talk about it among his associates that he was almost compelled to 
 go to see it to seem to be up-to-date in matters of common conver- 
 .sation. 
 
 "No, my friend," I continued, "we have no police supervision 
 of plays from the verv character of the business. That is one place 
 where enforcement of the law does more harm than good. The law 
 is powerle.ss. Decent minded people are powerless. Every elfort to 
 correct tiie abuse but serves to increase it. Such desperate degen- 
 erates as you are in the saddle and riding rough-shod over the rights 
 of good people and fiendishly laughing because they can do nothing. 
 Well, there has recently come into existence a force that reaches 
 
A COMEDY IN ONE ACT. n 
 
 abuses that are triumphantly defying law and decsncy, and that 
 foiC3 is the 270 pounds of outraged humanity you see before you." 
 
 At this suggestion, the craven theatrical man made another 
 break for the door, but he was an infant compared to my great 
 strength, and I grasped him around the waist and thre^- him into 
 the pit. 
 
 "There," I said. "You like filth. Get your fill of if.'- 
 Fortunately for him, he landed in the shallow part, and with a 
 lunge managed to catch hold of the bank and only got in up to his 
 hips. 
 
 "Let me out, let me out," he screamed. "This smell is awful. 
 I can't stand it any longer. Help! Help!" 
 
 •'Pshaw!" I said. "I thought you liked filth. But it seems 
 you don't when it is forced upon you. Take a little more of it." 
 and I prodded him with the sticker end of the pole until he pranced 
 around and got into the mud up to his chin. 
 
 Then he did raise a yell, and such swearing and threatening you 
 never heard in all your life. I let him yell and swear and thre"aten, 
 prodding him when I .saw he was getting into the shallower places 
 and chased him around that puddle until he was nearlv exhausted. 
 I kept him away from the deep hole until he was too tired to struggle 
 longer, when I said : 
 
 "You will see that there is a cure for one evil that the law does 
 not reach. When I tell you that if you ever put on the stage another 
 vulgar act I will catch yoa and give you another dose of this medi- 
 cine, I think the next time you are tempted yju will say 'Ain't it 
 Awful, Mabel'?' and resist it?" 
 
 "Yes, yes," he shouted. "Let me outof this stinking mess and 
 I will promise you anything.-' 
 
 "Another case of the devil was sick, the devil a monk would 
 be; the devil was well, the devil a monk was he," I said. "I am 
 not convinced that you are sincerely reformed. But before we con- 
 tinue the treatment I want to say that in addition to my promise to 
 repeat this, if you do not entirely cut out all suggestions of immor- 
 ality in every stage act with which you have any connection, as an 
 assurance that you have really taken this matinee in the spirit in 
 which it has been given I insist that to avoid my visiting you again 
 with this or sojae worse punishment that you shall be held respon- 
 sible for the creation of a theatrical board with power to secretly 
 
12 A COMEDY IN ONE ACT. 
 
 censor all performances and secretly enforce a penalty for anythin.sr 
 of the kind from the legitimate stage. I am not asking too much. 
 I will not ask you to take the responsibility of correcting the5e 
 matters in avowedly disreputable quarters. That is for others. But 
 with your wealth and great influence in theatrical circles you can 
 make a clean-up of the legitimate. And I want it done." 
 
 He would not make a promise, but sought again to get out of 
 the pit. Believing the sober after-thought would finish my work 
 and the terror of an unknov»n enemy who came from nowhere and 
 vanished from his sight and the power of his influence would be 
 V)etter than a forced promise, I prepared for the final touch. Prod- 
 ding him with the pole, I forced him deeper and deeper into the 
 mire. In his efforts to escape the pole, he splashed the mud over 
 his face and hair, and the awful smell was nearly driving tiim 
 frantic. It was awful. My eyes were smarting and the tears were 
 starting, and it must have been many times worse for the poor 
 fellow in the pit with his nose unprotected. He was crying, and 
 with the mud spattered over his face and hair, was a most unsightly 
 spectacle. 
 
 Keeping up the vigorous prodding, I presently pushed him into 
 tlie deepest of the pit, and with a final splurge he was off his feet 
 and under the mess. He was something of a swimmer, and after 
 beating about for a time manajred to find bottom and stand up. I 
 permitted him to scramble to the bank, and with a "Good-bye, I 
 a-n going now," I left the stable and was soon hustling away in my 
 automobile. 
 
 After getting a good start, I turned and saw him climb into his 
 automobile, wrap a blanket around him, and the last I saw of him 
 was a streak of red flame sparkling through a cloud of dust in the 
 direction of his home. 
 
 I do not forget my victims, and inquiry throu:?li friendly chan- 
 nels satisfied me that he had taken the lesson in the right spirit and 
 was making efforts tu carry out my instructions, having forgotten 
 his hatred of me in the sober affcer-thoughfc that showed him that 
 something was )-eally needed to correct a great wron^, only lamaut- 
 ing that he happened to be the unfortunate victim. 
 
 There are times when law is not law and it is necessary to go 
 back to the primeval man and brute force. It is fortjnate then 
 when good happens to be the stronger. 
 
Sinjght of the Twentietli Century. 
 
 The Knight weighs 270 pounds, stands six feet three, well built, 
 and has had athletic training. 'He had been an unostentatious car- 
 penter, dreamintf of the need of a muscular Christianity that would 
 go about the world punishing meanness and rewarding virtue. Fall- 
 ing heir to a small fortune, his dream was made real. 
 
 RETRIBUTION AND RESTITUTION. 
 
 During the many years I have lived in Chicago there has been 
 one matter that has been peculiarly aggravating, and I have 
 indulged in many day dreams of attempts to correct it, but handi- 
 capped by the necessity of the making of a living, I could not afford 
 to take chances. I sincerely believe that the destiny that rules the 
 affairs of this world, "rough hew them as we may," put it into the 
 heart of a forgotten uncle to will me his small fortune in return 
 for a boyish love ot long ago, because I so earnestly longed to use 
 my intelligence and strength in efforts to correct abuses that cannot 
 be reached by ordinary means. 
 
 Last Tuesday I engaged a suite of rooms at the X— — hotel, 
 having previously learned that Mr. G., an official of the Illinois 
 Central railway who is popularly supposed to control its policies, 
 was to meet an eastern financier there for discussion of important 
 business matters. My rooms were just around ttie corner from the 
 one of the eastern man, and toward the elevator. Confident the 
 private meeting would be held in this room, I hoped for favoiable 
 circumstances for the rest. 
 
 I had guessed correctly, and after I had seen the parties retire 
 to this room, I found a seat in the hall and commenced reading a 
 very interesting novel. One hour, two hours, three hours passed. 
 The shades of evening commenced to fall. Here and there in the 
 gathering darkness the magic finger of the electric current turned 
 on the light. The merry hum of traffic was growing less distinct. 
 
14 RETRIBUTION AND RESTITUTION. 
 
 The stars commenced to peep out, and presently a full moon showed 
 above the lake horison, tha face wearing a broad smile, the e5'e3 
 twinkling, and I thought I heard a chuckle, although it may have 
 been only a notion rhat it came from the moon, in anticipation of 
 his share in the fun that was coming. 
 
 It may have been a passing cloud, but I thought the moon 
 winked at me, and just then the door opened and P.Ir. G. came out. 
 The parting words gave me time to leisurely arise, put the book in 
 my pocket and with a conspicuous yawn, start toward the elevator. 
 In a moment — as Howells says, almost a minute— I was keeping step 
 with the famous railroad man, my presence being recognized with a 
 hasty glance, evidently a satisfied one as my dress would indicate a 
 regular patron ot the hotel, and my size and, I say it without vanity, 
 good natured and pleasing appearance, evidently impressed him 
 satisfactoril}'. 
 
 As we reached the door of my room, which I had left ajar, I 
 swiftly placed my hand over his mouth and forced him into the 
 room, closing the door. It was easily and quickly done. A man of 
 ordinary size and muscle is as a child in my hands. 
 
 Before I removed my hand from his mouth, I said: "I warn 
 you to make no noise. I shall not rob you or seriously hurt you, 
 but I have brought you here for a nice, quiet talk, and I want to 
 know if you will behave?" He nodded, and I released him and 
 invited him to be seated. He was game, and sat down without a 
 word. 
 
 "You do not know me," I said, "and I have not the honor of 
 your personal acquaintance, although I have heard you spoken of as 
 a successful business man, and a genial and pleasing gentleman per- 
 sonally. You believe, however, that the whole world should be 
 forced to bend to your desire to make profits for the Illinois Central 
 railway. The comfort of individuals, honor of public officials, your 
 own hope of heaven have been sacrificed to the one great greed for 
 profits. Homes have been blighted, families ruined, property rights 
 disregarded. You have lied, cheated, stolen, bribed, beaten and 
 crushed your way to the one great success. So frequently have you 
 triumphed that you believe yourself to be supi-eme. Year after year 
 this greed has fattened upon its own growth, until in your bigotry 
 yoa think you own the earth. I am going to prove to you that the 
 pDint of a needle backed by the great principle" of the underlying 
 
RETRIBUTION AND RESTITUTION. 15 
 
 justice of the universe is greater than all your success, all your 
 power, and capable of changing the whole course of your life and of 
 your opinions, 
 
 "The most infamous of all the impositions that have been perpe- 
 trated on the people of Chicago," I continued, "was the stealing of 
 their lake front. You cannot be reached by the courts. Your 
 money is ever ready to buy delays and perjure witnesses. You 
 gained possession by seemingly legal forms. There is only onti way 
 to reach the matter nnw. That is by reaching the physical body of 
 the man who is in position to make partial restitution. 
 
 "I will not risk permitting you to telephone, but I will send for 
 a messenger boy and you can send word to anyone who is exi)ecting 
 you that you are detained for a few hours." 
 
 Mr. G. 's face brightened, and stepping to a desk where there 
 was writing paper he wrote a short note, hesitated a moment, 
 crumpled it and threw it to one side, and wrote another. This one 
 was handed to me, and it read all right. It was my intention to 
 hand it to the boy at the door, but one never knows what to expect 
 from the festive messenger boy. In response to his knock, I opened 
 the door and before I realized it he had slipped past me and was in 
 the center ot the room. However, I vvas quick enough to intprc-ept 
 the crumpled note and a five dollar bill that Mr. G. tried to slip to 
 him. The boy retired and I read the note: "In Parlor A with a 
 lunatic. " 
 
 "You are not complimentar}^ my friend, " I'said, "but you will 
 revise your opinion before I get through with j'ou. Sometimes con- 
 version comes from within, sometimes from without. It can be just 
 as effective either way. 
 
 "Now, I want you to promise^to yourself— not to me, because 
 you would not mean it — that you will commence a return to the city 
 of Chicago of part of the great steal of the lake front by making a 
 park, a breathing spot, in the lake somewhere between the Art 
 Institute and Jackson park, and building a viaduct across your 
 tracks to it. I will leave the size and details to you. It will do no 
 good to attempt to punish me for this night's work, because I have 
 ample means to get free from arrest, at least on bail, and just as 
 sure as fate I will get you again— and next time I will not let you 
 off so easy. 
 
 "Now to business Retire behind the dresser, take off your 
 
10 RETRIBUTION AND RESTITUTION. 
 
 clothes and put on the night gown you will find there." 
 
 Recognizing and fearing a physical force he had never mat lie- 
 fore, Mr. G, obeyed, taking plenty of time, it is true, but he olieyed. 
 
 "Now lie on this lounge. 
 
 "The Illinois Central steal of the lake front, " said I, drawing 
 my easy chair close to him, "has been to the people of Chicago a 
 daily irritation by its absorption of the free lake breezes and the 
 natural places for breathing spots, and has caused scores and hun- 
 dreds of women and children to sicken and die. It has not seemed 
 like a great calamity, like a fire or tornado, but has been th^ irrita- 
 tion of daily, of hourly, pin pricks. Now I am going to let you 
 know wtiat that m^ans. For the greed of profits you have lieen 
 willing that others may suffer. For the hope of good to result I 
 shall see that you get a small sample of that suffering. 
 
 "I have here a cork with a needle just peeping through one end 
 of it. For a time— it may be all night, if I find it necessary — I shall 
 at frequent intervals press that cork against your body . until I leave 
 you sore from bead to foot. .. *' 
 
 "Just as a starter, here are a couple." The victim winced and 
 edged over, but of course the hurt was nut more than a light sting. 
 I had previously tried it on myself a dozen times, and kne.v there 
 was nothing more to it than an irritation. 
 
 The dogjred determination that had surmounted so many olista- 
 cles in a successful career gave him nerve to take his punishment 
 and there was no whimpering. Sjeing that he was not desirous of 
 discussing my suggestions, and knowing him to b3 not yet in a 
 ti'ame of mind to agree with my conclusions, I took out my Ijook 
 and commenced to read and jab— jabbing with regularity bat no 
 particular enthusiasm. The victim stood it With patience for as 
 long as half an hour, when he turned over wuth a groan to present a 
 new surface. 
 
 As regular as clock work the jabbing continued for another 
 fifteen minutes, when unable to endure the irritation longer, Mr. Cx. 
 leaped from the lounge and attempted to grab me by the throat. 
 Still keeping my eye on the printed page. I reached out that strong 
 right arm, grasped him by the shoulder and pushed him back tj his 
 place, and holding him with my knee, I read aloud the exceed- 
 ingly interesting part of the noval I had reached: "And as ih'3 
 lovely heroins swept through Jackson i^ark in her touring car the 
 
RETRIBUTION AND RESTITUTION. 17 
 
 villain stai'tetl in pursnit with his six-cjiincJer, fiendishly chuckling 
 with glee as he realized that in her eagerness to escape him she 
 would exceed the speed limit and there was one chance in a million 
 that a parlc policeman would arrest her and tlius bring her into his 
 toils." Of course I could not leave the story at this interesting 
 point, so I resumed my seat, fumbled around and found the cork, 
 and again commenced the steady, rhymthic jab. jab, jab. 
 
 The coolness and contempt of it all took all the nerve out of 
 Mr. G. 
 
 Another half hour of peace and quiet except the involuntary 
 twists of the patient and an occasional half-suppressed groan. 
 
 "I give in," he at last exclaimed. 
 
 "Don't want you to give in," I replied. "Nothing to give in 
 to me about. 1 want you to be converted. Don't bother me, any- 
 how. I'm interested. " 
 
 The heroine's automobile had just mis.sed hitting a dray while 
 crossing Van Baren street, with the villain only a block away. 
 The needle recommenced its i^ersistent but not frequent jab, jab, jab, 
 the automobile bearing the fair heroine through the crowded streets, 
 across the river and along the lake shnre drive. 
 
 Meanwhile, the patient was writhing most disagreeably, so that 
 I did not hit him only about every other jab. He was groaning and 
 fussing, pounding the sofa pillow and disparting himself in a very 
 undignified manner. He was getting feverish and excited. The 
 pain could not be severe, but the everlasting nagging of the little 
 sticker was more than human patience could stand, and he was get- 
 ting desperate. 
 
 "Now," I said, "we will have a half hour of quiet, and if I get 
 this heroine successfully married o.^ in that tima you may talk to 
 me ten minutes before the jabbing recommences." 
 
 Within the half hour my novel closed satisfactorily with the 
 information that the heroine and her true lave were married and 
 lived happily together for a short time, and I asked Mr. G. what 
 he thought about things in general and himsslf in particular. 
 
 "I am converted," he said, sitting up. "I would not have be- 
 lieved it possible that such an experience could have affected my 
 view of business matters, but as I have bsen lying here dreading a 
 repetition of that awful jab, jab, jaV), it occurred to me that there 
 certainly might ba and there cartainly was some things in this 
 
18 RETRIBUTION AND RESTITUTION. 
 
 world more to be considered than the question of profits for the 
 Illinois Central. I had a thousand stinging sensations over my body 
 proving it to be true. I commenced to figure out arguments in 
 favor of complying with your request. Then I saw how very true 
 it was that I had sacrificed true manhood, honor, even the Christian 
 religion of my mother on the altar of profits for the Illinois Central. 
 I have succeeded, but such success has looked pretty cheap to me 
 during the last hour. I have been a man with one idea. I am glad 
 to realize that there are other things worth considering. I promise 
 you that I will do as you wish, and consider it only as a start toward 
 a better and healthier view of business life, recognizing that there 
 are moral as well as business responsibilities. 
 
 "You will probably think this statement only a bluff, but it is 
 not, and I will take the rest of my punishment like a man, acknowl- 
 edging that while never expscted, it was well deserved." 
 
 "I have no more punishment for you," I said. "My work is 
 done. I am going now. You will find a soothing ointment on the 
 dresser. We all bump up against the rough edges sometimes. I am 
 glad you will be the better for this bump. " 
 
 It makes a big difference to the railroad magnate whose skin is 
 being jabbed. 
 
tonight of the Twentieth Century. 
 
 The Knight weighs 270 pounds, stands six feet three, well built, 
 and has had athletic training. He had been an unostentatious car- 
 penter, dreaming of the need of a Muscular Morality that would go 
 about the world punishing meanness and rewarding virtue. Falling 
 heir to a small fortune, his dream was made real. 
 
 SKINNING A SKINFLINT. 
 
 I have had my eye on a rich old skinflint, living in the little 
 town of Y— , for several months, and at last found time to go there 
 and prepare for his humiliation. Of all the stingy, stingy, stingy 
 men I ever saw or heard of, he wa? the worst. I haven't the time 
 to begin to tell the many instances of his penuriousness. Help his 
 neighbors? Not he. Not a single act of kindness in all his life. 
 Not a tender spot. Not even a pleasant word. Cross, crabbed, 
 grasping, grumpy, hating all the world, hated by all of his world. 
 Too contemptible for the love of even those who try to "love their 
 enemies," since it is impossible to I'espect a hl^man being who will 
 not recognize a single bond of human sympathy. Rich in gold, 
 but a leprous outcast in the real things of life. 
 
 But that was not all. He was proud, stiff-necked and bigoted. 
 No one had dared to cross him or oppose him for so many years that 
 none of his neighbors could remember a time when he had not held 
 absolute sway in all matters affecting himself, and in other affairs 
 lie took no interest. He stood so erect in his pride and selfglorifi- 
 fication that he bent over backward. He had no greetings for the 
 jiasser-by. His pompous vanity seemed to make his avarice even 
 more repulsive. 
 
 This is the man, and now I will tell you about the remedy. I 
 dropped into the little town of Y— unheralded, of course. No one 
 knev^ me or my mission. I found the home of B— , the skinflint, 
 was a two story house near the central part of the village, and for- 
 
20 SKINNING A SKINFLINT. 
 
 tunately for me it had a balcony facing the main street, a door 
 opening to it from a room on the second floor. 
 
 Making an investigation, I found it would be easy to escape 
 unseen from tha hoase tlirough a barn and woods in the rear. 
 
 Everything being ready for action, I provided myself with a 
 good, strong paddle, ab:)ut two feet long, one end trimmed to lit m\'- 
 none too petite hand. I boldly knocked. The skinflint cautiously 
 opened the door, peeped out and bluntly asked what I wanted. The 
 door was opened wide enough, however, for my foot to get inside, 
 and the rest was easy. Saeing resistance was useless, Mr. B. per- 
 mitted me to enter. 
 
 "Nuw," I said, "I want to have a talk with you." 
 
 He tried a bluff, but I deliberately locked the door, and took 
 him by the ear and started up the stairway. He started to cry 
 aioud, but a brawny hand covered his mouth. 
 
 He vtas tall and scrawny, but a coward, and a squeeze with my 
 lelt arm while my right hand covered his mouth, took all the fight 
 out of him. Releasing him, I said: 
 
 "I came here to punish you for your stinginess and general 
 meanness, and if you mak3 a noise it will be the woi-se for you." 
 
 "What do you mean by this conduct?" he stammered, tor the 
 f.rst time in his life cowed to subjection. 
 
 "I-mean to teach you a lesson you will never forget. I will not 
 liarm you, but I will break that iron will of yours and make a man 
 out of the skinflint who has been masquerading in the guise of a 
 man. You have stolen, lied, cheated, starved to pile up gold, gold, 
 gold, but I am going to show you that for one hour all your gold 
 will not save you from a vengeance that has been too long in over- 
 taking you. You are a crazy man, warped, egotistical, wretched 
 carrion of a man, polluting pure air with your presence, a nuisance 
 to yourself and a torture to the community." 
 
 The thoroughly frightened wretch saw that I meant business 
 and tremblingly tried to beg. 
 
 "No begging," I said. "Your character is all that is embraced 
 in the word skinflint. There is only one way to change such a per- 
 verted disposition. That is physical humiliation. All the kindness, 
 all the good books^ all the soft phrases, surrounding you for a life- 
 time with examples of kindness and moral influences have only served 
 to harden your heart. Solomon said something about sparing the 
 
SKINNING A SKINFLINT. 21 
 
 rod and spoiling the child, and you have been a spoiled child for 
 fifty years. I am KO'ng to give you the whipping your daddy failed 
 to give YOU and I am going to make up for lots of lost time. What 
 is more, if you do not change your ways, give up your penurious 
 habits, be generous to your neighbors, bend your proud neck to the 
 yoke of humility, I will come again and again. I will find j'ou 
 though you go to the ends of the earth. I will never let up until 
 yon are a changed man. Come." 
 
 I led him upstairs like a lamb to the slaughter. Opening the 
 dnor, I placed a chair on the balcony and bade him step out. 
 
 It was not necessary to shout for a crowd. Blacksmith Jones 
 saw the unusual spectacle and commenced to stare, Saul and Smith 
 and Wagoner saw there was something unusual going 0:1 and passed 
 the word along. In three minutes a score of people were standing 
 in doorways, peeping around corners and grouped about the gate to 
 see what the stranger and Mr. B. were about to do. 
 
 "Take off your coat." With a pathetic look toward the crowd, 
 in whose faces he saw no answer to his appeal for help, he obsyed. 
 
 Calmly seating myself, I pulled him over my lap as a lusty 
 father would handle a boy. and in the presenee of his neighbors I 
 paddled him, oh, I paddled him— paddled him good and plenty. 
 With the first stroke, a howl arose from the crowd, then a cheer, 
 and with each resounding whack another cheer. I did a good job of 
 it. I made up for many years of lost time. When finally I carried 
 him inside he was a picture of distressful humility. He was cured. 
 One application was enough. 
 
 Quickly finding my way out through the rear of the house, I 
 got away. None knew from whence I came, nor whither I went. 
 Thus the work goes on. 
 
 I heard from there a weak later. Two days of sulks, and B. 
 opened his heart to a neighbor, frankly told him that the awful 
 haniiliation had taught him a deserve! lesson and that he desired 
 to make amends for his faults. His first act was the writing of 
 libjral check) for several worthy loc.il charitable and m:>ral enter- 
 prises and the cancelling of several morfcages that had alrealy been 
 paid in usurious interest. In the few days previous to my report 
 his home had acquired a dog, a cat and a bird, all evidences of a 
 desire for cjmpanionship, the children of the community were daily 
 making merry in his home, an evidence of true reform, and he had 
 
22 SKINNING A SKINFLINT. 
 
 endeared himself to all the people of the village by many acts of 
 kindness and good feeling. ^ 
 
 A well-applied board sometimes vvorketh wonders with grown- 
 up boys. 
 
Benight of the Twentieth Century. 
 
 ThG Knight weighs 270 pounds, stands six feet three, well built, 
 and has had athletic training. He had been an unostentatious car- 
 penter, dreaming of the need of a Muscular Morality that would go 
 about the world punishing meanness and rewarding virtue. Falling 
 heir to a small fortune, his dream was made real. 
 
 SEEING AS OTHERS SEE. 
 
 A friend of mine asked me to take his 8-year-old daughter to an 
 occulist to have her eyes examined to see if there was any disease 
 starling. Her eyes had been weak for a short time, and he had 
 promised to take her to an occulist that day and had un appoint- 
 ment, but business matters made it difficult for him to go. I am 
 an accommndating sort of fellow, and as I had the time to spare, of 
 course I gladly consented. 
 
 "Do you know the occulist?" I asked. 
 
 "No," he replied, "but our family physician has recommended 
 Dr. W. Here is his card. The appointment is for nine o'clock this 
 iiiorning, and Gertrude is ready. Please explain to the doctor that 
 we don't want her to wear glasses now if it can possibly be avoided. 
 We are looking after her general lieaUh to the best of our ability, 
 and she is in the doctor's care in that respect. We are having her 
 rest her eyes, and as there is no school, and she is not straining her 
 eyes, we feel that it is better to let nature heal itself than risk the 
 positive strain that would come from wearing glasses. These may 
 come later, but we believe at her age a resting of the eyes from all 
 strain would be better than a questionable relief from glasses. We 
 have feared that at school she may have contracted some disease of 
 the eye that should be treated before it has gone too far. That is 
 all we want to know." 
 
 I have been blessed with good eyes, and have never had an 
 oi)portunity of knowing what sort of an examination an occulist 
 
24 S3SING AS OTHERS SEE. 
 
 would maize or treatment he would jrive and welcomed the oppor- 
 tunity for observiition, since I am of an investigating turn of mind. 
 
 Well, we found the occulist waiting for us, and not much evi- 
 dencj of other patients. He invited us into his den, and I carefully 
 explained to him all my friend had said about the child's eyes, and 
 his desire simply to kmiw if there were anj' disease, leaving the 
 matter of treatment for another visit, especially as he was preju- 
 diced against so young a child Vk'earlng glasses, and believing they 
 often resulted in harming well eyes. 
 
 "All right, all right," he said. "I will make a thorough exam- 
 ination and then it is for me to make a recommendation of what I 
 think is needed and it is for the little girl's parents to decide whether 
 to act on the advice or not. I do not sell glasses. I treat the eyes, 
 and if they need glasses I supply them. It is the opticians who are 
 ruining eyes by the hundreds by urging the use of glasses, because 
 that is where they make their money. All right, all riglit, we'll see 
 we'll see. " 
 
 "Come here, little girl. What is your name?" 
 
 "Gertrude. " 
 
 "Now, Gertrude, stand right here with your shoulders thrown 
 back, and look me In the eye," and he held his finger in front of 
 her, moving it forward. 
 
 "Do you see one finger, or two?" 
 
 "One." 
 
 "Now, try again,'' and the same thing was repeated. 
 
 "Ah, you see two. Now tell me to stop right, where you see 
 two." 
 
 This was repeated over and over until after a time the child was 
 so flustered that she could easily have seen a doieu. 
 
 "Now, Gertrude, look at this red light over here and tell ma 
 whether it is to the right or left of this card.'' 
 
 "To the right.' ' 
 
 "Ah, we have it. Novv try it again.- ' 
 
 This was kept up for half an hour. Then he had her sit down 
 to an instrument and play peekaboo thro'ugh it for another half 
 hour, the occulist jumping up at intervals, rushing to another table 
 and marking down some cabalistic signs and figures, muttering that 
 "you of course don't understand, anyway, but it is so and so plus so 
 and so. " 
 
SEEING AS OTHERS SEE. 25 
 
 Then he clrag;;ed out a case of lenses and fittinsr one, told the 
 girl to look at a card suspended upon the wall, reading from the top 
 down. After a half hour of this, trying and re-trying glass after 
 glass, I said : 
 
 "Doctor, I don't know much about this matter <>t examining 
 eyes, but I hope you are not trying to fit glasses for the girl. That 
 will come later if it is desirable, but today her father only wants to 
 know if there is any disease of the eye." 
 
 "I understand, I understand," he said. "It is for me to make 
 a thorough examination of the eyes, and that is what I am doing. 
 • After that I will make my recommendation, and the parents can act 
 on it or not as they see fit. ' ' 
 
 Well, with this suggestion, I felt that I had to take what came, 
 being helpless under the general condition that a patient is abso- 
 lutely in the control of his physician, and I held my i3eace. 
 
 But it was hard work. That occulist put in the better part of 
 the day trying on one glass after another, going over the same 
 ground witli the finger and red light, with the table magic-lantern, 
 and other devices. After awhile he announced as a tremendous dis- 
 covery that one eye was stronger than the other, that they did not 
 have the same "tocus. " I wanted to tell him that well eyes were 
 that way, in fact the whole side of the face was controlled by 
 a different set of muscles than the other and they could not by any 
 ])ossibility be exactly even, this difference extending to the whole 
 l)ody, but I thought I had batter hold my peace and take what was 
 coming. 
 
