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RETROSPECTION 
 
OTHER WORKS 
 
 WEST AMERICAN SERIES OF HISTORIES 
 
 LITERARY INDUSTRIES 
 
 THE BOOK OF THE FAIR 
 
 THE BOOK OF WEALTH 
 
 THE NEW PACIFIC 
 
 POPULAR HISTORY OF MEXICO 
 
 RETROSPECTION 
 
An v^hth riyajrtrr tn 
 
 BY 
 
 HUBERT HOWE BANCROFT 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HE BANCROFT COMPANY. PUBLISHERS 
 
 1915 
 
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 $'»«ta« Instltatlati 
 
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An nhhsh rljaptpr to "W^trasptttxan" 
 Mxi ^1xb^tt ^amt Sanrrnft 
 
 MODERN FALLACIES 
 
 PEOLOGUE; SATAN, SOLUS 
 
 44O1 O! Is it so, my children"? — and he smiled, plying his 
 
 ^N tail with complacency. "Is it thus I find you amusing 
 yourselves as Moses found his people on coming down 
 from the Mount? — only I see nothing in your gambolings quite 
 so rational as making for yourselves a golden calf to worship. 
 A somewhat freer indulgence in blood-lust and malevolence than 
 the occasion calls for, is it not? Christian Europe, in the most 
 humane age of the world dehumanized, imbruted, all ablaze 
 in a frenzy of wrath, your songs of happiness turned to hymns 
 of hate, and this, four thousand years from Abraham, two thou- 
 sand years from Christ. An advance in moral uprightness and 
 refinement, truly! — though seemingly a profitless industry breed- 
 ing men for manure. I am surprised, — and pleased, though I 
 take shame in that I have no entertainment to offer you sur- 
 passing this. 
 
 "Or is it only an infernal festival I see, a celebration per- 
 chance of your vaunted civilization, your worshipful Christianity? 
 Kindly interpret to me these terms, for in their signification I 
 can discern nothing more than a thin veneer of culture and 
 courtesy over raw human nature as exemplified in your illus- 
 trious predecessor Cain; the one, the evolution of the ages, the 
 unfolding of intellect along lines always significant of its origin; 
 the other a blind following of ancient fantasies the effluvia of 
 ignorance and superstition. 
 
 "For you say, 'Ever the best remains,' 'The purest only to be 
 permanent.' Wherefore after these many several centuries of 
 effort and endurance we have before us in this highly intellectual 
 and refined performance a specimen of your best and purest. 
 
 " 'Love is the fulfilling of the law,' saith the scriptures. 
 Behold how these Christians love one another! 
 
RETROSPECTION 
 
 "Again, 'By their fruits ye shall know them.' This, then, 
 that I see, is the fruitage of Christ's ministrations among you; 
 this the application of his divine teachings to your daily lives. 
 I seem to remember in times past something of discordant 
 doings among the elect resulting in many battles and butcheries. 
 Christians killing Christians for opinion's sake. Christians killing 
 pagans for Christ's sake, proselyting and purifying with fire 
 and sword, not to mention inquisitions, autos-da-fe, torture cham- 
 bers, Bartholomew massacres, and a thousand other crimes com- 
 mitted in the name of the meek and lowly Jesus. 
 
 "But all such ways of winning heaven pale before this mag- 
 nificent ditch-work; before these braying mortars that so bravely 
 level forts and tear to shreds beautiful cities, mingling with the 
 broken work of art the mangled remains of the unoffending 
 inhabitants; before your vikings of the air dropping destruction 
 on the mothers and babes of peaceful homes; before your battle- 
 ships coasting stealthily for some unprotected health or pleasure 
 place; before your terrible under-water engines hurling to hades 
 a thousand souls at a single blast. 
 
 "Great days these of electrical industries, of iron and oil 
 creations, of ever yet more powerful explosives, of ever yet 
 more efficient death-dealing machinery; and now that all these 
 good things might not run to waste the demons of Christian 
 civilization are let loose and all Europe goes off in an ecstasy 
 of mutual slaughter. 
 
 "Founded on superstition and militancy, which find expres- 
 sion not in the teachings of the sacred books but in the base 
 passions of rulers, religion becomes a factor in the origin and 
 continuance of the war. Statesmen, diplomats, learned profes- 
 sors who chop logic to make the worse appear the better part; 
 preachers who blaspheme from the pulpit, and prayer-mongers 
 who call on God to help his only true and chosen people in their 
 ferocious doings, the quality of their petitions explained and 
 emphasized by these orgies of human butchery, by this outbreak 
 of piety in vindictive passion, — a new demonstration in love and 
 charity perchance, the love of bloodshed and the charity that 
 turns from widow's wails and orphan's cries. Me, I would not 
 to people my kingdom resort to such sophistries. I hold to 
 scorn these profane babblings that find expression in cruelty, 
 treachery, revenge, loss of integrity, loss of honor, in robbery, 
 rape and rank injustice, the fruits by which we are to know the 
 bright road of progress and kaiser kultur. 
 
MODERN FALLACIES 
 
 "Ah! it is progress indeed, such progress that another 
 thousand years of it will make of this earth a hell so hot that 
 my abode beside it will be as the hall of Valhalla or the garden 
 of the Hesperides. Wherefore I Beelzebub, king of kings, salute 
 thee, William, king of Germany! 
 
 "Admit then, beloved, that the devil is not so black as he 
 is painted, that he alone in a world of mummery, lying, self- 
 deception, and hypocrisy dare speak the truth. Go to, then, I, 
 Lucifer, star of the morning, will prate and pray with you in all 
 honesty and sincerity. Listen. Let us pray. Let us all pray, 
 of whatsoever name or nation, help us Oh Lord! to kill; help us 
 to kill. Listen not to our adversaries. Curse them, good Lord, 
 curse them; confound their politics, frustrate their knavish 
 tricks. Art not thou Oh God! a God of war, and is not thy 
 church a church militant? Then help us Oh God! only us thy 
 servants, to kill, help us to kill. Give us peace in thine own time, 
 good Lord, peace with mastery, only with mastery, remember, 
 good Lord. Help us to kill, Oh Lord! to kill. 
 
 "How perfectly ethical and logical is prayer! 
 
 " 'The churches are impotent,' your wiseacres say. Cer- 
 tainly, any one can see that. 'Christianity is impotent.' How do 
 you know; has it ever been tried? 'Prayer is impotent.' Then 
 why insult high heaven with the trash you offer it, knowing 
 nothing, believing nothing, expecting nothing. And as for the 
 prayers of belligerents, it makes us smile down our way, so 
 tangled they become ere reaching the throne of grace. 
 
