Part 10

The doctor is a specialist. Something ails your eyes—you must go to an eye specialist, the throat specialist knows nothing about the eyes. Have you a fever? You go to a bacteriologist to find out what germ is infecting you. Formerly you took a dose of salts and senna, or other nauseating drug.

You have a case of collection, but your regular lawyer makes a specialty of criminal cases and can not help you. Perhaps you have been injured in an automobile accident and want damages from the owner, but your regular lawyer does not know anything about damage cases, he is a corporation lawyer, or a divorce lawyer, or a patent attorney, or takes admiralty cases only.

A bookkeeper applies for employment. Do you know anything about cards? This is the question. You know about playing cards, but the employer keeps his accounts on loose cards, not in heavy books.

There is division of labor in every pursuit, and no man can become learned in all of one thing. He may acquire a smattering, but there are no more universal geniuses, the world of industry has become complicated, unlimited, and special.

We see then, the futility of trying all of one thing or aspiring to reach all of one thing. You can not succeed because you have a mere smattering of many details, and not a perfect knowledge of any single detail.

This however, makes the road to success much easier than in the old days. You can become perfect in some one thing, and life is not too short to learn it; it can be mastered.

It goes without saying, that in our intercourse with men we must put them on an equality with us and place ourselves on an equality with them. Are you an inferior man? Then go elsewhere for employment. “I want skilled workmen,” says the employer. “I want a physician that will cure me, not one to experiment upon me,” says the sick man. It is always man to man now-a-days. No cringing, remember, and on the other hand, no bluffing.

THE MAN OF HOPE; THE MAN OF DESPAIR; AND THE MAN OF “DON’T CARE” Optimism, Pessimism, Indifference

The people of the earth are made up generally of three classes: optimists, pessimists, indifferents.

The radical optimist floats in a balmy spring air on a rosy cloud, stringing his banjo and singing lullabies to the gorgeously feathered songsters that surround him.

The pessimist is like a fly with its wings stuck on fly paper, and bemoans his fate as that of every other fly.

The indifferent is a devil-may-care sort of a person who does not care whether the sun shines, or whether it rains.

The extreme optimist is too happy to be of any use on earth; the pessimist sends us all to perdition and is afraid to walk under a ladder lest it fall on him, while the indifferent is of no use because he does not take any interest in the things around him. He is usually a tramp, or a free lunch fiend. He will offer to shovel the snow from your walks in July, and gladly offer his services as a harvest hand in January.

Apart from indifference, which is the offspring of the other two, optimism and pessimism, though extremes, meet among men, but possess different working machinery. One is really the aid of the other.

The earth was created in an optimistic spirit. Of that there can be no doubt in the mind of any man who believes in creation at all. But by the extraordinary conduct of our first parents in the Garden of Eden, this creation by the supreme Optimist, was changed into the most radical of pessimistic ventures—judged from the human standpoint, of course. We hear it from the most pious divines and it is probably correct.

A large gulf was dug in the original optimism and filled with the darkness of pessimism, where, floundering in it, man looks back to the joys lost to him forever by another’s folly, and then forward to the forbidding cliffs that bar his entrance to the joys to come, unless he engage in a mighty struggle and a hand-to-hand conflict with his animal nature. He may and must scale the cliffs.

It is quite certain that the evils said to be afflicting the people of the earth can never be cured by optimistic fancies, no more than can the racking pains and galling sores of the bedridden be healed by their concealment, or by covering them with a blanket of joy.

Financially, the man pressed by dire want, fancies the earth is ready to come to an end, whereas, the man with substantial wealth treads in a garden of flowers. The pangs of hunger find a lodging place in the stomach of a pessimist, while a royal good dinner is the joy of an optimist. The man in jail looks through a darkened glass, but his jailer sees all things bright and clear.

Optimism is a comparative virtue; pessimism a relative vice. Love is the destroyer of pessimism, while bankruptcy withers optimism at a touch. The contest between the two is like a perpetual game of tenpins, in which the pins are constantly overthrown to be as constantly re-set, and the score of the game is always a tie.

Our modern extreme optimists bewilder us with vain ideals. They flatter themselves with high sounding words and vague and dreamy utterances that entangle many, but which mitigate no evils, redress no wrongs, soothe no pain, cure no wounds.

“I am so sorry,” said a gentle optimist over a man who had just been run over by an automobile and both legs broken, and she wrung her hands in pity.

“I am sorry five dollars worth,” said a rough old heathen pessimist in the crowd as he passed his hat for money to relieve the poor man’s family.

Whenever a human wrong has been righted, an enslaved nation freed, a sinner brought to salvation, there has always been a pessimist at the beginning of the work, while the optimist came in later and realized the profits from the work.

