Part 4

To attorneys, advocates, and counsellors all, I’m not afraid to speak to you about your call; Not afraid to give advice, I’m one of you, You may heed, or I don’t care what you do. You give advice and charge for the same; Mine I freely give, and you get the gain. When you get free what to others you sell, You’ve something to brag about and tell. I like you, you bunch of jolly good fellows, Though you sometimes lunch like Col. Sellers. And your Sunday suit gets so slick, That a fly cannot walk on it and stick. You too are letting people into your trade. Deeds and legal papers are so easily made, By real estate agents filling out blanks Those you write are paid for in thanks. You sit in your office with high-propped feet, Longing for a friend to invite you out to eat, Or waiting for a client to bring around a fee. Sometimes you read or skip around in glee, To make the impression that your mind is free; And that you have plenty of work to do; And never for a moment take a solemn view Of how fast business is flying away from you. Some of you are learning on a motor cycle to ride, So when an accident occurs you are by the side Of the injured one to get a damage suit Against the company whose coffers you’d loot. Some of you join the gang and get in politics, To get some legal job they may help you fix. One of you stirs up strife against divorce, And gets to be proctor on the welfare force, And gets a small salary as a matter of course. Some get to be orators public affairs to discuss. And get the press over you to make a fuss; In that way you advertise your brains good To swing a big case and get a livelihood. Some join with unions to fight against the trusts, Others against the unions sling their deadly thrusts. Thus in battle array, some right and some wrong, We manage in some way to push ourselves along. The race of the old-time lawyers is nearly extinct To whose memory my fond thoughts are linked. I know a few whose names I’ll not give to you Owing to my plan I intend to follow through, Not to give names unless to represent a crew. You know some yourself not in the law for pelf; I’m one myself if into my record you care to look, If I hadn’t been I need not have written a book To make a little stake to put away for a rainy day. Lawyers are not dishonest, no matter what you say, Except when they serve you to get their pay. They have to be deceiving to keep up with you: You will not take your case you wish to sue To some attorney who could not stand for you. You know the attorney stands in your place, And to an honest one you dare not show your face. I’ve known lawyers who courted the name of crook, Merely to catch grafters on their own hook. You know well when you are sued that you choose An attorney who will by any ruse, you excuse To the jury who tried your case for the deeds, You did, and you know you did not get your meeds. So shut up your mouth and hie yourself home; The subject of judges and lawyers leave alone. Lawyers have always been pillars of the state To uphold our institutions you’d annihilate. Their trade is not alone on paper made; It comes from growth by development’s aid. It’s the garnered experience of all the ages, Written in books upon numberless pages. It has stood when empires fell, When to the despots they did loudly tell Of justice upon him the law’d compel; It has stood against strife, slaughter and blood, When other trades and institutions never could; It rises in the right, iniquity to fight, To protect the weak against men of might, Over widows and orphans its protecting arm Is extended to save the mortgaged farm; It shields the criminal against the crazy mob Giving him a trial of which they’d him rob. For peace and order and justice in the land Let us ever as true lawyers stand.

