Chapter 13

Thus matters stood on the evening of the day this great social revolution was inaugurated. It fell out that a group of honest laborers were descending the elevator that carried the brick and mortar to the twentieth story of a certain downtown sky-scraper. While all of them knew of the edict of their King, none had taken it seriously or imagined for a moment that it would be carried into effect literally. On their arrival at the ground floor, a policeman stationed there stopped them and, motioning to an elegant equipage standing across the way, informed them that it was the King's command that they should enter it and be driven to one of the avenue clubs which had been assigned for their accommodation. Into it they were thrust, dinner-pails and all. They had scarcely time to recover their equanimity, as they were rapidly whirled through one thoroughfare after another, till the avenue in question was reached and they were deposited in front of a stately brownstone mansion. Their coming had been expected, and the great doors swung open as they alighted, whilst a uniformed lackey motioned them to enter. Their astonishment was redoubled at the splendor of the interior furnishings. Each was assigned a room, where they were bathed and groomed and dressed in garments suitable for their surroundings. Dinner was served by the time they were ready, and into the glittering _salle à manger_ they were duly ushered. A fashionable _table d'hôte_ was a new sensation to every man of them, and they certainly astonished the _table d'hôte_. It (the _table d'hôte_) never realized before what it was to be fully appreciated. An evening of cigars, wine, and billiards followed; and then they stretched their tough and sinewy workmen's legs between the whitest of silken sheets, spread over the springiest of hair mattresses, on the brightest of brass bedsteads. There we leave them to such dreams as their surroundings invited, to turn our attention to four bachelor brokers on the stock exchange, whose apartments at the club our bachelor workingmen were inhabiting.

With as little thought of the reality of the great King's edict as the workingmen themselves, they were sauntering forth from the exchange at the hour of 3 P. M., when they were pounced upon by a quarter score of stalwart policemen and landed inside a rough luggage conveyance. Baxter Street was a Garden of Eden compared to the slums to which they were driven, and they were finally sheltered in a dirty tenement that arose in a series of rickety stories to a dizzy height. Their fastidious taste would not permit them to indulge in sleep amid such commonplace surroundings, where the only furniture of their room consisted of two dirty beds and a filthy sink. So they sat up all night smoking the cigars they happened to have in their clothes when captured, and muttering deep curses against their eccentric ruler.

The following morning the awakening of the laborers resembled that of Christopher Sly in "The Taming of the Shrew." They were bewildered with astonishment at the appointments of their surroundings and the service of their attendants. A champagne headache was a natural accompaniment to the previous night's drinking and gorging; so that fashionable "coffee and rolls," though served in the most delicate of faïence, seemed but meagre fare upon which to commence the arduous labors of the day. At precisely 5:30 A. M. the same carriage they had occupied the previous evening, with its crested panels, its liveried coachman, and its spanking span of bays, was at the door to convey them back to work.

The same routine was substantially carried into effect each day, a natural consequence of which was that they became weary of their enforced luxury, and their hearts yearned for the humble living of their tenement, with its rough and hearty jollity, and its freedom from constraint and the supervision of lackeys, however well dressed or polite. In the case of the fastidious brokers kept under surveillance, tired nature at last, reluctant, yielded. There came a day, or rather a night, when even they were able to sleep--an uneasy, troubled sleep, it is true--amid the mean surroundings of the tenement.

The determined will of the monarch so ordered affairs that the conditions under his edict were kept in force for many days. He proposed to give a thorough test to his quixotic ideas. The portion of the workmen was hard manual labor by day in the upper regions of air and light, and by night the relaxation of enervating luxury; and the portion of the brokers was deep dejection, deep curses, and haggard sleeplessness.

The culmination of this condition of unrest occurred at a great ball which another royal edict had blazoned forth to be given as a tribute to the laboring masses, and at which the non-producers would be compelled to assist, not indeed as menials, but as experienced advisers. Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars at least would be expended on the pomp and glory of the occasion. The sage counsellors of state, men deeply versed in the lore of the past, were called together to devise costumes for the crude working people and to frame rules of etiquette for their behavior. The most elaborate descriptions appeared in the daily press of what was proposed. For weeks the vast preparations went steadily forward. Everything of luxury and ornament that the commerce of the empire sucked up from the farthest confines of the earth was made to minister to the great event.

At last the auspicious day arrived. One of the grandest palaces of the King himself was the scene of the festivity. The costumes worn represented many of the great names of history, from Julius Cæsar to Napoleon Bonaparte, and from Cleopatra to Marie Antoinette. The height of the great occasion was reached somewhat after midnight when the _quadrille d'honneur_ was announced. The great King sat upon a raised dais, or throne, the better to view the gorgeous pageant. A mighty fanfare of trumpets, which seemed to whirl the feelings for a moment into the forces beyond mortality, invited to the initial movements of the quadrille. It was as though an army with banners was about to launch its squadrons upon the foe in some majestic Friedland or Gettysburg. As the sound died away, there was a pause. The great King looked up in amazement, and stamping that foot whose heel had rested upon the necks of mighty potentates, now his willing vassals, he arose with frown black as midnight.