 " 'It repenteth me that I made man,' saith the Lord. Where- 
 fore ye who preach and pray for lucre, not for souls, who teach 
 God his duty, telling him so much he never knew before, were 
 it not well to mention his mistake about the Ark, in saving 
 any one when drowning the world in water; a mistake which 
 may now be rectified in drowning the world in blood, and this 
 time make a clean sweep of it, for is not the kaiser the son of 
 Noah? Then, further, were it not well to devise some other 
 means for the betterment of mankind than drowning the people 
 he has made, whether in water or blood? Were it not as well 
 to abolish the Hague, burn your peace-temples, leave inane 
 prayers and prating to women and fanatics, and get at something 
 sensible? 
 
 " 'God save the king!' I hear you cry; or if of Britain you 
 say God save our excuse for a king. Why is this, why do you 
 want God to save your king? Is it because he assumes supe- 
 
RETROSPECTION 
 
 riority, claims divine rulership inherited from some medieval 
 pirate or cutttiroat baron? Is it because he imposes upon you 
 unjust burdens, makes traffic of womanhood, harnesses you to 
 crime, forcing you to commit any iniquity his passions may 
 dictate? 
 
 "Go to, poor mites of humanity, crawling about on this little 
 lump of earth, your necks under the iron heel of despot rulers. 
 Of what use to you are kings, pygmies under high heaven 
 strutting their brief lives away, presently to rot like the rest, 
 yet whom you follow like sheep to the shambles. Of what 
 benefit to the world are the royal drones, the vagrant nobility, 
 the large idle class that scorn work but scorn not to live on the 
 work of others, and which you are forced to support, besides the 
 burdens of war, religion, and crime? I fain would wish you a 
 better fate. Do you not know that all cultures and cults grow 
 rank with age and die; do you not see that your progress is 
 downward as well as upward, your wars a crime, your religion a 
 hollow mockery which is always harking back to the paganism 
 of ancient Egypt and Rome, while the star of destiny is ever 
 more radiant in the west, new light even now breaking forth 
 over the vast amphitheatre of the Pacific with every sign of 
 promise for the great and final development. 
 
 "Enough. If you are content to remain thus, even as I see 
 you now, compelled by your gracious sovereign to crawl in 
 ditches on your bellies and shoot men down as he shall direct, 
 men you do not know and with whom you have no variance, so 
 do. If not, come with me to a higher, happier hell where wicked- 
 ness may be enjoyed with some degree of common sense and 
 decency." 
 
 With the first flush of amazement, the first wave of 
 horror that swept over America on the breaking out of hos- 
 tilities in Europe came sincere sorrow and sympathy for 
 those about to suffer, for those about to die. The pity of it ! 
 Physical endurance beyond compare, and mental distress; 
 then the loss to humanity, the blow to faith and progress, 
 the blow to society, to intellectual advancement and esthetic 
 culture, reform rolled back, Christianity made contempt- 
 ible, the return to brute force and beastliness, all showing 
 how thin the coating of civilization and religion that covers 
 
MODERN FALLACIES 
 
 our earthly natures. Soon, however, and subconsciously 
 swept in upon us a sense of satisfaction with our better lot, 
 and finally speculation as to how we might profit by the 
 situation. 
 
 The popular idea seemed to be that prosperity, as the 
 gentle rain from heaven, was to fall on all alike, without 
 effort on the part of any ; but when the hard times following 
 the new tariff'continued, and to the income tax was added 
 another by courtesy called a war tax, but in reality a tax 
 made necessary by our invasion of Mexico and other inju- 
 dicious acts, it appeared that the alleged prosperity was not 
 to be immediate and universal. 
 
 Conditions were imposed. The south could not sell its 
 cotton, so that there was no prosperity there. Exporters 
 of raw material in the north were likewise in a quandary. 
 New York was deep in financial problems, and closed the 
 Stock Exchange to avoid panic. Chicago and the middle 
 west were the best off of any, having food products and 
 manufactured articles to sell. San Francisco and the 
 Pacific coast soon shipped away the limited supply of fruit 
 and grain, leaving ample time for the mind to dwell on the 
 benefits of the Panama canal and the glories of the two 
 expositions. So passed away the first months of the Euro- 
 pean war with little appearance of great immediate profit 
 to America. 
 
 Entering the second half year of the war, times grew 
 worse rather than better. The industrial world was par- 
 alyzed. Men of affairs in an atmosphere of financial unrest, 
 everywhere frenzied fighting, wars of uncertain duration, 
 were afraid to move lest they should make a mistake. Ocean 
 transportation was perilous, and dealings with the warring 
 nations difficult. The earthquake in Italy added to the 
 horrors of famine in Poland and Belgium, and among the 
 early movements of ocean-going craft, following the lirst 
 ravages of the war, were relief shipments to those coun- 
 
 5 
 
RETROSPECTION 
 
 tries. Adding to the general embarrassment were the 
 blockades declared by the belligerents one against the other, 
 the M^ar zone thrown around the British isles supported by 
 German mines while England placed chief dependence on 
 her fleet. 
 
 But whether or not fighting continued, the world must 
 be fed and clothed, and for supplies all eyes were turned 
 toward America ; so that later woolen clothing, cotton knit 
 goods, leather and rubber boots and shoes, harness and 
 saddles, motor cars, and metal-working machinery began 
 to move across the water at the rate of five or six millions 
 of dollars a day taking the place of raw material exports, 
 which for the United States was the beginning of a new 
 prosperity, exports exceeding imports for a time at the 
 rate of a billion dollars a year. Soon we were making cloth 
 such as England formerly made ; we took from Bavaria to 
 some extent the toy and machine industries, from France 
 wines and women's wear, and so on. Alien immigration, 
 however, of which a large increase was expected, fell off 
 from the average of previous years seventy-fiive per cent. 
 
 Great Britain made an effort to capture some of the 
 German trade, publishing a monthly magazine entitled 
 Made in England, but little came of it. There was little 
 production in France other than agricultural. The famine 
 scare increased sweeping over the world. Appeals for 
 bread came in from every quarter, from Belgium, Poland, 
 Servia, Palestine, Montenegro, Mexico, Samoa, and else- 
 where, while England and Germany were trying to starve 
 each other out. Even the United States talked of placing 
 an embargo on wheat. Yet at that moment it was only 
 America between Belgium and starvation. 
 
 As time passed by it became more and more apparent 
 that the effect of the war on the United States as a whole 
 would not prove beneficial for some time to come, if at all. 
 
MODERN FALLACIES 
 
 We saw also that it was not a war of peoples but of rulers, 
 who filled with malignity stood aside in places of safety 
 while prodding on their soldiers in the trenches, with little 
 hate in their hearts, to kill, they knew not why; and that 
 at the bottom of it was militarism, which means applied 
 machinery for the slaughter of men, just as Chicago has 
 applied machinery for the slaughter of cattle. We saw 
 that it was not a European war alone, but a world war, one 
 in which sooner or later Asia and America would have 
 their part to play. It was not a passing freak of the 
 Almighty at the hand of his chosen rulers, but a regular 
 old-fashioned raid for blood and plunder, for loot and 
 land, attended by the usual medieval outrages ; this for 
 Germany, while for England and France it signified in 
 case of defeat denationalization. All the same they were 
 rather slow in coming to the assistance of Belgium who 
 interposed her body to check the avalanche. England is 
 not quick to do for herself what another will do for her. 
 She does not deal in sentiment ; she does not scorn to reap 
 where others have sown ; yet being in for this war, which 
 to her is life or death, she will fight it out thoroughly and 
 to a finish. 
 