 • Well, after all these hours of monkey-business, considerable time 
 was taken to show just how certain exceedingly expensive medicine 
 he gave her should be dropped into the eyes, we were told to come 
 back the next morning, and permitted to go. 
 
 I was game, and went back the next day to see the burlesque 
 finished. 
 
 We arrived at the appointed time and — would you believe it? — 
 that man again went through all those monkey-shines, glasses and all. 
 Guess he became hungry about noon, when he handed us a pair of 
 glasses and a prescriijtion with instructions how to use the drops, 
 and instructions for the girl to be brought back in a week. 
 
 "But is there any disease of the eye. Doctor?" I asked. 
 
 "No," he said. "They only need rest. They have been strained 
 
26 SEEING AS OTHERS SEE. 
 
 .a little, probably from too much study. Fler general health needs 
 toning up a bit. " 
 
 I asked for his bill and when he said $15 I paid it with the 
 mental reservation that we should liave had the information we 
 wanted for about $2 and that !3;13 of the fee was robbery, the hours 
 of useless tomfoolery and the cheap glasses being for their effect on 
 the bill. 
 
 A few weeks after this incident I made the acc[uaintance of a 
 physician who had an office in the same building with Dr. W. , the 
 occulist. I asked if lie knew him, and upon his replying in the 
 the aftirmative, I detailed the esperience and asked if he did not 
 think we had been "worked" under cover of the rights of a physi- 
 cian with his patient. 
 
 He asked the date, and laughed. "You was the sucker, then. 
 Dr. W. told me when I happened in his office that day that he 
 needed the money to go to a big banquet that was to be. held that 
 night and an 'angel' came in and furnished $10 for the purpose." 
 
 Well, I knew it was a not uncommon thing to do a trick like 
 that, but I did not like to play the part of the sucker. 
 
 So I took this occulist in hand. I rented a furnished flat that 
 admirably suited my purpo.se, and te^ei^honed Dr. W. that there was 
 a fee of $10 for him if he would come to my house that evening, 
 giving the street number, and without giving him a chance ti> ask 
 why the patient could not come to his office, hung up the receiver. 
 He needed the money again, as I counted on, and was there promptly 
 on time. 
 
 I ushered him into a brilliantly lighted room, and asked him to* 
 look into my eyes and see if there was anything- wrong with them. 
 
 "Well," he said, "they look all right, but I can make a much 
 better examination in my office." 
 
 "That's all right, doctor, this is all the examination I want. 
 Here is the fee of $10 that I promised you. But while j'ou are here 
 I want to have a talk with you. I am convinced that you are one 
 of the occulist fakirs who are reckless with people's eyes, and will 
 do anything to bleed the patients who come to you in confidence of 
 the general good faith of physicians, occulists, lawyers and dentists. 
 You also take advantage of the fact that for this same reason the 
 law gives if; entirely in the jjower of these practitioners to fix the 
 charge, and no matter how unreasonable it may b3 the jiatient mast 
 
SEEING AS OTHERS SEE. 27 
 
 pay, and 'professional courtes\'' will make all the other doctors, 
 lawyers and occulists swear that the charge is reasonable when they 
 know it is robbery. I believe that yoa did harm to my little girl 
 friend's eyes with your nerve-racking examination that was made 
 for no other purpose than to get money you was not entitled to. I 
 believe that like others of your tribe yoa have forced spectacles on 
 children and others many times when they were damaging to the 
 eyes, and you did it for no other purpose than to make a bluff at 
 earning the big fee you proposed to charge. Now I am going to 
 have my revenge. ' ' 
 
 At that a wild look came into the doctor's eye, and he glanced 
 around for a means of escape. The doctor was a bundle of nervous- 
 ness, anyway. 
 
 "No use in your trying to get away. I have 2'repared on pur- 
 pose for tills meeting. No one can hear you if you shout, and the 
 door is safely locked. 
 
 "Doctor, did you ever hear of an East Indian herb that has the 
 power, without harm t(t the eyes, of destroying sight for a year? 
 No? Well, you don't know everything abjut the eyes. Come here. 
 Stand right there. Look me in the eye. Do you see. one finger or 
 two?" 
 
 Just then, with the other hand I squirted some water in his 
 eyes. 
 
 "There, doctor, let us see how you like to have your eyes treated 
 in a careless fashion. You will recover from blindness in time, but 
 I hope you will have been taught a lesson that eyes are too precious 
 tor quacks to play with. Sit down there. It is no use to whine 
 and whimper. The die has been cast. You might as well take 
 your punishment like a man. If I could do all the things I would 
 like to do to you, yoa would consider it plenty, but blindness may 
 give you a clearer insight, into human affairs than your out sight 
 has seemed to do. 
 
 All this time the doctor was badly scared; thoroughly balieving 
 that I had squirted the East Indian medicine into his eyes, and was 
 groveling and whimpering and begging me to let him off and let 
 him out. 
 
 By a previous arrangement with the janitor I had fixed it .so 
 that at a signal from me he would giadually turn off the lights in 
 my room, so slowly that it took half an hour for the room to come 
 
28 SEEING AS OTHERS SEE. 
 
 to total darkness, and so gradually that he could not have a suspicion 
 that it was done by mechanical means. 
 
 Well, as the room commenced to grow darker slowly that fellow 
 thought he was surely going blind, and when I told him that when 
 he recovered his sight he must turn to some other employment, 
 instead of harming people's eyes, he became frantic. Slowly the 
 darkness crept on. More and more he groveled and begged. More 
 and more he pleaded and promised. But I was adamant. 
 
 Finally, when the room was dark as pitch, I told him I was 
 going to leave him and that when I was ready I would see that he 
 was released. I then left him in the darkness, and the last thing I 
 heard was his fumbling about trying to find a means of escape and 
 shouting for help. 
 
 I telephoned his hotel that he would not be home that night. 
 
 The next morning I had the lights turned on the instant I went 
 into the room. I found the erstwhile frisky doctor had silent a 
 wretched night, overwhelmed with grief at the supposed k».3S of his 
 sight. He sat up and blinked and blinked in the brilliant light, and 
 a wan smile came over his face. 
 
 "Well, it ain't true, it ain't true, is it?" was his first remark. 
 
 "No, it is not true," I replied, "but I hope you have had a 
 good scare that you will remember for many a day. I meant what I 
 .said when I told you that you must give up treating eyes to someone 
 with more conscience. Now, what are you going to do about it?" 
 
 "Well." he !^aid, "I have recognized for a long time that I was 
 a failure as an occalist. I passed the examinations by the merest 
 scratch, bat having gone that far, and having a living to make, I 
 kept on. Patients have not been numerous. Expenses are high. 
 And I had to have money to live on, and in this big city there are 
 so many calls for money that I confess that I have not been overly 
 scrupulous about means of getting it inside of professional possibili- 
 ties. If I had something else to tarn to in which I could make a 
 Jiving I would never look an honest eye in the face again." 
 
 "What do you think you are best fitted for?" 
 
 "A farmer. " 
 
 "You could not do much harm there, anyway. I am sorry for 
 you and sorry that this punishment seemed necessary, but after all 
 you have pleased me by taking it sensibly and talking to me truth- 
 fully, and as I can help yoa to start as a farmer I will take i^leasure 
 
SEEING AS OTHERS SEE. 29 
 
 in doing so. " 
 
 We went into details on this matter over a hearty breakfast and 
 a few hours later parted the best of friends. Pie will make well 
 eyes sick no more. 
 
 The man who would mistreat the human eye for a few paltry 
 dollars deserves the punishment of being burned at the stake, hanged 
 and quartered, but I could not give it to him. 
 
^^nBght of the Twentieth Century. 
 
 The Knight weighs 270 poands, stands six feet three, well built, 
 nnd has had athletic training. *He had been an unostentatious car- 
 penter, dreaming of the need of a Muscular Morality that would go 
 about the world ijunishing meanness and rewarding virtue. Falling 
 heir to a small fortune, his dream was made real. 
 
 DEVELOPING HORSE SENSE. 
 
 I happened to take a seat in a train the other day where some- 
 one had left a small country newspaper. Nothing else to do, I 
 glanced over its columns, and this item attracted my attention : 
 
 "Quite a little excitement was furnished last Wednesday by Sam 
 Wenski, whose horse balked on main street at too heavy a load. 
 Sam is noted for a fiery temper, and the public place chosen by the 
 horse for his refusal to pull the load was too much for him aiid a 
 beating resulted that furnished excitement for the entire town and 
 nearly i-esulted in worse. Some attempt was made by the bystanders 
 to stop the cruelty, but Sam weighs 200 pounds and threatened to 
 whip the entire crowd, and no one seemed desirous of taking the 
 lead in making it stop. Several eager citizens took hold of the 
 wheels and helped get the wagon to the top of the small hill. Sam 
 said the next day he was sorry he had beaten the horse so much, as 
 he was a valuable animal, but that he had a temper he could not 
 control. " 
 
 My train was going east but as this town was west of me, I got 
 off at the next station and took the first west-bound train. I 
 thought there was onetown where 270 pounds of human flesh, hard 
 as iron and not afraid of anything on the land or under the sea, was 
 sadly needed to not only teach one man a lesson, but many cowards 
 an object lesson. 
 
 Arriving at the town, I spent the evening making inquiries 
 about Sam Wenski and confirming the truthfulness of the newspaper 
 account. I found that he was a bachelor farmer living two miles 
 west of town and that he was at home, one man telling me he was 
 
DEVELOPING HORSE SENSE. 31 
 
 expectin;? to come to town at 7 o'clock the next moruin;?. 
 
 I purchased a nice, limber blacksnake whip, one with pretty 
 stripes on the handle, jnst the sweetest little teaser about, six feet 
 long that anj'one could want. I also pvirchased twenty feet of stout 
 cord, and left an order at the livery stable for a horse and two- 
 wheeled sulky to be at the hotel at o'clock the next morning, pay- 
 ing in advance for their use and tipping the hostler a dollar to meet 
 nie at the depot the next morning to return the animal to the barn. 
 
 The next morning I arose betimes and humming "Happy Day! 
 Happy Day!" betook myself to the waiting sulky. It was a lovely 
 morning, bright sunshiny, the pure spring air, green grass and 
 trees and the stray posie? along the roadside conspiring to invigorate 
 one and make one rejoic3 in human existence. It was a happy day. 
 It promised to be an esi^ecially happy day for Sam Wenski. It 
 would be a little stormy for a time, but he would look back upon it 
 for many, many years as the one day of all his life over which he 
 should feel happiest. 
 
 A mile and a half from the town, a lane left the main road, 
 cnrved immediately among some trees, then a level, straight !^hoot 
 of half a mile to the house. "Tiiis is fine, " I said to myself. "Wo 
 can have a real sociable time and no one to interfere. It loolcs like 
 good luck is on my side again." 
 
 Arriving at the house, I saw Sam just starting for the stable. 
 Dismounting, I unhitched the horse and tied him to the I'ear of the 
 sulky. I had said nothing to Sam except "good morning," and he 
 was somewhat nonplussed when he asked wdiat he could do for me, 
 and I said I would explain in a few minutes. 
 
 Having cared for my horse, I stepped up to Sam and taking the . 
 newspaper from my pocket, read the item aloud. Sam evidently did 
 not know what to make of the action and stepped hack in alarm. 
 "Is that true?" I asked. "Yes," he said. "But what business is 
 it of yours'?" 
 
 "No business at all, at all," I cheerfully replied, "except that 
 I am going to make it my business. I read that item on the train 
 more than a hundred miles from here and promptly came here to 
 let you know that there are some people in this world who will not 
 stand for such treatment of dumb animals. I am going to give you 
 a dose of the same treatment j'ou gave your horse. You deserve a 
 hundred timos wjrs3, bat I will try tn msasare a heroic do.se that 
 
32 DEVELOPING HORSE SENSE. 
 
 will care your disease without killing the patient." 
 
 "You won't do nothing of the kind," he shouted, starting to 
 f^rab a club. "I'll—" 
 
 I don't know what he was intending to promise, for just then 
 the flat side of my g;ood right hand slapped his face so hard that his 
 200 pounds of beef scrambled to save itself and then measured its 
 length on the ground. 
 
 Jumping to his feet, he lunged at me visciously. 
 
 My right arm again suffered with muscular expansion and he 
 dropped to the sod with a thud. Attempting to rise, he was too 
 dazed to moi-e than half sit up. Catching him by the back of his 
 coat collar, I lifted him to his feet, took his nose between my thumb 
 and finger and lead him to a seat on a stump. 
 
 "Now," I said, "you find that it is not much trouble to control 
 your uncontrollable tempar, after all. It is all bc>sh about anyone 
 having a temper that cannot be controlled. It is not temper, but 
 meanness. Just common, every day meanness. Now I have taken 
 considerable trouble to come here to cure you of your meanness, and 
 I am going to do it. And it will bs a permanent cure. I shall 
 watch yo.i and if I ever hear another bad report about you I shall 
 promptly return and give you a bigger dose, even if I have to come 
 a thousand miles to get you. AVhen I get through with you I will 
 )iot have a chance to talk with you further, and I want to tell you 
 in advance what you must do when I am gone. You must treat all 
 animals kindly. As a panishment for your abuse of yoiir horse, 
 within the next year you must bay five worn and broken down 
 horses, give them rest and the best of care until they recover, then 
 sell them to men who will hi kind owners, and donate the proceeds 
 to charity. " 
 
 The big fellow blubbered and tried to protest, but his nerve was 
 gone. Some big, bluffing, cruel fellows are such cowards! 
 
 "Come on," I said. "Your lesson lias but commenced." 
 
 I rolled his trousers above his knees and his socks over his shoes. 
 Taking him none too gently by the nose again, I led him to the 
 shafts of the sulky, backed him in and lifting a shaft, pat it in his 
 hand. Hs commenced to balk at once. 
 
 "Ah, I forgot," I said. Getting the stout cord, I made a slip- 
 noose and dropped it over his head and around his neck in spite of 
 his struggles. Pulling it snug, I said : 
 
DEVELOPING HORSE SENSE. 33 
 
 "So j'ou are a balky horse, are j'ou? Well, I am going to lose 
 my temper. Really, I cannot control it, " and I gave the cord a 
 stout jerk, [lis eyes bulged out, his neck swelled, and his hands 
 grasped the ord. I permitted him to hold it, as I only wanted it 
 to be threateningly tight. I let him gurgle and twist and squirm 
 fur a time and then loosened the cord and asked him how he liked 
 it. He did not respond exuberantly, bat seemed to think he ought 
 not to balk any more. T.ien when I backed him into the shafts 
 and lifted them for him to grasp, he did not hesitate. Getting into 
 ihe sulky, with the cord and slip-noose an effective line, I clucked 
 and shouted "Get up!" Guess he wasn't sure just what I wanted, 
 just like any fool horse would be when a little excited, so he didn't 
 move. Then the blacksnake whip came in handy. I gave ^him a 
 beautiful cut on the right hind— no, the right leg, but instead of 
 starting o'l he kicked. Another swish of the lash, a little smarter 
 sting, and he danced along for a few feet. I might have told him 
 what I wanted, bat one cannot explain things to a horse, you know, 
 except with a whip, and as he halted, I gave him another one on 
 the bare calf. He seemed to understand what was wanted that tim^ 
 and started off at a good trot, my faithful livery stable horse con- 
 tentedly jogging along behind. The pulling was a litcle heavy, but 
 encouraged by an occasional jerk of the lino around his wind-joipe 
 and the swisb of the lash upon his bare legs, we went bowling along 
 <l'Ute merrily. And that livery stable horse was smiling and chuck- 
 ling all the time ! 
 
 The birds were still singing in the trees, the sun was still shin- 
 ing brightly, kind nature still smiled and made one glad to live, I 
 was still humming "Happy Day! Oh, Happy Day!" 
 
 It was two miles to town, but the energetic yanks on the line 
 and frequent applications of the blacksnaka where they would do the 
 most good enabled one Sam Wenski to find strength enough to pull 
 me to town at a very comfortable pace. It was a pleasant ride. 
 Fortunately no (>ne was on the road and we attracted no attention 
 until we got well within the village. Then there was a hurrah. 
 Sam thought he could get help, but a jerk of the line and a touch of 
 the whip made him change his mind quickly and we trotted along 
 through the main street with people running and gaping and 
 shouting to neighbors on all sides. 
 
 At the end of the street was the railroad depot. I had carefully 
 
34 DEVELOPING HORSE SENSE. 
 
 timeJ matters so that jast as we arrived there a passenger train 
 palled in. Thinking my fiery steed would stand without hitching, 
 I dropped the line and was aboard before anyone could realize my 
 intention, the train i^nlled out, and waving Sam, dear Sam. con- 
 verted Sam, a fond farewell, I disappeared from his sight. Like a 
 warning ghost from the past, I appeared from nowhere and disap- 
 peared forever. 
 
 Yes, I heard from there later. He was cured. He made a 
 public statement that he had been a brute and deserved all he had 
 received. He promised to carry out my instructions about the 
 broken down horses, and doubled the number for good measure. 
 
 Transmigration of souls is not a popular religion but its practi- 
 cal application worked wonder-i for one Sara Wenski. 
 
Benight of the Twentieth Century. 
 
 The Knight weighs 270 pounds, stands six feet three, well built, 
 and has had athletic training. He had been an unostentatious car- 
 penter, dreaming of the need of a Muscular Morality that would go 
 about the world punishing meanness and rewarding virtue. Falling 
 heir to a small fortune, his dream was made real. 
 
 IDYL OF THE TEXAS IDLE. 
 
 I had a fanc}' that some farm landlord should be taught a lesson, 
 and thinking I would find one deserving of my peculiar course of 
 treatment there as well as elsewhere, I dropped into the Texas town 
 of M— , a nice little city north of Dallas. The second evening after 
 my arrival, I was pacing the depot in watchful proximity to Mr. 
 R., one of the meanest and stingiest landlords of this section, he 
 having purchased a ticket for Austin, for a week's visit. He was a 
 man of about forty, who had inherited his property, and was more 
 penurious than his old tight-wad of a father had ever been. 
 
 I had learned that the white tenant on one of his farms had 
 been called away by sickness, leaving the farm in charge of a colored 
 woman. 
 
 Back and forth, back and forth we paced, until just as the first 
 glint of light from the approaching train appeared around the bend, 
 we happened to be at the far end of the platform, just where I 
 wanted him. Without warning, I crushed a handkerchief over his 
 mouth, grasped him about the waist, leaped from the platform and 
 hustled across the prairie in the darkness at a two-forty gait. As 
 the engine whistled I gave him a chance to breathe— and to yell — 
 when I again clasped the handkerchief to his face and made another 
 spurt. By the time I was tired we were far enough away that his 
 cries could not be heard, and with a warning that I would not hurt 
 liim if he kept still, removed the handkerchief from his face. 
 
36 IDYL OF THE TEXAS IDLE. 
 
 "Now, my dear frienil, I have scared you pretty badly, but the 
 worst is over and I will frankly tell you all that is to happen to you. 
 I am an odd sort of philanthropist going about the countr}^ compell- 
 ing people to be good. I have never seriously hurt anybody in my 
 life, although I make it temporarily unpleasant. I am not pleased 
 with tiie niggardly way you treat the tenants on your farms, and I 
 am goirg t(> take you to the river farm and compell you to live there 
 a week just as your tenant spends his whole life. It will not be as 
 pleasant as the Austin visit but it will do you more good." 
 
 Mr. R. was dazed by the sudden change of liis plans, the chok- 
 ing, the swift flight and my rapid-fire remarks, and could only 
 stutter : 
 
 "This is an outrage, sir. I will have you up for this, sir. A 
 dastardly outrage, sir." 
 
 "Oh, come off with your outrages and your sirs and climb into 
 this buggy. We are all entitled to a great many opinions under the 
 law, but the fact is that I am about four times as big as you are, 
 and I am going to do as I please with 3'oa for awhile. Opinions 
 don't count for much just now. Get in!" 
 
 Bat he wouldn't. He stamped and stammered and "sir'd." 
 
 Taking him under the arm pits, I pushed down on him and said: 
 "Now jump, little boy. " But the little boy only scratched and 
 kicked and yelled. I was only playing with him, and as eas}' as 
 most fathers vk'ould handle a naughty five-year-old bo}' I lifted him 
 to the seat, stepped in and drove away. 
 
 He fussed and fumed all the way to the farm, a distance of six 
 miles, but I didn't mind. When he kicked my shin I slapped his 
 face ami told him to be still, but otherwise our ride was entertaining 
 and pleasant. 
 
 Arriving at the farm I found Aunt Sally, the colored woman, 
 on tip-toe with excitement. I had previously driven out and told 
 her of my plans, and found her eager to do her part. "You'se here 
 at las' " she exclaimed. " 'Clare to gndness, 1 thought you'd 
 never come." 
 
 My guest thought this was a good time to raise another rumpus, 
 and although he clambered from the baggy, he commenced the out- 
 rage talk again. I saw he needed attention, so taking him by the 
 ear I commenced leading him about the place. He kicked and 
 objected, but ear "bolt" is a good one if you hold on and he had 
 
IDYL OF THE TEXAS IDLE. 37 
 
 to come alonf? or lose an ear. I varied the monotony by changing 
 ears occasionally but I must have kept that foolish fellow prancing 
 around for half an hoar bsfore he acknowledged that he had a master 
 and had to behave. Some of these grown boys are awful slow about 
 learning to mind. 
 
 Then I said : "You parsimonious protege of old satan, I want 
 you to understand what you have coming. I am your master and 
 you are my tenant. You have held tenant Jones by the ijower of a 
 little paper purchased fifty years ago from the state of Texas for |50 
 by your father, in the form of a deed for this land, and with that 
 power you are making him slave for you year after year. I am now 
 ma'^ter by virtue of 270 pounds of flesh and blood, and you must 
 slave for me. I intend to see that you get for <:>ne brief week just 
 wliat you have given your tenants for years. You shall work as 
 they have worked, starve as they have starved, in body, soul and 
 mind. If it will teach you a lesson, it will never be repeated. If 
 you are too dull to learn in one week, I shall return and make it 
 several more. I realize that no amount of argument would have 
 any weight in making you see how unjust you have been. All the 
 civilizing and moral agencies of today have only served to harden 
 3"oi]r heart and make you more and more grasping for every penny 
 in sight. Like tlie father who has resorted to every maans of moral 
 suasion with a self-opinionated and reballious boy who refuses to 
 acknowledge that there is reason for proper authority, justice and 
 restraint, there is only left the hope that the spirit can be reached 
 through the body. It is therefore the father and the boy to the 
 wood-shed. You will not ba punished in that form, but in another. 
 We are all figuratively spanked at times by the corrective influences 
 of this world, and yours is coming. I do not want to talk further 
 with you tonig'.it, and I am sure that you have nothing cheerful to 
 say to me. I shall lock you in your bed-room and expect you to 
 get up promptly when you are called at 4 o'clock tomorrow morn- 
 ing. Those old rags in a corner that you will sleep on will not be 
 as soft as your bed at home, but you will be tired enough tomorrow 
 night to enjoy it. " 
 
 So I pushed him off to bed, still sputtering, still declaring it to 
 be an outrage, sir, still threatening the vengeance of the law, sir. 
 
 Early the next morning, Mr. R. was called but refused to 
 res-pond until a cup of water was thrown in his face. He then 
 
38 IDYL OF THE TEXAS IDLE. 
 
 leaped up and wanted to fight, but soon saw the utter hopelessness 
 of it. 
 
 "There, there, little Willie," I said. "Be a good boy and papa 
 will take him bye-bye sometime. 
 
 "A certain very, very old book says that there was a law laid 
 down many, many years ago that man must earn his living by the 
 sweat of his brow. Ycu have dodged that law all your life, but it 
 is beginning to act. The hard work of millions — yes, billions— has 
 contributed either directly or indirectly to your comfort all your 
 life, and not an hour's honest work have you given in return. It is 
 time for you to do your share, at least for awhile. Steji lively, my 
 little man, and ran out and chop some wood and build a fire so that 
 Aunt Sally can cook breakfast. I expect to be hungry in an hour or 
 two. " 
 
 He went, reluctantly of course, but he went. 
 
 I compelled him to cut enough wood for the day, build the fire, 
 and pump and carry in enough water for the day's washing. The 
 well was a deep one, and as he was toiling with the pump handle, I 
 su:^gested that a windmill was a handy thing to have on a farm. 
 Hd gi-unted. 
 
 Then I chased him out to the barn to feed and curry the mules. 
 He didn't like the job a little bit. The mules looked and acted 
 peaceful enough, and were probably as gentle as kittens, but every- 
 thing back of half way from the head got "a lick and a promise." 
 Every time he came within reach of the heels he was sciired half to 
 death, and kept himself in a tension and ready to jump at the 
 slightest movement. 
 
 Then he acted as chambermaid to the stable and pitched manure 
 for half an hour. There were no cows to care for, chickens or hogs 
 to feed or fruit trees to give a little attention, so we had accom- 
 plished the early work by the time breakfast was ready. 
 
 While I was enjoying a cup of high grade coffee with rich cream, 
 hot biscuits and honoj', fresh meat and eggs, Mr. R. was set off in a 
 corner with warmed-up black coffee, corn pone, bacon and grits. 
 
 "You might let me have a little cream," he whined. 
 
 "Not a drop," I rejolied. "This cream and the ice to keep it 
 sweet and the eggs and butter and honey and meat and all these 
 good things were brought from town. Your tenant had none of 
 them. You Texas landlords are worse even than the tenant squeezers 
 
IDYL OF THi: TEXAS IDLE. 39 
 
 of thn north in refasins to make it possible to have cows, chickens, 
 a garden and trait on the farms. All thesa are for tho comfort and 
 profit of the tenants, wliile each requires an outlay of cash on the 
 part of the proprietor. For fear care of them might interfere with 
 the cultivation of the largest cotton crop possible— a crop that can- 
 not be marketed without the landlord getting his share-you are 
 willing that tenants shall ^o without the ordinary comforts of life, 
 and rob them besides of any possibility of making any more off the 
 farm than the barest living. You excuse your stinginess by believ- 
 insi that poultry, cattle, vegetables and fruits are hard to raise in 
 this country becavise on accjunt of the open winters the diseases, 
 pests, mites and bugs of all sorts are reproducing and have been 
 leproducing for hundreds of years in such numbers that to fight 
 them is hopeless, and the danger besides that the niggers, as you 
 call them, and wild varmints will steal everything that can b3 
 carried off, but I happen to know that with proper and intelligent 
 care, together with a proper supply of houses, pure water and plenty 
 of food, all these things could be successfully raised on this farm. 
 These things are all absolutely necessary for even cDuifortable living 
 on a farm. Anything less is a disgrace to civilization, and n^ou and 
 others like you are responsible for these conditions. You could havo 
 bail cream tor your breakfast if you had made it possible for your 
 tenant to kpep caws. You could have had ham and eggs and fresh 
 vegetables if your tenant co.ild have raised them and had them for 
 hi" own use. You are living as he lives all the time. Go on with 
 you. Eat your corn pone and be thankful. It's the best you will 
 get for a week and I hope you will b3 starved into decency by that 
 time. " 
 
 Tlie dry meal nearly choked him, but he still mumbled, an out- 
 rage, sir, and I smiled complacently, thinking how he had smiled at 
 the misery of his tenants year after year. 
 
 After breakfast I hurried him out to hitch one of the mules to a 
 plow. There was no riding plow. That was a luxury the tenant 
 could not afford, and since the landlord had never followed the 
 furrow he had never known the need of one. 
 
 After much trembling and an effort to get the mule hitched by 
 reaching from the longest distance po.ssible, we finally managed to 
 get to the field. 
 
 Mr. R. did not plow badly for a green hand, although I had to 
 
40 IDYL 07 THE TEXAS IDLE. 
 
 follow pretty closely to keep him up to Ihe work, especially atter 
 the hot sun got to bringing out the sweat in streams. 
 
 All the morning we kept at the work. At noon we stopped, the 
 mule was taken to the barn, and there was a repetition of the break- 
 fast experience in the luxury and poverty of the dinners. 
 
 After dinner the other mule was hitched to the plow and the 
 two of us plodded along, row after row, until supper time, Then 
 came the chores. 
 
 When we entered the house, Mr. R. went immediately to his 
 room and threw himself on his bed, too exhausted to move. Supper 
 was ready, so I went after him. 
 