Names

By the use of names we designate Some particular thing, person or state. The naming of animals in the first place, Was put upon Adam as father of the race. This job imposed upon him no great task, Because no one’s permission he had to ask, Whether the name suited mule or cow, Or the name horse he might to kid allow. Now the names of animals who came Before him in a long-extended train, They had to take those which for them he did book Because they did not have a list over which to look. All proper names men can find, Have been so often used by men of their kind, That when a child is about to be born, Into the world, the name it shall adorn Has to be taken from the long list Of those gone before, or who still persist. Although we have quite a long catalogue, We still have to search and our memory jog To ascertain the character of the ones Who bore the name about to be given to our sons; Because any name may have been soiled By its owner around whom might be coiled The evidence of some offense the name to suffuse Before the time we it did choose. The likes and dislikes for names we take, Come mostly from the character of the namesake. A lot of names might be brought to view: Like Jennie, Sallie, Mollie, Kate and Sue; Or Perkins, Phelps, Pickering, and Penn, And a whole book full of names for women and men. The others need not here be enrolled, In this little volume, or by me polled. The things that did once make names great Generally were acts done for the state, Mostly in war, e. g., Alexander the Great, Or Caesar, or even Napoleon the Sedate. Sometimes names receive much eclat At home, as well as near and far, Like Washington, or our Jefferson, And also Cleveland and Lincoln, By statesmanship with head and brain For the public good when peace did reign. There used to be a time, now almost past, When patriotism was then in full blast, That men would sometimes almost actually do things With no other pay than the consolation it brings, Simply to be esteemed just, good and true, With no other motive than to bless me and you. But now of late men look upon the state Simply as a fat goose for them down, As o’er them her wings may spread around, To hover and her blessings bring down. The offices men fill to uphold the law, Or collect our revenues to fat their maw Are held mostly by ones we did not choose, Who with politicians by some sharp ruse Got nominated and elected against our views; And when elected frame up bills For legislation that their own pocket fills, Regardless of the trouble and all the ills, That fall upon the public that foots the bills. New bureaus are made about everything To which a gang of leaches can cling; With their matrons, clerks and superintendents, All hangers-on and their bunch of dependents, Disgracing all over our broad land, On every hand, the very name of man: I fear that our present civilization cannot stand, To live down the iniquity by them thus began. The euphonious name of Guggenheimer, Sipniski, Schradski, or even Joe Reimer, Now is fine if their amounts in bank, Stood their drafts and never shrank Below the balance they had on hand With the banks throughout the land. A good name is appraised above riches, But to keep that good to which one hitches, When anyone can claim any name he likes And ruin it forever, when off he hikes To Canada or Old Mexico to get away From the crimes he did in his day; Making the name disgraceful he wears, And none of the same name spares From sharing the shame brought on the name, To us, innocent and free from blame, Except for the acts he did against our name. Ambition leads us to attempt undying fame, That after we are dead and in our grave Our name shall live that we did engrave Among the world’s heroes on every page Of history that dies not with old age. But everything to make us famous or great Has been by someone, somewhere in every state Of civilization accomplished and achieved, So no chance is left for us, though grieved. So let us not try to make our names great; But instead, unite to rescue our own state, From the clutches of the vultures at its heart; And if we succeed at that, when we depart, Those left behind will bear us in mind, And write our names in the highest place they find.

Universal Peace

In all the past the records are full of war; Men had one desire to be in a continual jar; Or else the peaceful victories they did win Were not such as they wrote therein. Each nation, tribe, and men of ancient race For each other had nothing but hatred and menace. Upon the boundaries and rights of each, The other did recklessly go to reach, With rapine and murder in their hearts, To snatch from each other all such parts Of their lands, and their goods to confiscate, As could be done by the hordes they did aggregate. Their warriors and men to subjugate, Their women and fair maids to subject To brutality, and any other object As they chose upon them to impose. There were only two kinds in those times Of peoples on earth, those in their own confines, And barbarians who dwelt anywhere else, Regardless of who they were, Goths, Huns or Celts. No tie of sympathy was known or recognized, Between those different tribes; Each for the other was lawful prize. Robbery, theft, and murder were terms, Applied to deeds committed at home; These same acts out where they did roam, Were designated bravery and prowess, When upon barbarians they did egress, With battle-axe, darts, helmet and shield, Bent on the slaughter of their fellow man; For conquest and glory, they led the van; Over mountains filled with perpetual snow, Into heated valleys where the sun did glow; They fought for pride, religion and show; As upon crowned heads they wore Laurels of victory for blood and gore. But now has dawned a better day; From ocean to ocean where men survey Their lands and the boundaries fix Where rights of each the line restricts; And treaties with one nation is made With others to settle their commerce and trade. They bring across oceans in merchant marine, Luxuries of life now by us all seen, Grown and shipped from the uttermost lands, Divided from us by seas, deserts and sands. Those natural laws we are learning to use, Based upon justice according to the views Of publicists and statesmen applied To nations dealing with nations the world wide. Now the crude implements of death once used By ancients, are thrown aside and refused. In place of triremes propelled by oars, Steel-clad battleships ride by scores, Manned with guns throwing missiles miles; Around our coasts and adjacent isles; Our barricades and our battlements, Our field glasses and our armaments; Our powder in guns and in mines, With deadly explosives of all kinds, Making killing a thing of skill Upon the thousands our inventions kill, All are bringing war to a standstill. No longer do we hand to hand in war engage; Foes rushing foes with eyes in a rage; Instead, the scientific gunner his aim to gauge, Miles away, his gun adjusting to suit, Deals death to thousands, wherever he may shoot; With no malice in his heart, by electric touch, Some mine is exploded, killing and destroying as much In a single blow, as was done in a day the old way; And in all the soldiers are out of the fray. Why should we slaughter and fellow men slay, In this unimpassioned, calculating, scientific way? If such things, done by the whole nation, Were done by one, it’d be murder in our estimation. Inventions and knowledge lead towards peace; And the frequency of war decrease; The more we know of our fellowman. The less we like to cut off his span. So let the dove of peace hover over the globe, And in humanity’s cause we ourselves enrobe; Till from war and all its sickening pall, We advance, and universal peace install; And we may, unless we get up a protocol, Over which we may fight to see who is right, In the interpretation thereof withal.