 Fortunately neither prayers for peace nor friendly in- 
 terposition succeeded in terminating the war in Europe. 
 Did ever anyone expect it ? The worst that could befall 
 would be to establish peace before certain issues were 
 determined, without which settlement all the blood and 
 treasure thus far spent were worse than thrown away. It 
 is only ignorance of conditions and shallow self-flattery that 
 cause the occasional outburst of simple souls in wide-spread 
 prayer and inane peace proposals. 
 
 The contending forces had as yet reached no stopping 
 place. For though ages may intervene, the full fruitage of 
 this conflict will not appear until kings, royalties, and titled 
 nobility with hereditary rulership are abolished, Prussian 
 
 7 
 
RETROSPECTION 
 
 militarism exterminated, and infamous episodes like the 
 present war made impossible. 
 
 Prussian militarism; what is it? Rightly it has been 
 called a system without a soul; a state that is a distinct 
 entity, without moral sense or obligation; a nation that is 
 an army and an army that is a nation ; a force for aggres- 
 sion, not for defense ; a huge machine for crushing peoples, 
 into whose wheels men for cogs are fitted, the emperor of 
 Germany at the engine and diplomats and professors at the 
 furnace. 
 
 During the brief period since this war began our eyes 
 have been opened to evils threatening interests vital to the 
 human race. We see the rulers of great nations, among 
 the foremost in intellect and culture, giving themselves up 
 more than ever before to the science and art of human 
 slaughter, cavalierly relegating in time of war, honor, hon- 
 esty, integrity, and humanity to the plea of necessity. To 
 this end the whole country is laid under contribution. To 
 this end the boy is trained and the man must respond. To 
 this end the rulers, divine or devilish, lay heavy burdens 
 upon the people and drive them to their death at pleasure. 
 What matters it to the master, a few more millions slain, 
 a few more millions starved, the wrecking of a few more 
 cities, the laying waste of a few more provinces, prosperous 
 towns reduced to a memory; it's all in the day's work, and 
 necessary. 
 
 Every male infant born of a German mother, to become 
 a German subject, enters the world a bondsman, as part 
 of a mechanism whose purpose and practice is the killing 
 of human beings. Prom this thraldom there is no escape 
 save through the gates of death. At the proper age and 
 time, boy or man, the victim is placed before others like 
 himself, and all driven on to slaughter. It is a slavery of 
 the soul. Doomed to the shambles from childhood by a 
 rulership purporting to be of divine origin and agency, and 
 
MODERN FALLACIES 
 
 sustained by learned professors trained in the same school 
 and bound to promulgate the same doctrine, there is no 
 crime the ruler may choose to impose that the subject can 
 refuse to commit. Obviously the nation or nations that 
 follow this system and handle such machinery can dominate 
 those that do not; in a word can rule the world as it now 
 stands. This compels others, Americans as well as Euro- 
 peans, to adopt the same method or go out of business, 
 which means a return to feudalism. It is therefore life or 
 death, the total eradication of German militarism from the 
 face of the earth. 
 
 A century ago the French emperor made himself auto- 
 crat of Europe; his methods were bad enough, but not so 
 infamous as are those of the German emperor today, yet 
 England and Germany rose and drove Napoleon out. 
 Better America should join the allies than that the world 
 should continue as shambles with the science and art of 
 killing men as the chief industry. As scourge of the world 
 the German William is worse than was ever any French 
 Napoleon or Spanish Philip. With this sort of absolutism 
 in vogue in Europe, a peace-at-any-price people in any part 
 of the world would be among the first to suffer. A good 
 supply of battleships, submarines, and air ships are the best 
 argument in diplomatic circles. 
 
 The claim of a divine right of one man to rule over 
 others, it is needless here to say, is an insult to human 
 intelligence. The forcing of men to fight like wild beasts 
 or gladiators in the arena is a form of fiendishness worthy 
 of a Roman Nero or a Russian Peter; the maintenance of 
 men and machinery for inroads upon neighboring nations 
 and the butchery of the innocent inhabitants is a crime 
 worthy of a German William, and exceeding all other 
 crimes. Few realized until they saw its horrible devourings 
 what a monster high civilization was harboring. The only 
 
 9 
 
RETROSPECTION 
 
 hope for the extinction of militarism and a long period of 
 peace is in the final triumph of the triple entente. 
 
 The cause of the war and by whom originated were 
 topics of controversy at first, each laying the blame upon 
 the other; but the matter was soon dropped as of small 
 moment beside the awful realities that followed. The 
 causes in due time appeared, and so plainly marked that 
 few found difficulty in reaching proper conclusions despite 
 the false reasoning and absurd deductions made by profes- 
 sors and rulers. Preparedness, with kultur and divine 
 kingship as a basic element; add commercial jealousy and 
 elemental hate and we have not long to await spontaneous 
 combustion. 
 
 Germany, militarized by forty years of study, invention, 
 and drill, with the largest army and the most perfect mili- 
 tary machinery which had yet been seen, took the field 
 under the banner of reinforced barbarism, hastening the 
 attack before the other belligerents were fairly awake to 
 the situation in the expectation of the immediate capture 
 of Paris, which would have been accomplished but for the 
 intervention of brave little Belgium. 
 
 Von Bernhardi outlined in his book three years before 
 the war, as is well known, the course which afterward was 
 followed, openly discussing the policy of a world empire. 
 With refreshing candor the kaiser claims that as vicegerent 
 of the Almighty and divinely appointed dominator of the 
 world, with a kultur which to have means deep conscience 
 and high morale, he is not bound by ordinary laws or per- 
 sonal pledges, for he alone can truly translate humanism. 
 It is idle for professors to pretend that the kaiser and his 
 cohorts did not want the war. 
 
 Because Germany, insincere and treacherous, prepared 
 for it long and strenuously, applying all the genius of art 
 and industry to the construction of death-dealing imple- 
 ments; because she plainly declared her purpose before- 
 
 in 
 
MODERN FALLACIES 
 
 hand first to dominate Europe, then Asia and America ; 
 because from the beginning she everywhere assumed the 
 offensive, springing the conflict suddenly upon the unpre- 
 pared, breaking treaties, forfeiting honor, treating with 
 barbarous cruelty and injustice unoffending peoples; and 
 because of her ability at any time to have prevented or 
 terminated hostilities, we may be sure that the odium of the 
 bloodiest and most senseless of wars that ever disgraced 
 the name of man will rest with the present rulers of Ger- 
 many to the end of time. The crime of Belgium, alone an 
 endless shame ; a peaceful, happy land, villainously entered 
 and wantonly destroyed, then after seizing for them- 
 selves the food supply, and imposing exorbitant ransom 
 upon the despoiled cities, the conquerors turn their back 
 upon the inhabitants shivering under the debris of their 
 so lately happy homes, and seven millions survivors, old 
 men, women, and children are left in their misery with 
 the oncoming winter to freeze, and starve, and die. 
 