 To a third repetition of my remark that supper was ready, ho 
 replied, "I don't want any." 
 
 "Oh, yes you do. Yon can't work if you don't eat to keep up 
 your strength, and you have work to do. Come out here and eat 
 your supper. " 
 
 He refused to move. Taking him by the collar, I lifted him to 
 his feet and with another hand applied ti^ the looseness of his 
 irousers, I made him "walk turkey" to the table. He managed to 
 f jrce down a little food and a cup of black coffee, and I parmitted 
 him to go to bed. 
 
 The next day and the next were repetitions of this day's exper- 
 ience. It was no easy job to follow him all day long, bat I was of 
 course standing it a great deal better than he was, since I was in 
 tine physical condition and had built up a robust constitution by a 
 life-time of work, with athletic practice and with a constant regard 
 for the laws governing the physical being. He had starved his body 
 of much that was needed to make it well and strong and when the 
 test finally came he was in no condition to stand it. 
 
 However, a healthy tired feeling from outdoor exerciss never 
 killed anybody, and I was glad he was getting an c^perienco so 
 badly needed. 
 
 Mr. R. had been sullen throughout all the experience, never 
 having a word to say except to occasionally mutter something I 
 could not hear, and when the plow struck a stone or stump use 
 language that would not look well in print. There was no sign that 
 the trial of the simple life was having a good effect. Not a glimmer 
 of the great basic principles of .I'ustica and "do unto others as you 
 would that they should do unto you. " Instead, every sign was an 
 
IDYL OF THE TEXAS IDLE. 41 
 
 indication of a wish to escape and a threat of the awful things he 
 would do to me when he should be free to employ his wealth in an 
 effort to punish me. 
 
 The third evening, as we were leaving the stable to go to the 
 house. Mr. R said : 
 
 "Mr. I-don't-know your-name, I am going to beg for one thing. 
 I suppose you are going to keep me at this work for a week and I 
 cannot help myself. But for goodness sakes, sir, give me something 
 to eat. I cannot stand that coarse food any longer, sir, and am so 
 weak I can hardly stand up. If you will give me plenty of good 
 food, I will promise to do my best to keep up to the work, but if 
 yon don't, sir, I shall lie down and you can kill me but I'll not get 
 up. " 
 
 "All right, " I replied. "You have had a sample of the food 
 supply of your tenant that you will never forget, and I do not care 
 to push j'our punishment too far. Hereafter you will eat at the 
 table with me. " 
 
 At supper I asked a couple of questions about a neighboring 
 farm, thinking the time had perhaps arrived when he was willing 
 to get behind the unpleasant experiences with a talk about the con- 
 ditions that had brought them about, but he sullenly failed to reply, 
 and I gave up any further attempt to draw him out. 
 
 He did full justice to the excellent meal and then went to bed. 
 
 The next morning I called him at the usual time, and not get- 
 ting any response, went into his room and found my canary bird 
 had flown, flewed, gone, escaped, vanished. 
 
 A little investigation shosved that he must have found a file 
 when I was not watching closely and during the night had filed 
 through two of the bars I had fastened over his window. 
 
 Fortunately it had rained during the night and an examination 
 of the ground outside the window showed his footjirints, and signs 
 that be could not have been gone but a fevv minutes. 
 
 Running to the barn. I hastily saddled one of the mules and 
 started in pursuit. The tracks led to the road going to town, but a 
 quarter of a mile away I missed them, jjicking them up again in a 
 freshly plowed field and leading to tlie trees along the river. Like a 
 hound on the scent, I followed them at a gallop. Arriving at the 
 woods, I found the trees were too close together to permit riding, 
 and tying the mule I pushed along on foot. The tracking here was 
 
42 ■ IDYL OF THE TEXAS IDLE. 
 
 not so easy, but runnino; at a good pace I covered most of the woods, 
 beating the brush and looking into the trees. Finally, as I was 
 giving up hope of catching him and realizing that this time my 
 work promised to be an utter failure and it meant u sudden exit; 
 from the country for me, and a bitter enemy hunting for me all the 
 rest of ray life, I caught a glimi^se of him through the foliage, run- 
 ning like a frightened i-abbit. I was in hot pursuit in an instant, 
 and as I was much the better runner, I gained rapidly. But by 
 (lodging around thickets and doubling, the fellow kept me sj^rinting 
 a lively pace for a long time. He doubled back, and during a few 
 moments when I had temp:)rarily lost him, he managed to get back 
 to my starting place (having seen the mule) and when I saw him 
 again he was mounting the mule, having broken oif a branch for a 
 whip. I was ready to give up and would have beat a hasty retreat 
 from the locality had it not occurred to me that it would leave 
 "Aunt Sally" to stand part of the punishment intended for me, 
 and started to fullow with the intention of going back to the farm 
 house and arranging in some manner for her protection. 
 
 Fortunately for me, Mr R. was too eager to get away, and he 
 was no sooner mounted than ho commenced to furiously ply the 
 whip. The mule started with a jump, and excited with the whip- 
 ping, was plunging across the wet and newly plowed ground. He 
 had made scarcely a hundred feet when he stumbled and fell, throw- 
 ing his rider to the soft ground beyond. 
 
 Before Mr. R. could recover himself and mount, I was there and 
 had him by the wrist. 
 
 Such a pathetic picture ! Covered with mud, beaten, hopaless, 
 scared, he was certainly an object of pity. 
 
 "I suppose you will kill me now," he muttered. 
 
 "I should say not," I replied, laughing. "I don't blame you 
 for trying to get away. That was your in'ivilege, and I certainly 
 will not add to your punishment on that account. My whole work 
 with you is to make j'ou a conspicuous example in the correction of 
 a widespread abuse and this incident is only the humor of the situ- 
 ation. " 
 
 We returned to the house and after a hearty breakfast wore soon 
 a^ain at work. The fields were too wet for plowing, but I found 
 plenty of other work for him to do and kept him busy all day long. 
 
 The next day we spent in the fields. 
 
IDYL OF THE TEXAS IDLE. 43 
 
 On the morning of the sixth day I was beginning to realize that 
 all my efforts had resulted in failure. Mr. R. was more sullen than 
 ever, if possible, and there had not been the sliglitest indication of a 
 deeper appreciation of the relationship between landlord and tenant, 
 nor any attempt at conciliation or suggestive look or expression to 
 indicate that his hatred of me would not find the fullest vent after 
 he was free. I vv-as feeling pretty glum, myself. The whole scheme 
 of my work means that I must succeed. If I fail, it places me in 
 the attitudfi of a law-breaker and a brutal fellow^ and I don't want 
 to be that, you know. Frankly, I was worried. 
 
 I noticed that after Mr. R, was given good meals his strength 
 improved am:izingly, the outdoor work giving him a si^lendid 
 appetite, and the nourishing food in return giving him strength 
 and health, and forcing the old stagnant blood out of his system. 
 Twice I caught him looki.ng around with eyes that, seemed to be 
 newly opened to the beauties of nature, and inhaling deep breaths of 
 pure ail'. These were the oidy liopeful signs. 
 
 We were again plowing about ten o'clock, this time breaking up 
 a small piece of sod. We were jogging along, each deep in his own 
 thoughts, entirely unprepared for an interruption, when Mr. R. 
 jilowed up a nest of bumblebees. Then there was trouble. The 
 angry insects attacked the mule, Mr. R. and myself with a ven- 
 geance. The mule ran away, jerking the plow" handles away and 
 dragging it along on its side. Mr. R. had the lines over his shoul- 
 der and he was dragged along helter-skelter, bumpety-bump over 
 the field, part of the time on his feet but most of the time riding on 
 his shoulders or nose, the bees meanwhile going with him in 
 bunches. I was chasing after him so fast that I ran against a stump 
 and fell headlong. The accident freed me from the bees, although 
 they had stung me freely about the face and eyes. Getting to my 
 feet again, I saw that Mr. R. , the mule and the bees were tangled 
 in a mass of underbrush at a short distance. Grabbing a large piece 
 of bark that was handy, I ran to them and freed Mr. R. , and the 
 active use of the piece of bark as a paddle soon killed or drove away 
 the bees. 
 
 Finding Mr. R. was badly shaken up, I tenderly assisted him to 
 the house, where his wounds were bathed and rubbed with an oint- 
 ment. Leaving him fairly comfortable, I gave attention to my own 
 wounds. By this time bath my eyes were swollen shut, and I was 
 
44 IDYL OF THE TEXAS IDLE. 
 
 helplessly dependent upon the ministrations of Aunt Sally. 
 
 The result of the affair was that the next day Mr. R. was able 
 to hobble around and I was laid up with closed eyes and a face con- 
 siderable larger than its natural size. I was now in the power of 
 iny former victim, but recalling how I had saved him from the fury 
 of the bees. Mr R. was inexpressibly tender in his care and expres- 
 sions of sympathy. No more "it is an outrage, sir." Punishment 
 had not converted him, and perhaps never would have done so, but 
 comradeship in misery and an enforced living in the home of his 
 tenant with hourly opportunities of realizing what comforts they 
 never knew, were opening new lines of thought and working a 
 change I had planned in a more despotic fashion. It came slowly 
 but surely, and the fourth day, both of us having nearly recovered 
 from our painful experience, he said : 
 
 "You are right, sir. I thought you was crazy, but you are the 
 the most sensible man I have ever known. The past four days have 
 been the most wonderful period in my life. I never realized how 
 much a landlord could do to improve matters for his tenant, and 
 especially I never saw how I could be benefitting myself by benefit- 
 ting my tenants. Why, it will be the delight of my life to improve 
 my farms. I will be fussing around with imi:)rovements until the 
 tenants will want you to come back and drive the old nuisance 
 away. " 
 
 Well, we staj-ed at the farm — voluntarily — all the second week, 
 and when I left he was superintending and helping to make many 
 improvements — among them a windmill — and was having more tun, 
 he said, than a tree full of monkeys. 
 
 The evening before I left we had a heart-to-heart talk on basic 
 principles. Mr. R. said : 
 
 "I have been penurious toward my tenants, but back of it all 
 is a controlling influence that has dominated a large part of man- 
 kind in the whole history of the world. I have believed, and it is a 
 belief more prevalent in the south than in the north, more generally 
 accepted in England and other foreign countries than here, one that 
 has been handed down in successive generations since the early 
 history of man on the globe, and that is that since there is and of 
 necessity must be a vast amount of tiresome, unclean and exceed- 
 ingly disagreeable labor to be performed to provide for the comfort 
 of mankind, it is best that there be a servile class to do it. We 
 
IDYL OF THE TEXAS IDLE. 45 
 
 have had the theory, for instance, that pitching manure would 
 degrade a college graduate, and that his pducation and culture 
 entirely unfitted him for that kind of work, and a necessity for 
 doing it naturally made him desperately defiant of his conditions. 
 Yet manure must be pitched, fields plowed, wood chopped and 
 water carried. What mure logical than to have a class that from 
 lack of education and refinement would- take an interest, a pleasure, 
 a pride in such work? The ignorant man, with hardy constitution 
 and muscles trained, inheriting no knowledge of any other life, 
 would certainly l)e happier in doing such work than an educated 
 man. If this work could be abolished, we would have an entirely 
 different line of reasoning, but it cannot, and a vast amount of it 
 must be done. There must also be the leisure that permits of culti- 
 vation to perpetuate the existence of the educated class, and that can 
 only be accomplished by having another and distinct class to take 
 from them this necessary drudgery. In the north you have evolved 
 an entirely new idea about the 'dignity of labor.' Your theory is 
 that a man of education will sow and reap better than an ignorant 
 man, and that a reasonable amount of manual labor clears and 
 strengthens the brain. I never believed it until last Saturday. Never 
 in my life had I felt the bounding pleasure in animal existence, the 
 blood coursing freely through my veins, nor the clear brain and the 
 liappy^heart that I had the last morning I was following the plow. 
 I did not let you .see it, but the mental and physical joy resulting 
 from outdoor vv'ork gave me new ideas I never dreamed of possessing. 
 I learned a new thing: A moderate amount of manual labor invig- 
 orates and exhiliarates the brain. My excuse for penuriousness 
 with tenants was the necessity for keeping them down, of perpetua- 
 ting an ignorant class, since I deemed that to be necessary. I was 
 wrong, A tenant may be an intelligent man and still do menial 
 work. He may have the comforts of life and still find pleasure in 
 hard work. This I have learned. I thank you for the experience." 
 "I follow your reasoning." I replied, "and have long recognized 
 the strength and the weakness of it. However, we of the north are 
 going too far in in the opposite line of thought. Our colleges are 
 turning out graduates by the thousands who despise the menial 
 work th-iir parents have done to provide the means for their educa- 
 tion, and are thronging the paths to the law, medicine and other 
 protessions, only to find them all overflowing. Theoretically we 
 
46 IDYL OF THE TEXAS IDLE. 
 
 worship the higher education because it ought to make better farmers 
 and better bricklaj'ers, but practically we are giviug the higher 
 education to a horde of the sons of farmers and bricklayers, many 
 of whom become foot-pads and shysters in the professions to get the 
 means to live in the luxury to which they have become accustomed. 
 Your theory that menial labor makes an educated man desperate is 
 proving true in a lamentably large number of instances. There is a 
 happy medium between the two extreme ideas, howevui. I am glad 
 that you have found the happy medium." 
 
 When the busy bee can sting deep enough to reach the conscience 
 of a landlord, something is sure to happen. 
 
g^night of the Tweofaelti Century. 
 
 The Knight weighs 270 pounds, stands six feet three, well built. 
 iMid has had athletic training. He had been an unostentatious car- 
 lienter, dreaming of the need of a Muscular Moralitj' that would go 
 about the world ininishing meanness. He fell heir to a small for- 
 tune, and his dream was made real. 
 
 DOWN IN A COAL MINE. 
 
 Attracted by the appearance of a gentleman on a train in Color- 
 ado the other day, I introduced myself. He responded kindly, and 
 in the informal manner so common in the west, we soon developed a 
 friendliness that under otbtsr circumstances might have taken years of 
 intimate association. Ha informed me that he was the manager of 
 a certain coal mine, one I knew to be one of the most important in 
 the state. He was returning to his home from Denver, v»?here he 
 liad been unsuccessful in an effort to get funds for improving the 
 hosi^ital in the mining town. He seemed to feel the need of some 
 congenial person to whom he could tell his troubles, and I invited 
 his confidence by telling him of the special missionary work I had 
 taken up and relating some of my experiences. I never had a more 
 appreciative auditor, and the bond of good-fellowship was cemented 
 between us by his enthusiastic interest. Aftering listening delight- 
 edly to my descriptions of several incidents, laughing at the humor- 
 ous situations, and showing an understanding and hearty sympathy 
 with the motives underlying all my efforts, he said : 
 
 "It is a noble work. I wish I were engaged in something even 
 halt as satisfying to the conscience. But I am afraid that I am on 
 the other side. If you knew the daily opi)ressions that I seem to be 
 responsible for you would probably spend half the night devising 
 new and strange tortures for me. Bat I hope you won't. Honestly, 
 I am doing the best I can. I excuse many things by knowing that 
 another man in my position would not do so well. It is one of the 
 
48 DOWN IN A COAL MINE. 
 
 un explainable incongruities of fate that a man of my kindly, book- 
 loving, domestic temperament should be in control of a large force 
 of miners and compelled to be responsible for the practical affairs 
 governing their work. A natural gift for the technical features of 
 mining, both book-learning and practical, brought me to the atten- 
 tion of the owners of these great properties, and despite a natural 
 disinclination for a supervision of the practical affairs, these condi- 
 tions have come to me. In few matters relating to the individual 
 lives of the miners can I do as I want to do. I am doing the best I 
 can. " 
 
 "The responsibility for th3 evils in your conditions probably 
 lies with the higher authority," I suggested. 
 
 "Yes, it does," he replied, "if it can be definitely located any- 
 where. Stock companies are cold-blooded affairs. Enterprises 
 owned in that fashion have no one connected with them that dare 
 possess human feelings. From the lowest mine boss to the highest 
 official the dominant idea is to grind and push and crowd the indi- 
 vidual to get every ounce of results possible for the benefit of the 
 profits, since the owners havs no other interest than the more or 
 less dividend they receive. The owners are merely stock-holders, 
 owners of mine stock today, railroad stock tomorrow, mortgages 
 another day.. They have absolutely no regard for the property or 
 the employes except to draw interest. They have no mercy, nj com- 
 passion. They have no more interest in the individual lives of the 
 workmen than they have in those of the coral insects building an 
 island in mid-ocean. I sincerely wish you could do something to 
 change these conditions. Can you?" 
 
 Well, well, hero was trouble again. I was beginning to think I 
 was having the experieiice of the boy in the second reader who ran 
 away from school to avoid work and found soldiers and musicians, 
 carpenters and masons, in fact, everybody was working, and giving 
 up in despair returned to his work. So I tind oppression everywhere 
 and a need for my peculiar course of treatment. 
 
 "You know I am like a patent medicine manufacturer who be- 
 lieves his preparation will care all the ills to which man is heir," I 
 said. "I have but one remedy for the abases that have grown up 
 under our industrial and legal systems, and that is to reach the men 
 who are in position to correct them and influence their minds 
 through their physical bodies. Correction of these matters is being 
 
DOWN IN A COAL MINE. 49 
 
 attemptetl time and time again with writing and teaching and 
 moralizing, but the evils continue to exist. The spirit and flesh are 
 closely allied. Sjmetimes the spirit can be influenced only through 
 the flesh. The creative intelligence of the universe recognized that 
 as the primary law, and we can but be helping to carry out princi- 
 ples as universal as the law of gravity in working out the smaller 
 ideas in that fashion. The poor, half-blind miners who are im- 
 prisoned in darkness all the day only to go to homes but little less 
 dirty and wretched are surely entitled to much consideration in a 
 world theoretically based on brotherly love, and perhaps we can do 
 something to improve their condition. Who is the man who can 
 best be influenced to change things for the better?" 
 
 "Colonel B., a pompous old Brooklyn millionaire," was the 
 prompt response. "At present he holds nearly all the stock. By 
 the way, he is a colonel by campaign money purchase of a position 
 on the governor's staff:. He inherited a vast fortune and has in- 
 creased it immensely. He is coming to the mine tomorrow for a 
 visit of inspection. I dread it principally because there will proba- 
 bly be nekV ordeis, as usual, for increasing restrictions on the privi- 
 le<;es of the men, and a general shaking up to secure a greater out- 
 put, with no consideration of the other needs of the situation. I 
 have never known a man who vvas so indifferent to the small matters 
 of justice and fairness between emjjloyer and emi^loye. I am work- 
 ing for him, but frankly I cannot respect him." 
 
 I suggested that if it were arranged that the Colonel and I would 
 be lost in the mine for a day or two he would get an experience that 
 might do him good. 
 
 Plans were so carefully laid that the following day when the 
 Colonel and myself accompanied a party through the mines we were 
 seemingly lost in an abandoned working. Realizing the situation, 
 the Colonel shouted until he was hoarse. I also shouted, but having 
 a frog in ray throat, could not make much noise. 
 
 "Confound these blamed mines," stormed the Colonel. "I 
 should have known better than to come into one of them. I hate 
 them. They are dirty and dangerous places, and no human being 
 should go into one of them. " 
 
 "But, Colonel," I said, "some poor fellows must labor in them 
 every day, never seeing the light of the sun except once a week." 
 
 "Pough!" said the Colonel. "Nothing but a lot of drunken 
 
50 DOWN IN A COAL MINE. 
 
 vas^ibands. Not human beings. The first thing most of them do 
 when they have a chance to get to the sunlight is to get so intoxi- 
 cated they cannot see eitlier companionship) or the sunlight. Pough ! 
 Cattle! If they would save their money they would nut need to 
 work long in such a place. We pay good wages. " 
 
 "How much money have yoa saved, Colonel?" I had learned 
 that the) Colonel had inherited great wealth and of course had never 
 denied himself anything to save a dollar, and what took the point 
 from his argument, much of his money had been spent in placing 
 himself in the condition he dejilored in the miners, of being unable 
 to recognize either friends or sunlight. He recognized the double 
 question in the one, and actually blushed until a glow of light was 
 cast ou the dark walls of the room. Even the hide of a rhinoceros 
 can be punctured if one hits hard in the right place. 
 
 To be brief, the rest of the party had gone beyond the reach of 
 our shouting, and we stumbled and searched and shouted through 
 the deserted chambers hour after hour for twenty-four long, long- 
 hours. Our miner's lamps lasted only a few hours and for all the 
 time afterward we were fumbling around in the dark. It was hot 
 pleasant for me, but I am willing to endure hardships if good may 
 come of it. Bfisides, I had a lunch and plent}' to drink, although 
 the Colonel knew nothing of it and got non3 of it, and I knew the 
 way out and could have gone out at any time, but the Colonel had 
 the misery of believing us to be hopelessly lost and starving. 
 
 Exhausted by his efforts and misery, the Colonel fell down on 
 the hard ground and went to sleep. 
 
 Thinking this a good time to get some fresh air, I left the mine, 
 carefully locking the door to the chamber holding the victim. 
 
 It seemed cruel to leave tlie poor fellow alone so long in that 
 black chamber of horrors, but every time I thought of the indiffer- 
 ence ot mine owners to the fate of the poor men who are compelled 
 to spend their whole lives in tiiose dark, dirty places I took an extra 
 hitch in ray conscience and stayed away an hour longer. As these 
 thoughts recurred twenty-four times, it was just that many hours 
 later when I returned to the mine. 
 
 I found a raving maniac. The Colonel was shouting and tearing 
 about the chamber, climbing up the side, falling back, beating the 
 hard wall with liis fist, stojiping to throw chunks of coal at supposed 
 demons or chasing frantically from side to side to escape them. He 
 
DOWN IN A COAL MINE. 51 
 
 was so far gone that he diJ not recognize me hy the dim miner's 
 lump I carried, and kept alternately det'yini^ and runnin;; from the 
 creatures of his disordered mind. 
 
 "Well," I thought, "this is going too far this time. It was a 
 case calling for heroic treatment, but maybe I have overdone it." 
 
 The Colonel paid no attention to my soothing words, so grabbing 
 him around the shoulders in a manner to pinion his arms, I carried 
 him to the main shaft and we were soon hoisted to the mouth of the 
 mine. There was no one about except the manager, who was wait- 
 ing for us. When we reached the open air I still held the Colonel 
 in my arms, soothing him with quieting words and giving him a 
 stimulatins drink. Gradually the iiaunted look disappeared from 
 his eyes, and he returned to a consciousness of the world about him. 
 
 "I thouglit you had left me!" he exclaimed. "Oh, horrors! 
 And the rats came in and nibbled and nibbled and nibbled and I fled 
 from them and ran my head against a wall. Oh, what a time! Are 
 we safe? I am so hungry. My, what an exi^erience ! No, I never 
 !^av(!d anything. I never had any pity for the poor devils that had 
 to work in the mines, and all the poor devils who had worked and 
 suffered and died and were drowned and blown up in the mines 
 turned themselves into real devils and burned me with red-hot coals 
 and laughed and jeered until I thought I was crazy. Oh my, Oh 
 my ! It was awful !" 
 
 Greedily taking the food and drink I had brought, he devoured 
 it ravenously. Fearful that he would harm himself, I insisted upon 
 his resting while I brought water and bathed his face and hands. 
 Refreshed and re.stored to his right mind, we started for the home 
 of the manager. Before we had gone half the distance wo were 
 a center of interest tor half the town. The Colonel was a fright, 
 [lis clothes were torn in strips, and he looked like walking coal dust 
 more than a man. I had washed part of the dirt from his face, but 
 his hair and beard were filled with the black dust, and streaks and 
 furrows were left across his features in all the directions of the com- 
 pass and then some. 
 
 The manager could have provided a closed carriage to meet us, 
 but we had figured it out in advance that this public humiliation of 
 the Colonel would have a good effect. Of course our victim had no 
 suspicion as yet that we were responsible for his awful experience. 
 The manager had kept searching parties iu the mine, and had raised 
 
52 DOWN IN A COAL MINE. 
 
 ix great hullabaloo over our disappearance. Of course he knew 
 where we were all the time. 
 
 Well, the Colonel was taken care of, and wa? none the worse 
 mentally or physically for the dreadful experience. 
 
 The conspirators were very much in doubt about the result, 
 however. We had not thouglit it best to explain our part in the 
 affair but were hoping that the awful experience would impress its 
 own lesson. 
 
 The Colonel gave no sign. Not a word, until four long days 
 later at the nsual dinner given to the heads of the departments on 
 the eve of his departure, he arose to make a speech, as was cus- 
 tomary at that time, when he said : 
 
 "You all know the frightful ordeal I have passed through on 
 this visit, and I have reserved this occasion for saying that it was 
 the most blessed experience of my whole life." 
 
 Here the manager reached under the table and pinched me until 
 I almost howled with pain. 
 
 "I went into the darkness and found the light," the Colonel 
 continued, as the stir ot interest subsided to eager attention. "In 
 the shadow of the grave I saw the hollow mockery of the life I had 
 been leading. The question of our friend, 'What have you saved?' 
 repeated itself over and over. 'What have you saved? What have 
 you done?' the demons shouted. 'What have you saved? What have 
 you done?' the countless millions of reverberations echoed. The 
 awful horrors of the darkness, of the real and imaginary imps of 
 terror, injpressed me with sympathy for the unfortunates who delve 
 in such places to earn bread for themselves and families. For the 
 first time in my life I tasted the sweets of sympathy for human 
 suffering and for a time that dark cavern was lighted with a blessed- 
 ness and peace I had never known. Then I went to sleep. When I 
 awoke I missed my companion and the horrors that followed are 
 indescribable. However, the terrors are over, the memory of that 
 exaltation that came from the mere feeling of sympathy for the 
 oppressed, remains. I am glad to have had the experience. It has 
 broadened my life immensely. It has developed an interest in my 
 tellow-men I had never thought worth the having. Those few 
 blessed moments of peace and happiness when, surrounded by dark- 
 ness and horrors, the mere sympathy for others brought light and 
 love and faith and peace to m3, were worth more than all the other 
 
DOWN IN A COAL MINE. 53 
 
 experiences of my lifetime. Su ricbij' do I treasure those few brief 
 moments that I must have more of them. So earnest am I that if 
 sympathy for suffering humanity will bring them, I shall educate 
 myself to such sympathy that I shall overflow with it, shall radiate 
 it in all directions, shall force it upon others in a Niagara of abun- 
 dance. As an earnest that the sympathy shall be real and perma- 
 nent, I now announce that from this moment this entire property 
 shall be held in trust and operated solely tor the benent of the men 
 who work the miijes. Every dollar of profit sliall be devoted to im- 
 prove the condition of those who by force of circumstances are com- 
 pelled to toil amid the darkness and dangers of this pit of the 
 inferno." 
 
 A hush followed, then enthusiastic applause. The sweet light 
 in the Colonel's eyes, the radiating countenance showed that he had 
 found more of that wonderful peace and happiness. 
 
 "But with all this new-found love for my fellow men, and a 
 pleasure in doing my share toward making the work of miners le.ss 
 distressful, I want to be practical," the Colonel cjntinued. "We 
 a-e paying goad wages. I shall not increase them. It is not the 
 wages but the system that is wrong. It is based upon, once a 
 miner, always a miner. It is a dreadful thought that in commenc- 
 ing work in a mine a man sentences himself to a lifetime of exclu- 
 sion from the blessed rays of the sun, from the comforts of a good 
 liome. from all that makes life worth the living. Yet someone must 
 do this work. Humanity must have coal, and at the best it is dan- 
 gerous and horror-inspiring work. Heretofore all the influences 
 have conspired to surround the miners with conditions that give 
 them no hope of escape from this work after they have commenced 
 it. We have encouraged miners in drunkenness and gambling in 
 Older that their wages would be soon spent and that they would be 
 forced to return to a kind of work that they would never do if they 
 were not in desperate need. We have been short-sighted. 
 