There is a philosophy practiced by the optimist to be found in the lines of a great poet:

“One truth is clear, whatever is, is right.”

A philosophy that plunges men down into a gulf of despair, without hope of relief, without power to defend himself and his against oppression and injustice. It is a philosophy which, carried to its ultimate optimistic length, leads to the depths in which are sunk all those who bear upon their banner the legend:

“Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.”

There is less hope for those who climb to dizzy heights of optimistic congratulation, than for those plunged in the dark gulf of pessimistic woe, for to the latter there shall come a new heaven and a new earth, and former things shall pass away. But the former have forestalled their future abiding place by a creation out of their own presumption.

Here we have it—“presumption.” This is a worse condition than the despair of the pessimist, for the latter is constantly striving to get out of the slough of Despond, whereas the former is so puffed up with pride at his own achievements, that he is hidebound in the thralls of his own goodness and perfection.

The great fear of the extremes of optimism and pessimism is the danger of falling into indifference. When a man refuses to take advantage of the opportunities presented him, and says: “What’s the use?” his life is ended so far as any activity is concerned, and he is a useless member of society.

Be neither extreme, and remember that while there is life there is hope. The quality of optimism must be strained through the sieve of common sense.

_THE PLEASURES OF THE FLESH, and the PLEASURES OF THE MIND_

When a hungry man is seated before an appetizing meal, his mouth waters in anticipation and he experiences the joys of anticipated satisfaction.

Every mouthful lingers on his palate with a delicious sensation and when his hunger is satisfied, a feeling of intense comfort steals over him. He is at peace with the world, and forgives his enemies. Any favor you ask, if within his power to grant, will not be refused.

It is the same with a thirsty man. A delicious invigorating drink—and there is none preferable to water—gurgles down his parched throat and he smacks his lips with enjoyment.

All these matters together with other pleasurable sensations are purely physical and passing. They must be renewed to be experienced, and when the physical nature is out of order or does not respond, we are in a very bad condition if we have nothing else to fall back upon.

Physical enjoyments are all sensual. The nerves thrill with excitement and the world looks good to us and mighty pleasant. A few flies to pester us are mere details and not to be considered.

But we have another being separate and apart from the physical body; something much finer and more elevated. A being that is of a higher order of appreciation and more enduring.

Every man knows without being told, that is, he knows from his own feelings and sensations, that he has a spiritual nature, a mental body, a mind.

Now, this mental body, this mind, is far above the physical, and its pleasures and sensations, and its delights are as far above the physical sensations as the spirit or mind is above the flesh.

Let us follow up this idea:

We said that a hungry man enjoys eating. This is true, but all hungry men do not eat alike. Some men bolt their food to appease hunger, and swill their drink to quench thirst. But others enjoy their food and while satisfying hunger and thirst, gratify their taste and enjoy certain foods more than others. These others have what is called “educated” appetites, which is a mental acquisition above the purely animal sensation of satisfying hunger or thirst. It is an art to be cultivated.

This is the point sought to be reached—education and learning.

If the pleasures of the flesh are so enjoyable, then the pleasures of the mind are still more enjoyable, because the mind is more appreciative besides more enduring.

The food of the mind, the drink of the mind, means all the other pleasures of the flesh resolved into the spiritual body through education and learning, and the more education, the more learning, the higher the enjoyment.

A great lawyer once said: “The pleasure of learning may be likened to a bucket in a deep well of clear, cool water. It is easy to move the bucket about if it is kept beneath the water, but when we attempt to raise it above the surface, then comes a tug and a hard pull.” Whence he derived the conclusion that the deeper we plunge into the clear, cool depths of education and learning the more pleasure there is and the easier it is to remain there.

One of our poets says:

“Drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring.”

In these modern days every man must have some sort of an education, preferably that for the occupation or profession which he selects for his life work.

If he goes in for a commercial business, then he must learn all about the rules and laws governing his business or the branch of it he aspires to learn. He must know all about the nature of the goods he purposes to sell; the markets; the prices; the demand; the production; the consumption, and other matters connected with the business.

If he does not learn these things he will fail in business, and if he does not learn some of them he can not get a job in any business house.

The rule is the same in every trade and profession. The modern man is exacting. He demands the best service, because his customers or clients demand better goods, better qualities, and better treatment.

The time has gone by when a tradesman, for instance, could offer goods to his customer with a “take it or leave it” air. Competition is too keen to permit that, and prices are too liable to be cut to enable him to say, “That’s my price,” for there are others who will say, “I will knock off ten per cent.”

An education that does not fit in with a man’s occupation is a relaxation, and aids him to rise in his business and profession, so that nothing is lost by keeping up with the times, but there is everything to be gained. This is refinement and a valuable asset. Everything that can be learned is worth something sometime.