 We have been taught to regard Germany as the pro- 
 tector of culture, the guardian of the highest civilization 
 and of the purest religion, a barrier to the inroads of the 
 barbaric Muscovite; but when we see the rulers of Ger- 
 many trampeling under foot the teachings of Christ, 
 assuming God's place and prerogative on this earth, and 
 the professors of the universities defending wath illogical 
 verbiage diabolical cruelty and injustice, we say open the 
 gates and let the Russians in. 
 
 The day will come perhaps when the German emperor 
 will be pleased to talk peace and peace conditions. Who 
 then will listen? Of what worth the word of one dis- 
 honored, forsworn? Of what value the promise of one 
 who openly declares himself void of truthfulness, void of 
 integrity, his treaty worthless, his bond waste paper? A 
 nation outlawed, perjured, why waste time concocting 
 terms with such an one? Necessity knows no law, the 
 
 11 
 
RETROSPECTION 
 
 kaiser alone being judge of what is necessary. "War is a 
 necessity whenever the kaiser chooses so to declare it.- 
 War knows no law; the kaiser knows no law; yet while 
 breaking laws and treaties ad libitum Germany protests 
 loudly against the breaking of international laws by others. 
 
 When a country outlaws itself under the plea of neces- 
 sity, concrete acts of infamy upheld by the German chan- 
 cellor and sustained by the German war book — how make 
 honorable compacts with a state outlawed? 
 
 And what would be the effect on the world were the 
 kaiser's high code of ethics allowed a free course? Already 
 foxy Japan talks of not only repudiating her promises of 
 restoration to China of the late conquests on her border 
 from the Germans, but is making further extortionate de- 
 mands hitherto little thought of. For is not the Mikado 
 likewise divine, Buddha incarnate, and can he not interpret 
 the word necessity as well as any German potentate when- 
 ever he wishes further lootings in China? And that is all 
 the time; indeed, Japan would not object to taking over 
 all of China, and may find it one day "necessary" to do so 
 unless Germany gets in before her. It is a dangerous pre- 
 cedent, and a fine example for pagandom, this mixture of 
 lawless ambition with fanaticism and the divinity craze, the 
 Teutonic blood-lust and kultur-lust with inherited rulership 
 back of it all. 
 
 And let America have a care of being caught napping. 
 The Asiatic Frenchmen are a polite people, but when 
 Nippon protests too much then beware of Nippon. Should 
 the United States become seriously involved in war inade- 
 quately armed, Japan will doubtless find it necessary to take 
 over the Philippines, and complete her occupation of the 
 Hawaiian islands, already well begun. And alas and alack 
 for the little Nipponese when the fierce Teutons reach the 
 day of reckoning ! For it will then be found necessary 
 
 12 
 
MODERN FALLACIES 
 
 to break any terms of peace which meantime may have been 
 made, while due chastisement is inflicted. 
 
 The kaiser and his sycophants are so obsessed by a 
 sense of their superiority, claiming for their august chief 
 special privileges from heaven by which Germany is fated 
 to universal sovereignty, that their mental vision becomes 
 obscured, preventing them from seeing far beyond the 
 limits of their horizon. With superb egotism, and a fanat- 
 icism bordering on insanity, they openly declare their mis- 
 sion of world dominance, of which these present wars are 
 the initiative. 
 
 And the kaiser, though suffering from his superlative 
 excellence and high destiny still asserts that he does not 
 want to be king of the world, but kultur and the divinity 
 that doth hedge him about constraineth him. 
 
 With brute force, and brutishness, enough and to 
 spare, the Germans have accomplished wonders, but the 
 time has passed when brute force can hold universal sov- 
 , ereignty, and Germany lacks moral force, lacks even a 
 moral sense, notwithstanding the kaiser's asseverations, 
 while denying any purpose of founding a world empire, 
 that in the kultur, "the deep conscience, industry, and 
 high morale of the German people, is to be found a con- 
 quering power that will open the world for them". 
 
 Germany assumes omnipotence, but despotism is no 
 proof of oinnipotence. Germany would rule the world 
 while practising violence, but the time is past when the 
 world can be governed by violence. More moral force 
 with less physical force would serve the purpose better. 
 
 Yon Bernhardi and the emperor of course deny any 
 intention of world empire, but who would trust them? 
 Who could tell what necessities might arise, what militar- 
 ism might demand, or to what measures preparedness and 
 power might tempt them? Of what worth is the pledged 
 word or the written obligation of men whose boast is that 
 
 13 
 
BETKOSPECTION 
 
 their will is superior to law, that any treaty they may 
 choose to break is waste paper? 
 
 The deep conscience and high morale of the German 
 people were manifest in their public rejoicing over the 
 achievements of the German admiral who sailed along the 
 English coast firing on defenceless women and children; 
 and after devastating Belgium how fine the chivalry dis- 
 played by the indifference of the raiders to the misery they 
 had caused, not to mention the order forbidding the rescue 
 of drowning seamen blown to destruction by their sub- 
 marines ! 
 
 The limit of sanity, however, is reached when Professor 
 Eucken presents the ideal of the fatherland as a spiritual 
 entity, wherein he discerns loftier manifestations since the 
 war began, notably in the manly methods of ditch-work 
 warfare, so superior to that of the cowardly forest savages 
 shooting from behind trees, and in the admirable behavior 
 of the new machinery employed in devastating Belgium 
 by the kaiser, whose ideals of Teutonic kultur and the 
 destiny of his people soar yet higher as he battles for the 
 deliverance of the world. 
 
 In this new idealism there is no selfishness, no lust for 
 loot or land, no thirst for power or revenge; all men of 
 all nations, friends and foes alike shall share it, — all that 
 is left of them after this carnival of slaughter is over. As 
 an excuse for this war Professor Eucken, like the others, 
 pleads necessity, a joyous necessity as he declares, resulting 
 in a transformation of soul. Vaterland spiritualized by 
 the new kultur, a cognate people from inner coherence 
 made fit for the new earth and the new heaven prepared 
 for them. 
 
 Even though to ears attuned this does not sound like 
 Teutonic rot, yet it were quite as well never to put it into 
 English. We have only to turn to Belgium for a specimen 
 of kaiser love and kultur discipline which we can easily 
 
 14 
 
MODERN FALLACIES 
 
 Understand; or if we prefer peace at any price we have 
 only, like Luxembourg, humbly to submit and our lives 
 may be spared and our cities escape destruction. 
 