 "I learned one most important thing in that awful darkness. 
 I barned that the miner's craving for liquor is a purely physical 
 demand, so great that his intelligence could have no influence on his 
 conduct. At times when I was in that pit of darkness the craving 
 for liquor was maddening. I cared nothing fur the sunlight, friend- 
 ships, home, any of the comforts and enjoyments of healthy living. 
 All I wanted was drink, drink, forgetfulness, oblivion. I can now 
 
54 DOWN IX A COAL MINE. 
 
 readily understaml why so many miners coming to the ligiit of day 
 care nothing fur those things they seemingly shoald have missed the 
 most, and take a straight cut for a saloon. It is a tremendous physi- 
 cal impulse, and the conscience, the mind, all the good imi^alses are 
 swept before that demand like chaff before a gale. The miner is 
 therefore not to be blamed. It is for us who ai*o in responsible posi- 
 tions and who have our intelligence in control to arrange conditions 
 to take care uf these men when they are under that physical craving 
 and let their work result in ultimate good to them, instead of doing 
 what we have dune, acquiesce in their yielding to those physical 
 cravings in order that they may the sooner be without money and 
 forced back to underground toil. 
 
 "Hereafter there will be no liquor within reach of these mines. 
 There will be no gambling. The homes of the miners will be made 
 as comfortable as possible. We shall pay no money, bat shall pro- 
 vide for every comfort of the miner and his family, if he has one. 
 No man will be employed here who will stay less or longer than 
 thiee years and use the work as a means uf accumulating enough 
 money to start him in some employment in the sunshine and in the 
 pure air. To those who want to become farmers I will give special 
 opportunities. At the end of three years, at the wages we have 
 been paying, thf3 miner will have about $1500 with which he may 
 es;ablish himself in some other line of work, a sum that has heretofore 
 gone into the hands of the saloon-keepers and their hangers-on. Plis 
 place will be taken by some penniless man who can afford to waste 
 three years of his life in the darkness to establish himself in the 
 light. We will help these men to help themselves, using this tem- 
 porary ill that brightness and happiness may come. 
 
 "I have said that we vvould not increase wages. That is true. 
 It is more important to prove that a mine may be profitably run on 
 this system than that a few men may take the profits. I hope that 
 this new system will be so successful in making profits that every 
 other mine owner will be anxious to adopt it. In that way great 
 good will come to humanity. And I believe the profits will largely 
 increase. The one fact that lightens any hardship is a date for 
 definite release. We will have sober, willing, cheerful miners in- 
 stead of driven, hopeless, morbid men, many of them recovering 
 from sprees. The result will show in the output, and therefore in 
 the profits. 
 
DOWN IN A COAL MINE. 50 
 
 "At the same time, as I have said, I do not need the profits of 
 this mine and am willinji; to devote all of them to the betterment of 
 the men who work it, as a thanksfj;iving offering for the change in 
 my own oi)inions and consequent exultation in a happiness that I 
 never dreamed existed in this workl, but these profits will be spent 
 on them after they leave the mine. 
 
 ""I thank you for your kind attention. Let us drink a toast to 
 the success of the new system. Let us drink it in pure, sparkling 
 Vv'nler, the greatest gift of the natural world to the spiritual man!" 
 
 It is needless to say that the toast was responded to with un- 
 bounded enthusiasm. Every man present felt that a load had been 
 lifted from his conscience, that his work henceforth was to be a 
 pleasure and an inspiration, that petty oppression and encourage- 
 ment of vice was to be no longer his daily employment, no longer 
 a burden on his intelligence and conscience. 
 
 Beautiful flowers are born and open their loveliness in the 
 bright rays of sunlight, but the most beautiful flowers of all, the 
 flowers of patience, gentleness and kindness, blossom only in the 
 caverns of miserv. Such is the law of the universe. 
 
Knight of the Twentieth Century. 
 
 The Knight weighs 270 pounds, stands six feet three, well built, 
 and has had athletic training. He had been an unostentatiovis car- 
 penter, dreaming of the need of a Muscular Morality that would go 
 about the world punishing meanness. He fell heir to a small for- 
 tune, and his dream was made real. 
 
 THE THIRD DEGREE. 
 
 I was sitting in the office of a friend the other day, waiting for 
 him to return, when he came in. 
 
 "Whew !" he said. "I have been having the dadbingest time ot 
 my life. Done more work than I have done before since I carried 
 the hod. " (And that was a good many years before. ) 
 
 "Well, what have you been doing now?" I asked. 
 
 "You know I had a mortgage on a lot of small machinery and 
 office furniture in the Saika building across the street. The fellow 
 skipped out and I had to take possession of the stuff under the mort- 
 gage. He owed me all the stuff was worth, as I had it on my hands 
 and sold it on a small cash payment. When I went after it the 
 landlord came in and refused to let me use the elevator to bring it 
 down because the tenant owed him $20 rent. He demanded that I 
 pay it, or we could not use the elevator to get the stuff out of the 
 building. Well, it made me pretty hot for him to attempt to hold 
 me up to pay someone else's debt, and I hired a lot of men and we 
 carried it all down three flights of stairs. And that landlord stood 
 around grinning like an ape and threatening to sue me for damages 
 if we injured the stairs! Whew, but it was a job!" 
 
 "I have known that landlords do that, " I said, "and suppose 
 some tin-plate lawyers have told them they have the right to do it, ' 
 or they would not take the chances of damage suits, but it is not 
 right. If there is any legal paper in existence that ought to have 
 
THE THIRD DEGREE. 57 
 
 the fall protection of the basiness world, it is a mortgage, properU' 
 recorded. From tlie verj' nature of the basiness done with mort- 
 gages, the man who holds the moatga^e cannot be expected to keep 
 daily watch over the property or upon the debts the mortgagor may 
 be contracting. He has no legal right to do so, even if it were 
 practicable. The man to whom the debt is owing should .iudge of 
 the extent to vv'hich he can give credit. There is no secrecy about a 
 mortgage. It is a matter of public record. And every man who 
 gives credit does so with the full understanding that property in 
 evidence is more often than otherwise covered with a mortgage. 
 To take advantage of an innocent party to force him to pay another's 
 debt is an outrage. Either mortgages should be abolished entirely, 
 and that would disruijt our whole commercial system, or they should 
 be given protection by all honest men. The elevator was a semi- 
 public service and it took the property into the building with the 
 holder of the mortgage having no possible interest in the matter. 
 As a matter ot fact, the refusal of the use of the elevator to remove 
 it was as much a stealing and secreting of the property as if the 
 landlord had really removed it, and that would be a penitentiary 
 offanse, although I suppose there is a legal quibb'e that makes the 
 one technically an offense and permits the other. If the machinery 
 had been too heavy to be carried down the narrow and winding 
 stairs T suppose you would have surely been held up.'' 
 
 "It's an outrage, " said my friend, "and I vt'ould like to get 
 even with that bald-headed rooster for it." 
 
 "Well, let's get even with him. and make an example of him," 
 I said. "Not entirely because it is a personal matter, but here is 
 one little thing that is wrong, and perhaps we can correct it. This 
 man Brown — that's his name, isn't it?— Does he ever stay in his 
 o.Uce alone at night?" 
 
 "Yes, on the last night of every month ho works in the office on 
 the seventh floor — you can see the window over there— alone. Prob- 
 ably balancing up the month's basiness and making out bills. I 
 have seen him many times when I have, remained at the office to do 
 the same thing. About the only satisfaction I see that I can get 
 out of him is t-j sit across here and make faces at his window." 
 "And this is the last day of the month?" 
 "Yes, but I do not feel much like working tonight." 
 "Brown has not had as strenuous a day, and probably ho will 
 
58 THE THIRD DEGREE. 
 
 be at work. I will sa\' good-bye no»v, bat will see you tomorrow 
 and perhaps I will then have something amusing to relate." 
 
 About eight o'clock that evening I was in the Saika building, 
 and as I climbed the six flights of stairs to the office, I noticed that 
 none of the tenants were about, the engineer in the basement evi- 
 dently being the only person in the building except Mr. Brown. 
 
 Reaching his office, I walked in and he glanced up from his 
 work with startled surprise. 
 
 "Who are you and what do you want here?" he exclaimed. 
 
 With a quick movement, I was at his side with a hand over his 
 mouth and another holding him tightly in the chair. "If you will 
 ])romise not to make a noise, I won't hurt you. I merely want to 
 let you knovv that I will stand no foolishness. Will you promise?" 
 
 To the best of his ability he nodded assent. 
 
 Releasing him. I took a chair within reach, where I could sup- 
 press any attempt to make a noise, and said : 
 
 "I won't hurt you seriously if you will behave. But I happened 
 to hear that you tried a^ain today to work that old fraud of making 
 one man pay another's debts, and I am going to punish you for it. 
 The punishment is not as severe as what you will get if you try to 
 evade it, and my advice is for you to take your medicine like a 
 little man. You have got it coming." 
 
 "What do you mean, sir? This is an outrage. Get out of this 
 otJtice. I don't know anything about anybody paying someone else's 
 debts. I guess you are after the wrong man." 
 
 "That is just what we called it — an outrage. Yes, you do know 
 all about it. I mean preventing a man from removing mortgaged 
 l^roperty that your elevator brought into this building unless he 
 paid a debt that another man owed. ' ' 
 
 "Why, that's nothing. My lawyer told me I had a right to do 
 it. All the landlords do it. We are not running our elevators tor 
 every Tom, Dick and Harry that wants to use them.'' 
 
 "Perhaps not, but your elevator brought that property to the 
 floor on which it was located and took and placed it where the 
 holder of the mortgage could not have access to it without using 
 the same facilities. I am not enough of a lawyer to know whether 
 you are in the right from a legal standpoint or not, and suppose you 
 are, but it is a hold-up game morally, and if the law permits it the 
 law is wrong. 
 
THE THIRD DEGREE. 59 
 
 "I have no personal interest in this matter, but happened to 
 learn of the hard work a mnn had getting his property out of 3'our 
 bailding, and have taken a notion to let you know what climbing 
 up and down stairs means. Perhaps then you will not do it again." 
 
 He started to scream, but my brawny right was between the 
 collar and his neck in an instant and the scream became a gutteral 
 choke. "None of that, now. Come on, " and I yanked him to his 
 feet. "Give me your keys. " 
 
 He did so, reluctantly, of course, and sputtering. 
 
 " Take off your shoes. " He did so, reluctantly and sputtering. 
 
 Taking a chair from the office, with a hand on his collar I 
 pushed him out and half pushed and half carried him down the first 
 flight of stairs. 
 
 "Now," I said, sitting down in the chair I had brought along, 
 "j'ou have probably heard that in giving the third degree to crimi- 
 nals the chief sometimes makes them run up and down stairs a few 
 times to take the stubbornness out of them. I do not often copy 
 from others, but it seems to me that the poor fellow who toiled up 
 and down stairs today would rejoice if he could know that you>had 
 also done so, and I am going to copy other methods just thi'a'6l1<i;e. 
 Now run up to the top of the stairs and come back quickly. The 
 door of the olKce is locked, and don't forget that I can reath 'yoii 
 long before anyone can come to help you it you shout, and if I have 
 to come I will do things to you. ' > 
 
 "I'll make you sweat for this sometime." 
 
 "Perhaps so, but you are to do the sweating first. Start!" 
 
 He started. Presently he came down. Now, once again ! And 
 be a litte quicker this time." 
 
 Again he made the round trip. 
 
 "Now hustle up and back twice, just as fast as you can. Hus- 
 tle!" 
 
 He hustled. "That was fine! Do it again. •' 
 
 This time, just as Brown was rounding the corner on the return 
 trip, he noticed that my attention was temporarily diverted, and 
 throwing a leg over the railing he came sliding down with the force 
 of a catapult, slamming against me with a thud and throwing him- 
 self over my head and part way down the next stairs. With the 
 quickness of a cat he was on his feet and astride the next railing/ 
 headed downstairs and howling like an Indian. 
 
60 THE THIRD DEGREE. 
 
 I was dazed for an instant, but quickly realizing it would never 
 do to let him get away in his then frame of mind, I also straddled a 
 railing and tore along after him ! 
 
 Say, mister that was a race! Flight after flight, the game a 
 flight ahead, and the hunter wishing his trousers were greased so 
 that he could go faster. Gee! What wouldn't you give for a 
 picture of my 270 pounds of bigness 'sliding down the bannisters?' 
 The spurts were short, the curve in the middle necessitating a 
 slowing up, and at each landing it was 'off again, on again, gone 
 again.' Occasionally I would catch a glimpse uf Brown's red-striped 
 socks or his bald head glittering in the semi-darkness, beckoning me 
 on to greater speed madness. It was a hop-skip-and-a-jump affair, 
 slowing up and spurting, but it was faster than running down the 
 stairs, and neither of us dared give the other an advantage by 
 adopting the more dignified method of descent. At the third floor 
 I had a little good luck and gained on him. At the bottom he was 
 only half a flight ahead, with the fifty feet to the door for a sprint- 
 ing match. I struck bottom on the fly, and such a run as I made 
 for him ! And at the door I caught him. He was still yelling, but 
 fortunately no one had heard him, and I soon stojiped that. 
 
 Back to the top we labored, and back to his tread-mill job went 
 Brown — up and down, up and down, up and down. 
 
 Perhaps I kept him at it longer than I should, but that runaway 
 flight had got on my nerves and I could afford to take no chances 
 cm less than his utter humiliation and acknowledgment that a pun- 
 ishment of some kind was deserved. 
 
 I kept that bald-headed rooster chasing up and down those steps, 
 the sweat streaming from his face, limping and foot-soro in his 
 stockinged feet, until he was pleading and begging for mercy. 
 When he could stand it no longer and threw himself at my feet and 
 implored me to let him off, I concluded that the small offense had 
 met with perhaps too much jjunishment. 
 
 Raising him up and permitting him to sit on the stairs, I said: 
 
 "You knew that j'ou was taking a wrongful advantage, did you 
 not?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, of course. Us landlords have frequently discussed the 
 matter, and while we knew it was taking advantage of an innocent 
 party, we saw in it a way to get our money and were willing for 
 the other fellows to take care of themselves." 
 
THE THIRD DEGREE. 61 
 
 "You landlords have extraordinary laws in your favor, anyway. 
 Why are you not content with that!" 
 
 "We cannot always keep all our floors rented and we sometimes 
 have to take chances. If we can make the other fellov^ pay we do 
 it. Any way to get the money. " 
 
 "This a matter in which j-ou will not again attempt robbery. 
 These particular incidents do not come frequently, but there are 
 othfr matters in which landlords rob tenants and others under cover 
 of their peculiar legal privileges. If I ever hear of your doing any- 
 thing of the kind again I shall call upon j'ou again, and 3'ou will 
 think the affair of tonight a pink tea party in comparison. More 
 than that, I insist that if you do not want another visit from me, 
 you will either fight out in the courts this matter of lack of protec- 
 tion of mortgages by landlords until it is decided against them or 
 have the law amended if there is one covering the matter. I confess 
 that I do not know where the matter stands, but I do know it is 
 wrong. " 
 
 "I will promise never to do it again," said Mr. Brown, "but I 
 do not know what I can do about influencing others. You are 
 right, of course. It is plain robbery, nothing less, and a disruption 
 of accepted business conditions that would lead to anarchy if the 
 incidents were not rare and usually trivial. We excuse it because 
 others do it. It would cost a good deal, however, to do as you 
 saggest, and while I agree that the landlords are wholly in the 
 wrong in this particular thing, I would not like to bind myself to 
 a responsibility for doing anything except to pocket my own losses." 
 
 "You have an entire floor vacant just now, have you not?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "What rent do you ask?" 
 
 "Two hundred dollars a month." 
 
 "Any prospect of a tenant!" 
 
 "No " 
 
 "Could you work up any enthusiasm over the suggestion I have 
 made if I were to find you a tenant?"' 
 
 "I would make a conscientious effort to do something. I cannot 
 work up enthusiasm about anything just now. I need the money 
 badly. I have had some big losses lately. A fire destroyed two of 
 my residences, and hard luck seems to have bunched itself from all 
 directions at once. I have bsen thinking the experience tonight was 
 
62 THE THIRD DEGREE. 
 
 the last straw ' ' 
 
 "You poor fellow !" I exclaimecl. "One never knows the other 
 man's troubles till he gets behind the mask. I have felt that the 
 punishment tonight was too heavy for the light offense. ["Gosh ! I 
 should say so !" ejaculated Brown.] I started out for a lark," I 
 continued with a smile, "and your dash for liberty nearly turned it 
 into a tragedy. Let us now make it a comedy. I happen to know 
 a man who wants just such space as you have to rent, and I will 
 have him see you tomorrow. If you secure him as a tenant, he is a 
 good fellow and will help you carry out this other matter. Then 
 my night's work will bear good fruit. Let us go now. I will walk 
 upstairs this time and get your shoes and hat. " 
 
 Brown was pretty sore, but was sensible, after all, and the pros- 
 pect of securing a badly needed tenant helped him to recover his 
 good nature. 
 
 The business world is full of men vv'ho are really good fellows 
 bat perpetrate the most outrageous robberies and frauds because 
 "they all do it." 
 
 The next day I called at Brown's office with the friend who had 
 the day before so strenuously carried the stuff down stairs. He had 
 previously told me that he had been figuring upon renting this floor, 
 as he needed larger quarters. In fact, he had intended to tell Brown 
 to fix up the lease the preceding day when he went after the prop- 
 erty, but Brown talked first with a demand for the $20 that the 
 tenant was owing, and he declared to himself that he would not rent 
 from Brown if he never found a place to suit him. Relating to him 
 the adventure of the preceding evening, he was put in good humor 
 over the affair, reflecting that Brown was doing only what all other 
 landlords considered they had a right to do, and gladly went with 
 me to close up the lease. When this was done. Brown turned to me 
 with outstretched hand, saying : 
 
 "I want to shake hands with vou. I doubted your sincerity last 
 night when you said you had a tenant for me, and went home feel- 
 ing pretty sore, physically and mentally. I started inquiry this 
 morning and when I learned that you were the Knight of the Twen- 
 tieth Century I threw up my hands and said to myself that I might 
 as well take my medicine like a little man, as you expressed it. 
 You have too many friends for anyone to attempt retaliation. And 
 besides you are doing a splendid work. I urn sorry to have been a 
 
THE THIRD DEGREE. 63 
 
 victim, but I agree that some victim was necessary to stop a wrong, 
 even though it was not a great one. ' ' 
 
 We shook hands cordially, and Brown has sincerely turned him- 
 self into an amateur Knight to carry out our intention to correct 
 this particular wrong. 
 
 I don't want the job of punishing all the landlords for all the 
 mean things they do. I don't expect to live more than a hundred 
 years, and I could not possibly be in a thousand places at once. 
 
Sisiight of the Twentieth Century. 
 
 The Knight weighs 270 pounds, stands six feet three, well built, 
 and has had athletic training. He had been an unostentatious car- 
 penter, dreaming of the need of a Muscular Morality that would go 
 about the world punishing meanness. He fell heir to a sirall for- 
 tune, and his dream was made real. 
 
 A DEMOLISHED DIGNITY. 
 
 Nearly every man has a special friend who is nearer and dearer 
 to him than all other men, with whom he can share the sorrows, 
 hopes and sometimes absurd ambitions that the individual must 
 hide from the world at large. It is this inner and secret conscious- 
 ness that determines all the important decisions and actions of life, 
 and I pity the man who has no close friend in whom he can confide 
 and with whom he can take counsel. It is seldom that three such 
 friendships can bo found at one time. Yet many years ago, so many 
 that it makes me tired to count them, there worked in the same 
 carpenter shop with me, two other young men, Jim B. anli Bob R. 
 We were ambitious young fellows, each industrious and saving and 
 each hoping to accumulate sufficient funds to make a start in a 
 higher line of employment than pushing the plane. We worked side 
 by side and were almost inseperable out of working hours. In all 
 tilings we sympathized v\'ith and helped each other in the thousand 
 and one details that make up a present saving and sacrifice for 
 future benefit. Jim B. was a',small man, with a heart in him too 
 large for an elephant. Bob R. was almost as large as I, and a 
 whole-souled, generous, clean-minded gentleman in carpenter's over- 
 alls. For three years we labored and saved and planned together. 
 Jim's ambition was to start with a little store and become a mer- 
 chant. Bob had a natural genius for the study of medicine and 
 wanted to become a physician. I was more visionary, and hoped 
 to "strike it rich" with the invention of a mechanical contrivance 
 
A DEMOLISHED DIGNITY. 65 
 
 I had worked out on paper successfully, and as there was "millions 
 in it," I was anxious to get enough monej' ahead to work out the 
 idea in cold steel. We had each acquired a savings bank account 
 sufficient to enaljle us to give up daily work and attempt to realize 
 our ambitions at about the same time. I put my time and money 
 into the invention which did not invent but did use up all my capi- 
 tal, and returned to the carpenter's bench, where all these years I 
 have plodded along, making a living only, and dreaming of the 
 many, many things I would like to do. This was my life until I 
 inherited a little money, and now I am having fun with it. 
 
 Bob realized his ambition and was successful from the time he 
 won his diploma, and has for years owned a most successful sana- 
 tarium in an eastern state, where rich people who are troubled witii 
 cranky action of the brain are "l)oarded. " If they were poor people 
 it would be an insane asylum, but being very, very rich, or having 
 rich relatives, they boarded at a "sanatarium. " However, rich 
 people suffer from mental ailments as well as poor people, and it is 
 an honorable business to provide a home for them, and Bob has won 
 the success he deserves. 
 
 But poor Jim. He had barely four hundred dollars to start 
 with, and bought a small notion store in a suburban town. By 
 hard work and perseverance he managed to increase his stock to a 
 value of six hundred, but getting married aboui that time and the 
 expenses of a family coming along in increased ratio as the years 
 pas!^ed, he was never a nearer realization of his ambition to become 
 a great merchant than to measure off a few j-ards of goods at a time, 
 always only one lap ahead of the hungry wolf. He was a cheerful 
 little fellow, however, and his family was the delight of his life. 
 He never had any money for the usual luxuries of men, but denied 
 himself all other pleasures in the greater one of providing for the 
 comfort of his family. It was hard pulling, too. Sometimes he 
 would have enough money to meet his bills when they came due, 
 but it was usually after they were due and when they had to be 
 paid. So ran the years. A little fluctuation, but most of the time 
 with hard work and honest endeavor barely making a living. 
 
 I had a letter from Jim. The end had come. The daily fight 
 between income and outgo had been won by the outgo. The pendu- 
 lum of fluctuation swung a little too far, one creditor became im- 
 patient, and the modest original saving and his small stock of 
 
m A DEMOLISHED DIGNITY. 
 
 goods were quickly sacrificed in bankruptcy proceedings, and poor 
 Jim faced the world with a family of children and his means ot 
 a livelihood gone. He wrote to me for funds to tide him over until 
 he could again find employment as a carpenter. 
 
 Of course I sent him a liberal check and told him to rest and not 
 worry for a month, and I would come and see him and we could 
 easily arrange that he would not have to go back to the bench, at 
 his age. Blessed is money! It comes in mighty handy sometimes. 
 
 Indiscriminate charity does more harm than good, but after a 
 man has done his best and failed, what then? 
 
 A paragraph in his letter said: "You know that soon after I 
 was married, in a burst of self-confidence and affection for my new 
 wife, I permitted an agent to talk me into ten thousand dollars life 
 insvirance. It looked pretty good to me then, a's it was an endow- 
 ment policy, and I figured it would be a good way to save money, 
 and if anything should happen to me the family would not suffer, 
 while if I stuck to it I would pull out in the end with enough 
 to keep me the balance of my life, even if I should fail in every- 
 thing else. I did not figure on the demands of my small business 
 and the positive needs of a growing family. I kept up the big pay- 
 ments on this policy for several years, when the money was sadly 
 needed to add to the stock of goods upon which I was depending 
 for a living. Then I cut down to $7,000. Later another cut to 
 §5,000. Later another to §2,000. It was the payment of the prem- 
 ium on the latter that took the money that should have gone to the 
 creditor who forced me into bankruptcy. As I look back and think 
 of the benefit the premium money v^^ould have been to me in my 
 business and how I drained myself of cash so sadly needed to keep 
 that going and improving, I feel pretty sore over letting that agent 
 of the long ago talk me into it. This was the only luxury I ever 
 permitted myself. I don't smoke, drink or gamble, and it don't 
 cost me anything to swear, but I hung on and contributed those 
 payments year after year in th'i hope that it would be all right in 
 the end, and this is the end ! I honestly believe that if I had denied 
 myself this one luxury and put the money in the business — ^I was too 
 ambitious to do anything else, but the insurance gamble catches 
 men who have no other bad habits— the increasing stock each year, 
 even though little, would have brought increasing prosperity and 
 today I would have a good business and a means of earning the 
 
A DEMOLISHED DIGNITY. 67 
 
 supijort of my family. Now I am a beggar!" 
 
 A hard story that. Yet it has its duijlicates by the thousand. 
 The American people are insurance gambling mad. They insure 
 against every possible danger, present and prospective, and the pay- 
 ments bring a disaster that they insure— but not against. 
 
 This incident recalled the many discussions I had held with my- 
 self on this insurance gambling evil, but I had never been able to 
 think of any way of working out a remedy. No one is forced to 
 buy insurance. Agents are sometimes very persuasive, but it stops 
 at that. The individual has a free choice. And I don't see that 
 the agents or the officials of the campanies are to be blamed. People 
 want insurance— lots of it. They cry for it like babies cry for 
 soothing syrup, and it would not seem right to visit any of these 
 insurance peddlers with punishment, and probably no good would 
 come of it if I did. One could not correct a whole nation of the 
 gambling spirit by spanking one man. 
 
 However, this is all preliminary to a little fun I had last week. 
 I had not seen my friend, Bob R., for several years, and while I 
 did not feel the need of his sanitarium treatment (although SDme 
 people think I should) I decided to make him a visit. I spent 
 several days with him, and we certainly did have a good time, not 
 only in recalling old times, but Bob is an up-to-date man and a most 
 congenial companion in all that makes up good-fellowship. Of 
 course I related my experiences as a modern Don Quixote since I had 
 last written tn him about them, and we enjoyed many a good laugh 
 ovor them. On the evening of the fourth day he said to me : 
 
 "I must go down to the city tomorrow, and as my superinten- 
 dent is away for a few days there is no one to leave in charge. I 
 would not care particularly, as the help is competent and trust- 
 worthy, but Judge K., president of the Superb Life Insurance com- 
 pany, is coming tomorrow to visit a cousin who is here for treat- 
 ment, and I ought to have someone in seeming authority to lend 
 dignity to the situation. Will you be kind enough to do so by 
 posing as superintendent for the occasion?" 
 
 "With pleasure," I replied. "I don't suppose he will quiz 
 abont the technical features of your business, and I can pat up a 
 pretty big bluff if he does. " 
 
 "No fear of that," replied Bob. "He comes every month for a 
 short visit and will probably have very little to say to you." 
 
Od A DEMOLISHED DIGNITY. 
 
 I was glad that Bob did not see the smile that lighted up my 
 countenance just then. It flashed upon me that the stage setting 
 was perfect for a comedy with an insurance man as a star actor, 
 hat I did not want to get Bob into any possible trouble by sharing 
 in advance the notion of the wild scheme that came to me at the 
 instant. If anything should go wrong we could both swear that 
 Bob had no knowledge of my intentions and should therefore not be 
 held responsible. 
 
 So I concealed the smile with a fictitious yawn, and soon excused 
 myself to retire and think of the things I would do to the insurance 
 man. 
 
 With all my thinking I could not find a solution for the insur- 
 ance problem or locate any single individual whose punishment 
 would have the slightest bearing in correcting the evils that are so 
 closely interwoven with so much that is good. It is over-insurance 
 that is principally the fault, not the insurance principle. 
 
 However, it seemed to me that this visit of one of the shining 
 lights in the insurance world was too good an opportunity to be 
 lost and I decided to have some fun with him on general principles 
 and let the results take care of themselves. I also decided that since 
 I did not know what I wanted in the matter of resuKs or could 
 locate the individual who was properly the scape-goat. I would stir 
 up the insurance man lirst and then talk the matter over with him 
 when I was sure that he would at least be in a sei'ious frame of 
 mind, duly impressed with the possibility that other things might 
 happen to him. 
 
 The next morning, Bob called the employes together and ex- 
 plained that I was to bo in charge for the day, and instructed them 
 to follow any directions that I might give, and especially to impress 
 the visiting Judge K. that there was a responsible official in charge. 
 All the employes knew me and the special missionary work upon 
 which I had lately been engaged, and without its being intended 
 by Bob, these instructions nicely paved the way for what followed. 
 
