Part 13

His virulent tongue hurt him a good deal, and his popularity was somewhat modified by his social radicalism; but the long neglect of his revenue plan is one of the strangest facts in the literature of political economy. One might as well reject Kepler’s solar hypothesis, because the great astronomer got a little cloudy on the question of witchcraft.

And, after all, Bakunin only whispered his matrimonial theories, but shouted his tax-protests before multitudes who ought to have known better than to class them with his chimeras.

Briefly stated, his main reform plan is this: That governments ought to earn their own revenues as they cast their own cannon and build their own battleships.

“Look at your great Government stud-farm of Trakehnen,” said he, in a speech on the old Breslau market-square. “Model stables, model granaries, fine pastures, all more than self-supporting, monthly auctions of forage and surplus horses. Oats are barreled in airy magazines, and, for greater security, the granary warden breeds cats, and hires two boys to take care of them.

“All lovely, so far. But now suppose those boys were to break in a private cottage and snatch away a poor youngster’s kitten, on the pretext that the Government might have need of it? At sight of a club, the little lad would have to let his pet go, but could you blame him for growling?—Why don’t you get oats of your own? And let my little kitten alone?—And that is exactly what I am growling about when I see tax-collectors confiscate a poor man’s last milch-cow or nanny-goat.”

The orator then described the estate of Prince Gorkas, a semi-independent land-magnate near Tiflis, in the southern Caucasus. The Prince’s tenants pay a moderate rent; freeholders keep his good will by buying his cattle and coal. Free schools, fairly good, and no tax-collectors—a pattern of what an empire ought to be on a large scale. Foreseeing the eventual need of money for the purchase of a neighboring estate, the Prince had a mountain-side planted with plum trees, to sell the dried fruit. His engineers opened a mine of cannel-coal, and soon had a large market. Their master hoarded and was thought capable of driving a sharp bargain, but gossips would have risked the lunatic-asylum if they had spread a report that Prince Gorkas had broken into the little crossroad store and helped himself to a share of the old storekeeper’s savings.

Fruit plantations are also managed by the Shah of Persia, and mines of vast values by the Russian Government. Prussia and Austria own extensive timber forests and realize a handsome profit after paying reasonable wages to thousands of wardens, rangers and woodcutters.

Saxony operates national mines and large national glass-works.

Do kings need ordnance? Let them hire foundries to cast it for them. Do they need gunpowder? Hire chemists to mix it for them.

Do they need money? Why, let them hire business-men to earn it for them. Not the faintest ghost of a doubt but it can be done.

A little more difficult than raising royal race-horses? Perhaps so. But does that give His Majesty the right to race down a peddler and take his money away from him? Now reflect, and do not let your verdict be biased by the idea that might makes right, or that a long-established absurdity becomes reasonable.

Why collect revenues by Government highway robbery, by Government hold-up methods, by harpies in Government uniform, when the test of practical experience proves that revenues can be raised by Government industries?

Would you bring the State in unfair competition with individuals? “Don’t for one moment,” says Bakunin, “believe that lie of lazybones. Secretaries of Finance find it easier to hire marauders than to hire skilled mechanics, that’s all.”

Who is hurt by the great stockfarm at Trakehnen? It could be enlarged twenty times, and still give private enterprise a chance to raise prize-horses at a considerable profit. Who complains about Government forestry? It gives bread to hundreds of thousands; it protects the fountains of fertilizing streams; it prevents droughts, but does not prevent individuals from conducting timber-plantations at a profit exceeding that of grain farms.

The Belgian Government owns coal-mines, but private mine-owners will continue to prosper till they exhaust the supply of the mineral. No glass-worker has ever objected to the Government glass-works of Saxony. They invite co-operation; the demand for artistic glass products exceeds the supply.

If Government mines and factories, why not Government commerce, and, above all, Government real estate transactions—Government landlordism to an extent that will hurt no other landlord, and benefit millions of tenants?

Found new communities on the plan of reserving a certain percentage of building lots for state purposes, and lease those reservations for five to ten years to the highest bidder. If the Government erects buildings, let them be models of their kind—fire-proof storehouses, sanitary tenements.

Government plantations ought to be drained till gnat-plagues are no more; equipped with improved machinery, with airy cottages; a blessing to all concerned, and yet an undoubted source of revenue, since experience proves that wholesale farming operations are the most profitable.

One tobacco plantation of the French Government yields a yearly net revenue of 2,000,000 francs, and the only objection is the nature of the crop; national agriculture could raise profitable harvests without catering to a stimulant habit. Government commission houses should import Jamaica bananas, rather than Jamaica rum.

On the Bakunin plan, national revenue industries should, as a rule, select their ground where the strain of competition is the least likely to be felt. After that, objectors should be referred to a chronicle of such alternatives as trust despotism.