How to tell a fresh egg from a stale one is a matter of education, but to give the reason why a stale egg is not so good as a fresh one is a matter of learning.

You can distinguish one man from another by his facial differences. That is education, but when you can tell a good man from a bad one by a study of his characteristics, that is learning.

To learn how to do things is education, but to learn the nature of the things you make or the reasons why involves learning.

The housewife in making bread sets the loaves of dough in a warm place so that they will rise. This is education, and her education tells her that if she puts the dough in a cold place the bread will not rise. If she knew that the yeast plant requires heat to grow, and is easily killed by cold, she is learned.

If you eat a cucumber or any green fruit in the hot summer time you are liable to get the colic. You are educated up to that by experience, perhaps. But if you know that nature always gives you a pain when you eat something indigestible, as a warning to get rid of it, or not to do so any more, you will be learned indeed, if you take a cathartic instead of a pain killer to stop the pain or warning nature gives you.

We can not live among our fellow men without an education of some kind, adaptable

First—to our life work whatever it may be.

Second—suitable and proper to the people with whom we associate or are placed in contact in our daily round of business and pleasure.

We can live and get along through life without any learning, but learning adds to education and enables us to apply what we learn. Besides that, it puts us in a position to rise higher, the more learned we become.

It is not intended, by these remarks, to advise any one to learn everything there is to be learned, for the very good reason there are too many things in these modern times for one man’s brain to hold. But it may be taken as a truth, that a man should be learned along the line of his trade, business, or profession, with a few enjoyments for good measure.

It is easy to learn, in fact one thing brings another. Like some food we eat—one mouthful makes us hungry for another. Our modern system is so linked and connected together, that every thing that may or can be learned is a link in the great entire chain. You begin pulling at the educational chain and find that you can not stop. You feel impelled to keep on taking up link after link, until before you are aware of it, you have mastered some definite branch of learning through the force of education.

One thing to be noted is, what one man knows another man can find out. The only way, therefore, is to keep ahead of him and learn things he can not find out, or will not find out until too long afterward to be of any disadvantage to you.

_THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST_ _The Laws of Nature Determine Who Shall Live, and Who Shall Die_

The theory of the survival of the fittest is agitating the world more than ever before. But it has changed its significant title to what is known now as “Eugenics,” which means substantially “well born,” or good birth.

Briefly speaking, it is claimed that it is a law of nature that the weakest shall go to the wall, and that the strongest shall survive. In carrying out this doctrine, the ancient nations, Sparta, for example, put to death all the weak and decrepit children, permitting only the strong and well-shaped physically to live.

In our day, the scientists, or rather those who claim to be scientific, advocate the same practice in a different but equally as effective a manner.

The doctrine of “selection,” as it is termed, has been invented to cover up the Spartan tragedy of murdering the helpless, and by it, it is hoped our admitted degeneracy will be stopped.

I do not apply the term “degeneracy” to the Colored people, because degeneracy works back to a type and not away from it in the human family. The average Colored American is too near the pure type of his race to be in a very deep degeneracy, but the word must be applied to the mixed races of the Aryan, Caucasian, of whom it would be vain to find a pure type except among the Georgians of Asia.

In explaining the doctrine of the survival of the fittest, or eugenics, to give it its modern name, it is said that those who fail in life, fail because they are not fitted to succeed, that is they are not “fit.” This is called a law of nature. It is purposed to overcome this law of nature, by selecting the parents by a medical examination or other process, and confine parentage to them exclusively.

In other words, to prevent humanity from becoming any worse than it is, the people who are to marry and bear children shall be of the very best and highest type, and then their children will be finely developed and make perfect citizens and become parents to other children.

But where shall we begin and what is the type aimed to reach as the standard? It is important to the Colored man to know the meaning of this movement to better the race, and also to discover what race is to be the standard of excellence.

An effort will be made to explain as clearly as possible.

Who are the strongest that shall be permitted to survive, and who are the weakest whose death knell is sounded?

It must be borne in mind in the outset, that all this controversy is among the Caucasian, or as it is called in other places of this book, the “Aryan” race, or division of the human family. It has not yet reached the Colored race, nor has it been applied to them particularly. Hence, let the Colored man stand outside and look on with interest, and also watch that the theory does not spread to his race.