Suffer me, O reader, to recall the elements of this unparalleled occasion: On the one hand, almost omnipotent power, backed by transcendent though wayward genius, a will that hitherto had never been balked, an unsullied prestige, a front of Jove to threaten and command, upon which great thought registered every varying expression, one of the least of which would have endowed an ordinary prince with lasting renown. On the other hand, "fantastic compliment strutting up and down tricked in outlandish feather." A motion from the hand of majesty, now fully erect, sent another mighty wave of martial music flying on invisible wings, in thousand forms, throughout every corridor. As this second summons for the masterpiece to be set in motion died away in turn, two bands of men detached themselves from the distant throng massed in the farthest background, and came slowly forward with bowed heads and deferential tread. At the same instant a hundred brilliant officers of the household stepped out of the corridors behind the King with drawn swords, and other hundreds crowded behind them prepared to do their master's instant service.

The Great Strategist comprehended the situation with a single sweeping glance of his eagle eye, and drawing himself up full height motioned his servitors with his left hand back into their concealment, while with his extended right hand he encouraged with benignant gesture the approach of the representatives of the people, who had shrunk back in dismay when the King's guard sprang forth so abruptly. It was now seen that the approaching bands were composed in equal parts of the gaudily caparisoned workmen and their plainly dressed advisers. Each party bore in its midst an enormous roll, whose weight impeded anything like rapid progress. On arriving at the front of the throne, they deposited their burdens and then prostrated themselves before the King. When bidden to arise and state their purpose, a stalwart son of toil stepped forward in front of his comrades. He was attired in a $10,000 costume, representing Henry of Navarre. This costume sat upon his rugged limbs as though they had been melted into it. The King gazed complacently upon his manufactured nobleman and bade him proceed.

"August and Sovereign King!" thus began the blacksmith, for such he was when not intoxicated or attending a costume ball--"August and Sovereign King, I have been pushed forward by my fellows who have joined in this petition, with a vast multitude of their co-workers, similarly gorged with hateful luxury. They ask me to state plainly to your Majesty that they now know from actual experience how hollow and worthless are all the glories of the merely rich, whose time is devoted to vain shows and in devising new delicacies for the palate. They beseech your Majesty that you, in accordance with your gracious pleasure, should restore them to their simple and humble paths of life, wherein they will dwell in reasonable contentment hereafter."

The workman ceased, and the spokesman for wealth and idleness stepped forward and pleaded his case very eloquently. He showed, in the petition which many thousands of his class had signed, that through their recent experience they all had been made to feel the weight of life as it rests upon those under them. He averred that he and his fellows were heartily sick of their lives thus ordered, and that they petitioned the King to send them beyond his confines, or place them in his army, or, better still, allow them to seek honorable employment in vocations more in accord with their taste and inclination.

The King, esteeming that he had sufficiently disciplined the wealthy and had measurably cast out the "daimon of unrest" from the mind of labor, while at the same time he had given a notable illustration to all his people of the folly of outrunning too far the sentiments of your age, and the arrant rot of placing edicts upon the statute books that at once become a dead letter unless backed by despotic force, and feeling the security of his position, stood before his petitioners, lightly leaning on his left foot, with his right hand in the breast of his coat, and thus addressed them:

"My people, the results flowing from my edict are not otherwise than I fully believed would result; I am satisfied at the real good that has been accomplished. Many there are who would like to see human nature changed by an equally absurd upheaval of the social fabric, which would instantly place the limbs of labor between cambric sheets and line their stomachs with sweetmeats. The truly wise base their expectations for the race upon no such sudden revolution, but rather see salvation for their fellows in a gradual and natural betterment of conditions, a growth upwards that can be maintained through all the spasms of reform, a lifting of the whole fabric of society by the great forces of education, faith, and persistency, which are and have ever been the architects of the race."

PLAZA OF THE POETS.

REPLY TO "LOCKSLEY HALL SIXTY YEARS AFTER."

BY BARTON LOMAX PITTMAN.

Nay, my grandsire, though you leave me latest lord of Locksley Hall, Speak of Amy's heavenly graces and the frailty of her fall, Point me to the shield of Locksley, hanging in this mansion lone, I must turn from such sad splendor ere my heart be changed to stone.

While you prate of pride ancestral and the dead dreams of your youth, I, despite my birth and lineage, am a battler for the truth. To the work-worn, half-starved peasants of this realm my heart goes out-- Those who, plundered and forgotten, find this life a ruthless rout.

