Part 4

The Christian doctrine that men, however unequal in their condition or in their gifts on earth, are of equal value in the eyes of their Creator, and are entitled to respect and consideration, if for no other reason, for the simple one that they are human souls, long as it has been preached, has, strange to say, only very lately begun to exercise any perceptible influence on politics. It led a troubled and precarious life for nearly eighteen hundred years in conventicles and debating clubs, in the romance of poets, in the dreams of philosophers and the schemes of philanthropists. But it is now found in the cabinets of kings and statesmen, on the floor of parliament houses, and in the most secret of diplomatic conferences. It gives shape and foundation to nearly every great social reform, and its voice is heard above the roar of every revolution.

And it derives invaluable aid in keeping its place and extending its influence in national councils from the rapid spread of the study of political economy, a science which is based on the assumption that men are free and independent. There is hardly one of its principles which is applicable to any state of society in which each individual is not master of his own actions and sole guardian of his own welfare. In a community in which the relations of its members are regulated by status and not by contract, it has no place and no value. The natural result of the study and discussion which the ablest thinkers have expended on it during the last eighty years has been to place before the civilized world in the strongest light the prodigious impulse which is given to human energy and forethought and industry, and the great gain to society at large, by the recognition in legislation of the capacity, as well as of the right, of each human being to seek his own happiness in his own way. Of course no political system in which this principle has a place can long avoid conceding to all who live under it equality before the law; and from equality before the law to the possession of an equal share in the making of the laws, there is, as everybody must see who is familiar with modern history, but a very short step.

If this spread of democracy, however, was sure, as its enemies maintain, to render great attainments and great excellence impossible or rare, to make literary men slovenly and inaccurate and tasteless, artists mediocre, professors of science dull and unenterprising, and statesmen conscienceless and ignorant, it would threaten civilization with such danger that no friend of progress could wish to see it. But it is difficult to discover on what it is, either in history or human nature, that this apprehension is founded. M. de Tocqueville and all his followers take it for granted that the great incentive to excellence, in all countries in which excellence is found, is the patronage and encouragement of an aristocracy; that democracy is generally content with mediocrity. But where is the proof of this? The incentive to exertion which is widest, most constant, and most powerful in its operation in all civilized countries, is the desire of distinction; and this may be composed either of love of fame or love of wealth, or of both. In literary and artistic and scientific pursuits, sometimes the strongest influence is exerted by a love of the subject. But it may be safely said that no man has ever yet labored in any of the higher callings to whom the applause and appreciation of his fellows was not one of the sweetest rewards of his exertions. There is probably not a masterpiece in existence, either in literature or in art, probably few discoveries in science have ever been made, which we do not owe in a large measure to the love of distinction. Who paints pictures, or has ever painted them, that they may delight no eye but his own? Who writes books for the mere pleasure of seeing his thoughts on paper? Who discovers or invents, and is willing, provided the world is the better of his discoveries or inventions, that another should enjoy the honor? Fame has, in short, been in all ages and in all countries recognized as one of the strongest springs of human action--

“The spur that doth the clear spirit raise To scorn delight and live laborious days,--”

sweetening toil, robbing danger and poverty and even death itself of their terrors.

What is there, we would ask, in the nature of democratic institutions, that should render this great spring of action powerless, that should deprive glory of all radiance, and put ambition to sleep? Is it not notorious, on the contrary, that one of the most marked peculiarities of democratic society, or of a society drifting toward democracy, is the fire of competition which rages in it, the fevered anxiety which possesses all its members to rise above the dead level to which the law is ever seeking to confine them, and by some brilliant stroke become something higher and more remarkable than their fellows? The secret of that great restlessness, which is one of the most disagreeable accompaniments of life in democratic countries, is in fact due to the eagerness of everybody to grasp the prizes of which in aristocratic countries only the few have much chance. And in no other society is success more worshipped, is distinction of any kind more widely flattered and caressed. Where is the successful author, or artist, or discoverer, the subject of greater homage than in France or America? And yet in both the principle of equality reigns supreme; and his advancement in the social scale has gone on _pari passu_ in every country with the spread of democratic ideas and manners. Grub Street was the author’s retreat in the aristocratic age; in this democratic one, he is welcome at the King’s table, and sits at the national council board. In democratic societies, in fact, excellence is the first title to distinction; in aristocratic ones, there are two or three others which are far stronger, and which must be stronger, or aristocracy could not exist. The moment you acknowledge that the highest social position ought to be the reward of the man who has the most talent, you make aristocratic institutions impossible. But to make the thirst for distinction lose its power over the human heart, you must do something more than establish equality of conditions; you must recast human nature itself....