Music

About the subject of music what can I say? That mystical combination we sing and play? The origin of which none seem to know; For as far back into the past as we can go, From the time that Circe and her maids, In their lonely isle of forests and glades, Their magic spells, in song, upon the sailor wrought, With all his crew, to their abode they brought, To change them to swine from the forms of men; Until wise Ulysses, by some godlike ken, Undid the deed done his men confined in a pen; Or when Orpheus with his lyre in his hand, Held his sway through th’ enchanted land. So ’twould be a waste of valuable time, The history and origin of music to put into rhyme. It seems that it has long over us held sway; Back from the long ago to the present day. But in all times before this day of ours, When men have harnessed th’ unseen powers: It did take the skill of finger tips Or the trill of throat and puckered lips, To wake from vibrations thereby made, The thrilling chant and sweet serenade. But now with pricking pins of steel, Those same vibrations come from turn of wheel, When in dents lightly made on a disc, Which around and around we playfully whisk; The pin points strike in and then out, As the thing is whirled about; And, by magnifying the scratching it makes The picture of the whole sound action it takes; And reproduces the vibrations on our ear, Of an opera or any piece we wish to hear. By the numerous machines by inventors made, The sweet music once by human skill played, Has passed into commerce of daily trade. For a few dollars one can buy, A music maker if he will but try. Although the music thus made is not the real thing; Yet instruments are designed that give it the ring. True music that really stirs the hearts of men That comes from the masters with the pen, Must be by human skill played, As ever behind its dress parade, Stands the soul of the master, flowing with the sound, As it comes to our ears in tones profound, Or tintinnabulations of drum or fife, Calling us to war and its deadly strife; Or those mysterious strains of the violin, In the hands of the artist held in, By his neck, hands, shoulders and chin So none can tell where he stops for fiddle to begin; Both moving together in such perfect time As we sit in rapture, listening to the chime. Will ever the sense of music in man, Having remained since history began, Be obliterated in time to come; And his taste for sounds become numb, By the strain on him these machines make, Hounding him by their grating sleep or wake, By the screeching buzzes they make; With our songs all ground up into rag, Even the stirring ones of the glorious flag, And those sedate hymns sang in church Which ragtime has sought to besmirch. But of all of this let us not complain, Even if we lose our desire for the grand refrain; Maybe some time the genius of the great, Will some better sense create, For its loss fully to compensate.