“No governments,” he asks, “decline to dirty their hands delving for boodle? Oh, ye prayerful pirates! Lineal descendants of the bushwhacker princes who preferred clubs to spades! Below their dignity to cut wood, but did cut purses and throats. Too highborn to clean out a pig-sty, but did clean out peddlers and often whole caravans.

“And now the descendants of those beautiful buccaneers, too proud to mine or farm, but not ashamed to fall upon a poor farmer’s homestead and confiscate his last horse! Not too dignified to hold up a crippled huckster and collar two-thirds of his hard earned pennies. Too sensitive to work the windlass of a silvermine, but rough-handed enough to wring silver from a consumptive shopkeeper. Our grandiose rulers, I should say, are in small business when they break in to snatch a widow’s kettle and cot-bed.

“Yet that’s done every day in the year. Statistics claim that somewhere on earth a child is born every second. And at least every minute sees the birth of a child that will have to die of hunger, because its mother’s bread has been filched by tax-collectors.

“Have Governments a right to supply their needs at the expense of widows and orphans, while thousands of able-bodied young men stand ready to earn revenue for them?”

High tariff bullies, says the Russian reformer, are marine highway robbers. At first sight, the burden of spoliation seems shifted to the shoulders of foreigners, but, look closer, and you find natives obliged to buy imports at extortion rates.

Passengers, waiting to be examined by custom-house officers, says Bakunin, always remind him of travelers, lined up to be searched by footpads.

“How commerce revives,” he says, “wherever those shackles are partly removed! How would it flourish if they were altogether abolished? Traffic that now obliges skippers to starve their sailors could be made abundantly profitable.”

A hundred years before the birth of Henry George, a revenue system, closely resembling the “Single Tax” plan, was recommended by the father of Gabriel Mirabeau, and by the Roget School of French Communists.

“It _would_ relieve some classes of our wage-earners,” says Bakunin, “but would burden others, and why harass them, if we can undoubtedly find ways to get along without direct taxation?”

Why make land the scapegoat of a sin that might be avoided?

In 1849 the Russian Government got its clutches on the bold reformer, and silenced him by the usual argument of despots. The voice that had entranced mass-meetings in a hundred cities of southern and western Europe was stifled in the catacombs of Schlüsselburg.

But Time, the All-Avenger, has made the martyr’s name a rallying cry of East-European reformers, and America should honor the memory of Mikal Bakunin as that of a hero and pioneer of reform—a man whose marvelous gift of intuition had recognized all the ideals of Populism, all its principles and promises, but who succumbed to the superhuman task of effecting its progress under the handicap of a monarchical government.

_Naturally_

KNICKER—There goes a man who would rather fight than eat.

BOCKER—Soldier?

KNICKER—No, dyspeptic.

“I’ve got twenty dollars for the rent an’ fifteen more for what’s likely to come up,” observed Enos Matchett cheerfully, as he put down his teacup. “There’s nothin’ to worry about this first of month, anyhow. Eh, Martha?”

His wife fingered her napkin in a nervous way, usual to her when the appalling call of their landlord was due, not to mention others who fished from pockets soiled packages of rubber-banded slips to draw out tentatively and none too expectantly those alarming accounts marked at their tops with the discredited name of Enos Matchett.

Poor Martha. The “Oh! Yes. I’ll speak to my husband about it,” and the hundred other subterfuges were growing gaunt with repetition. She had a regular repertory of excuses to apply as conditions demanded. For a first presentation a fixed and nonchalant smile and a “come ’round next month,” caused quick riddance of the unwelcome. “Next month,” it was, “I declare, I guess Mr. Matchett overlooked that little bill. Perhaps, you’d better leave it so he’ll keep it in mind.”

From then on, rang the changes of high prices, hard times and honest intentions until at last came the sharp, bullying threat of the collection lawyer and the crawling process of paying by small installments.

Sometimes she tore up the bills, sometimes they went into the fire, never, until her last bridge had collapsed, did she worry Enos.

He worked, hopefully, from morning to night at odd jobs and occasional bits of carpentry. A fortunate month might fatten their attenuated exchequer to a bulge of sixty dollars, but the months were not all fortunate and there was seldom a penny came in that remained over a fortnight. To meet the rent was imperative. That had to be met. For the rest—wits, hopes, and a somewhat shattered faith in the Lord’s providence.

However, when the Lord endowed average femininity with a high scorn of bills and an abnormal intelligence in the evasion of payment much was done for man.

Enos, undoubtedly, would have become as flighty and irresponsible as was Lucianna, upstairs, had he been obliged to face the shafts which his worried better half so successfully foiled to the last ditch.