 As the world's war lord, with the world before him 
 and the Prussia that Bismarck and von Moltke had made 
 for him at his back, his people meanwhile confident in his 
 infallibility, there is little wonder that the emperor William, 
 still human though not knowing it, might sometimes over- 
 reach himself, as when he reckoned too confidently and 
 risked too much on Italy to complete his triple alliance, 
 and on a subservient Belgium and an inactive England, 
 later to find himself unable to move backward or forward, 
 but only to stand and see his brilliant anticipations fall in 
 ruins about him. 
 
 An age of gold succeeding an age of iron, then back to 
 brute force again until the universe grows hazy, and the 
 source of power, — does it come from the skies or is it 
 found in the fruitful fields of pacific peoples? 
 
 Rising unrefreshed and unenlightened from the un- 
 fathomable depths of Kantian philosophy to the more open 
 plain of Neitzsche, on which the present war propaganda 
 was planted by Treitschke and Bernhardi, placing power 
 before humanity and courage before charity, and over- 
 whelmed by superfluous strength and mental faculties ab- 
 normally active in making men and machinery for death- 
 dealing purposes, perhaps the most charitable construction 
 we can place on the course of the Germans, their ethics 
 and their abnormities, in the prosecution of this war would 
 be to credit the rulers and professors with some slight 
 mental aberration. At all events the Teutonic quality of 
 mind and morals, of evolution and progress, expressed in 
 the word kultur, however regarded in Germany, would 
 among the thoughtful people of America be called if not 
 vicious at least delirious. We could not imagine, for ex- 
 ample, a man in his right mind, as is told of the emperor, 
 
 15 
 
RETROSPECTION 
 
 wondering why the United States does not capture Canada, 
 now that the opportunity offers! "World power or noth- 
 ing!" is the pretentious cry of German arrogance. Then 
 let it be nothing. 
 
 That Germany will ever realize her dreams of universal 
 empire is unthinkable. Then, if that is so, it is equally 
 impossible for her to come victorious out of this war, for 
 the one implies the other. It requires no prophet to see 
 that this Prussian craze has got to be crushed, and will be 
 though it should take ten or twenty years for its accomplish- 
 ment. Not that the destruction or dismemberment of 
 Germany, a fate such as she would inflict upon others, 
 must follow, but that Prussian militarism must be utterly 
 uprooted as a social and political cancer. 
 
 Of the divine mission, the right of inherited rulership, 
 the alleged vicegerency of Almighty God, and the boasted 
 kultur, deep conscience, and high morale of William, em- 
 peror of Germany, the story of this war will ever stand as 
 a bright example. And for his epitaph let it be written. 
 He murdered some millions of men and women and chil- 
 dren ; he also murdered national honor, civil rights and 
 humaneness. 
 
 Thus far America has profited but little from the world 's 
 wars, but has suffered loss and disturbance. The tide will 
 turn, however, in time, for the country at large perhaps 
 in one or two years; for California it may be in five or 
 fifty years. For we may be sure that the great ocean was 
 made for some important purpose, and the planting of its 
 shores with inexhaustible wealth was for the furtherance 
 of that purpose. It is equally certain that around the 
 waters of San Francisco bay will one day appear a World 
 Centre of Industry, its advent soon it is possible, but more 
 likely not until the present generation has passed away 
 and another quality of manhood appears. For we know 
 
 16 
 
MODEKN FALLACIES 
 
 that ever the star of empire has been westward, and that 
 the ultimate west having been attained, here the star rests; 
 but still it shines, for here is to be wrought out man's full 
 and final destiny. 
 
 Already the world's financial centre has moved from 
 London to New York. Already a midcontinent world 
 centre of industry is seen at and around Chicago, whose 
 boast is the largest output of each of half a thousand useful 
 things, and whence it is but a single leap to San Francisco 
 bay and the broadest and most opulent of oceans. Neither 
 the climate nor the economic advantages of this favored 
 spot have thus far been fully appreciated ; let us hope that 
 the many thousands who come hither from every quarter 
 to view the Panama canal and our great industrial exposi- 
 tions during this memorable year of 1915 may see things 
 as they are and carry away true and proper impressions 
 thereof. 
 
 While the Panama canal was in course of construction 
 there was scarcely a sea or a river port that did not expect 
 great and immediate benefits therefrom. Some were dis- 
 appointed. We should know by now that few are enriched 
 without effort by any war, exposition, or canal. Many places 
 can offer some special advantage for commerce and manu- 
 factures, but there is no place that offers all the advantages 
 for a World Centre of Industry equal to San Francicso bay. 
 
 Centrally situated on the border of the great ocean, 
 held to this day for the more intelligent exploitation by 
 civilized man, and aggregating with its prolific shores and 
 enchanting isles a coast line of more than 35,000 miles in 
 extent, this port has immediately tributary half the world, 
 the other half being easily reached through the Panama 
 canal. Around the vast amphitheatre of the Pacific, and 
 extending inland hundreds or thousands of miles are metal- 
 veined mountains and alluvial plains which have as yet been 
 scarcely disturbed by the hand of civilized man. 
 
 17 
 
RETROSPECTION 
 
 It is safe to say that under the snows of Alaska, in the 
 great mountain ranges that stretch thence southward to 
 and far beyond the tropics, and in the fertile soils of the 
 more habitable parts, whose opulent cities bear testimony 
 to their natural resources, there lies more uncovered wealth 
 than has yet been brought to light by all the nations of 
 all time. 
 
 And the availability of it all at our industrial centre, 
 and our advantages in handling it! Cheap electric power 
 from the Sierra, oil piped from the wells to our favored 
 port, cotton from the Imperial valley and all the way to 
 Texas, wool from the north, wood and coal from the coast 
 beyond, while from every part of the broad Pacific at 
 moderate cost, say from three to five dollars a ton, raw 
 material of every sort, all animal and plant products, all 
 minerals and metals wrought out in the laboratories of 
 nature during the countless ages of the earth's existence, 
 may be brought to San Francisco bay, there to be recreated 
 by arts and industries, and thence distributed throughout 
 the world in forms best befitting the use of man. 
 
 Then the food conditions and cost of living; plenty to 
 eat at moderate expense ; house rents reasonable ; healthful 
 airs filtering through the snowy mountains and swept in 
 from the sea; no malaria, no indigenous diseases, no freez- 
 ing cold in winter nor uncomfortable heat in summer. In- 
 deed, the climate of San Francisco, perfect in its way, 
 whether as an industrial asset or a resort for health and 
 pleasure is just beginning to receive proper recognition. 
 To delightful surroundings are given many benefits, — cool 
 bracing air, average temperature varying between 55° and 
 70° ; fewer casualties than may be found on any other spot 
 of earth; no slaying by sunstrokes or lightning; no floods, 
 cyclones, or blizzards; and as for the earthquake bugaboo, 
 it is an historical fact that more lives have been lost from 
 heat in one day on the eastern coast, or from midcontinent 
 
 18 
 
MODERN FALLACIES 
 
 river overflows, than from all the earthquakes that ever 
 happened in California of which there is any record or 
 tradition, be it for a thousand years back. 
 