 Soon after Bob departed I called the employes together again and 
 told them they were njt to be surprised at some of my actions dur- 
 ing the visit of the Judge. If perchance I was found to hd "running 
 amuck" they were to try to keep up the illusion, and in no event to 
 seek to interrupt me. They showed an appreciation of the possibili- 
 ties of the situation and retired Vv'ith broad grins. 
 
A DEMOLISHED DIGNITY. ' 69 
 
 About ten o'clock the Judge arrived. Of course he was a 
 Ijompous old fellow, with side whiskers, else why should be be 
 called "Judge?" He recognized his own importance, all right. He 
 bad success written all over bim in letters a foot wide. Not success 
 from calloused bands, but the manicured variety. Money success. 
 Dollars. Coin. Gold. Hard gold. 
 
 I did not meet bim as the superintendent, but was peeping out 
 of a front window. Persuant to my instructions, one of the office 
 men met him and escorted him to the room of his cousin. I retired 
 to a cell .and finished sawing through several bars of the grating 
 between it and the corridor, and having cleared away the evidences 
 of this preparation, sat down to svait for the rising of the curtain 
 and my cue for the spot-light. 
 
 After perhaps a half hour, I saw the office man and the Judge 
 coming slowly down the corridor. As they were passing my cell, 
 which the Judge knew to be in the incarable ward, I made a roar 
 and jumped against the iron bars. They gave way, and the two 
 men took to their heels, witli me after the Judge, grovviing savagely, 
 altbousb careful not to make a noise that would arouse the inmates. 
 And the Judge flew! His hat dropped off and his hair stood up like 
 a pompadour. His long coat tails flapped in the breeze created by 
 bis swift motion. His dignity dropped from bim in an instant and 
 his fat legs pattered down that corrider at a great rate. Ha was a 
 pretty good sprinter when be was scared. At the end of the ball 
 was a door leading dovvnward, but it was locked, and I was so close 
 behind that the Judge did not hesitate an instant after finding it out 
 but started upstairs. I was after bim so close that I reached out a 
 hand to grasp him and stumbled and fell. The Judge didn't stop- 
 be didn't even hesitate. To the top he flew, with the supposed 
 crazy man a few jumps behind. Then through a long corridor to 
 the end and down the back stairs, the pursuer just missing bim 
 again. I bad planned to give the Judge a lively chase through 
 these two floors, but as we neared the door in the lower corridor an 
 attendant came in and before 1 could shout to stop him the Judge 
 bad brushed past him and was oat and leaping do»vn the stairs, four 
 steps at a jump. But I was after him. On the next flojr was an 
 attendant. He took one look and fied. On the next floor was 
 another attendant. As the Judge passed him be bowled for bim to 
 stop me. The attendant pretended to try to do so, but I bowled bim 
 
70 A DEMOLISHED DIGNITY. 
 
 over and sent hi in sprawling, the wild-eyed Judge glancing back 
 just in time to see his hope of help vanishing. Here was the door 
 leading to the street, but it was locked. 
 
 By this time the Judge was thoroughly frightened and was 
 panting and sweating at a tremendous rate. The attendant's inter- 
 ruption had permitted him to gain a little, and he wasted valuable 
 seconds trying several doors to rooms, but they were all locked. 
 Then another rush, this time upstairs to the second floor. Here was 
 a reception room, but I was too close for the Judge to try to close 
 the doors. Across the room the Judge made one flying leap, to the 
 big front window, with his shoulder he broke out the pane of glass 
 and was out on top of the porch, and throwing himself over the 
 edge, dropped to the ground before I fully realized his intention. 
 But I was after him. Through the broken window I went, and off 
 the porch, landing solidly a few feet behind the victim. It was 
 then a straight race and the Judge had no chance. I caught him 
 and after a short struggle held both his arms behind him by the 
 wrist?, faced him toward the entrance and said: "Forward, 
 march !" 
 
 Not knowing what else to do, the Judge marched. The door 
 was opened by one of the attendants, and into the building and into 
 the office we marched. Releasing the Judge, 1 told him to sit down. 
 I told the two men in the office to retire until I called them, and 
 then I threw myself into a chair and laughed one of ray big, big 
 laughs. "You're it!" I said. "You're it!" 
 
 "All right," said the Judge, still believing I was an escaped 
 inmate and thinking he could get away if he humored me. "I'll bo 
 It, now you run and let me catch you," at the same time keeping 
 an eager eye on the door beyond me. 
 
 "You'll be It, all right,'' I replied, "but we won't run any 
 more. We will try another game. It will be a puzzle game. It 
 will be puzzle, puzzle, where does the insurance money come from? 
 
 "I am not one of the inmates," I continued, smoothing my 
 hair, wiping the perspiration from my face, and trying to Jegain a 
 look of sanity, "bat an old-time and warm personal friend of Doctor 
 Bob, who left me in charge of the sanitarium today while he made 
 a trip to the city, and I staged a comedy for your benefit and be- 
 cause there is a motive of tremendous importance behind it. I want 
 to say that Doctor Bob is not in any way responsible for it, and if 
 
A DEMOLISHED DIGNITY. 71 
 
 you have any resentment it should bo all for me, as the doctor did 
 not dream that I would try to play any of my pranks with one of 
 the patrons of his institution. However, it will come out all right. 
 You and I will be good friends after the sense comes from behind 
 this seeming insanity. I am a professional correcter of abuses, and 
 as you represent a system that is full of them, it is my desire that 
 we get our heads together for their consideration with a soul-stirring 
 earnestness that could never be brought about in the ordinary 
 methods of meeting. My guess may be wrong, and you may have 
 nothing but stiff resentment for this informal introduction, but I 
 believe you will meet me half way in an appreciation of this little 
 comedy and that nothing less than such a whirlwind would have 
 swept aside the selfishness, priggishness and formalities of ordinary 
 business and social intercourse and enable us to get to a heart-to- 
 heart talk as if we had known each other ail our lives." 
 
 At first the Judge stared at me, then as it slowly dawned upon 
 him that I was not insane, he sank into a chair, mopping his face 
 with a handkerchief, and a sickly grin overspread his countenance. 
 
 "Say! Are you Bob's friend that he calls the Knight?" 
 
 I acknowledgcid that I was. 
 
 "Sure! And if I had not been so badly scared I wouLl have 
 known it. Bjb has shown me your picture and he never tires of 
 telling me about the fun you are having, and incidentally praising 
 the good you are doing. I have been in full sympathy witii your 
 work and would have been delighted to have made your acquaint- 
 ance in the ordinary way. 
 
 "However," he continued, and another grin came over his face 
 as he remembered the undignified bat comical experience of a few 
 moments before, "I doubt if I would have given much attention to 
 any erfort you might make to indues me to take up a reform in insur- 
 ance circles. We are all ready to say 'Go it, old boy !' when some- 
 one else is to be corrected. Our own pet affair is different. But 
 you have given me such a shaking up that I haven't any dignity 
 left to stand on. All I feel like doing is to helplessly ask what you 
 want me to do.' ' 
 
 "I don't know," I replied. "That is the worst of it. I see a 
 great evil. I see suffering and hardshijDs and wrongs, and don't see 
 any way to find a remedy or any responsible head. I do not know 
 what to do or what can be done. This matter has laid heavv on 
 
72 A DEMOLISHED DIGNITY. 
 
 my heart for a lonK time, and I saw no light. When I learned that 
 you were coming today, I decided to organize a general mix-up 
 legardless of consequences and see if something would result. It 
 was like shooting at a squawk in the dark on the chance of hitting 
 u chicken thief. That you have taken this hilarity as it was in- 
 tended is a cause for congratulation. It seems ridiculous, but after 
 all, as you say, this matter has affected you in a personal way and 
 that makes it a personal matter. I usually suggest a line of pro- 
 cedure to my victims and follow it with a threat that if they do 
 not follow my wishes I will come again and again, but I have noth- 
 ing of the kind to say to you. If I have made this a personal mat- 
 ter vvfith you, I am content." 
 
 "Thank you," said the Judge. "I feel better, and with careful 
 nursing ought to be able to sit up and take nourishment in a day or 
 two. " 
 
 "But this insurance gamble is a serious matter," I continued. 
 "Here is one instance. A very near and dear friend of both Bob 
 and myself has wrecked his life, or would have done so had I not 
 been able to provide him with funds. " I gave him the paragraph 
 in Jim's letter to read. 
 
 "This is only one of thousands of cases. Few people realize the 
 toil, the suffering, the denying themselves of the comforts of life 
 that is represented by the millions piled up in the keeping of the 
 insurance companies. Much of the money paid oat on the rich 
 man's insiirance gamble by his heirs cashing in a million dollars 
 of insurance payment is wrung from the toil and sweat, dollar after 
 dollar, of poor people, who make sacrifices innumerable for it. The 
 princely salaries of the officers, and the generous commissions of 
 agents and sub-agents mean millions of hours of toil over wash- 
 tubs, in the hot glare of the blast furnaces, the dark dangers of the 
 mine. And what do these poor people get in return? Protection? 
 No. The profits and these vast expenses come from lapses. The 
 insurance is taken out and carried when the insured is in good 
 health and easy financially. It lapses when old age, disease and 
 financial reverses come. The rich man gambles, and wins. The 
 jioor man gambles and loses. Of course there are many instance!? of 
 the payment of insurance monej' to poor people and it comes as a 
 welcome relief in a time of distress. But an enormous per cent of 
 the money paid in goes out in other ways. And the worst of it is, 
 
A DEMOLISHED DIGNITY. 73 
 
 nearly every dollar (if it is blood-money in the starving, the slaving, 
 the self-denial that comes from sparing a part of daily wages, all ot 
 which is sadly needed for decent living. " 
 
 I was growing quite enthusiastic and very earnest. As I paused. 
 Judge K. looked at me intently, a merry tv>^inkle came to his eyes, 
 and he threw back his head and laughed heartily. 
 
 "My dear friend," he said, "you have only been paddling 
 around the edges of that great ocean of rottenness. Your friend Jim 
 is a drop of water just running from the -sjoring to the edge of the 
 vast sea. And it is a mess of rottenness and corruption. I could 
 tell you of murders committed, children strangled, wives and 
 mothers and daughters selling their souls to got money to carry to 
 the feet of the dragon god of this monster cess-pool. Families separ- 
 ated, men and women and children starved, jails filled, gallows 
 bearing their gruesome fruit, nil, all sacrificed to the fiendish lust to 
 gamble, gamble, with human life at stake and human souls the 
 price. Fire insurance represents all these horrors and the added 
 ones of arson and perjury, crimes perpetrated successfully and crimes 
 found out and punished. That four-fifths of the fires upon which 
 insurance is demanded occur between 2 and 5 a. m., when naturally 
 there should be fewest fires because there are practically none about 
 who by carelessness can cause them, no machinery moving, no 
 lights or fires burning, tells a tale (if its own. But the evils I have 
 suggested are not all. The accumulated moneys are a corruption 
 fund that i^ermeates every avenue of political life and debauches the 
 elected servants of the people. And it does not stop there. The 
 vast accumulated funds are u.sed as cash resources in the greatest 
 game of stock gambling the world has ever known, where savings 
 as well as trust funds and the stealings of unfaithful employes are 
 enticed into the big net through the advice of staid brokers and 
 respectable bankers, and all added to the avalanche of money that 
 grows and crushes more and more as its weight increases. 
 
 "Suicides, murder, arson, betrayal of trust, jailbirds, starva- 
 tion, poverty, failure, wretchedness, wholesale debauchery, thesn 
 are synonyms of the word insurance. Ah, if you could see what I 
 have seen, if you could know the inner secrets of this business— the 
 bad side of it, I mean — you would wonder vvhy an outraged justice 
 has not crushed the whole earth because of it. 
 
 "And if you will permit me, T will take you to see part of the 
 
74 A DEMOLISHED DIGNITY. 
 
 fruits of this business. You have seen only the edge of this black 
 ocean. Come with me and I will show you the dead men's bones 
 that lie buried there. Will you spend tomorrow with me in the 
 city?" 
 
 "Indeed, I will, with pleasure," I said. 
 
 "At the same time," the Judge said, "I am like you in that T 
 do not see a remedy. The insurance principle is a good thing. It 
 is the faults in the system that bring the terrible results we see. I 
 don't know where to go to mete out punishment, if punishment 
 could bo given. It is a great hydra-headed monster that has grown 
 up in man's relation to man that has nO sponsor. It is one of the 
 great influences of the universe that like the waters of the sea may 
 be pure and health-giving and in an instant turned to poison or 
 given the destructive force of a tidal wave. I have realized all 
 these evils, vastly more than have you, good Sir Knight. But what 
 can one man do, and what can two men do? We might as well try 
 to dip the ocean dry with a spoon ! 
 
 "But I must be going now. Come to my office tomorrow at 9 
 o'clock and I will repay your comedy with tragedy — a tragedy that 
 will make you sadder, but if it will have the same effect that the 
 comedy has had on me, it will mali^e you a wiser man." 
 
 And I promised. 
 
 The next morning I was in his office promptly at the time ap- 
 pointed and after a few moments of social chatting he pushed a 
 button and directed that a Mr. G. be sent to the office. 
 
 Mr. G. entered and was introduced to me as an adjuster for the 
 corajjany. He was a shrewd, wirj' man, with the brightest eyes I 
 ever saw in a human head, and half closed at that. Judge K. said 
 that upon arriving at the office the day before he had explained to 
 the adjuster that I had a particular reason for seeing the bad side of 
 the insui-aiice business and he was to select as large a list of cases 
 as could be investigated in one day. He wanted the cases where 
 disaster came either directly or indirectly from carrying insurance. 
 
 The three of us were soon whirling away in a big automobile. 
 
 After a time we reached the tenement district and found our 
 way to one of them. 
 
 The door was opened by one of the sweetest faced boys I have 
 ever seen. The recent burial of his father had brought about a 
 cleaning up of face, clothing and house that was evidently not ordi- 
 
A DEMOLISHED DIGNITY. 75 
 
 nary, but I was thankful that I had an unobstracted view of that 
 winsome face. The mother, in widow's weeds, was in the room 
 when we entered, and two daughters, one about ten and the other 
 about twelve. The adjuster introduced himself and stated that the 
 object of the call was to secure the necessary evidence upon which 
 to pay the insurance. 
 
 The widow greeted us elfusively and immediately began pouring 
 out a tale of trouble. 
 
 She said that she was so giad that they were looking after the 
 mutter promptly, that they were in sad need of money. The hus- 
 band, who had been killed by an elevated train, had been out of 
 work for t\vo months and every dollar of money and cj'edit had been 
 exhausted. They were subsisting on the three dollars a week the 
 elder daughter was eaining, the mother's eyes being so poor she was 
 not able to do much in the way of earning maney, although she had 
 always helped some. 
 
 The adjuster asked: "Your husband had been quite despondent 
 lately, had he not?" 
 
 "Oh, yes," replied the woman. "He was nearly crazy because 
 he could get no work. All our money was gone and all we had to 
 live on was the three dollars a week that Millie earned. 
 
 "I know the insurance premiums were all paid, " she continued 
 fagerly, "for the money Tom got the night he was fired was used 
 to pay the insurance. I know- that's all right. And you will pay 
 me the money promptly, won't you? We need it so badly." 
 
 With a few more inquiries, we left, the adjuster telling her that 
 the matter would be given attention. When we reached the auto- 
 mobile, the adjuster whispered to Judge K. : "Do you Vv'ant him to 
 know the whole truth?-' » "Yes," was the reply. 
 
 Turning to me, the adjuster said : 
 
 "But the widow will not get the insurance. It is known that 
 the man who was killed was despondent and drinking. It is claimed 
 that he fell off the platform at the elevated station and was acciden- 
 tally killed. It is our business to never pay out a dollar if we can 
 help it. We will contend that it was suicide, and will find some- 
 where two witnesses who will swear that they saw him deliberately 
 throw himself in front of the car. The street railway company is 
 also interested to the extent of wanting to avoid a damage suit, and 
 since their political influence and ours elected the j idgs who would 
 
76 A DEMOLISHED DIGNITY. 
 
 try any case against us, and elected the men who will select the 
 .iary, there is little chance of having to pay much if anything to the 
 widow, even if she could raise the money to keep the matter in 
 court eight to ten years. Her case, anyway, would be taken by a 
 cheap skate of a lawyer, who could be reached with fifty dollars if 
 we did not choose to employ these other agencies." 
 
 '"Gee, whiz!" 
 
 The next place was in a thirty dollar a month flat neighborhood. 
 We were ushered into a flat bearing every evidence of clean and 
 healthful living. It was modest bat comfortable. A gray-haired 
 lady welcomed us, apologizing for the absence of her husband. The 
 lady was dressed in black, and although her face was kindly, it 
 showed many evidences of mental suffering. The settlement was to 
 be made in this instance with the jiarents for a son, who had carried 
 $5,000 endowment policy insurance on his wife, who had recently 
 died, and the same amount on himself. The adjuster explained that 
 he had merely called to leave the check and take her receipt for the 
 amount, and the formalities vvcre soon gone through with. As she 
 signed the receipt, the lady, who had seemingly been suffering great 
 mental agony, burst into tears, and we left her with her head bowed 
 to the table, sobbing bitterly. 
 
 Reaching the automobile, I suggested that the lady did not seem 
 to appreciate the prompt payment of the money. 
 
 "Her son is serving a five year term in the penitentiary for 
 stealing money to keep up the policies, and the wife died of grief," 
 was the laconic reply of the adjuster. 
 
 We next went to a part of the city where I was glad it was 
 broad daylight and two eminently respectable men in comj^any with 
 me. » 
 
 The party to be interviewed was one of the denizens, and she 
 was also given a check and signed a receipt. As she handed the 
 leceipt to the adjuster, she turned to a colored servant and said : 
 "Hustle in a couple of bottles of champaign, quick." 
 
 "I want you to have a drink on me," she said to us. "Getting 
 the money to keep up the premiums brought me iiere, and now I 
 am going to have a merry time and a quick one. Bill was a merry 
 old soul, and I am sorry he is gone, but it looked too good to me to 
 be a rich widow sometime and Bill found it out. I am the rich 
 widow, all right, gentlemen, and here's a hip, hij), hurrah, for a 
 
A DEMOLISHED DIGNITY. 77 
 
 merry widow time!" 
 
 \V(! tried to refuse the proffei'ed treat and upon our insistence, 
 after she had opened one bottle, she banded the other to the adjuster 
 with a wink and said: "Perhaps 'the nice gentlemen don't like to 
 drink in a lady's presence. Take this along and give them a chance 
 at it when no one is looking." 
 
 After leaving the hoase some distance behind, I said to the 
 adjuster: "If you don't care particularly for that bottle, I wish 
 yoj woald give it to me." 
 
 "Certainly," he said, and did so. 
 
 Asking the chauffeur to stop, I gut out of the automobile, walked 
 to a telephone pole, and smashed that bjttle into a million pieces. 
 
 Not a word was said by any of us. 
 
 The next stop was after a long ride to the suburbs. It was the 
 home of market-gardeners, foreigners, but of what nationality I do 
 not know. An old man had died on whom $1,000 had been carried 
 by two surly and ignorant sons. The father had taken out insurance 
 early in life, the life policy only, and had managed to keep up the 
 pi'emiums until a few years before, when he had become old and 
 lielplass and his sons recognizing that he had not long to live, were 
 supporting him and paying the premiums because it would surely 
 sjon come back to them. 
 
 The adjuster demanded the right to make a thorough examina- 
 tion of the premises. He stopped longest in the bed-room formerly 
 occupied by the father. A pane of glass was out of the window and 
 the hole was covered with a thin cloth. The father had died of 
 pneumonia. 
 
 "How did the glass get out of that window?" the adjuster asked. 
 
 "It was broken by a boy throwing a ball," replied one of the 
 sons. 
 
 There was every indication that the pane of glass had been 
 deliberately removed from the window, and the adjuster made a 
 thorough search of the premises. He found what he was looking 
 fur, a pane of glass of the right size. Bringing it in. he fitted it to 
 the window, and called my attention to a streak of paint that went 
 across a corner of the glass and over the wood work of the window. 
 
 "A plain case of deliberate removal of the glass to bring about 
 a cold, probably also invited by lack of clothing and partial starva- 
 tion," said the adjuster. "We will not try to convict theai of 
 
78 A DEMOLISHED DIGNITY. 
 
 murder, although they are guilty, b;it since I have taken possession 
 of this pane of glass they will not even make a claim for the insur- 
 ance. " 
 
 The next case vi-as a parallel in its history with that of my 
 friend Jim, although the man did not have a friend to help him 
 out when he failed. He returned to the work of a brickmason, was 
 (lid and unaccustomed to exposure. He caught cold, became ill and 
 died. This occurred so promptly that there had not been time for 
 the insurance policy to lapse, and the $3,000 came as a life-saving 
 benefit to the widow and children. Bat the husband was dead. 
 
 The automobile whirled us to the factory district. As we were 
 entering a squalid flat building, the adjuster said: 
 
 "It is not a part of my work to investigate the causes of lapses 
 in payments of premiums, but I prepared for your benefit a list of 
 names in a small district here where a quick investigation can be 
 made. I know nothing of either. " 
 
 The adjuster introduced himself to a slatternly-dressed Vv'oman 
 who answered the door and she invited us in and with much voluble 
 effusion took us to a bed upon which an elderly man was lying, 
 helpless from illness and age. The man was suffering from paralysis 
 and could not even move his head without assistance. His brain was 
 clear, however, and when the adjuster said he came to investigate the 
 cause for the lapse in his insurance policy and to sae if it were not 
 pjEsible to have it renewed, his eyes brightened wonderfully and a 
 glad, glad smile came over his wan face. 
 
 "Oh, thank you, thank you," he said. "I did not expect any- 
 thing of the kind, because I did not know there was any system for 
 lie^ping the reinstatement of such policies as mine. Bat you will 
 do something, won't you? You will do justice to me, won't you? 
 After all these years, starting with a policy of -^j.OOO and growing 
 at different times to an aggregate of $100,000, then falling back by 
 stages of $5,000 and §10,000 at a time to the last $2,000, and then to 
 even lose that at the last, when it is all I have to keep me from 
 being turned into the street, is hard, hard. Oh, if the mind would 
 only die when the body becomes helpless! 
 
 "You will do something, won't you? It can be reinstated, can- 
 not it? Then this good woman who is keeping me from death in 
 the streets, since the overcrowded hospitals refuse to take me, will 
 take care of ms until I die. Poor woman, she has paid the premiums 
 
A DEMOLISHED DIGNITY. 79 
 
 and taken care of m6 for three j-ears and it will be hard for her to 
 lose everything. She will not let them go bj' default again. She 
 will work her fingers to the bone before she will do so again. She 
 t\'a«, sick when the last one should have been paid. But she won't 
 do it again. You will let me be reinstated, won't j'ou, pleases 
 Judge? I know you. Yes. And you know me. Thirty years ago 
 I was the .judge on the supreme bench in this state to whom you 
 gave twenty thousand dollars on an assurance that a certain decision 
 would be rendered of vital importance to the insurance companies. 
 Y<!)u paid me that money, Judge. And that moment in my career 
 marked the beginning of my downfall. In twenty years I was in 
 the gutter. It was hard, Judge, after standing so high. But, oh, 
 how I have hung onto that insurance! Part at a time it waS 
 dropped, and at the last I was guilty of every petty theft to get the 
 price of the premium. But you will reinstate me. Judge, won't 
 you? For old times' sake. Judge, do this for a man who is down 
 and out. " ■ ' 
 
 After we left, the adjuster said: "Of course he will not be re- 
 instated. He is a dead dog in the pit We used him when he had 
 lighting strength, but it is him for the carrion pit now." 
 
 The Judge said nothing. 
 
 I could think of a hundred things to say, but said nothing. 
 
 At the next place we found almost equally poverty-stricken con- 
 ditions. The woman had been paying the premiums with money 
 earned over the wash-tub doing work at small jorices for people who 
 were in but little better condition. A son had been arrested for a 
 petty offensie and the premium money had been used to keep him 
 out of jail. 
 
 Tl)e next place the wages of a fourteen-year-old boy had been 
 depended upon for the policy money. He stayed out late one night, 
 was sleepy and caused an accident the next day, and was fired. 
 Rake and scrape as best they could, they were not able to raise the 
 money. The insurance lapsed. The father was old and sickly and 
 of course new insurance could not be taken out. 
 
 But why continue a recital so unpleasant? I had the nerve to 
 stay with the investigations until late in the evening, and each was 
 but a repetition in a new form of the long, long struggle to pay the 
 premiums only to lose when there was a prospect of realizing on 
 them in the time of need, or a resort to crimes unspeakable in an 
 
 #- 
 
80 A DEMOLISHED DIGNITY. 
 
 attempt to secure the stakes in the great gambling game. Surely 
 the Judge had properly expressed it when he said it was a great 
 ocean of rottenness. 
 
 As the evening grew late, the Judge asked me to go home with 
 him as his guest, and arriving there we agreed that we were too ti7'ed 
 for a discussion of the experiences of the day, and that it would be 
 taken up the following evening, after our minds could have time to 
 become clear and the depressing effect of the day's events be par- 
 tially worn away. 
 
 The next evening in the library of the Judge's palatial home, 
 we were ready for a discussion of the great insurance problem. 
 
 "Let us waive a discussion of the conditions as we know them 
 to exist, " said the Judge. "The experiences of yesterday are too 
 fresh in mind for a revival of their horrors. We are agreed that the 
 evils are great, but where is the remedy? 
 
 "I have thought on this subject deeply and earnestly," he con- 
 tinued. "I believe I am a just man at heart. I have done my part 
 in this great game, but have had the ever ready excuse that the 
 conditions are here, one man cannot change them, and I may as 
 well be a beneficiary, since it matters not who are the beneficiaries 
 and who the victims, the system goes on. But, honestly, I have 
 wished that I might do something to clear my own conscience of 
 these matters. I would long ago have exploited a plan of my own 
 had I not feared the ridicule of my associates. I was afraid that I 
 wouhl lose my dignity, and that has been very dear to me. I lost 
 my dignity very suddenly the other day when I was being chased by 
 a mad man, and I find I am getting along very comfortably without 
 it. In fact, I never realized the tremendous weight of pompous 
 dignity I was carrying around until it rolled away." 
 
 Here the Judge deliberately arose, crossed the room and picked 
 up his "plug" hat that was lying on a table, walked to the center 
 of the room, placed one foot on the rim of the hat and with the 
 other gave a kick that tore a hole through the silk "dignity" and 
 knocked the top to the ceiling. 
 
 "No more dignity for me, " ho said, again seating himself. 
 "Never, no more. Call me Bill. For twenty years I have been 
 adding layer after layer of egotistical complacency and pompous 
 'dignity until I had a weight as heavy as the armor of olden times. 
 So gradual was the growth that I didn't realize it. But it was 
 
A DEMOLISHED DIGNITY. 81 
 
 thrown off, and having made a new resolve this raornino;, I have 
 today especially felt a freedom and self-respect that I have not 
 known for years. It is blessed to be just a man ! 
 
 "In regard to changes in insurance conditions, however," he 
 continuei], "this is what I have had in mind. There should be a 
 general law passed prohibiting more life insurance than §2,000 to be 
 carried by one individual. That is a sufficient amount to carry out 
 the proper and logical benefits of insurance, especially if paid-up 
 policies were made easier. If the individual can provide definitely 
 for help in the time of need by paying for the insurance when he is 
 in good health and easy financially, practically all the evils will be 
 corrected. I do not know that our weak efforts against all the 
 wealth massed in defense of the present system could be of any 
 effect in securing such a law, but that is a good theory, whether it 
 can be worked out or not. 
 