There are some, however, who, while acknowledging that the love of distinction will retain its force under every form of social or political organization, yet maintain that to excel in the arts, science, or literature requires leisure, and the possession of leisure implies the possession of fortune. This men in a democratic society cannot have, because the absence of great hereditary wealth is necessary to the perpetuation of democracy. Every man, or nearly every man, must toil for a living; and therefore it becomes impossible for him to gratify the thirst for distinction, let him feel it ever so strongly. The attention he can give to literature or art or science must be too desultory and hasty, his mental training too defective, to allow him to work out valuable results or conduct important researches. To achieve great things in these fields, it is said and insinuated, men must be elevated, by the possession of fortune, above the vulgar, petty cares of life; their material wants must be provided for before they concentrate their thoughts with the requisite intensity on the task before them. Therefore it is to aristocracy we must look for any great advance in these pursuits.

The history of literature and art and philosophy is, however, very far from lending confirmation to this opinion. If it teaches us anything, it teaches us that the possession of leisure, far from having helped men in the pursuit of knowledge, seems to have impeded them. Those who have pursued it most successfully are all but invariably those who have pursued it under difficulties. The possession of great wealth no doubt gives facilities for study and cultivation which the mass of mankind do not possess; but it at the same time exerts an influence on the character which, in a vast majority of cases, renders the owner unwilling to avail himself of them. We owe to the Roman aristocracy the great fabric of Roman jurisprudence; but, since their time, what has any aristocracy done for art and literature, or law? They have for over a thousand years been in possession of nearly the whole resources of every country in Europe. They have had its wealth, its libraries, its archives, its teachers, at their disposal; and yet was there ever a more pitiful record than the list of “Royal and Noble Authors.” One can hardly help being astonished, too, at the smallness and paltriness of the legacies which the aristocracy of the aristocratic age has bequeathed to this democratic age which is succeeding it. It has, indeed, handed down to us many glorious traditions, many noble and inspiring examples of courage and fortitude and generosity. The democratic world would certainly be worse off than it is if it never heard of the Cid, or Bayard, or Du Guesclin, of Montrose, or Hampden, or Russell. But what has it left behind it for which the lover of art may be thankful, by which literature has been made richer, philosophy more potent or more fruitful? The painting and sculpture of modern Europe owe not only their glory, but their very existence, to the labors of poor and obscure men. The great architectural monuments by which its soil is covered were hardly any of them the product of aristocratic feeling or liberality. If we except a few palaces and a few fortresses, we owe nearly all of them to the labor or the genius or the piety of the democratic cities which grew up in the midst of feudalism. If we take away the sum total of the monuments of Continental art all that was created by the Italian republics, the commercial towns of Germany and Flanders, and the communes of France, and by the unaided efforts of the illustrious obscure, the remainder would form a result poor and pitiful indeed. We may say much the same thing of every great work in literature, and every great discovery in science. Few of them have been produced by men of leisure, nearly all by those whose life was a long struggle to escape from the vulgarest and most sordid cares. And what is perhaps most remarkable of all is, that the Catholic Church, the greatest triumph of organizing genius, the most impressive example of the power of combination and of discipline which the world has ever seen, was built up and has been maintained by the labors of men drawn from the humblest ranks of society.

Aristocracy applied itself exclusively for ages to the profession of arms. If there was anything at which it might have seemed hopeless for democracy to compete with it, it was in the raising, framing and handling of armies. But the very first time that a democratic society found itself compelled to wage war in defence of its own ideas, it displayed a force, an originality, a vigor and rapidity of conception, in this, to it, new pursuit, which speedily laid Europe at its feet. And the great master of the art of war, be it ever remembered, was born in obscurity and bred in poverty.

Nor, long as men of leisure have devoted themselves to the art of government, have they made any contributions worth mentioning to political science. They have displayed, indeed, consummate skill and tenacity in pursuing any line of policy on which they have once deliberately fixed; but all the great political reforms have been, though often carried into effect by aristocracies, conceived, agitated, and forced on the acceptance of the government by the middle and lower classes. The idea of equality before the law was originated in France by literary men. In England, the slave-trade was abolished by the labors of the middle classes. The measure met with the most vigorous opposition in the House of Lords. The emancipation of the negroes, Catholic emancipation, Parliamentary reform, law reform, especially the reform in the criminal law, free trade, and, in fact, nearly every change which has had for its object the increase of national happiness and prosperity, has been conceived by men of low degree, and discussed and forced on the upper classes by men busy about many other things.