 The bay itself is a matchless body of water, sixty miles 
 long and from four to six miles wide, and beautiful beyond 
 description, whether in the purple haze of early morning 
 or glowing under a noonday sun. The several large islands, 
 with the Presidio reservation, are held by the government 
 for soldier's quarters and purposes of defense. The borders 
 of bay and islands, with indentations and tributary straits 
 and rivers, give 300 linear miles or more all ready for fac- 
 tories and warehouses with ocean vessels on one side and 
 railway trains on the other. All the leading countries of 
 the world have, or will have, their own lines of steamships 
 running direct to San Francisco, lines from China, Japan, 
 Australia, South America, and from Europe through the 
 Panama canal, while daily scores of railway trains depart 
 for every near and distant point. 
 
 Few will deny that manufactures are essential to the 
 prosperity of a nation, that never was a country perma- 
 nently rich without manufactures and never was a country 
 permanently poor with manufactures. A land poor from 
 lack of natural products may become rich by utilizing the 
 products of other lands and adding to their value by in- 
 telligent labor and distribution to parts where most needed. 
 
 Exports and imports are quoted as indicative of national 
 prosperity. Perhaps less of each would be better if home 
 industry were stimulated thereby. It is the export of manu- 
 factured goods that indicates permanent prosperity, not 
 the export of raw material. Therefore the first advantage 
 to be derived by the United States from the war in Europe 
 is in checking* the exportation of raw material, thus com- 
 pelling industrial development at home. It is only of 
 secondary importance that the markets of the world are 
 
 19 
 
EETROSPECTION 
 
 left open to us while the Europeans are busily employed in 
 the most destructive of games. 
 
 Spain by internal development became the greatest of 
 nations; but when gold began to flow in freely from the 
 New "World she found it easier to buy than to make; now 
 look at her ! Therefore, we may safely say that those who 
 will profit most by the European war are not the growers 
 of cotton nor even of food products, but those who make 
 needful articles and send forth competent agents to open 
 channels of permanent trade. 
 
 This is our opportunity, there is nothing that can be 
 made elsewhere in the world that cannot be made at San 
 Francisco. The moment the European war is over there 
 will be a rush to set their mills in motion again, when 
 American gains will receive a check. Manufactures at 
 the present time in Europe are nearly destroyed. Raw 
 materials at present is not wanted there so much as manu- 
 factured goods, and manufactured goods we cannot get 
 from there if we would ; so that the double benefit is thrust 
 upon us, that while building upon our own resources to 
 the utmost advantage the opportunity is afforded us of 
 establishing permanent trade with all the world. And 
 unless America adopts some more effective and aggressive 
 industrial policy than has yet appeared Germany, when 
 once the war is over, will soon regain her lost advantages 
 and drive competitors from the field, because young Ger- 
 mans are willing to learn more and work harder than 
 others, depending for success more on their own strength 
 and ability than on the weakness of competitors, while 
 refusing labor limitations or any interference in their 
 affairs by the pirates of industry. 
 
 Thus endowed by nature and opportunity to assume 
 and maintain the industrial supremacy of the world the 
 discerning mind cannot but perceive that there is some- 
 thing wrong somewhere, that Sah Francisco has thus far 
 
 20 
 
MODERN FALLACIES 
 
 failed to see or make avail of her high privileges, and that 
 with all her natural advantages California is not in the 
 way of profiting as largely as she might from the Panama 
 canal and the war in Europe. 
 
 Instead of manufacturing for others we do not even 
 manufacture to any great extent for ourselves, but draw 
 largely for our requirements from the east and middle 
 west. Of the many million dollars worth of orders now 
 beginning to come in from Europe the Pacific coast gets 
 but few, and will receive in the future less rather than 
 more unless we make more of the articles we would sell. 
 Apart from horticulture we cannot claim for California 
 an agricultural state of the first class; our products in the 
 mouths of starving millions are luxuries rather than nec- 
 essities, even our dried fruit being a drug in the market 
 and unremunerative to the grower, while wheat, once our 
 chief product, but which now the worn-out soil refuses to 
 grow extensively without better farming, soars high in all 
 the marts of the world. 
 
 Our commerce too, in the absence of staple products 
 and manufactured articles to ship away must remain 
 moderate. Foreign commerce is a nation's road to great- 
 ness, but it is not greatness itself. Merely the handling 
 and transporting of goods is work for the crossroads. The 
 commerce that counts is in the sale and transportation of 
 home manufactured articles, not in sending cotton abroad 
 to buy back in cloth. 
 
 There is no profit in pretense. No responsive thrill 
 rises in the breast of an experienced merchant or manu- 
 facturer at the cries of "Boost! Boost!" "Have a buy- 
 ing day!" "Buy it now!" The shop-window petticoat 
 marked $4.98 does not strike him as a dollar less than $5 
 in price. Nor do the words ' ' croaker, " " knocker, " " pes- 
 simist," have any terrors for him. No one knows better 
 than he that factories are not operated on empty air, and 
 
 21 
 
RETROSPECTION 
 
 that meetings and organizations for the promotion of 
 manufactures where no provision is made for operatives 
 of a quality and at a wage which will enable our factories 
 to compete with those of other nations, meetings where 
 the too timid members dare not even speak the words 
 ''cheap labor" are misleading and futile. 
 
 Let those who will hitch their wagon to a star; if not 
 securely" fastened, and you are ynse, you will let the other 
 fellow get in and ride. Boost and bright optimism are 
 f)itfalls unless arising from actual conditions and sus- 
 tained by good business sense. In business and boost as 
 elsewhere truth is stronger than fiction. If the plain facts 
 regarding the superlative advantages of San Francisco 
 bay as a World Centre of Industry do not appeal to the 
 hard-headed man of affairs it is useless resorting to clap- 
 trap. 
 
 We should have on this coast 100 woolen mills, 1000 
 cotton mills, and 5000 other factories, and will have some 
 day, these or their equivalent, but only when conditions 
 appeal to capital, and mill-owners are free to manage 
 their business their own way, yet always within the bounds 
 of humanity and healthful progress, but without inter- 
 ference from interlopers of whatsoever kind or quality. 
 
 In a loose- jointed republican government extremes 
 often meet. As between the dregs of low society and the 
 chaff of high society there is little to choose. The inter- 
 mediate class is the commonwealth, those who work, 
 either with hands or head; those who do things, either 
 with money or brain. Work is the greatest thing in the 
 world; God's curse, man's redemption; the Creator's 
 primal punishment, man's greatest blessing. Work is 
 civilization, and civilization is humanity reinforced. The 
 Panama canal and the California expositions are the 
 apotheosis of labor, not the apotheosis of the manipulators 
 
 22 
 
:mqdern fallacies 
 
 of labor. A workless world is savagery, and the workless 
 part of society is the worst part. Wherefore as God's 
 best gift, though given us in anger, we hail it as divine, 
 and place it high above principalities and powers. 
 