 "In addition, I believe in old age and permanent disability in- 
 surance, and I am now ready to use my wealth and influence to 
 head a company on that plan. I believe that a modest sura paid to 
 sach an insurance company would effectually provide against poverty 
 in old age and sufficient help in cases of permanent disability. In- 
 stead of the premiums being scattered over a great many years, 
 embracing the years of the decline of mental and physical vigor, 
 the policies being paid in full in the early vigor of life, there would 
 be no chance of a failure of benefit when the need comes. No matter 
 how much wealth one may have in the vigor of manhood there is 
 now no assui-ance that it will remain when old age comes. The 
 mental faculties weaken with age, and fortunes disappear quickly 
 under the condition of mental weakness but egotistical confidence in 
 its vigor. Even where rich men have taken out paid-up policies for 
 large amounts in the hey-day of their prosperity, they are usually 
 of no avail because they are hypothecated somewhere on the down- 
 ward path. What is needed is insurance that cannot be hypothe- 
 cated and that costs so little that the individual can pay it in full 
 and have the matter effectually settled and where the insui'ance can 
 he called for in time of need. Such a company could have homes 
 for the care of the insured in old age or in cases of disability. It 
 could be part of its policy to pay a small weekly sum in cases where 
 it is not desired to go to the homes. 
 
 "I believe such insurance would bo safe and profitable on a 
 
82 A DEMOLISHED DIGNITY. 
 
 premium of say ?100 for a child, $200 for a yonth, and $300 for a 
 man or woman in early life, with a higher rate as the age increases. 
 I believe that 65 years could be placed as the age limit. These 
 sums, pitiful in comparison with those now being jjaid, would effect 
 ail the benefits that can be expected from the insurance princii^le. 
 Onl3' a small per cent would be cared for by the pension insurance, 
 but what a consolation it would be all through life to know it would 
 be ready if needed, and what a blessing if the rieed came ! Those 
 who pay and receive no money back would care for the exceptional 
 policy holders who receive in the end more than they give. Old age 
 pensions are becoming more and more the spirit of the age, and I 
 believe the insurance business will eventually adopt the idea to the 
 abandonment of all other insurance except a limited amount for the 
 benefit of dependent persons. At least, I have decided to head a 
 company on that plan. What do you think of the idea?" 
 
 "Fine!" I said. "Fine! You have evolved a possible solution 
 of the great question. May you be the instrument of the intelligence 
 that rules the world, and makes the destiny that shapes our ends, 
 working through man with man, and may you be raised to a com- 
 manding position as the man of the hour, another Washington, to 
 correct widespread conditions in order that man may be happier and 
 wiser !" 
 
 Great oaks from little acorns grow. Perhaps a few moments of 
 imitation madness will cure a widespread insanity. 
 
B^nigait of the TwerivietSi Ceratury. 
 
 Tlie Knight weighs 270 pounds, stands six feet three, well built, 
 and has had athletic training. He had been an unostentatious car- 
 I'enter, dreaming of the need of a Muscular Morality that would go 
 about the world punishing meanness. He fell heir to a small for- 
 tune, and his dream was made real. 
 
 ALL ABOUT A LITTLE BUOOM. 
 
 I had occasion to ma^e a tiip through the west and sto^jped in 
 my pilgrimage at the leading hotel in the town of E— . I had heard 
 much grumbling about the lack of proper service at this hotel, but 
 as it was the only supposedly first-class hotel in the place, I was 
 forced to go there. The next morting after my arrival I was look- 
 ing about for a small broom to brush some of the dust from ray 
 clothes. Not finding it, I asked the landlord, a gruff old man, for 
 one. He looked about for a time, without finding it, and said: 
 
 "I guess you will have to get the boot-black in the barber shop 
 to brush your clothes. These traveling men put my brooms in their 
 grips and carry them off as fast as I can buy them." 
 
 I don't get angry easily, but I know something about traveling 
 men, their honesty and the hard lives they lead, and the coarse 
 remark aroused me to a fury I have not known for many a day. 
 Too great, perhaps, for so small an incident, but I could not help it. 
 
 "Don't you dare to use that kind of language about traveling 
 men to me," I said. "I am not one of them, but I know that as a 
 class there are no men more honest, none as wrongly treated and 
 none as careless of thesir own comfort or more carele.ss in their own 
 expenditures. I would bet my head against a doughnut that no 
 traveling man has ever carried away even one broom and that if you 
 have lost any it is because of the shiftless mismanagement of this 
 hotel that has become a cau.se of comment from one end of the 
 country to the other." 
 
fe4 ALL ABOUT A LITTLE BROOM. 
 
 "I don't need any advice from you about bow to run my hotel, " 
 he retorted, with anger flashing from his eyes. 
 
 "Yes, you do," I sair], "and I am going to give it to you right 
 now. If you don't like it and want to fight I am ready to fight you 
 either physically, mentally or financially. Thank fortune, I do not 
 have to stay in this town longer than another hour and I can get 
 along without your old hotel for that time, but you have insulted 
 every traveling man, unjustly, maliciously and with absolutely no 
 provocation, and I am going to tell you what I think of it." 
 
 He sized me up physically and evidently thought he woald get 
 the worst of it in any kind of encounter, and settled bask into a 
 chair and had nothing to say. 
 
 "You happen to have the only building in this town constructed 
 for hotel purposes. Traveling men must i:)atroniz3 you whether they 
 want to or not. You are sitting around in idleness making a living 
 off the money you rob from them. You cannot permit yourself to 
 he tied, down to even act as day clerk, bat must needs have someone 
 do youi' work and have a host of honest people waiting on you 
 b'jsides. Because this building gives you a monoi^oly. you are in- 
 different to whether you give proper return for the money you 
 receive or not. Not only do the traveling men support you in idle- 
 ness, but you have a wife who never does an hour's work heavier 
 than to flash the diamonds on her fingers. You have two grown 
 (laughters whose cliief industry is to drive out of an afternoon in a 
 carriage that has been washed by other hands and with a horse that 
 has been curried with some other human being's honest work. You 
 are paying the lavish expenses of a son in college. You have two 
 other children attending the public schools. Seven of you are living 
 in idleness, served directly by the hotel employes and indirectly by 
 the labor of millions of human beings bought with the money of 
 the traveling men you insult and despise, and not one of you is 
 adding an hoar's honest work to the world's aggregate, in return 
 for all this. You are all parasites— taking, but giving nothing in 
 return. 
 
 "The traveling man pays |300 a year merely for his food and a 
 place to sleep, a sum greater than that earned and spent by the 
 average head of the average family of five persons, having a home, 
 a piano, a horse and buggy, clothing, and all the comforts of social 
 life for each of these five people. And he gets in return— what? 
 
ALL ABOUT A LITTLE BROOM. 85 
 
 "Yoa rob the traveling man in innumerable ways. You charge 
 him fifty cents for a meal not as good as any restaurant in town will 
 serve for twenty-five cents, anrl a meal for which you charge the 
 town people and farmers only twenty-five cents. The cigars at your 
 counter are so dr^" from lack of attention that a better one can be 
 bought across the street for five cents than the traveling men buy of 
 you for a dime. The barbcu* in your shop charges fifteen cents and 
 one across the street gives a better shave for ten cents. The boot- 
 black gets a dime and the boy outside your door gets five cents. 
 The daily paper is sold in your office for five cents, on the street for 
 a penny. The traveling man's laundry is special, and a high rate. 
 The drayman charges twice as much for hauling trunks as for haul- 
 ing freight. Instead of maintaining a free bus at a light cost to 
 yourself, you permit each of your patrons to be charged twenty-five 
 cents for a distance that would only be healthful exercise if the trav- 
 eling man could afford to look cheap by walking it. The livery man 
 soaks the traveling man a third more for a team than he charges 
 the tovi'n youth. One of your rooms is rented by gamblers who fleece 
 the lonesome traveling man who can be enticed into it under cover 
 of a friendh'^ game, by professionals who pose as traveling mer. 
 The steak you buy for the traveling man is rotten; for your own 
 consumption, the best the market affords. The travelii;g man gets 
 milk, you get cream. 
 
 "Yet the traveling man must stop here. He cannot afford to let 
 his customers know he is called 'Old Cheese-in-His-Throat' because 
 he goes to restaurants to dine or saves a nickel by having his shoes 
 shined outside the hotel. He must keep up appearances. The repu- 
 tation of himself and of his house is at stake. He must have a 
 place where he can be reached by telegrams from the house, and 
 there is no other place than the leading hotel. He is tied hand and 
 foot to patronize you, and no matter what the personal discomfort 
 or humiliation, he must endure it as part of his day's work. 
 
 "Don't you dare to talk to me about traveling men stealing from 
 j'ou. You are a thief in every bone of your lazv body." 
 
 I turned away, and would have left him with this parting shot, 
 but he touched me off again by saying: 
 
 "The traveling man does not have to pay for the service he gets 
 here. He charges it up, and more, too, to the house." 
 
 "Is that so?" I retorted. "I am surprised that a man who has 
 
86 . ALL ABOUT A LITTLE BROOM. 
 
 associated so long with traveling men should have the nerve to make 
 such an assertion, although it is the usual defense for robbing him. 
 The traveling man does pay every cent of it. The house does not. 
 The traveling man's salary is based upon his sales in proportion to 
 his salary and expense account, and you know it, and when expense 
 is high, the salary is low or stops entirely. The traveling man must 
 make good with sales. He must show returns. A failure to do so 
 means a loss of position, and you know .the road is full of new men 
 all the time taking the places of the men who are not able to make 
 good. And the unjust expenses are largely responsible. 
 
 "The traveling man leads a wretched life at the best. Away 
 from home and friends, among strangers all the time, here today, 
 somewhere else tomorrow, a wanderer with the order to 'move on' 
 everlastingly dinning in his ears, he is to be pitied more even than 
 a convict in a cell, for he at least has a home. What comfort is it 
 to be free and surrounded by strangers? It is like being cast away 
 on a raft in mid-ocean, with water all around and not a drop to 
 drink. It is torture to travel through a land of happy homes, of 
 social affairs, of merry throngs of people, and be an outcast to all 
 of them simply because one is a stranger; and all the time the long- 
 ing for one's own home and friends is tugging at the heart. Com- 
 panionship, a home, all that makes life worth the living, is left 
 behind for a week and often for months at a time when the travel- 
 man goes to his work, and his chief pleasure is to count the hours 
 for his return. So unpleasant is the life that it is seldom taken up 
 except as a stepping-stone to something better, but often these very 
 expenses and the environment of lonesomeness leads to reckless- 
 ness in money matters that loses the chance for promotion and ties 
 him to the traveling life and gives him no hope of any future except 
 being a stranger and outcast all through life, and wind up in the 
 end in being discarded as being too old to make these expenses— and 
 then what? Goodness only knows what becomes of the gray-haired 
 traveling man who does not die in the harness. 
 
 "And this is the man you are robbing with no compunctions of 
 conscience, intact, glorying in it. Well, I don't know that I can 
 do anything to prevent it, but at least I have th6 satisfaction of 
 telling you what I think of you. " 
 
 "Get out of my house," said the landlord, "and don't you ever 
 show your face here again." 
 
ALL ABOUT A LITTLE BROOM. 87 
 
 "All right, I will, with pleasure," I said. And I paid my bill 
 and departed, walking up and down the platform of the depot until 
 my train came in, not a little angry over the experience. 
 
 Say! But I was sore! The more I thought of it the madder I 
 got. Every mile that the rails ticked off brought the thought of 
 something more I would like to have said to him, although as I 
 remember it now I seem to have said a good deal for a man who 
 seldom makes long speeches. 
 
 With all the anger over the trivial incident of the broom, the 
 hopelessness of attempting to improve conditions for the traveHrig 
 man in the hundreds of similar places was, after all, the dominant 
 feeling. It seemed that absolutely nothing could be dona Posses- 
 sion of the building in such a town gives a monopoly, and eveif«wh«ia 
 an attempt has been made to take advantage of a hotel's unpopularity 
 by fitting up some inferior building for hotel purposes and soliciting 
 the trade it has usually been a failure. A monopoly is a monopoly^ 
 and that ends it. 
 
 I wanted to do something. I could not physically mistreat that 
 old man, or even make a bluff at it. There is a limit to that kind 
 of punishment. I had tried "moral suasion" and as is usual with 
 "a good talking to" to a man who is hopelessly in the wrong, it 
 had done more harm than good. After all, some way of reaching 
 the physical man is the only corrective. 
 
 And then a bright light came! 
 
 I thought of something. 
 
 I continued the journey, finished the business that had called me 
 away from home, and returned to Chicago. 
 
 I have a friend who is high in railroad circles and through his 
 influence I was able to lease a Pullman sleeping car, one of the com- 
 bination buffet and sleepers. I had this refitted and taken to the 
 town of E— , where the railroad had built a small temporary side- 
 track for it. I sent along with it a first-class cook and two helpers. 
 Then I sent word to Mr. Landlord that it would remain there for 
 the accommodation of the traveling public until he should be prop- 
 erly punished for his past mistreatment of the traveling men and 
 promise to give them better service in the future. 
 
 I would not like to tell what word he sent to me. 
 
 My temporary first class hotel did not need any advertising. In 
 that swift manner that information affecting the traveling man 
 
88 ALL ABOUT A LITTLE BROOM. 
 
 flashes along the line, the boys were promptly advised of the innova- 
 tion and promptly came to the new hotel. At first there was some 
 prejudice among the local business men and attempt to boycott the 
 traveling men who came there, but that was soon disposed of, be- 
 cause I had instructed that all supplies should be purchased locally, 
 something the landlord had never done except in those goods that 
 could not be shipped in at a saving to himself. 
 
 In addition to setting a table with the best the market afforded, 
 I rented a store room and used it for a sample room, and although 
 the car was within walking distance of the business part of town, I 
 provided a horse and carriage and also made arrangements with the 
 bus men to pick up my patrons anywhere and any time, so that the 
 patrons of my hostelry, in spite of the narrow sleeping quarters, 
 found more comfort than they had ever known in that town. 
 
 About a week after the hotel pro tem. had been started, my 
 manager wrote as follows : 
 
 "We certainly have a jolly bunch here every night. The boys 
 are entering heartily into the spirit of your undertaking and are at 
 the same time enjoying some unaccustomed luxuries to the limit. 
 We are of course giving on the table the best the market affords, 
 and at this time of the year that is pretty good. And eat! You 
 would think none of them had indulged in a square meal for weeks, 
 yet of course we know that usually they fare quite well. They do 
 seem to enjoy our cooking, however, and the jellies and preserves 
 and other home delicacies that they seldom find at even the good 
 hotels. Every train that passes has the platforms and open windows 
 lined with traveling men, who cheer us and .shower the car with 
 cards, papers and books bearing written messages of encouragement. 
 
 "And at night, after the orders and letters home have been 
 written, the boys spend an hour or two together socially, with music 
 and a general frolic. There is usually one or more who can play on 
 one of the several musical instruments you have provided. They do 
 not seem to care for card playing. Only once was there an attempt 
 to tell a coarse story, and that was by a verdant youth on his first 
 trip. He was stopped by an old-timer with a 'Don't! There is a 
 lady present. ' And all eyes were directed to the beautiful painting 
 of The Traveling Man's Mother at the end of the car, and every hat 
 was removed, the verdant youth's first of all! 
 
 "The novelty of the Pullman hotel has seemed to take hold of 
 
ALL ABOUT A LITTLE BROOM. 89 
 
 them and developed a spirit of comradeship, so that the stranger 
 becomes no stranger at all and for the time all men are brothers. 
 
 "I was beginning to think that, after all, " the letter continued, 
 "your scorching tirade to the landlord about the wretched life of 
 the traveling man was much overdrawn, when Saturday night came. 
 The traveling man does not wear his woes on his sleeve. He dare 
 not. He must keep up appearances, or his customers would never 
 give him a welcome. Anyway, Saturday night showed the real 
 feeling that underlies all the gaiety. In spite of all efforts at hilarity, 
 ab-jut ten o'clock the boys sobered down to a Quaker meeting. Fi- 
 nally, one of them said : 'Oh, fudge! This traveling life is cer- 
 tainly a bam existence. I wish I were home with the kids.' 
 
 "There was a stir of enthusiastic comment on the same line. 
 One man said that he had received a telegram that morning that 
 his son was dangerously ill, but the hou.se would not stand the 
 expense of a §oO jump to his home and back and he could not take 
 the amount from a salary that only barely supported his family. 
 Another said it had been the longest week of his life because, after 
 thirty years of road work, with all its varying succes.ses and failures, 
 he had wound up in the end with a saving of $400, which he had 
 invested in a cigar stand in a Chicago office building, and the next 
 week would be the last on the road. Another had not seen his wife 
 and seven children for three months, and was seldom home oftener 
 than four times a year, a few days at a time, but his weekly salary 
 check was mailed by the house lo his wife. 
 
 "They all had their troubles, but the principal one was that it 
 was Saturday night, a long, lonesome Sunday ahead of them, and 
 they were away from home. Ah ! It is a gay life bat a sad one. " 
 
 One month passed, two months, and we had been caring for 
 practically all the traveling men who came to town. Occasionally a 
 stranger making his first trip, whose mail ha I been sent to the 
 hotel, would take the free bus the landlord established, but all the 
 regulars and most of the transients ;were with us heart and soul. 
 
 Three months passed. All over the country, hundreds of land- 
 lords had hung up a dozen small brooms in their offices as a sign 
 that they were trying to be good ! 
 
 I thought the landlord had been sufficiently punished, although 
 there had not been a word from him. I sent a man to see him. He 
 arrived too late. The holder of the mortgage on the hotel had fore- 
 
90 ALL ABOUT A LITTLE BROOM. 
 
 closed the day before. 
 
 That was more than I intended, but it is well. The landlord 
 lost the ownership of the building, but succeeded in Jeasing the 
 hotel after word was received that I would remove the car. He dis- 
 charged the day clerk, and was ever after most accommodating and 
 pleasant to all his guests. His wife rolled up her sleeves and Vv^ent 
 to work, the two elder daughters waited on table, and 
 
 The son came home from college and became a lirst-class cook. 
 
 Now what do you think of those ! 
 
 This was an ending that I had not foreseen, and I did not intend 
 to work such great changes. I don't know whether it has made the 
 family any better mentally and morally or not, but there is some- 
 thing about idleness and living on the labor of others that paralyzes 
 the better traits of humanity, and there is something about honest 
 employment that sends the blood coursing healthfully through the 
 veins and makes for better and nobler manhood and womanhood. I 
 hope this has been the result. 
 
 I know, however, that there is one man in this world who hates 
 me. A friend of mine who stopped there recently was lavish in his 
 praise of the service, of the courtesy of the landlord, and of his 
 special kindness to traveling men, but he drew him out about his 
 feelings toward me, and they were exceeJingly bitter. I am sorry, 
 but I can't help it. 
 
 Bless the traveling man ! He is no longer the "sport" of the 
 olden time, but a careful, conscientious business man, made so by 
 the stress of competition that has weeded out the vicious and incom- 
 petents. May his tribe decrease by promotions to more congenial 
 employment, but may his comforts increase while he still must 
 remain a traveling man ! 
 
Benight of the Twentieth Century. 
 
 Tbe Knight weighs 270 pounds, stands six feet three, well built, 
 and has had athletic training. He had been an unostentatious car- 
 lienter, dreaming of the need of a Muscular Morality that would go 
 aboiit the world punishing meanness. He fell heir to a sirall for- 
 tune, and his dream was made real. 
 
 A BUTTERFLY THAT BECAME A WORM. 
 
 I have failed in one of my efforts at reform. It was Don Quixote 
 and a wind-mill this time. I have been amazed at the results, far 
 greater than anticipated, that have usually come from my attempts 
 to correct what I believed to be existing wrongs, but it seems that I 
 cannot always be successful. But I will tell about it. 
 
 Down in southern Ohio there is a large class of wealthy farmers, 
 men who were born and raised on their farms, inherited the prop- 
 erty when it was of little value, and with the improvement of con- 
 ditions of farm work and the growth in poi^ulation of the section, 
 the lands have increased in value until it is a common thing to see 
 in the towns many farmers dressed in' rough clotlies, with bent 
 shoulders, gnarled hands and unkempt hair, who are vi'orth from 
 640.000 to $60,000, yet who toil and save and live as their fathers 
 toiled and saved and lived under conditions that made such toiling 
 and saving and living a necessity. With that amount of property, 
 under present day conditions, a family can be supported in town 
 and enjoy all of the comforts and most of the luxuries of civiliza- 
 tion. Most of these men are old men, with their children grown 
 and provided with homes away from the parent nest, and having 
 done more than their share of work to make up the world's supply 
 to provide for the natural wants of mankind, they are entitled to 
 the rest and freedom from v^'ork that should come to an old age of 
 the life that has been well spent. Many farmers have moved to 
 town and appreciated these conditions, many of them have broken 
 
92 A BUTTERFLY THAT BECAME A WORM. 
 
 away from the farm life early enough to give their children the 
 advantage of a town education. Those who have not done so are 
 the ones I have in mind. 
 
 It has seemed to me that these wealthy farmers have closed their 
 eyes to an appreciation of what civilization and evolution really 
 mean and it is almost beyond belief that they can content themselves 
 with plodding along in the old, old hard way so many years after it 
 has become unnecessary. I have often had the fancy that perhaps 
 from never having enjoyed the life-giving thrill of the daily bath 
 and clean clothes, from never having enjoyed, not the idleness of 
 leisure but the pleasure that may be enjoyed by a life of leisure 
 given up to an appreciation of the good things of life. I have 
 reasoned that these men did not realize that such things exist be- 
 cause they have not had personal experience of them. 
 
 I have often speculated upon the possibility of a return to the 
 old and narrow life of hard work, penuriousness and long days of 
 toil if for a brief time a glimpse of the real thing could be seen and 
 the pleasures temporarily enjoyed. 
 
 Good fortune happened to favor me in an attempt to solve these 
 problems that were puzzling me. An uncle living in that section 
 and who answered to a dot the description of these old farmers, 
 wrote me that he was called to the west on business connected v/ith 
 the affairs of a son who had migrated from the home surroundings 
 some years ago, and that he would stop in Chicago for a short 
 visit with me. I had not seen this nncle for several years, but my 
 mind's eye pictured him as I last saw him, in rough and dirty 
 clothes, the ends of his trousers in his boot-tops, a wrinliled face, 
 long shaggy beard, long shaggy hair, stooped shoulders, hardy and 
 skinny iigure, pitching hay in a broiling sun, a bandana handker- 
 chief around his neck, the sweat pouring from him in streams, and 
 hard at work from four o'clock that morning, not even sparing time 
 for courteous attention to a visitor. This man was worth more 
 than forty thousand dollars, was deeply religious, generous in his 
 way, and a good friend in time of trouble. Yet he had never had a 
 bath except of the sponge variety and a tin wash-dish, and he had 
 never worn a night-gown ! 
 
 It was again my good fortune to have a letter waiting for him 
 when he arrived, in which his son said that the business that was 
 calling him to the west would have to be deferred a couple of weeks 
 
A BUTTERFLY THAT BECAME A WORM^ 93 
 
 and suggesting that he make a longer visit in Chicago than was 
 anticipated. 
 
 I am more than half inclined to believe that the son had pur- 
 posely planned this in order that his father might be induced to 
 stay longer with nie, the son having escaped from the narrow views 
 of the old life and being desirous that his parents enjoy their hard- 
 earned wealth in a reasonable manner. At all events, it made it 
 easy for me to carry out a plan I had long dreamed about. 
 
 I met my uncle at the depot with my automobile and carried 
 him to my home, a home that is not as pretentious as some of its 
 neighbors, but one in which none of the real luxuries are missing. 
 
 During the evening we had a delightful visit, as all relatives 
 who have been long separated should have, and it was not until the 
 next evening, after he had become slightly accustomed to the luxury 
 with which he was surrounded, that I broached my pet scheme. I 
 told him frankly that I believed he was missing all the good things 
 that made life worth the living, and that he was entitled to them. 
 I explained that it was my earnest wish that he should make a visit 
 of two weeks with me and in that time indulge liiinself in every 
 proper comfort and luxury that he could find. 
 
 He protested most earnestly that it was not what he wished, 
 that he was used to his own ways, that he was too old to change, 
 that it was sinful to waste so much time when there was work to 
 be done, that it was sinful to waste in riotous living, that satan 
 captures more souls through luxury than all the other agencies com- 
 bined, and that his neighbors and friends, the deacons in his church, 
 his good pastor, his wife, would be shocked and scandalized at duch 
 friskiness in one so old and staid. To all of his objections I offered 
 the best arguments I could command. I am a persuasive single- 
 handed talker, and before we parted for the night I secured a reluc- 
 tant consent to my plan. He held the mental reservation, he said, 
 that it would take months of sack-cloth and ashfss to recover his 
 peace of mind, but he would place himself in my hands, and may 
 the burden of righteous punishment fall on me ! 
 
 The next morning, after his bath, and a rub down by the valet 
 I had report for duty at that time, we induced him to have his locks 
 shorn. Then I said : 
 
 "Off come those whiskers, Uncle. It will make you look and 
 feel ten years younger. ' ' 
 
94 A BUTTERFLY THAT BECAME A WORM. 
 
 He protested earnestly, but I insisted, and after a time he settled 
 back into the chair, and off they came! 
 
 Then he was dressed in such clothes as he had never possessed 
 —nothing gorgeous but plainly elegant, soft and clean. 
 
 After a hearty breakfast such as his poor stomach had never 
 before had a chance to appreciate, we took a spin in my automobile 
 around the boulevards and through the parks. 
 
 In the afternoon I permitted him to rest, reading to him, with 
 comments, some of the finest things in literature, and trying to 
 make clear to him some of the deep beauties of their meaning. 
 
 In the evening we attended the theater, the play selected bein:? 
 the best for the purpose that happened to be in town. He showed a 
 real interest, although I heard him mutter under his breath some- 
 thing about being forgiven. After the theater, a lunch at one of 
 the most imposing restaurants in the city. 
 
 The next morning we tc>ok another spin in the auto, and by this 
 time he was overcoming his fear and was enjoying the luxury of the 
 ride. I had of course from the beginning taken the precaution of 
 having no speeding or threats of collision. I desired to educate him 
 to an appreciation of the good things of life, not to make him afraid. 
 
 We stopped at the largest retail store in the city and I took him 
 around all the floors, giving him a sight of all the glories gathered 
 from the four corners of the earth, such a magnificent display as he 
 had never dreamed of seeing in anyone building. 
 
 Again, a rest in the afternoon, and in the evening the entertain- 
 ment selected was a lecture, illustrated by picture:?, a lecture on 
 travel that I knew would not be too deep to be entertaining. 
 
 Then the luxury of a comfortable home. 
 
 The next day, in addition to the usual ride, we visited the art 
 gallery. In fact, we frequently went there during the two weeks. 
 Each time we went to but one or two rooms, and I explained as best 
 I could the history, the meaning and the effect upon the world's 
 history of some of the notable paintings, striving to arouse in him 
 an appreciation of the real meaning of art. 
 
 Another rest in the afternoon, with the introduction of a social 
 game, teaching him its technicalities, and endeavoring to show the 
 logic of the use of games as affording means of social intercourse 
 without the strained necessity for continuous conversation. 
 
 In the evening we took a ride to Milwaukee on one of the mag- 
 
A BUTTERFLY THAT BECAME A WORM. 95 
 
 nificent lake steamers, the glory of a beautiful night adding to the 
 many delights of the trip, and returned to the city the next morning 
 on one of the no less magnificent railway trains. 
 
 The morning was spent in visiting one of the large factories, 
 permission and an escort being furnished by my friend, the manager, 
 and in this experience my uncle gained much knowledge of the work 
 and habits of a part of the world that had been foreign to his vision 
 on the farm, yet to which he was contributing daily sustenance in 
 food. 
 
 We also went to the top of one of the city's sky-scrapers and had 
 a view of the magnitude and glory of this great city and the beau- 
 ful lake. 
 
 In the evening we visited the greatest of the city's summer 
 amusement parks, took rides on the easiest of the scenic railways, 
 took in the best and funniest of the sideshows, watched the merry 
 crowd, and more than once during the evening my uncle laughed ! 
 
 By the next morning my uncle's stature had increased two 
 inches. The stoop was being vi'orked out of his shoulders, and he 
 seemed to be taking on flesh. The morning bath, the daily rub, 
 the daily shave and face massage, the clean linen, were working a 
 change that was pleasing to see. He was beginning to feel at ease 
 in his good clothes, his speech was losing some of its hesitancy and 
 his whole manner was assuming a new dignity. 
 