We are, however, very far from believing that democratic society has no dangers or defects. What we have been endeavoring to show is that the inquiry into their nature and number has been greatly impeded by the natural disposition of foreign observers to take the United States as a fair specimen of what democracy is under the most favorable circumstances. The enormous extent of unoccupied land at our disposal, which raises every man in the community above want, by affording a ready outlet for surplus population, is constantly spoken of as a condition wholly favorable to the democratic experiment,--more favorable than could possibly offer itself elsewhere. In so far as it contributes to the general happiness and comfort, it no doubt makes the work of government easy; but what we think no political philosopher ought to forget is that it also offers serious obstacles to the settlement of a new society on a firm basis, and produces a certain appearance of confusion and instability, both in manners and ideas, which unfit it to furnish a basis for any inductions of much value as to the tendencies to defects either of an equality of conditions or of democratic institutions.

FOOTNOTE:

[4] From “Problems of Modern Democracy.” Copyright, 1896, by Charles Scribner’s Sons. By permission of the publishers.

JOHN BOYLE O’REILLY

The extremely romantic life of John Boyle O’Reilly began on June 28th, 1844, at Dowth Castle, near the town of Drogheda in Ireland. His chivalrous nature and passionate love of country and of liberty were stimulated by the traditions and beauty of the surroundings and by the atmosphere of legend and story in which he was brought up by his schoolmaster father and clever and gifted mother. As a young man he was employed as a compositor in a printing office in Ireland and later at Preston in Lancashire. In consequence of his connection with the Fenian movement he was banished to Australia, whence he escaped to America in 1869, settling in Boston, where his ability as poet, journalist and orator was quickly recognized. Maurice Francis Egan has said of him: “In the United States, after adventures by sea and land, and tortures and suffering borne with a heroism that was both Greek and Christian, he found the spirit of freedom in concrete form. Our country satisfied his aspirations for liberty; he loved Ireland not less, but America more; he was exiled from the land of his birth, yet he found ample consolation in the country he had chosen.”

The life of the poet by James Jeffrey Roche, together with his complete poems and speeches, edited by Mrs. O’Reilly, was published by Cassell in 1891. A volume of selected poems was published by Kenedy in 1913.

THE EXILE OF THE GAEL

“What have ye brought to our Nation-building, Sons of the Gael? What is your burden or guerdon from old Innisfail?”

“No treasure we bring from Erin--nor bring we shame nor guilt! The sword we hold may be broken, but we have not dropped the hilt! The wreath we bear to Columbia is twisted of thorns, not bays, And the songs we sing are saddened by thoughts of desolate days. But the hearts we bring for Freedom are washed in the surge of tears, And we claim our right by a People’s fight outliving a thousand years!”

“What bring ye else to the Building?” “Oh, willing hands to toil; Strong natures tuned to the harvest-song and bound to the kindly soil; Bold pioneers for the wilderness, defenders in the field,-- The sons of a race of soldiers who never learned to yield. Young hearts with duty brimming--as faith makes sweet the due; Their truth to me their witness they cannot be false to you!”

“What send ye else, old Mother, to raise our mighty wall? For we must build against Kings and Wrongs a fortress never to fall.”

“I send you in cradle and bosom, wise brain and eloquent tongue, Whose crowns should engild my crowning, whose songs for me should be sung. Oh, flowers unblown, from lonely fields, my daughters with hearts aglow, With pulses warm with sympathies, with bosoms pure as snow,-- I smile through tears as the clouds unroll--my widening river that runs! My lost ones grown in radiant growth--proud mothers of free-born sons.”

“It is well, aye, well, old Erin! The sons you give to me Are symboled long in flag and song--your Sunburst on the Sea. All mine by the chrism of Freedom, still yours by their love’s belief; And truest to me shall the tenderest be in a suffering Mother’s grief. Their loss is the change of the wave to the cloud, of the dew to the river and main; Their hope shall persist through the sea and the mist, and thy streams shall be filled again. As the smolt of the salmon go down to the sea, and as surely come back to the river, Their love shall be yours while your sorrow endures, for God guardeth His right forever.”