 The worldngman of to-day is the concrete expression of 
 that form of labor which bore the primal curse for some 
 several thousand years, whether as the slave of brute 
 force or as the creature of capital, but which now in the 
 more advanced countries has fairly well emancipated 
 itself. Then gradually arose apostles of chicane and 
 greed, who gained ascendency over the workingman to 
 exploit him. Thus was invented and applied coersive 
 measures, nominally for the benefit of the laborer, but 
 really to strengthen the position of the walking delegate, 
 as strikes and incendiarism, the boycott blackmail and 
 unionism; later came dynamite as the ultimate appeal. 
 
 While the walking delegate himself did no work, he 
 fared sumptuously every day upon the work of others. 
 Contributions and crimes were imposed. Dues were levied 
 and arbitrary rules established; no American boy might 
 learn a trade even of his own father without obtaining 
 permission and paying for it ; any respectable citizen in 
 the legitimate pursuit of his calling might for purposes 
 of coercion or revenge be brought to annoyance or ruin 
 by means of the infamous boycott. 
 
 There is in nearly every large city a coterie of nonde- 
 scripts M^ho do not work but who live from the work of 
 others; who exploit the M^orkingman ostensibly for his 
 good but in reality for their own selfish purposes; who 
 fill the minds of their proteges with false notions, insur- 
 rectionary and un-American, — that they have rights which 
 others do not possess, that they have claims on their fellow 
 men which are not reciprocal, and of which their neigh- 
 bors are endeavoring to deprive them. To maintain these 
 alleged rights they are justified in resorting to any means, 
 
 23 
 
RETROSPECTION 
 
 legal or otherwise, even to coercion and crime; in defense 
 of which incendiary claims before the facile courts they 
 employ lawyers, paid large fees from the pockets of the 
 workingmen, and who hesitate not at subornation and 
 perjury. 
 
 Called by various names, as walking delegate, boss, 
 sponge, demagogue, labor leader, exploiter of the work- 
 ingman, the toilers, as the press-panderers sanctimoniously 
 call them, are coddled until, deprived of their natural 
 manliness they become as children in the hands of de- 
 signing men. Unions are formed and the rights of others 
 invaded. Business men and a pliant newspaper press 
 submit to impudent and unjust demands in the manage- 
 ment of their affairs, fearing loss of patronage ; judges, 
 office-holders, all who live by the ballot acquiescing, for 
 labor has votes to dispose of. In this way labor becomes 
 a trust, a monopoly, all the work is given at a high wage 
 to half of the workingmen, the other half being left labor- 
 less to starve. Contract work, in defiance of law and 
 justice, is given not to the lowest bidder, but to unionism. 
 
 As often as otherwise, in the arrogance of ignorance, 
 the labor leaders resort to measures unfavorable to labor, 
 as defeating any measure for the public benefit if thereby 
 they can pos3 as champions of labor ; making the wage of 
 class work equal, regardless of the worth or efficiency of 
 individual workers; advancing the labor wage until it be- 
 comes prohibitory to industry, resulting in non-employ- 
 ment and high cost of living. Thinking to gain votes 
 thereby they refused to grant music lovers the privilege 
 of erecting a million dollar opera-house, not at public ex- 
 pense but at their own cost, thus withholding from the 
 pockets of their proteges their part of the expenditure, 
 and leaving in the civic centre the unsightly scar of a 
 vacant lot where might now stand a beautiful edifice. 
 They promulgate the false doctrine not of their right to 
 
 24 
 
MODERN FALLACIES 
 
 work, which no one denies them, but their right to demand 
 that the government, that is to say their fellow-citizens 
 shall provide them with work, whether necessary or profit- 
 able or not, which is but another form of blackmail lead- 
 ing to pauperism. As well might trade demand of labor 
 profitable custom, or capital a good investment. 
 
 In legislation every measure affecting patronage is 
 stoutly opposed that does not give labor some unfair ad- 
 vantage, some special and unjust privilege. Every advan- 
 tage over his neighbor is his right, free schools, free 
 hospitals, courts, and penitentiaries, while paying nothing 
 for the support of the government that protects him in 
 his infamies. 
 
 The aims and actions of the labor leaders strike at 
 the very heart of American liberty, giving to one class the 
 power of coercion while depriving their victims of any 
 means of defense. Thus laziness and inefficiency are 
 exalted as meritorious; to do the least possible work for 
 the highest pay serves right his natural enemy the em- 
 ployer, the capitalist, or the government. The further 
 fallacy is instilled that restriction by law to a short day's 
 work is a gain forced from the employer, when in truth 
 it is a direct loss to the workingman, to his worth to 
 himself and others, which in the end rules all. 
 
 The right to work; labor demands it and the law con- 
 cedes it. The right to work; unionism demands it for 
 itself, but denies the right to others, the law winking 
 acquiescence. But this is not to the point. Labor leaders 
 demand for their proteges, as before stated, their right to 
 demand that their neighbor, that is to say the man with 
 money or the government, shall furnish him with work. 
 Reverse the proposition, say that the workingman shall 
 supply the tradesman with customers, the lawyer with 
 clients, and the banker with depositors and the absurdity 
 appears. Unionism demands for itself the special privi- 
 
 25 
 
EETROSPBCTION 
 
 leges it denies to others. It demands that all the work 
 shall be given to half the laborers, while the other half 
 is left to starve. It demands that this coterie shall have 
 short hours and high pay, and enforces its demands upon 
 the disobedient by means of blackmail and the boycott, 
 judges who are elected by votes sustaining the injustice. 
 A singular state of things, one-half of the workingmen 
 unemployed, while all the work is given to the other half at 
 an exorbitant wage, a wage fatal to manufactures and 
 prohibitory to general prosperity and progress. Likewise 
 the non-reversible absurdity that it is an obligation on the 
 part of one class of citizens to furnish another* class with 
 work, that is to say with support, since work is their 
 support. I am not speaking of economic policy or ethical 
 obligations but only of the lawless arrogance assumed by 
 unionism. 
 
 Wealth is won by work, by work and economy. The 
 same field is open to the laborer of to-day, the same oppor- 
 tunity to utilize the natural and economic resources of 
 the country that his predecessors had. 
 
 Instead of making avail of it the exploiters of labor 
 prowl around to secure all they can from government, that 
 is to say the people through their representatives in office 
 who live on votes, and from capital, that is to say from 
 those who have done their work and saved up the pro- 
 ceeds. Another fallacy, — to give the laborer more time, 
 not for the beer-shops but for home enjoyment and mental 
 culture. 
 