Now, Martha gazed across the table at him, with the smile of one temporarily relieved from anxiety.

“That’s good,” she answered. “It’s queer how we’ve kep’ along.”

“Ain’t it?” responded Mr. Matchett. “I was consid’rable pestered ten days ago as to how we’d come out this month, but Miss Joslyn paid me, an’ I had a week steady on Doctor Bullen’s fence. No one in particular a-hurryin’ us jest now, I s’pose?”

“Don’t think of any special tormentor,” returned Martha, biting her thin lips. Indeed, no obvious projection in the wall of torment occurred to her at the moment. Their creditors were “lined up,” in equal aggression. One was as bad as another.

Enos tugged at his gray mustache—a sparse adornment, getting white at the ends.

“Guess we’ll blow a dollar on something for Lucianna then,” he ventured generously.

“Guess not!” exclaimed Martha, with decision. “The child’s got toys enough. Feedin’ her is more to the point. I never see such an appetite. She’s happy. Let her alone and put your money where ’twill be appreciated.”

Lucianna, now a child supposed to have attained twenty-five years, and a very queer one at that, had employed most of her day in making faces at such of the passers who did not meet her approval, and smiling at those who did. These courtesies were accentuated by taps on the window panes.

The poor harmless creature could be allowed little liberty as she ran away and sat on doorsteps, proclaiming herself a burglar of kittens. Given a kitten, or stealing one, Lucianna would go home delighted.

The influx of kittens became too trying. Enos, a soft-hearted man, would do no murder. Martha, steeled to crime through desperation, had disposed of several, really unfit to exist, and found homes for more. Lucianna forgot them over night. Therefore, it had lately become necessary to confine her to her room, where she was allowed one kitten during the day.

This satisfied Lucianna completely. Besides, she possessed six dolls, toys galore, and when these joys palled there was the window.

Whatever possessed the Matchetts to make a home for the unfortunate girl was a mystery to their acquaintances, as she was no kin. Years before, when life was younger and brighter, with Enos at a paying job, and Martha ambitious for a servant yet unable to afford a regular domestic, Lucianna, then a pretty child of about thirteen, had appeared and asked for something to eat.

She was well grown and seemed strong, although exhausted by walking and hunger.

Martha took her in, and an idea seized the good woman, after certain questions had been put and answered.

It was their plain duty to keep this little stranger until somebody claimed her, and in the event of no one turning up for the waif, why not train her for service?

Lucianna was reticent about her past career. Enos thought she lied. Martha said she was too young to remember. It seemed a case of no mother, a father who had gone away leaving her with unkind people who did not love her.

In corroboration of this last statement Lucianna exposed a plump arm decorated with small bruises of various ages and colors.

“Pinches,” she explained, snuffling. This settled Enos, who went down cellar and split more kindlings than he had ever done at one bout.

When he came up, perspiring and still glaring, Lucianna had been fed and put to bed. Martha was washing the soiled socks, and singing thoughtfully.

“Seems nice to have a child in the house,” she remarked.

“We’ll keep her along,” returned Mr. Matchett. “Good little thing.”

“As gold,” affirmed his wife.

This was the advent of Lucianna. Beyond the fact of her surname being Crowson, her clothes plain, her eyes blue, her light hair cut short, and that she bore marks of abuse, the worthy couple knew nothing.

Neither did they go out of their way for information. Lucianna proved affectionate, willing and useful, with a passion for cats.

In a year she had become almost as their own. Enos worshiped her. Martha did, too, but made Lucianna work, as befitted her position as helper.

Another year and the girl developed peculiarities that worried them. She eyed them shyly. She grimaced at Enos most impertinently when he trod on her cat’s tail. Martha spanked her. Lucianna laughed.

A few months more and she became erratic, irresponsible and useless, but always good natured. As Enos expressed it, “Lucianna had gone back to bein’ a kid.”

Some money went for medical advice. There was but one opinion. “Weak-minded. The patient might grow worse, but hardly probable if kindly treated. With great care under expert treatment she might improve. Such cases were outside the regular practice. Would recommend a sanitarium, or an asylum. Of course, if they wished to have her remain at home, no objection could be raised; but a burden—a burden.”

“We’ll keep her along,” announced Enos. “We’ve got hands and hearts yet, hain’t we?”

“God forgive me for spankin’ her,” wept Martha. “The poor thing couldn’t help her actions, an’ she never held it against me. Jest laughed, she did, takin’ it all in good part.”

“She sha’n’t go to no asylum,” cried Mr. Matchett, rising to the occasion. “Sanitariums an’ expert doctors ain’t for our pockets. She come to us for carin’, growed to be our little girl, an’ by Josh! Lucianna will be kep’ along.”

She was; and always reported to be “about the same.”