 The next day was Sunday. We attended the religious services 
 in the Auditorium. At no place in the world is there a service on 
 Sunday morning to equal it. The vast auditorium, filled with five 
 thousand people, was a sight most impressive. The jjastor is one of 
 greatest leaders of thought in the whole world, so masterly in the 
 command of ideas and language that I have often been dazed in an 
 attempt to realize that these splendid utterances were coming from 
 a mere man, yet so much a man that in all his personal relationships 
 he is overflowing with the deepest and most sincere of human sj'm- 
 pathies. The music reached the heights of technical skill in the 
 quartette and a most impressive choir service, and when that vast 
 audience arose, the melodious tones of the grand pipe ore:an leading, 
 and every individual in the congregation, under the earnest solicita- 
 tion of the pastor, joining in one of the dear old soul-stirring hymns, 
 the music that swelled upward must have reached the farthest limits 
 of heaven and rejoiced the angels. When the quartette sang the 
 
96 A BUTTERFLY THAT BECAME A WORM. 
 
 Lord's prayer in a low, sweet voice, I saw my uncle catch and hold 
 his breath, and at its conclusion he drew a long sigh of deepest 
 feeling. I hoped my uncle would be impressed with the idea that 
 real religion is not necessarily confined to the backw()ods church or 
 to useless self-denial and gloom. 
 
 I wanted to let my uncle rest for the balance of the day, but the 
 announcement that a bishop from his own church, who lives in 
 Cincinnati, would speak in Orchestra hall, was too tempting, and 
 we spent the evening there. I wanted to show him his own bishop 
 under different conditions than those which surrounded him when 
 he visited the little local church in which my uncle vv-as a leader, to 
 impress liim still further with the idea that the comforts of civiliza- 
 tion are not the workings of a personal satan but the natural inheri- 
 tance of the normal man. 
 
 Well, it would be tedius to tell of all the good things I showed 
 ray uncle in this big, this good city of Chicago, nor all the luxurie.5 
 to which I accustomed him that were a healthful part of moral 
 living. After he had overcome part of his reserve and restraint and 
 became fairly at ease in his surroundings, I took him to the clubs, 
 to social affairs, and had him meet some of the truly great in this 
 great city in an informal and friendly way. AVith all the educating 
 I was doing, I persisted in the almost daily reading and discussion 
 uf the best in literature, the visiting of art galleries, museums, and 
 places of similar interest, all the time trying to impress the lesson 
 that it was not in denying ourselves these things that result in 
 greater intelligence, but in enjoying them, that we were best fitting 
 ourselves for an after life that is to be all intelligence and no bowing 
 to the burdens of the flesh. 
 
 The two weeks slipped past before I realized it, but at the end I 
 felt that I had done a good work. I parted with my uncle at the 
 depot with a conscience applauding and saying "well done, well 
 done." He looked to be a new man and he was a new man. He 
 went his way rejoicing, and apparently with much thanksgiving. 
 
 But that was not the end. 
 
 I was so anxious to see the result of my experiment that some 
 weeks later I went down to his home to see him. And I found him 
 pitching hay in the broiling sun, pants in boot-tops, old straw hat, 
 bandana handkerchief, the wrinkles and stoop recovered, and a 
 vigorous effort to again grow a beard ! 
 
f 
 
 A BUTTERFLY THAT BECAME A WORM. 97 
 
 Ah, me! Ah, me! The best laid plans of mice and men gang 
 aft agley ! 
 
 He greeted me cordially, of course, but later when we were 
 alone it was difficult to draw him out on the old question. The 
 best that I could get out of him was that it was all wasteful and 
 sinful, that if he was forgiven this time, which he never expected 
 to be, he would never again put himself in the power of the tempter. 
 He was not angry at me, nor did he blame me, but I belonged to a 
 different world of thought than his, and there was nothing in com- 
 mon. He was born to the plow and to the plow he would stick. 
 Luxuries were a scheme of satan, and his Bible said "Get thee 
 behind me, satan." 
 
 And that was the end ! 
 
 Luxuries do afford a broad avenue in the direction of satan's 
 mental perdition, but ignorance and narrow-mindedness, a lack of 
 working sympathy with humanity, are all broad highways leading 
 in the same direction. Blessed be the man who can find the straight 
 and narrow path through all this maze of misleading roads. 
 
 But it was not his religion. Even a religion of "sack-cloth and 
 ashes" is better than the kind that indulges all worldly vanities in 
 the belief that "sack-cloths" are not necessary. There is a happy 
 medium. Instead, it was "the call of the wild," it was "back to 
 nature," it was the grip of the primitive man that only a long 
 course of education and many struggles can overcome. 
 
l^niQiit of the Twentieth Century. 
 
 The Knight weighs 270 pounds, stands six feet three, well built, 
 and has had athletic training. He had been an unostentatious car- 
 penter, dreaming of the need of a Muscular Morality that would go 
 about the world punishing meanness. He fell heir to a small for- 
 tune, and his dream was made real. 
 
 A LOT HE DIDN'T EXPECT. 
 
 I have never had much regard for lawyers. It is a fine profes- 
 sion for one who has a dislike for real work and who wants to wear 
 good clothes and go into society, but from the i^rimary nature of his 
 duties an attorney must represent wrong an average of half the time, 
 and since both sides of a legal controversy take extreme positions in 
 the knowledge that a decision is apt to be made for a happy medium, 
 a lawyer of necessity does wrong even when representing the right. 
 If in a general way his client is in the right, the claims he must 
 make, the testimony he must encourage, is of necessity an extreme 
 to offset the extreme claims of an opponent. How often have I 
 heard them say to witnesses in training, "Oh, no, you must not say 
 that. It is true, of course, but if the defendant does not force it 
 out, we must not bring it to the attention of the jury." That is 
 not exactly construed as suggesting perjury, but so far as the ends 
 of justice are concerned it amounts to the same thing. This is the 
 central thing in the lawyer's mind from first to last. No matter 
 how many decisions he may find against him, they are never pre- 
 sented, but onlj' those that favor his side of the case. It' the oppos- 
 ing lawyer is less well I'ead or too poor to afford so sumjituous a 
 library, an important decision may never be referred to, and the 
 case be won because of the ignorance of the ojoposing lawyer, and 
 not on the merits of the controversy. I have never yet found a dis- 
 position to try a case purely upon its merits. It is a pretty theory 
 that a lawyer must represent his client and use every means not 
 
A LOT HE DIDN'T EXPECT. 99 
 
 down-right disreputable to win. Bat it results in a vast sj-stem of 
 courts being maintained at enormous expense to the tax-payers, 
 with cases dragging their slow way from six to ten years, and in 
 the end no one getting justice. It is a maxim in every reputable 
 business office to avoid going to law except as a last desperate ex- 
 tremity. Don't look to the law for justice. Look to it only as a 
 possible defense from the kind of rank injustice that cannot be 
 tolerated. 
 
 A friend was discussing with me the other day a conference he 
 had with one of the great lawyers of this great city— in fact, the 
 top-notcher in the reputation for winning, right or wrong, but 
 winning. If his case did not have merit, he played upon a thousand 
 strings to gain delay and wear out his opponents, to befog the wit- 
 nesses, the jury or the judge. With a great library of decisions, a 
 • natural mental ability above that of other members of the profes- 
 sion, a political influence that reached judges, jurors, and even the 
 bailiffs, a prestige in secret societies that brought willing help in 
 times when he needed it, a fine presence, a masterly command of 
 language, a jolly good nature that won the interest of the men who 
 were to decide, and an ingenuity that overlooked none of the law's 
 possibilities in the way of advantage, he won cases, and those who 
 have invoked the law to secure justice have the bills to pay without 
 the justice. 
 
 "Yes, " said my friend, "he told me we could sue for $10,000 
 damages as easily as the real damage of $2,000, and if the jury hap- 
 pened to be prejudiced against corporations or could be worked, we 
 would get the larger sum. Anyway, it was better to swear to $10,000 
 damages, because if the jury cut it down to §5,000 we would still 
 be ahead. ' ' 
 
 I don't know why this casual remark about an ordinary occur- 
 rence should have impressed me strongly, yet for .several days I 
 c;ould not forget it. The incident referred to was not important in 
 itself. Such exaggeration of claims is the ordinary method of pro- 
 cedure, it is expected, it is understood, and is usually figured in the 
 end by a liberal reduction of figures. Yet in its analysis it is such 
 a mockery of justice, such a burlesque upon what should be expected 
 in and from the courts that it is astonishing that intelligent people 
 should gravely countenance it and approve of it. It is perjury, 
 and an attempt at fraud, and when backed by such extraneous in- 
 
too A LOT HE DIDN'T EXPECT. 
 
 fiuences as the political and social prestige and technical ingenuity 
 of an attornej', it frequently succeeds in accomplishing fraud and 
 the perversion of justice. 
 
 It is another of those business matters where the most bare-faced 
 robbery, the most outrageous injustice is perpetrated by honorable 
 gentlemen and otherwise good fellows because "they all do it." 
 
 You know how at times a certain matter will linger for days in 
 one's siibconsciousness. So this remark of my friend lingered with 
 me. At last I said to myself: 
 
 "Just for that, Mr. Lawyer, I will slap you on your wrist!" 
 
 I knew that this lawyer was very anxious to acquire a certain 
 lot of ground adjoining his home. It contained a shabby old house 
 that was an unsightly and unpleasant neighbor. It wa^ a matter of 
 public knowledge that the lawyer had tried every means in his' 
 power to purchase this lot without paying a fabulous price for it. 
 The possessor knew how earnestly the lawyer wanted it, since the 
 removal of the unsightly building and enlarging of his own grounds 
 would vastly improve the appearance and comfort of the lawyer's 
 home. He was therefore holding out for an unreasonable figure. 
 Meanwhile the lawyer was the lausrhing stock of the entire city 
 because in spite of his great ability and wealth, his legal successes 
 and political prestige, this one poor man had successfully defied 
 him. 
 
 I went to see the owner of the lot and introduced myself as the 
 Knight of the Twentieth Century. He greeted me delightedly, evi- 
 dently thinking his obscure position protected him from my peculiar 
 ministrations, and talked most enthusiastically for a time about the 
 work I was doing. Finally I explained to him what I desired to do 
 and told him that the opportunity of selling this lot to the lawyer 
 would give me an excuse for meeting him without employing force. 
 He acknowledged that he had held to the lot about as long as he 
 could, that he needed the money and that he would be glad to take 
 a reasonable price for it. I had prepared a deed in the lawyer's 
 name, we had it properly acknowledged, and paying him the J"eason- 
 able price that he asked, I left him, whistling "There'll be a Hot 
 Time in the Old Town Tonight." 
 
 I wrote a letter to the lawyer telling him that I had acquired 
 the property and asked him if I could see him in his home in the 
 evening, as I vv'ould prefer that to trusting the matter to my attor- 
 
A LOT HE DIDN'T EXPECT. 101 
 
 neys. He promptly replied, asking me to come the same evening. 
 
 When I presented myself I was immediately shown into the 
 library. The lawyer greeted me cordially, evidently expecting some 
 nevv turn in the controversy over the lot, but thinking courtesy a 
 good play at the tirst, at least. He was all smiles. 
 
 After a few raoments of "getting acquainted" conversation, I 
 handed the deed to him and told him all the money I wanted was 
 the §4,000 I had paid for it. 
 
 "I am delighted to get this," he said, and he immediately wrote 
 a chec'.v for the amount and handed it to me. 
 
 The attorney was too wise to expect something for nothing. 
 
 "You are a stranger to me, sir," he said, "and I cannot imagine 
 why you have interested yourself in this matter and how you secured 
 the property at its real value and a price I am glad to pay. Is there 
 anything I can do for you to show ray appreciation?" 
 
 "Yes, there is, " I replied. "I want to have some fun with 
 you. I want to b3 merry, and I want you to ba the object of my 
 merriment. After you have done your part, we will be quits of all 
 uliligation. You will take notice that alone in this room I am so 
 much stronger than you that I could do you serious harm if you 
 make an outcry. I will not hurt you if you do not attempt it, but 
 I am going to take pay for my services by making you act in a 
 I'idiculous manner for awhile, and after it is over I will explain 
 why. ' ' 
 
 He was mentally prepared for some suggestion of benefit to me. 
 In the absence of a demand for a money bonus before the deed 
 was delivered, his mind naturally drifted to political favors. For 
 a moment he was so dazed at my suggestion that he could not com- 
 prehend its meaning. 
 
 "Well," he said, "I don't understand you, but am sure no man 
 would come here on a deal of this kind with the intention of doing 
 me serious bodily harm. I realize that I am entirely at your mercy. 
 You are too deep for me, anyway. You would not come here and 
 do this if you were not amply protected in some way. My man 
 might attempt to put you out, but you could handle both of us with 
 one hand, and I would not care to consider what might hapi^en if 
 you were inclined to desperate measures before outside halp could be 
 attracted. What is it, anyway?" 
 
 "Now you are reasonable, my friend, and I will partly explain. 
 
102 A LOT HE DIDN'T EXPECT. 
 
 You are the acknowledged leader of the bar in this great citj'. You 
 have attained great success in the practice of law. You have kept 
 within the limits of professional conduct, and it is the broadness of 
 that limit that I take exceptions to. But you have succeeded by 
 employing every legal chicanery and fraud that could be used for 
 the benefit of your clients, regardless of all questions of justice. I 
 have no personal animosity toward yon, nor do I blame you particu- 
 larly, as society is constructed. But just as one criminal of many 
 may be punished as an example, I am going to punish you as an 
 example. I am going to prove to you that outraged justice repre- 
 sented by my 270 pounds of flesh and bone, is demanding an account- 
 ing for the wrongs you and your fellows have perpetrated in her 
 name. There is no need for argument along this line. You know 
 the conditions as well as I do. As a first attempt at punishment, I 
 want you ti) stand in the corner here on your head. I cannot send 
 you to jail, and j o i are too big for a paddle, so we will see if 
 another kind of punishment will make you realize the seriousness of 
 your offense. " 
 
 "Well, I don't like that," said the law-yer. 
 
 "I know you don't, but you have been viewing justice in a 
 mental upside-down attitude, and we will see if reversing your 
 physical being will give you the angle for a more correct view- 
 point. " 
 
 "Oh, fudge!" he said. "There is no sense in that." 
 
 "We will see about that later. Now down you go, and up you 
 go," and I started for him. 
 
 He didn't wait for me to reach him, but hustled over to the 
 corner and down on his knees. 
 
 "Haven't done this since I was a boy," he said, "but if I must, 
 I must." 
 
 With some clumsiness, he managed to brace himself against the 
 wall and slowly raised himself so that he gave a very fair represen- 
 tation of a circus ace. Pie could not stand it long, and soon his 
 limbs wavered and dropped to the floor. 
 
 "That was very good," I said. "Now do it again.'' 
 
 Once more he struggled and scrambled and managed to get his 
 feet upward, this time with grit holding out a little longer. But he 
 had to come down. 
 
 "Bravo, bravo," I said. "Encore, encore. Do it again!" 
 
A LOT HE DIDN'T EXPECT. 103 
 
 He tlicl, but this time it was more of a struggle. After he came 
 down, I said : 
 
 "I am having just a bull}' time! Once again." 
 
 And it was once again until he could stand it no longer. 
 
 When his feet hit the floor with a bump, I said: 
 
 "Do you get a different view of the world's affairs from that 
 position?" 
 
 "You bet I do," he said, "but it is blurred and I don't know 
 just what I do see." 
 
 "Well, trj' it again. Perhaps as you get more used to it you 
 will see things more clearly. " 
 
 He did. But he could not stay there indefinitely, and he was 
 getting to be decidedly wobbly. 
 
 Down he came. "Well, I don't see any fun in this, ' he said. 
 
 "Ah, that is just what I am after," I replied. "I want you to 
 look at this matter seriously. It has been play for you. You have 
 succeeded, but you have won success by crushing the lives and 
 bleeding the hearts of thousands of people who have just as good a 
 right to enjoy life as you have. It has been no fun for them. In 
 fact, it has been as serious as I would like it to be for you for a 
 little time. Now once more." 
 
 There was nothing else for him to do, and with what strength 
 he had left he wriggled around and managed to push himself to a 
 j-osition with his head on the floor and his body partly held up 
 against the wall. 
 
 "Now when I count ten, down you come.'' 
 
 I commenced to count, slowly, every muscle of the man quiver- 
 ing with the strain. I dwelt before saying ten until I could see the 
 bloud vessels swell and the perspiration pouring off his face. As his 
 strength finally gave out, I managed to say ten just before he crum- 
 pled to the floor in a heap. 
 
 After he had rested awhile, I told him to turn around and sit 
 facing me. 
 
 "Now, I have had all the fun I want for today. Whether you 
 and I ever continue this form of amusement rests entirely with you. 
 You have had a big share of the world's successes, but in one hour 
 tonight you have learned that all these are swept away and you are 
 a naked and helpless sinner when outraged justice chooses to punish 
 you for wrongdoing. I shall watch you ia the future and if there. 
 
104 .4 LOT HE DIDN'T EXPECT. 
 
 is not a change in your conduct as a lawyer to favor justice instead 
 of le.^al injustice, there will he a repetition of this session. 
 
 "However, I don't suppose you can handle much law business 
 ou that plan, and I suppose I will not be able to hold you to a strict 
 accounting. As I said in the beginning, it is the system and custom 
 that are at fault more than you personally. Something should be 
 done for reform, and being at the head of a wrong system you are 
 in a position to help change it. 
 
 "What is your greatest ambition, anyway? You have wealth, 
 honor, a happy home, society, everything that man can want." 
 
 "I have never confessed it to a living soul, but you have taken 
 all the grit out of me and I will tell you anything you ask. I want 
 to be a judge of the United States supreme court. At least, that 
 was my one great ambition before you forced me to look at things 
 in this topsy-turvy fashion." 
 
 "Unless you change your views and practices," I said, "I hope 
 you never will be. You have not shown the qualities of mind for 
 that position. You understand the law, all right, but behind the 
 law is intrinsic justice, and you have not understood that. No one 
 siioulJ be on the supreme b^jnch whose mind is closed to the highest 
 law." 
 
 "Say, let me get up, and I will tell you something." 
 
 "Indeed, you may get up, " I replied, "and make yourself as 
 comfortable as possible. I want to say, my son, that this h'as hurt 
 me worse than it has you. ■' 
 
 "Don't mention it," he said, scrambling to his feet. "You did 
 me an important favor and have had your fun. Let us shake hands 
 and call it square all around. I have passed through great tribula- 
 tions, but I see a glimmer of great i^eace. Excuse me for a few 
 moments until I make myself comfortable, and I will tell you about 
 ir. " 
 
 Having opened the window, bathed his fac3 and otherwise re- 
 moved the strain and stains of the recent ordeal, ho seated himself 
 comfortably, and with an eagerness that surprised me, said : 
 
 "There may ba something in your notion that I have be3n view- 
 ing the world from an upside-down position, for the recent reversal 
 of conditions has left me a decided change of vision. I have been 
 ambitious for a seat on the suprema banch, but that do9S not look 
 good to me now. I believe there is a greater honor. 
 
A. LOT HE DIDN'T EXPECT. 105 
 
 "When I was a boy, just commencing the study of law, my 
 great ambition was to become a rich and successful attorney, and 
 having attained that form of success, it was my purpose to give up 
 the regular practice and establish niyself as an independent court of 
 i-eal justice. In those days the evils perpetrated in the name of the 
 law were even greater than they are today, and it wa.s my ambition 
 to attempt to correct them. It was my theory that it would be a 
 tine thing to maintain an office to which litigants would be invited 
 to submit their cases for arbitration outside the forms and techni- 
 calities of the law, unrepresented by counsel and without the care- 
 fully created mountains of theories and irrelevant claims. The 
 enforcement of ray decrees would rest with the promise that the 
 litigants refusing to abide by them would find the talent and influ- 
 ence of myself and able assistants arrayed against them in the regu- 
 lar courts. 
 
 "This ambition has been a strong undercurrent all through my 
 life, though until now it has been suppressed by the stronger ambi- 
 tions of immediate success in regular channels. It looks good to me 
 now, and I am going to attempt it. What do you think of the 
 plan?" 
 
 "Splendid!" I said. "You will be the supreme justice, which 
 is greater than any court, supreme or otherwise." 
 
 "Of course I would not undertake to open an office for free 
 advice to all comers," he continued. "That would hopelessly 
 swamp me v^ith a multitude of trivial affairs. I would take an 
 interest only in such matters as have reached the seriousness of 
 being expensively in the courts, trusting to this new influence being 
 a warning against the bringing of cases with no merit, and to care- 
 fulness in the advice of attorneys to their clients. 
 
 "My, but I am thirsty. Won't you have a drink of lake Michi- 
 gan water with me to the success of the new form of justice court?" 
 
 "Indeed, I will, with pleasure, " I replied. 
 
 Law is a good thing for the lawyers, but that is because justice 
 is blind. A far-seeing justice would be better. 
 
Benight of the Twentieth Century. 
 
 The Knight weighs 270 pounds, stands six feet three, well built, 
 and has had athletic training. He had been an unostentatious car- 
 penter, dreaming of the need of a Muscular Moralit}' that would go 
 about the world punishing meanness. He fell heir to a small for- 
 tune, and his dream was made real. 
 
 .4 GLANCE INTO THE FUTURE. 
 
 I have not felt the spirit move me to attempt to punish any par- 
 ticular Individual against whom there may be a popular clamor, but 
 have taken up such matters as accidentally came to my attention 
 and that did not seem to be in a fair way of being corrected by 
 usual methods. I do not know what urged me to attempt an excep- 
 tion to this rule. There is at all times to a greater or less extent, 
 a vitriolic comment upon some of the business practices of the king 
 of American commercialism, Mr. John D. R. , and with no particu- 
 lar motive I determined to pay him a visit and let the consequences 
 take care of themselves. 
 
 I confess that I have not joined in the general disapproval of 
 this man's ruthless business methods. I have admired his great 
 genius as an organizer and excused the results when they were un- 
 jjleasant for the men who opposed him, with the thought that up to 
 this time the great industrial war that has been waged againat the 
 wastefulness of competition has resulted in vast general benefit to 
 humanity. The soldier who fails in battle may not have a dying 
 appreciation of the benefit to the world of the principles he fought 
 for or against, but the great commander must plan for carnage and 
 death. These are incidents, not principles. 
 
 I therefore determined to visit the noted financier. I knew him 
 to be the best guarded man in the whole country, but trusting 
 largely to luck and to his having overlooked one possibility, on a 
 very dark night recently I went to his home. 
 
A GLANCE INTO THE FUTURE. 107 
 
 How I gained access to his bed-chamber I will not now relate, 
 hut I accomplished it. I was hidden when the master and the valet 
 came in, and in a tew moments the valet had finished his work and 
 left for the night. 
 
 The great man, prejDared to lie down upon a bed that may have 
 been ever so dovv'ny but nevertheless must have had many hard 
 bumps in it to cause him many a restless night, was evidently rest- 
 less and wakeful. Instead of retiring, he pulled a blanket off the 
 bed, wrapped it around himself and seated himself in an easy chair. 
 Witli a sigh, he placed his elbow on the arm of the chair and bent 
 his head to his hand, the most i^athetic picture of a human soul 
 bearing the burden of a crushing responsibility that I have ever 
 seen. 
 
 I stepped quietly forward and took a seat facing the great man, 
 and when a slight noise aroused him to look up, I was sitting there, 
 smiling at him. 
 
 He started in alarm, but with that masterly nerve that has often 
 been displayed when brought to bay, he instantly recovered himself 
 and in a tone free from fright, he said : 
 
 "Well, sir, you are here!" 
 
 "Yep! I'm here," I replied. "Unexpected, of course. Too 
 many office boys between you and the public. About a thousand, I 
 guess. I don't blame you, of course, but it's too much red tape for 
 me. Permit me to introduce myself as the Knight of the Twentieth 
 Century. You have heard of me, have you not?" 
 
 "Yes, indeed," was the reply. "I have read all your letters 
 that I have found published, but am frank enough to say that I am 
 sorry that you seem to have thought it necessary to call upon me in 
 this fashion. Your treatment of patients, while I believe it has 
 always been deserved, is usually severe." 
 
 "Well, I hope I may make an exception of you, if you will be 
 patient enough to talk with me for a time. If I find any punish- 
 ment is necessary I may even leave its extent and character to you. ' ' 
 
 "That sounds encouraging, " said he, "and if you will please 
 tell me how you got in here I will be glad to talk with you as long 
 as you wish. I do not deny that I am a timid man, and I am afraid 
 to look the future in the face with the awful knowledge that any 
 outsider, whether evilly inclined or not, may penetrate the one 
 place where I have hoped that I was sate.'' 
 
108 A GLANCE INTO THE FUTURE, 
 
 "With pleasure I will relieve you of that worry," I said. "It 
 is an unfair condition that you or anyone else should live in con- 
 stant fear. " With this, I stepped to the windovv', dresv hack a 
 heavy curtain and gave him a glimpse of my air-ship that only a 
 tew days before I had succeeded in perfecting. 
 
 The frightened look left his eyes and a wan smile came over his 
 face as he turned to me. "Thank you," he said. "I thought I had 
 taken every precaution, hut inventive genius gets ahead of the best 
 of us. An air-ship and an extremely dark night are a combination 
 that I have not prepared for — yet. 
 
 "Well, I feel better, " he continued, as he made himself com- 
 fortable in the easy chair and motioned me to accept another. 
 "Tt>ll me to what particular thing I owe the honor of a visit from, 
 you." 
 
 "My own mind very much doubts the necessity or propriety 
 of this peculiar visit, Mr. R., and certainly it has no relation to 
 the past, whether there have been abuses that should have brought 
 ])iiiiishment or not. I will frankly explain my state of mind, and 
 then we shall see what you have to say. 
 
 "T have admired you for many years, especially your steadfast- 
 ness of purpose away back in the stormy times when yon tried to 
 bring order out of flagrant and reckless extravagance in the oil 
 industry by promulgating the iirinciple that co-operation was better 
 than the wastefulness of competition, and in spite of the desperate 
 efforts of as wild and reckless a gang of spendthrifts and get-rich- 
 quick and spend-it-quicker pirates as ever infested the earth, who 
 were ready to take even the desperate measure of personal violence to 
 you to prevent your making the oil industry a business instead of a 
 gamble. You lost at first, but the strength of the grand principle 
 that co-operation is better than wasteful competition has triumphed 
 in the oil industry and in the scores of other business enterprises 
 that have felt the magic of your touch. I am heartily in sympathy 
 with your conviction that everywhere and at all times competition 
 is a waste. It may correct the harm of too much power or capital 
 being concentrated, but competition is in itself a tremendous waste, 
 its efforts being to tear down, while every human being who con- 
 sumes should be employed in building up to replace that which be 
 has consumed. 
 
 "A man who tills the soil or works in a factory is giving to the 
 
A GLANCE INTO THE FUTURE. 109 
 
 grand total of the world's work each day an amount equal to the 
 labors of others which he must consume for his day's living. The 
 man who is employed merely in diverting business from one channel 
 to another must consume as much as any other worker, hut other 
 men who are producers are supporting him without return in benefit 
 to themselves. Such a man is more harm to the world's community 
 than a rich man. The rich man can only consume about as much 
 food and clothes and shelter as any man, and if he is actually at 
 work each day in creative production he has returned to the work- 
 ing world the full pay for his 'keep.' He may have accumulated 
 thousands during the day, but those thousands cannot be eaten or 
 otherwise consumed and must be re-invested, the working world not 
 having suffered the loss of an atom of energy. But the loss in the 
 support of a non-producer is a positive loss, and must be made up 
 with extra energy by other producers. When this loss amounts to 
 the support of a fifth of humanity, as it does under the policy of 
 competition, the real workers must make up this loss with long 
 hours and pinched existence. I believe that competition is wrong 
 in principle. " 
 
 "Go on," said Mr. R. "I am very much interested. You have 
 penetrated to the innermost depths of my own conclusions, and I 
 tell you now that I am not afraid of you and am glad that you came 
 to see me. ' ' 
 
 "I thank you for this confidence, Mr. R. ," I said, "but while 
 our conclusions have harmonized this far, perhaps this is where 
 they widely diverge, and that will bring me to the object of my 
 visit, 
 
 "Manifestly a great harm may come from the absence of com- 
 petition in that the profits made by saving the expense of competi- 
 tion have up to this time amassed themselves in the hands of a few 
 men, and that is a tremendous power. These profits have been 
 given back to the producers by re-investment, but that system in 
 itself simply means accumulating still greater power in the hands of 
 those who happen to be in control. I have kept fairly well posted 
 upon the undercurrents of financial affairs as well as the surface 
 swells and drifts and tides, and I am convinced that today you are 
 the financial king of this country. You have a controlling influence 
 in the oil industry, which is a plaything compared to your vast 
 other interests, and the whole gives you a czar-like power of dicta- 
 
no A GLANCE INTO THE FUTURE. 
 
 tion in the control of the vast railway S3'3tems of the country, a 
 control of all the banks and trust companies, insurance companies, 
 street railways, and such gigantic inter-state commercial enter- 
 prises as the steel, copper and lumber industries, to say nothing of 
 legislative and official forces that are aa much in your employ 
 through the influences that control them as if they were office boys. 
 I believe that, contrary to the repeated announcements that you have 
 not been active in business affairs for years, there is not a single 
 important matter affecting the business or politics of this country 
 that does not come to you for definite decision. 
 