 The intellectual life is open to him who wants it, 
 whether his wage is three or six dollars a day. Intellec- 
 tual loafing is not intellectual living, the former being the 
 special province of college graduates and scions of wealth. 
 Intellectual boozing is another sort of culture, practised 
 alike by club-men and hod-carriers. Let us beware of an 
 
 26 
 
MODERN FALLACIES 
 
 excess of kultur and conscience, lest we fall into the errors 
 of the kaiser. 
 
 There are classes of workers and there are grades of 
 work. There is high grade work that does and should 
 command a high wage, and there is low grade work that 
 skilled labor will not touch, and which can be done only 
 at low wage. It degrades no one, — you cannot degrade 
 labor, — it injures no one, to give such work to the Asiatic, 
 who is glad to get it, the lowest wage in America being 
 more than the highest wage in Asia. We can never have 
 our World Centre of Industry without employing some 
 cheap labor, and it is an insane policy on the part of our 
 government in excluding it. 
 
 No one objects to labor unions, but only their abuse 
 by the exploiters of the workingman. No one objects to 
 unionism, but only to the abuse of it. If unionism cannot 
 win its way fairly and honestly it would be better abol- 
 ished; it will never be able to sustain itself by violence. 
 No one objects that labor should unionize, but only that it 
 should not tyrannize. Why should we tamely submit to 
 the imposition of labor any more than to the imposition 
 of capital? Labor unions for the pleasure and lawful 
 benefit of the members is one thing, and to this no one 
 can object; unionism as manipulated by professional over- 
 seers for the exploitation of the workingman is quite 
 another thing, and smacks too strongly of Prussian mili- 
 tarism long to be endured in America. 
 
 The government is quite ready to restrict capitalism 
 but balks before laborism. Governmental superintendence 
 of labor is as necessary as governmental superintendence 
 of capital, — and more, as labor has more votes than 
 capital, and an excess of votes is a fault of our republican 
 government. 
 
 Labor in all its many interests and activities, as 
 unions, wages, hours, and strikes should be under the 
 
 27 
 
RETROSPECTION 
 
 immediate control of the government and managed by 
 honest and disinterested officials having equally at heart 
 the welfare of the workingman and the interest of the 
 employer, — should be regulated by law as capital is reg- 
 ulated, and not left to the exploiter of the workingman to 
 act as he pleases in defiance of law and from purely 
 selfish motives. Little by little they are undermining the 
 government, inserting their insidious policy in the laws of 
 the state and nation, only like the railroad incubus, let us 
 hope, to meet with like defeat in the end, when the people 
 return to reason and to right. 
 
 In no department of economics or industry, of polities 
 or society is such criminal license allowed, such defiance of 
 law, equity, and decency permitted to go unpunished, 
 unreproved, as that practised by the exploiters of the 
 workingman. That they should be permitted by the boy- 
 cott to ruin an honest tradesman, in the legitimate pursuit 
 of his calling, for simply maintaining his right as an 
 American freeman to manage his business himself instead 
 of allowing others to do it for him, the interloper in the 
 meantime being protected by the police and sustained by 
 the courts in this system of coercion and blackmail is 
 infamous. 
 
 Thus it is easily seen why San Francisco is not more 
 of a manufacturing city. Labor is as essential to manu- 
 factures as is raw material. If labor and material cannot 
 be had at a fair and reasonable price home industry is 
 doomed. Again be it said, the first consideration for this 
 country is manufactures, the first consideration for manu- 
 factures is labor at a fair price, the first consideration for 
 labor is absolute freedom, emancipation from any sort of 
 tyranny. This is the broad road to permanent prosperity 
 and there is none other. 
 
 And from the government, to which all good citizens 
 
 28 
 
MODERN FALLACIES 
 
 look for redress, we get no help, for judges and rulers, all 
 who live by the ballot-box, legislative and executive dig- 
 nitaries as well as the vicious grafter of the municipality, 
 are infected by the same hunger for office, and by the 
 itching palm that actuates and makes fat the exploiters 
 of the workingman and fills the coffers of the highly 
 honorable and respected man of affairs. 
 
 It is all very well, however, to rail at the government; 
 the fault is our own; it lies with those who prefer money 
 to morality, who prefer personal profit to the purity of 
 the commonwealth, who prefer ill-gotten gain to honesty 
 and decency, who prefer in courts judges who wink at 
 wealth never forgetting whence are to come the votes to 
 secure their reelection, — who will submit to insult and 
 interference rather than forego profit, in a word the fault 
 lies with the influential members of the community who 
 are too indifferent or too timid to arise and purge their 
 city of its defilement. 
 
 The trouble is that too many of us prefer bad govern- 
 ment to good, prefer pliant tools in office to men we 
 cannot buy, prefer slavish labor whose votes we can 
 control to manly citizenship in our workingmen, prefer a 
 small iniquitous personal gain to the honor and interests 
 of a great commonwealth. And withal over this small 
 personal gain which we so jealously guard we are great 
 cowards, the best of us even not daring to speak from our 
 hearts, as was shown at an election the other day when 
 over a score of evil measures put forth by the exploiters 
 of the workingman, not a word was spoken against them 
 while under discussion before election, but at the polls 
 they were defeated by a majority of three or five to one. 
 
 To all this, however, there is a brighter side. These 
 evils will pass as all evil passes. Nowhere are found finer 
 specimens of liberal and chivalrous manhood than here. 
 Ever since gold-digging days California has been proud 
 
 29 
 
RETROSPECTION 
 
 of her people, and her people have been proud of Cali- 
 fornia. 
 
 Though with some money is preferred before morality, 
 and bribable office-holders to honest men, these are not 
 San Francisco; her citizens are much better than the 
 average, more honest, more courteous, more progressive. 
 It is a city full of joy and pleasure, wealthy and laud- 
 ably ambitious, and prosperous to a certain extent in 
 spite of drawbacks which let us hope are only temporary. 
 And yet more. There will come a time when this 
 American soil will grow men free from that inordinate 
 craving for office, that love of power and political plunder 
 which is the curse of this republican government, tend- 
 ing as it does to degrade mind and morals and to sacrifice 
 the highest intellectual gifts upon the altar of expedi- 
 ency. There will come a time when on these shores of 
 the Pacific there will be grown a race of men with loftier 
 ideals concerning man and his destiny than any which 
 have yet appeared, men who will value the honor and 
 dignity of their country above any personal advantage, 
 and will have too high a regard for labor to permit the 
 true interest of the various classes of workingmen to be 
 wrecked by suicidal policies. 
 
 Then, too, will have passed Prussian militarism, the 
 underlying principle of kaiser kultur, the dementia of 
 Treitschke and Neitzsche and Eucken, the deification of 
 force, of brute force and brutishness, the deification of 
 dishonor, of treachery, of robbery and murder, the basis of 
 Teutonic conscience and morale, an Acheron stream bear- 
 ing upon its surface pretended purity and progress to the 
 ennobling and redemption of the nations, — militarism, a 
 memory to be recalled with horror. 
 
 3.8 
 
 30 
 
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