A man who lives in the slums is unfit to live anywhere else, so it is said. A man who has made a million by a turn in the stock market, lives in a palace, but can only write his name to a check, and can not tell a spade from a rake. J. Pierpont Morgan possessed boundless wealth and tremendous power in the financial world. Walt Whitman, the humane poet, had a small competence and no power at all except to touch the hearts of mankind. Burns was a plowman; Bunyan a tinker; a writer of slang and jokesmith, makes a million; Brigham Young was a prophet and a ruler, wealthy and honored; Stevenson was in the last stages of tuberculosis; Byron was a cripple; Johnson was a glutton, and the composer of a silly ragtime waltz owns an automobile and keeps a valet and a chauffeur.

Which of these shall we select as the type, and how are we going to tell whether the offspring of our selections will come up to the type?

Modern medical scientists declare in the most positive terms, that every child is born free from infectious diseases, and at the moment of its birth is a perfect type. That the first breath it draws fills it with the germs of future diseases that tend to make it a weak and diseased abortion of humanity. All its troubles come from its surroundings or environments, which are the conditions it must meet and with which it must struggle to live at all.

It may avoid future disease from the infecting germs it breathes at the moment of birth, by making its environments better, purer and altering the bad conditions under which it lives.

We know, because we can see it every day, that of two plants or animals, that one will survive which is the fittest to endure the conditions in which both exist. He, the man, or it, the plant, can be afforded opportunities in the way of good food, care, and proper training, to resist the encroachments of disease and degenerate conditions.

Hence, we may say, that the question of which man shall survive, depends upon the conditions under which he shall struggle for survival.

There is no law of nature here, it is the law of common sense and good government. We are surrounded by conditions best suited for strength and survival, and the conditions which promote weakness, disease and degeneracy are removed or beyond our reach.

In a nation of marauders or robbers, those who live by spoliation and the sword, would be the fittest to survive, and they would be a different type of men from those who get first place in a nation of traders, where fierceness and strength are less called for than tenacity of purpose and clearness of head.

When a man says he is poor, somebody says, that man is poor because he is not fitted to gain wealth. But we say, he is not fitted to gain wealth under the conditions of his life. Take him out of those conditions, put opportunities in his way and he becomes “fit” because he gains wealth. It is done every day.

One condition of society enables one kind of a man to succeed, another condition of society enables another kind of man to succeed. And so on all along the long line of different conditions.

The great mistake made by many so-called scientific purifiers of the human race, is in not being able to separate man with reason from animals or beasts without reasoning powers. There is such a thing as intellectual progress and the betterment of the reasoning faculties, but so long as we limit survivorship to the physical and not to the mental powers, we are betraying man into degeneracy instead of helping him out of it.

There is one great teacher whose lessons are to be learned and deeply pondered. They lead to an uplift that no money, and no medical examination, or selection, can possibly attain. He was poor and forsaken; rejected by his own, but he was and is the type to be attained. In establishing the highest type possible to man with reasoning powers, he ran counter to the doctrine of the survival of the fittest as men saw it in his day, so they crucified Him but too late to efface the type which we must follow or fall into degeneracy.

THE VICTORY OF THE MAN WHO DARES

This is the Era of =the man who dares=.

His opportunity has blossomed out of conditions unparalleled in the history of nations.

Too many have been plodding along in a furrow afraid to come out of the rut. They have lived, it is true, but they have not touched success. All animals live, but man has higher motives than mere existence.

Enterprise, business, commerce, capital, government demand a man who dares. Many leaders have fallen beneath the spell of malignant influence, and have dragged down into the pit with them, respect, honor, confidence, and honesty.

An army of men who dare is needed to drag up out of the pit and into our every day lives, the respect, honor, confidence, and honesty, groveling in the mud at the bottom, and the nationality, color, or race makes no difference, they are needed among all classes.

The eyes of the world are turned toward the inscription, “I will,” on the banner of the man who dares, as he hurdles across all obstacles and brings back to its pedestal, virtue, that has been dragged away into disreputable haunts.

His is the initiative; to him belong the rewards of efficiency.

The man who dares to venture out into new and undeveloped fields fills the pages of history; his name is blazoned in heavy head-lines on the front page of every newspaper and magazine. He does not have to seek after fame, he is sought.

The man who dares is no rash, reckless fool who rushes in where angels fear to tread.

“I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more is none.”

He lets “I dare” follow upon “I will,” and plunges into the tide of the affairs of men, and at its flood, is led on to victory.

He is brave and courageous with regard to men, but is a coward with regard to God, wherefore he fears to worship the Golden Calf; to swear, to steal, or cheat, or swindle; to degrade his neighbor’s wife; to covet his neighbor’s property.

Why do you fail to reach success? Why do you lag behind in a world so stuffed with opportunities and possibilities?

Watch the man who dares.

He has no hand held out behind for bribes, nor before for alms. He reaches out and takes, and those from whom he takes are loud in their praise of him, because he represents a force they would fain exercise but dare not.