Painting and Art

When I think over the subject of painting and art Nothing occurs new that to you I can impart Which might bring reformation in the way These subjects could be treated in our day. The men of ancient times, with keen vision, Bent over canvas and marble with a precision Not equalled or surpassed, marking lines of light And shades, bringing life and nature into full sight, Throwing upon cloth the earth and beclouded sky. With its valleys green and mountains high, Divided into parts with ever-widening and winding streams, Their shores lined with foliage green and rocks in seams; And scraggy trees, as through them the moonbeams Throw their mild and mellow light in shimmering sheen; And fading lines of landscape merging into sky, With its diversified colors upon our watching eye; And from the dead, cold marble stand out The forms of women and men showing their features and clout, Bringing out every expression of muscle and face, Revealing the thoughts and passions in lines they trace Of all the joys of life and the agonizing look, Even to portraying the dying groan one undertook. To show up nature is the whole object of art; To make the scenes natural and life impart. Now our skill in inventions throwing light, We absolutely copy nature and bring it out right. Men with their skill and labor bringing out a view, With tinsel and touch to give it the correct hue, Cannot come up to daguerreotype or kodak In throwing out the front or showing up the back. Thus onward our wheels of progress are rolling, Crushing out the heart of Genius strolling Over lands vying, with his puny hands, With forces of nature invention commands. We should pause sometimes in our rapid flight, Long enough to reflect on the dangers that might Wreck our civilization; children would their lives destroy Were they allowed to handle guns as a toy; So with man in his audacious daring Handling these forces recklessly, caring Little for those who are smashed beneath their grinding, As the end to the glories of art they are finding.

My Fiddle

When my years numbered less than ten, I stayed with an uncle and aunt now and then, Who lived a few miles from our own door. Now when I think of those days of yore, When I lingered around the cabin door, In rapture listening to the violin, Held under our old black man’s chin; And its melody did my young heart win, Recollection goes back to my violin. This old fiddle came to me in a trade, That I with our work-hand made; And I learned to play for the serenade. I rosined my bow and handled it too, And loved this fiddle the whole day through. I played it nights before I went to sleep; Rolled it in flannel its tone to keep; Put it in the box which I did make; And took it out mornings soon as I’d wake. My aunt, who lived at the house where I went, With whom I stayed and many hours spent Was of the old school in the ideas she had; The most things I thought good she deemed bad. A deck of cards would have made her collapse; And for amusements now offered chaps, They’d been abomination in her very sight; The fiddle she thought her soul would blight. And even the box it was carried in, Was contaminated with the ghost of the violin. This vile thing was played for the dance, And that made it the horror of my aunt’s. Of all this I was then in ignorant bliss. So feeling good, I did not want to miss The chance to show my aunt how I did play On my fine instrument with much display. So carefully boxing it up, I took it to stay At the home of my aunt, to whom I’d show My performance with the fiddle and bow. When I arrived she greeted me before she did see, What was under the seat in the buggy with me. When I pulled it out I plainly saw A cloud come over her as she stood in awe. She did not at that time speak her full mind But in memory lingering now I find She said to herself something or other To the effect that my father and mother, Who were her sister, and in law her brother, Didn’t have the same care for their child, As she did for hers, or else how could they defile A little boy like me with such a tool of evil Specially devoted to sin and the service of the devil. I took my poor fiddle and lugged it to my room, Where I did not string it up so very soon. But on one rainy day I took it out to play Strains of old hymns that in my memory lay. The thunder’s crash and the lightning’s play Could not from my aunt keep away The penetrating sound my violin bore, Only a moment and she was at my door. I saw in horror my aunt stand before, With uplifted hands as her eyes bore, Riveting me in silence to the floor. The anger, pity, grief, fear and pain In her face made upon me its lasting stain. In words not spoken as much as shrieked, She revealed why her face was streaked With the lines I saw when she appeared: “Put that horrid thing away,” she whispered; “Put it in the back closet and lock the door.” She insisted: “Hide it quick, I implore; The Lord in his wrath will blow the house o’er! Don’t you know better than to tempt God in that way, While the lightning and thunder His power display?” I admit that I did not know, but in my heart, Then tender in years, was lodged a dart It took years to remove; even now when I start Upon my new violin some music to play I wonder sometimes if in some mysterious way There is not lurking in it some demon still, Its tones and notes sound so awfully shrill. I would not for a single moment profane The memory of my dear aunt I still retain, Nor at her sincere beliefs cast one single slur. I write here what did actually occur. A coolness between me and the fiddle I love Sprang up from the incident related above, That lasted all the days of my youth When I might have learned the violin in truth; That instrument none can ever master, Who does not cling to it in every disaster.

Scientific Ethics