In the rustling robes of Amy bloomed the roses that had fled From the cheeks of pauper maidens forced into the brothel-bed; In her saintly smiles and glances flashed the sunlight that was shut By the iron-hand injustice from the cotter's humble hut.

Nay, 'tis wrong that we should range with science glorying in the time, While we force our brother mortals into squalor, need, and crime; Wicked we should pose as Christians singing songs to God on high, Heedless of his tortured creatures who in pauper prisons lie.

Christless is the crime of turning creed-stopped ears to teardrops shed By the women whom oppression robs of virtue for their bread. Satan's blush would mantle crimson could he see the stunted child Slaving in our marts and markets, helpless, hopeless, and reviled--

See its pallid face uplifted from the whirling factory wheels, Tear-stained with the grief and anguish of a baby brain that reels, Tortured in life's budding springtime, toiling on with stifled cries, Seeing, through its tears refracted, rippling cascades, azure skies; Skies and birds and flowery meadows made for children wealthy-born, While God's outcasts, with their parents, robbed and drudging, live forlorn, Men in whom the fires of hope have sunk into a sordid spark, Mothers rearing helpless infants for the brothel's dawnless dark.

While this world seems far too crowded to provide us work for all, Acres spread their untilled bosoms, while the nations rise and fall. Nature's storehouse, made for all men, is monopolized by some, Robbing labor of its produce, making almshouse, jail, and slum.

Side by side with art and progress creeps the haggard spectre, Want-- Creeps the frightful phantom, Hunger, with its bloodless body gaunt. Wider, wider spreads the chasm 'twixt the wealthy and the poor, Social discontent declaring that such wrongs cannot endure.

And this yawning of the chasm is the curse of every race, As it saps and kills its manhood ere it reach the zenith-place; Spartan valor, Grecian learning, Roman honor had their day, But land plunder rose among them, dooming death by slow decay.

Shall we wait for evolution, let it right these monstrous wrongs, While the helpless, young, and tender writhe and groan 'neath social thongs? Nay, 'tis better all should perish in a battle for the right, Than let philosophic cowards keep us in this stygian night.

Locksley Hall has now a master who would claim the earth for all, Who would make the titled idler cease to rob his tenant-thrall; Wreck the Church and State if need be (better such in time will rise), But who from this glorious purpose nevermore will turn his eyes--

Never, till the arms of nature clasp in joy her outcast child, Long since driven from the meadow and the dell and woodland wild, Till to each belongs the produce of his hand and heart and brain, And glad heralds of millennium thrill along our path of pain.

Though the world has piled its fagots round the great and good and brave; Thrust its Socrates the hemlock, scourged its Jesus to the grave; Though its sneer has chilled the tender, and its frown has cursed the good, While its Nero sways the sceptre and its Emmett dies in blood;

Yet in Truth there is a power that through ceaseless cycles slow Will inscribe the doom of Error in an ever-fadeless glow, That will trample on oppression, burst the chains and crush the throne, Rearing on the blood and ruin justice-reign from zone to zone.

Idealistic dreamer, say you? In your youth you once felt so? Well, I only pray life's sunset, bowing down my head with snow, Shall not swerve me from my purpose, though the victor-laurels twine In my reach, and if forsaking my convictions they are mine.

Do not so condemn the realists, rhymesters, authors, and their way, Just because they point about us to the errors of to-day; Spare them, though they gaze not upward from our self-wrought piteous plight, For, though blinded and despairing, they are struggling toward the light.

Let the realist dip his falcon in the boiling blood of life, Tracing in heartrending horror all the hoary wrongs and strife, Till the world shall sick and sadden of its folly and its sin, Hearkening through the roar of traffic to the still small voice within--

Voice which murmurs Christ's own message as we circle round the sun: That, though greed and creed divide us, still humanity is one-- One in all its godlike longing, one in all its hopes and fears, With its calvaries, scaffolds, hemlocks, and its seas of unshed tears.

Then this star of sorrow swinging through the vast immortal void Shall, regenerated, slumber while man's heart is overjoyed, Thrilled with yearnings altruistic, triumphing o'er clods of clay, As we march into the love-light of the grand Millennial day.

JOHN BROWN.

BY COATES KINNEY.

The Great Republic bred her free-born sons To smother conscience in the coward's hush, And had to have a freedom-champion's Blood sprinkled in her face to make her blush.

One Will became a passion to avenge Her shame--a fury consecrate and weird, As if the old religion of Stonehenge Amid our weakling worships reappeared.