THE PILGRIM FATHERS

In every land wherever might holds sway The Pilgrims’ leaven is at work to-day. The Mayflower’s cabin was the chosen womb Of light predestined for the nations’ gloom. God grant that those who tend the sacred flame May worthy prove of their Forefathers’ name. More light has come,--more dangers, too, perplex: New prides, new greeds, our high condition vex. The Fathers fled from feudal lords and made A freehold state; may we not retrograde To lucre-lords and hierarchs of trade. May we, as they did, teach in court and school There must be classes, but no class shall rule: The sea is sweet, and rots not like the pool. Though vast the token of our future glory, Though tongue of man hath not told such a story, Surpassing Plato’s dream, More’s phantasy, still we Have no new principles to keep us free. As Nature works with changeless grain on grain, The truths the Fathers taught we need again. Depart from this, though we may crowd our shelves With codes and precepts for each lapse and flaw, And patch our moral leaks with statute law, We cannot be protected from ourselves! Still must we keep in every stroke and vote The law of conscience that the Pilgrims wrote; Our seal their secret: _Liberty can be;_ _The State is freedom if the Town is free._ The death of nations in their work began; They sowed the seed of federated man. Dead nations were but robber-holds, and we The first battalion of Humanity! All living nations, while our eagles shine, One after one, shall swing into our line; Our freeborn heritage shall be the guide And bloodless order of their regicide; The sea shall join, not limit; mountains stand Dividing farm from farm, not land from land. O People’s Voice! when farthest thrones shall hear; When teachers own; when thoughtful rabbis know; When artist minds in world-wide symbol show; When serfs and soldiers their mute faces raise; When priests on grand cathedral altars praise; When pride and arrogance shall disappear, The Pilgrims’ Vision is accomplished here!

LIBERTY LIGHTING THE WORLD[5]

Majestic warder by the nation’s gate, Spike-crowned, flame-armed like Agony or Glory, Holding the tablets of some unknown law, With gesture eloquent and mute as Fate,-- We stand about thy feet in solemn awe, Like desert-tribes who seek their sphinx’s story, And question thee in spirit and in speech; What art thou? Whence? What comest thou to teach? What vision hold those introverted eyes Of revolutions framed in centuries? Thy flame--what threat, or guide for sacred way? Thy tablet--what commandment? What Sinai? Lo! as the waves make murmur at thy base, We watch the somber grandeur of thy face, And ask thee--what thou art.

I am Liberty--God’s daughter! My symbols--a law and a torch; Not a sword to threaten slaughter, Nor a flame to dazzle or scorch; But a light that the world may see And a truth that shall make men free.

I am the sister of Duty, And I am the sister of Faith; To-day adored for my beauty, To-morrow led forth to death. I am she whom ages prayed for; Heroes suffered undismayed for; Whom the martyrs were betrayed for!

I am Liberty! Fame of nation or praise of statute is naught to me: Freedom is growth and not creation: one man suffers, one man is free. One brain forges a constitution; but how shall the million souls be won? Freedom is more than a resolution--he is not free who is free alone.

Justice is mine, and it grows by loving, changing the world like the circling sun; Evil recedes from the spirit’s proving as mist from the hollows when night is done. Hither, ye blind, from your futile banding; know the rights and the rights are won;

Wrong shall die with the understanding--one truth clear and the work is done. Nature is higher than Progress or Knowledge, whose need is ninety enslaved for ten; My word shall stand against mart and college; _The planet belongs to its living men!_ And hither, ye weary ones and breathless, searching the seas for a kindly shore, I am Liberty! patient, deathless--set by love at the nation’s door.

AMERICA[6]

O Land magnanimous, republican! The last for Nationhood, the first for Man! Because thy lines by Freedom’s hand were laid, Profound the sin to change or retrograde. From base to cresting let thy work be new; ’Twas not by aping foreign ways it grew. To struggling peoples give at least applause; Let equities, not precedent, subtend your laws; Like rays from that great Eye the altars show, That fall triangular, free states should grow, The soul above, the brain and hand below. Believe that strength lies not in steel nor stone; That perils wait the land whose heavy throne, Though ringed by swords and rich with titled show, Is based on fettered misery below; That nations grow where every class unites For common interests and common rights; Where no caste barrier stays the poor man’s son, Till step by step the topmost height is won; Where every hand subscribes to every rule, And free as air are voice and vote and school! A nation’s years are centuries. Let Art Portray thy first, and Liberty will start From every field in Europe at the sight. “Why stand these thrones between us and the light?” Strong men will ask, “Who built these frontier towers To bar out men of kindred blood with ours?”

Oh, this thy work, Republic! this thy health, To prove man’s birthright to a commonwealth; To teach the peoples to be strong and wise, Till armies, nations, nobles, royalties, Are laid at rest with all their fears and hates; Till Europe’s thirteen monarchies are states, Without a barrier and without a throne, Of one grand federation like our own!

FOOTNOTES:

[5] The poem is given in the abridged form in which it is printed in the volume of O’Reilly’s selected poems, published by P. J. Kenedy & Sons.

[6] This poem, which is here quoted in part only, was read at the reunion of the Army of the Potomac, in Detroit, June 14, 1882, General Grant being present on the occasion.

HANS MATTSON