 "Now, I agree that the saving from wasteful competition is a 
 good thing, and you will agree that to prove it a good thing for all 
 the people, as it should be, it should in a. direct fashion go back to 
 the people. Such tremendous jDower cannot always rest in one man, 
 or a few men. It is time for this vast saving to go back to human- 
 ity at large. 
 
 "I came here with this thought on my mind. I do not know 
 why I came. other than that of late I .have followed impulses that 
 seem to me to be directed by a higher power. I may be mistaken 
 in believing there is such directing. The reason for the belief is 
 the results of my efforts are so larerely in excess of my anticipations 
 that it seems to me there must be help from the powerful influences 
 that shape the larger affairs of man. 
 
 '■By this same impulse I am directed to suggest to you that this 
 system of accumulation has gone on long enough. You are no longer 
 u young man, Mr. R. , and I want to give you the vv'arning that in a 
 single hour the patient work of your life-time may be dissipated 
 and anarchy may result. If when the time comes for you to lay 
 down this burden of responsibility, your will shows that this great 
 v,'ealth and power has been tied up for forty or fifty years to con- 
 tinue its prodigious accumulation, as was done with the estates of 
 Firfd and Rogers, the meaning of the tremendous effect of such a 
 concentration of the capital of the country will be realized by the 
 people, and conditions would result that would be too appalling for 
 me to put into words. " 
 
 Having delivered my message, I looked to Mr. R. for a reply. 
 In a quiet, earnest tone of voice that carried conviction with every 
 word, he said : 
 . "Well, Sir Knight, -I have had two great ambitions. One, as 
 
A GLANCE INTO THE FUTURE. Ill 
 
 you have observed, was to prove that I was right years and years 
 ago when I said that industrial co-operation was better than com- 
 petition. Of course I could not then foresee the tremendous results 
 that have since followed, but after the system was properly started 
 it proved itself so overwhelmingly that I have many times been 
 dazed by the magnitude of it all. In fact, many years ago it got 
 beyond my control. I could not stop. A change would have been 
 followed by a panic that would have wrecked untold thousands. 
 
 "But as this great responsibility grew, another ambition awoke 
 — a greater ambition. I have not yet set the date for carrying it 
 out. I am in good health and hope I may live a great many years 
 longer, as these are the most important years in the realization of 
 my dream. If I should die, the plan svill be carried out, but frankly 
 I want to live to see the fruition of my greatest ambition. I have 
 entrusted my secret hope^ and plans to no strangers, but I am going 
 to show you. ' ' 
 
 Mr. R. excused himself and went to another room, returning 
 in a few moments with a document, which he handed to mo with a 
 request that I read it. 
 
 I did so. 
 
 For fully ten minutes afterward I sat staring into vacancy and 
 trying to fathom its entire meaning. Then with a glad and sincere 
 smile, I arose and offered him my hand, which he grasped with a 
 hearty pressure. 
 
 "Thank you, Mr. R. ," was all that I could say. 
 
 The magnitude of the issues involved in our conversation and 
 the unexpected conclusion left me with no inclination for conversa- 
 tion. I told my host that I would go, and again thanking him for 
 his confidence, with another warm pressure of the hand, I mounted 
 my air-ship and was soon cutting through the darkness to ray home. 
 
 Of course I will respect Mr. R. 's confidence and not divulge his 
 plans before he is ready to give them out. But really I am too 
 dazed to talk about them, anyway. 
 
 There are "men of destiny" in war, in politics, in finance. The 
 greatest part of a great man is his heart. In the presence of one of 
 these evidences of nature's extremes, the individual atom can only 
 hope that the heart is right. 
 
Knight of the Twentieth Century. 
 
 The Knight weighs 370 pounds, stands six feet three, well built, 
 and has had athletic training. He had been an unostentatious car- 
 penter, dreaming of the need of a Muscular Morality that would go 
 about the world punishing meanness. He fell heir to a small for- 
 tune, and his dream was made real. 
 
 BOSSING A BOSS. 
 
 I voted the other day. As I was mechanically placing the 
 crosses after the names in the column of the party with which I 
 have been in harmony on general principles, skipping one man 
 whose record I happened to know was bad, the absurdity of the 
 political system in a great city impressed me with renewed force. 
 Here I was with a great blanket sheet of names before me, voting 
 for a lot of men I had never seen and had no means of truthful 
 information about unless I made a business of politics and spent 
 time and money in the effort to keep posted. And I suppose if I 
 made a business of politics I would soon be as bad as the rest of 
 them. 
 
 The city man does not know his neighbor. He cannot know 
 him. The conditions of city life make it utterly impossible for a 
 man to have an extended acquaintance among the people who live 
 in his vicinity unless he makes a business of it. Even in the rare 
 cases where one has a business bringing him into acquaintanceship 
 with his neighborhood it is not safe to mix politics and business. 
 We belong to churches and societies, but usually these are located at 
 a distance from the wards in which we vote, the men we meet there 
 have interests foreign to our local political affairs, and practically 
 all such societies discourage or prohibit the discussion of political 
 matters among members. In fact, all the conditions of city life 
 make it impossible for the individual to know much about the 
 characters of candidates unless, like the saloon men and ward poll- 
 
BOSSING A BOSS. 113 
 
 ticians, he makes it a business. Since there are few opportunities 
 to get back the necessary expense from politics in a legitimate man- 
 ner, of necessity a man who spends time and money in politics must 
 get it back improperly. There are exceptions in a few men who are 
 well-fixed financially and take an interest in politics purely from 
 good motives, but they are exceedingly rare, and our system does 
 not encourage them. 
 
 The purchasable vote of a city is its controlling influence. This 
 is because it can be handled as a unit, while the honest vote is not 
 organized. One purchasable vote has greater weight in decision 
 than ten honest votes. From the natural condition of political 
 affairs, great questions divide the honest vote. The purchasable 
 vote is not divided, but represents a balance of power between two 
 factions representing a measure of decency upon the surface. The 
 result is that the decisive vote is cast where those who control it 
 can make a secret trade with the leaders of one of the opposing 
 factions, and the leaders who are most unscrupulous are sure to win. 
 This is nobody's fault. When this country broke away from mon- 
 archy and set up a republic, it went to an extreme. In a monarchy, 
 power lies with one man at the top. With a republic, power lies 
 with the great mass of individuals and many of them are at the 
 bottom. Perhaps there would be greater safety in a happy medium 
 between these two extremes. Consistent effort has been made of 
 late years to place restrictions around the right of suffrage that tend 
 to eliminate part of the worst of the voters at the bottom. May the 
 good work go on. There is much yet to be accomplished in that 
 direction. 
 
 However, I had no sooner left the booth than I decided to try to 
 do something toward a reform in our electoral system, especially as 
 it is applied in our cities. 
 
 That same evening, while the jubilation of the irresponsible 
 element was at its height over the victory against the law and order 
 forces that day, I pushed my way through a drunken crowd to the 
 office in the rear of a saloon that was owned by the leader of the 
 vote-controlling forces in the most notoriously corrupt ward in the 
 city. Good fortune befriended me, and I found the king of the 
 floating vote, for once taking no part in the noisy carousal, but 
 within sight and sound of the worst of it. With his feet on a desk, 
 a big black cigar tilted upward, he was alone and deeply engrossed 
 
114 BOSSING A BOSS. 
 
 in thought. 
 
 "Well, how would you like a visit from the Knight of the Twen- 
 tieth Century?" was ray greeting. 
 
 "Not a blank bit," was the quick reply. "What in the dickens 
 are yon going to do to me'?" 
 
 "Nothing, nothing," I replied. "Just dropped in for a little 
 chat. " 
 
 "Yes, but your little chats are usually decidedly unpleasant for 
 the other fellow. I am ready right now to beg off. I am not afraid 
 of anything on the land or sea except you, but you are so ingenious 
 in your methods that old satan himself would be outgeneraled. I 
 know you would not dare to come here so openly if you did not have 
 a trump card to play that will take the trick, so I acknowledge at 
 once that I am beaten and promise anything you ask, and then 
 some. ' ' 
 
 "Well, you are very kind, but this time there will be nothing 
 doing. I have trusted solely to an appeal to your good sense to give 
 me a hearing. " 
 
 "All right, but I won't make any foolish i:)asses. I am an un- 
 resisting Quaker this time. I don't believe for a cent in war and 
 carnage. I am at your mercy completely. Fire away and do any- 
 thing you choose." 
 
 "It is no news to you that our voting system is a lamentable 
 failure in great cities, where it is impossible for the individual to 
 know who and what he is voting for unless he makes politics a busi- 
 ness — and if he makes politics a business of necessity he must also 
 become corrupt. ' ' 
 
 "Indeed, it's not,'' was his quick reply. "I was just thinking 
 0? that very thing myself. You know^ m^ reputation and what I 
 stand for. Well, I am sick of it all. I have been moping and 
 growling in here all by myself while those maniacs out there have 
 been howling over a great victory that means setting back real ben- 
 efit to those very fellows more years than I dare to think. 
 
 "You seem to be a pretty level-headed fellow," he continued, 
 "and can appreciate my side of the question. We have a voting 
 system. If I do not control the floating vote, someone else will. It 
 is impossible for any one man to combine and control the intelligent 
 voters. The sydtera is too big for any one man or set of men to do 
 any good without a fundamental change, and who is big enough to 
 
BOSSING A BOSS. 115 
 
 make it? The reputable voters are strangers to each other, anrl 
 strangers they will always be because they live under the conditions 
 of a great city. The saloon is a natural meeting place for voters, 
 and these men can act together— and they do. I have given out in 
 charity and quiet help to thousands of poor devils a big share of the 
 money that has been gathered in, and have been satisfied that I was 
 doing more good than many a man so situated, and if I do not con- 
 trol this vote, another will. It is the system that is wrong. I am 
 only a creature of the system, doing the best I know how." 
 
 "I have put myself in your place," I said, "to an extent that I 
 have realized fully the situation as you have presented it, and that 
 is why I have come here with no intention of attempting anything 
 except to have a talk with you. I do appreciate that you have done 
 much good. As you say, the great harm is due to the system. But 
 can nothing be done to change the system?" 
 
 "Absolutely nothing that I can see. I have studied over the 
 matter time after time. I tell you frankly that if I could do any- 
 thing to put the deciding of political questions into the hands of 
 the intelligent voters of this city, I would chuck the whole crowd 
 that I have worked with all my life and come out as the rankest 
 reformer you ever heard of. " 
 
 "I am indeed rejoiced to hear that," I said. "I am a poor sort 
 of politician, myself, and perhaps do not know all the odds against 
 an attempt for a real change of a faulty political system, but how 
 does this line of reasoning strike you: Admitting, as everyone 
 does, that better government would come if the suffrage were more 
 restricted, additional restrictions in the way of longer residence, 
 the disfranchisement of criminals and the illiterate, and the regis- 
 tration of all voters in a public and permanent manner that would 
 make possible a criminal action for illegal registration on the part 
 of any citizen at any time and not simply a possible prosecution for 
 illegal voting that is now a usual after-election spasm that amounts 
 to nothing. Raise the standard of the individual vote and thus 
 make its value greater. Taen provide that all voters must divide 
 themselves into squads of live, the selected fifth to have the entire 
 responsibility of voting for himself and the other four. The indi- 
 vidual voter would then only be called upon to choose from his 
 acquaintances a man to represent him. In other words, instead of 
 voting tor a lot of strangers to make laws for him for four years, he 
 
116 BOSSING A BOSS. 
 
 would exercise the elective franchise nearer home by selecting a 
 friend who from the nature of the value of the tive times multiplied 
 franchise would be better qualitied to enquire into the personal 
 characters and habits of the men he in turn must select as represen- 
 tatives, and more easily work in harmony with other voters." 
 
 "That don't look good to me," was the politician's reply. 
 "There vt^ould be all sorts of trouble between the voters and the men 
 they would represent." 
 
 "Perhaps so," I said, "but we elect total strangers to positions 
 calling for this same representative capacity, and if the voters could 
 be convinced that it would result in better government for them 
 to exercise the selecting power nearer to themselves, they oaght to 
 be glad of the improvement. Certainly the honest voter has no vote 
 in this city now except to offset another honest vote. The floating 
 vote controlled by you decides every important matter." 
 
 "That has been tried in other countries and has resulted in 
 building up classes, the voters and the slaves. We are going to the 
 other extreme. Even the last relic of that system, the election of 
 United States senators, is fast going to a direct vote of the people. " 
 
 "Weil," I replied, "I am not enthusiastic about any particular 
 plan. I would like to see the conditions changed to give us a more 
 intelligent voting in the selection of public servants, and a more 
 strict accountability back down the line of men acting in a repre- 
 .sentative capacity, especially in the cities.'- 
 
 "I spe no hope," he replied. "If some plan were suggested, the 
 powers in control would never permit a change. As you and I know, 
 there is a gigantic financial influence in the east that sends its 
 orders to me and to every other dominating politician in the country. 
 They are satisfied." 
 
 "Ah, but there is the real secret of this interview. When some 
 really practicable plan is brought forward that will accomplish this 
 result and raise the elective standard of this country, the one great 
 power that now controls political affairs is ready to instruct its 
 pages and office boys to pass the law." 
 
 "What's that you say? Are you dreaming?" 
 
 "Not a dream, not a dream, my friend. If the voting intelli- 
 gence of this country were on a better basis, great things would 
 follow quickly. But suppose we had government ownership of the 
 railroads, of the express, telephone and telegraph, of the banks and 
 
BOSSING A BOSS. 117 
 
 insurance companies, of the steel trust and similar enterprises, what 
 a vast corruiDtion would exist under our present s^'stem ! No, no, 
 my friend. One important thing comes tirst, and that is the elimi- 
 nation of the corrupt voter, the ignorant voter, the repeating voter, 
 and the equally dangerous, the indifferent or uninformed voter." 
 
 "Well, I have such profound respect for you that I believe you 
 would not tell me this great thing if it were not so. It must be so. 
 I am glad. I am glad. What can I do?" 
 
 "For the present, work on these lines, being content to let 
 American genius work out the best plan." 
 
 "I'll do it! I'll do it! From this day forth, Jimmie will be a 
 reformer from Reformerville. Watch my smoke. No pet scheme. 
 Just hit a head wherever it shows up. I'm with you to the iinish !" 
 
 Thanking the great boss for his enthusiastic promise, and telling 
 him I would watch his efforts with much friendly interest, I shook 
 hands with a cordial good-night. 
 
 As I left his otKce, I saw him swing around again and plant his 
 feet on the desk, and the last glimpse was of that cigar tilted at 
 even a greater angle than before. 
 
 A pool of water may look black and dangerous in the semi- 
 darkness, but clearer vision under the bright sunlight reveals 
 sparkling purity. It all depends on the light when looking at people 
 and things. Even a political boss of a great city may have morals 
 and character if you can see through the coarse exterior to the real 
 man. 
 
Kniglit of the Twentletii Century. 
 
 The Knight weighs 270 pounds, stands six feet three, well built, 
 and has had athletic training. He had been an unostentatious car- 
 penter, dreaming of the need of a Muscular Morality that would go 
 about the world punishing meanness. He fell heir to a small for- 
 tune, and his dream was made real. 
 
 A SUPREME INJUSTICE. 
 
 A few daj-s ago when I was lazily finishing my Sunday paper, 
 with no particular object, and really in a hazy sort of way, being 
 more than half asleep, I glanced over a column of reports of cases 
 recently decided by the supreme court of the United States. Hardly 
 conscious that I was reading, I noticed that in one of the cases the 
 court had again decided a point against the government control of 
 railroad rates by confirming once more and referring to the old, old 
 decision that the constitution prohibits the confiscation of private 
 property, and that reduction of rates below what would leave a 
 "reasonable" interest on the value of the property amounted to a 
 confiscation. Well, I sat up pretty promptly and rubbed the sleep 
 out of my eyes. 
 
 The human mind is so constituted that it can be engrossed in 
 but one idea at a time. There is a sub-consciousness that is mean- 
 while doing more or less threshing around, but in a general way it 
 requires some outward affair to divert the mind to the consideration 
 of an idea, no matter how much the individual's interest may 
 normally be involved. 
 
 For many years I have been indignant over this ancient con- 
 struction of words that by the wildest flights of fancy can never be 
 made to mean what the supreme court has said they mean unless 
 one is determined to call black white because there is a selfish 
 motive for it. It is possible for the supreme court of the land to 
 call black white, and if they so decide, white it is. I was not 
 
A SUPREME INJUSTICE. 119 
 
 present when the constitution of the United States was adopted, that 
 immortal instrument tliat guarantees to every man the right of life, 
 liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and the right to bear arms 
 (except when some village council says he may not.) But in those 
 days it was a question of a monarchy vs. constitutional government. 
 Before that time it had been the cheerful habit of monarchs to 
 confiscate an enemy's property and give it to a friend. That was 
 confiscation. The king took it, bodily, wholly, with never a "by 
 your leave." He did not regulate the man or abuses. He just con- 
 fiscated everything in sight. Well, that is what the framers of the 
 constitution meant. They did not want a king or president to do 
 such a naughty thing. 
 
 They could not look forward to the time when one man might 
 confiscate the whole government, but actually legislated against 
 what had been a grievous wrong in the i^ast, and so far as the evi- 
 dence goes, pretty effectually stopped it. But the theory that these 
 words mean that this great government can have no power of regu- 
 lation of charges of corporations that have been created by the gov- 
 ernment and given special franchises and powers, is such a monstrous 
 construction of the words that no sane mind could conceive of it 
 unless some devilish ingenuity should desire it for selfish purposes. 
 And so it was construed. It has stood as the bulwark of defense 
 against all sensible and proper legislation of corporations. It is the 
 final ditch of all legislation, and the legislation dies in the ditch. 
 It is monstrc)US, bat it is there. 
 
 The sacredne.ss of this definition of "confiscation" applies only 
 to the effort to regulate big corporations. Two negroes "shooting 
 craps" may have their dice confiscated, a man carrying a revolver 
 may have it confiscated and destroyed, an importer who has over- 
 looked paying a duty may have thousands of dollars of property 
 confiscated, real estate may bo confiscated and sold for taxes. All 
 these in defiance of a possible definition of the word in the constitu- 
 tion, yet sustained time and time again by the supreme court. But 
 vv'hen it comes to regulating the rates of railroads that would squeeze 
 out a few barrels of watered stock and still leave enormous interest 
 on the actual investment, the supreme court, with eyes looking 
 back to that old-time decision, says it must not, it cannot be. 
 
 Well, this item that I happened to read called my attention to 
 the fact that this decision "precedent" was the worst crime ever 
 
120 A SUPREME INJUSTICE. 
 
 perpetrated on the American people, and straight-way I set about 
 to right this greatest ot all wrongs. 
 
 I did not know how I was going to do it, but like the Knights 
 of old I headed toward Washington and trusting to the Providence 
 of true knighthood and the strength of my good right arm, I started 
 in quest of the adventure. 
 
 Arriving in Washington, I learned that one Judge X—, affiliated 
 in a hundred ways by social and marriage ties with the most corrupt 
 of our big corporations, was more than anyone else responsible for 
 keeping life in this relic of old-time corruption, and I determined 
 to give him a taste of what I use in the treatment of moral disease. 
 
 I learned that it was the judge's habit to take daily exercise by 
 taking walks about the spacious grounds that surround his beautiful 
 mansion, grounds thickly studded with shade trees and with more 
 than a mile of lovely walks. It was his custom to walk for an hour 
 in the early evening, no doubt in silent meditation arriving at 
 many conclusions upon important law points that have given him 
 the reputation of being a great and learned judge. And he was. 
 Except for a bias in favor of corporations that had been fostered by 
 political and social conditions and by the army of corporation hire- 
 lings in the capital and out of it, who had made social matters easy 
 for the judge, his family and friends when matters were running 
 smoothly for corporate interests. They never bribed the judge. Oh, 
 no. Nothing less than a consulship for a second cousin would have 
 any effect on him. 
 
 I repaired to the judge's home in the gloaming, and as I hoped, 
 found him pacing peacefully along the pathways of peace, sur- 
 rounded with his own vine and fig trees and the perfect picture of 
 virtuous content. 
 
 I passed the gardener, a semi -lookout for possible intruders. 
 My dress and appearance evidently would i^ass muster in high judi- 
 cial circles. Stepping boldly up to the great justice, I reached out 
 my hand and said : 
 
 "Good evening, good evening. It is a pleasure, indeed, to see 
 you. ' * 
 
 Thinking, no doubt, that I was an acquaintance he had for the 
 instant forgotten, the judge shook hands warmly, saying : 
 
 "I am pleased to meet you." Looking intently at me, with a 
 puzzled face, desiring to be courteous and evidently embarrassed 
 
A SUPREME INJUSTICE. 121 
 
 at his failure to remember me, he was forced to add: "But I am 
 ashamed to acknowledge that I cannot recall your name. I have 
 such a poor memory for names and faces, anyway." 
 
 I held the judge's hand during this brief interval, and his small 
 hand was still clasped by my brawny fingers as I still held it more 
 tightly and moved toward a rustic seat that was at the side of the 
 walk. 
 
 "Keep quiet. Judge. I am a very powerful man beside you and 
 can harm you if you make an outcry, but I don't v^'ant to, and will 
 not if you will sit down here and talk to me." 
 
 The judge is a pretty wise fellow, and evidently thinking no 
 great harm could come to him so near his own home and with people 
 moving about, he sat down, with my ponderous bulk alongside, still 
 holding his hand. 
 
 "You have never seen me before, " I said, "but I have come 
 here to have a serious talk with you." 
 
 "Well, let gt> my hand. I don't object to your talking." 
 
 "No, I will nut let go of your hand at any time during this 
 interview. " 
 
 The judge tried to wriggle his hand from my grasp, but I gave 
 it a squeeze that nearly crushed the bones and made him cry out 
 with pain. 
 
 "Now," I said, "I am going to hold hands with you during 
 this entire interview and if j'ou don't Vv'ant some more of the same 
 only more so, you will be quiet." 
 
 He did not want any more of the same, until the gardener came 
 near, when a decided pressure quickly cured his inclination to cry 
 for help. Later he was called to dinner, but a positive pressure was 
 put on and he sent word that he would have to be excused for an 
 hour. 
 
 "Now, Judge, you know that the construction the supreme 
 court gave many years ago to the constitutional prohibition of con- 
 liscation of an individual's property, as an excuse for defending rail- 
 roads from adverse legislation, was the greatest outrage ever perpe- 
 trated under the judicial ermine, do you not?" 
 
 He said nothing. I squeezed his hand. Still he said nothing. 
 I squeezed his hand harder. Still he said nothing but "Ouch!" I 
 squeezed his hand till I thought every bone would be crushed. 
 
 "Yes! Yes! Oh, yes ! Of course I do." 
 
122 A SUPREME INJUSTICE. 
 
 "That's better," I said. "You know that monstrous play upon 
 the meaning of words was made at the command of interested cor- 
 porations?" 
 
 He said nothing. Another squeeze. 
 
 ' ' Yes ! Yes ! Of course. "' 
 
 "Well, I want you to see that the supreme court reverses itself 
 on that decision. " 
 
 "Not even a grunt. Harder squeeze. Not a woi'd. Harder 
 squeeze, and as he writhed with pain, he almost shouted, "I can't. 
 I can't. ■' 
 
 "Why can't you?'' 
 
 "Well, I can't. It would mean reversal of my whole life's con- 
 duct. It would ostracise me and my family." 
 
 "You agree that it should be done for the best interests of the 
 people?" 
 
 It only required a gentle pressure this time. 
 
 "Yes, yes, oh yes. That is plain enough, if you must make me 
 say it." 
 
 "Well, you have said it, now keep on talking." 
 
 He didnt want to. Another squeeze. 
 
 "It is too much to expect from any one man, anyway. I did 
 not decide this matter originally. In my official capacity I am ex- 
 pected to follow precedent. A decision having once been made, it 
 becomes the supreme law of the land. The judges who make it may 
 die, but the decision remains, whether it is good law or justice. 
 We frequently, because of the new conditions that are constantly 
 presenting new phases of old questions, give different shadings to 
 old decisions, but to completely reverse one of the most imijortant 
 decisions of the past would be revolutionary." 
 
 "That is true, but new conditions have C3me that make such 
 revolutionary action imperative. The gjvernment must control the 
 corporations instead of the corporations controlling the government. 
 You can, with your prestige and position, correct this great evil.'' 
 
 "You have me where I cannot help myself, '' he said, "and per- 
 haps the best way out of it is to talk frankly. You are right. Ev- 
 ery man who is in the least on the inside of big affairs knows that 
 thiij single decision has done more for corrupt combinations of capi- 
 tal than any other one thing. It is wrong. I acknowledge that in 
 my real thoughts I know it to bo wrong. But what can I do? I am 
 
A SUPREME INJUSTICE. 123 
 
 only a small wheel in a great machine. If I do not ilo the bidding 
 of the corporations, someone else would, and I would be banished 
 and disgraced. I cannot do this thing that you ask. My son is 
 about to be given special preferment, my daughter is engaged to be 
 married, and disgrace in my social circle would destroy my wife's 
 happiness. " 
 
 "I sympathize with yon, " I said, "but the times demand a 
 sacrifice. The people need it. The good of the greatest number 
 demands it. Will you make it?" 
 
 No reply. Another squeeze. Then the great jurist, the digni- 
 fied gentleman, the cultured crest of the intellectual wave of all this 
 great country, said: "Gosh, how that hurts !" 
 
 "Yes, I will, ■' he said. "It is humiliating to make this promise 
 to you under these circumstances. It is true, however, that I have 
 mentally decided many times in the past to do this thing. I recog- 
 nized all that it meant. You have told me nothing new. I am 
 more in earnest in this matter than you are, perhaps, in my real 
 opinions, but my surroxmdings held me in check. My conscience 
 and my judgment have long cried out. Bat I have never had the 
 moral courage to act. I will pay this tribute to the strength of 
 your wrist — it has given me the moral courage. This is not tem- 
 porizing with you. I believe that you would not do any more than 
 you have done, anyway. You are a gentleman, and have not treated 
 me more roughly than you thought was necessary." 
 
 "I believe you," I said, loosening that poor, abused hand, "and 
 if you will give me your other hand I will gladly shake bands with 
 you, and I won't squeeze it." 
 
 He did so. 
 
 "I forget the humiliation of this physical treatment in the 
 thought that the mind, after all, is subservient to the body,'' lie 
 said. "My physical comfort has been ministered to in a thousand 
 ways by the convenience of taking a wrong position on this great 
 question, while my conscience has cried aloud. It is fitting that the 
 discomfort that I have tried to evade has found me through the 
 general law of physical punishment for mental error. If my own 
 case had come before me as a judge, I would have made the penalty 
 more severe. 
 
 "I tell you again, that I will do everything I possibly can to 
 right this great wrong, and my heart will be in the work." 
 
124 A SUPREME INJUSTICE. 
 
 "May the true light of a clear conscience guide and prosper you 
 in your undertaking," I replied. "I will now leave you, rejoicing 
 at the happy conclusion of this painful interview. The carrying out 
 of this night's determation is left entirely to you, in your own good 
 time and in your own way. Good-bye. I can truly say that I am 
 glad to have met you. " 
 
 "Good-bye. and I can truly say that after this hand quits hurt- 
 ing I will be very glad that I have met you." 
 
 Sometimes squeezing hands results in marriage and families, 
 and the building up of a great nation. Sometimes, perhaps, it is a 
 good thing for a supreme judge to have his hand squeezed. 
 
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