It was a drawn sword of Jehovah's wrath, Two-edged and flaming, waved back to a host Of mighty shadows gathering on its path, Soon to emerge as soldiers, when the ghost

Of John Brown should the lines of battle form. When John Brown crossed the Nation's Rubicon, Him Freedom followed in the battle-storm, And John Brown's soul in song went marching on.

Though John Brown's body lay beneath the sod, His soul released the winds and loosed the flood: The Nation wrought his will as hest of God, And her bloodguiltiness atoned with blood.

The world may censure and the world regret: The present wrath becomes the future ruth; For stern old History does not forget The man who flings his life away for truth.

In the far time to come, when it shall irk The schoolboy to recite our Presidents' Dull line of memorabilia, John Brown's work Shall thrill him through from all the elements.

DEMOS.

BY W. H. VENABLE, LL. D.

America, my own! Thy spacious grandeurs rise Faming the proudest zone Pavilioned by the skies; Day's flying glory breaks Thy vales and mountains o'er, And gilds thy streams and lakes From ocean shore to shore.

Praised be thy wood and wold, Thy corn and wine and flocks, The yellow blood of gold Drained from thy cañon rocks; Thy trains that shake the land, Thy ships that plough the main! Triumphant cities grand Roaring with noise of gain!

Yet not the things of sense, By nature wrought, or art, Prove soul's preëminence, Or swell the patriot heart; Our country we revere For that from sea to sea Her vast-domed atmosphere Is life-breath of the free.

Brown Labor, gazing up, Takes hope, and Hunger stands Holding her empty cup In pale, expectant hands. Brave young Ambition waits Thy just law's clarion call, That power unbar the gates Of privilege to all.

Trade's fickle signets coined From Mammon's molten dust, With reverence conjoined, Proclaim "In God we trust." Nor doth the legend lie: The People, patient, bide, Trusting the Lord on high, To thunder on their side.

Earth's races look to thee; The peoples of the world Thy risen splendors see, And thy wide flag unfurled; Kelt, Slav, and Hun behold That banner from afar, They bless each streaming fold, And cheer its every star.

For liberty is sweet To every folk and age,-- Armenia, Cuba, Crete,-- Despite war's heathen rage, Or scheming diplomat Whose words of peace enslave. Columbia! Democrat Of Nations! speak and save!

As mightful Moses led To Canaan's promised land; As Christ victorious bled, Obeying Love's command; So thou, Right's champion, God's chosen leader strong, Gird up thy loins! march on! Defend mankind from Wrong.

THE EDITOR'S EVENING.

Leaf From My Samoan Notebook. (A. D. 2297.)

In that age (_siècle_ XIX, _ad finem_) great attention was given on the continent of Am-ri-ka to increased speed in locomotion. Men and women went darting about like the big yellow gnats that we see at sundown on the western coast of our island when the bay is hazy. The whole history of that century in both Am-ri-ka and Yoo-rup might well be written around the fact of _transit_, for transit was the spinal cord of the whole social, civil, and political order. Man-life then seemed to oscillate more rapidly than ever before, as if in sympathy with the vibration of the universal ether.

The struggle for the increase of speed began in the early part of the century referred to--about 1822. Scarcely had the wars of Na-Bu-Leon subsided when the matter of getting over the earth's surface at a greater velocity was taken up as eagerly as if life consisted in going quickly to a certain point. Men, it would appear, had not yet learned that the principal aim of this existence is the _going_, and not the _getting there_. Then it was that the steam En-jo-in was invented. The Bah-lune had been frequently tried, but always with ludicrous or fatal results. A young man by the name of Dee Green once essayed this method in Am-ri-ka, with a most ridiculous catastrophe. A poem was written about the affair beginning thus--

An aspiring genius was Dee Green.

For more than half a century locomotion by steam prevailed in Am-ri-ka, though it did not satisfy the demand for swiftness. When this method no longer sufficed, several expedients were found to _avoid_ going anywhere. It was observed that the necessity of going depended upon the limitation of the human voice; that is, of hearing vocal utterances. The voices of human beings could not then be heard beyond a certain limit. To hear the voice of a man from Am-ri-ka to Ing-land was then thought to be impossible. The possessors of voices, therefore, had in that age to _get together_ before they could communicate. True, there were some men upon whom this necessity did not rest, for they could be heard at a great distance. It might be noted, however, that this kind, called _Homo politicus_, had so little sense that nobody cared to hear them, so that their success in vociferation amounted to nothing.

All the people of Am-ri-ka who were civilized spoke in a low tone, and any who cared to communicate must seek each other's presence. This had been the reason for the old invention of E-pistol-ary correspondence. This method, however, was not satisfactory, since it required much time to say only a little, and since what was said in this manner was found so wide of the mark as to produce disastrous results. Society was, on this account, frequently rent with lawsuits, having no better foundation than a bundle of Let-yers.