Ten years of it—ten long, trying, down-hill years, but neither Enos Matchett nor his wife had ever wavered in loyalty or love to their charge. Indeed, the worse things got, the more they thought of Lucianna.

Her daily airing (on the wiry arm of Martha), her whims, her playthings, were all attended to, religiously.

If, as frequently happened, she made a bright remark, her devoted keepers nodded sagely, saying, “She’s gettin’ better.”

As for the expense, whatever their thoughts in secret, both kept a guarded silence. Only this evening had Martha for the first time deprecated the failing of Enos to “blow a dollar for Lucianna.”

He stared at her, curiously, and grunted.

“Pooh!” said he, recklessly. “Got fifteen ahead.”

Martha’s tongue uncurbed at this unseemly boast. Her long nose twitched.

“Ahead!” she snorted. “You stay in my place tomorrow, Enos Matchett. You mind the door for one mornin’ and see how much you’re _ahead_.”

“All right,” returned Enos, his placid features animating resentfully. “I can spare the time till noon. No need of snappin’ at me as I see. No sense in deprivin’ Lucianna of a little pleasure, neither. There’s nobody pressin’ us hard—said so yourself. What’s a dollar, anyway?”

Alas! to the contempt of Mr. Matchett for the single dollar was due much of their financial tribulation.

“I’m going up to visit with the girl,” he added. “_She_ won’t be snappy.”

This parting thrust rankled in Martha’s bosom, and the supper table was cleared with rather unnecessary clatter. The improvident, easy-going Enos always let her have her own way. He turned over his earnings to her more careful hands, spending very little on himself, and trusted implicitly to wifely wisdom in all household matters. A real quarrel between them had never occurred.

Responsibility, shifted from his fat shoulders to her narrow ones, was both agreeable and natural to Enos. His make-up was that of the man who never “troubled trouble,” until cornered. Then he became actually belligerent and invited war. Up to this rare point Mr. Matchett bluffed good-humoredly.

When assailed by creditors on the street he was invariably in a hurry to perform some important and paying job—a fictitious pleasantry.

“Can’t bother about that now,” he would grin. “Drop ’round to the house an’ see Mis’ Matchett. She ’tends to the finances, an’ if she hasn’t spent all I give her lately, you’ll get something.”

This ingenious disposition of duns was not meant to be unkind.

“Martha’ll fix him,” Enos would chuckle, trotting along. “She don’t mind.”

So the brunt fell on Martha, and it was patiently borne.

But nerves grow irritable under constant pricking until they are ready to snap. Martha did mind. Of late she had felt like hiding whenever the door-bell rang. It took a long breath, a determined effort, a clutch at her quick beating heart for an appearance of unconcern, and her poor brain quivered with apprehension at its dearth of successful excuses.

“Let him have a turn,” she muttered, wiping the dishes. “The rent collector won’t be ’round ’till afternoon, but there’s a-plenty of others likely to show up. His fifteen dollars will get melted fast enough. _I_ could sprinkle it right, but he don’t know how. The first feller will get it all, an’ then——”

Martha paused to laugh, dismally. There was another side. How about future calls from those turned down by Enos? He might lose his temper. All the worse for her.

“I’m most hopin’ nobody’ll come,” she faltered. “I ain’t so sure of gettin’ the best of this.”

However, the following morning saw her marching off smilingly, with Lucianna in high feather at the prospect of a long stroll.

Enos regarded their departure with complacence, expecting an undisturbed session. At the most, some small bill might be presented. He knew just how he would pay it; carelessly, with a jaunty, indifferent air, as if the amount was a trifle. This was his unvarying attitude of settlement—when he settled.

With newspapers and a pipe, it would be quite a holiday. He established himself comfortably, soon forgetting indebtedness in perusing the details of late murders.

Shortly after nine o’clock came a ring of the bell—a feeble peal—Enos went to the door.

The caller was a stranger to him,—a dapper, gentlemanly man whose pleasant face bore an embarrassed expression.

“I—I wish to see Mrs. Matchett,” he began.

“Out for a walk,” said Enos, a bit pompously. “Any message? I’m Mr. Matchett.”

“Well,” the man pursed his lips and hesitated. “I—I wanted to speak with your wife about an account. Something of her own, you know—er—wearing apparel. If I could get the money today it would be a great convenience.”

Enos laughed indulgently.

“Clothes, eh? You needn’t be modest about that. I don’t rec’lect her havin’ any new ones for years, but it’s all right, I guess. I’m payin’ the bills. Trot it out an’ I’ll settle right now an’ glad to.”

The man looked relieved. “If it’s perfectly convenient?” he said.

“Perfectly,” puffed Enos. “I’ve got the stuff ready for any little thing that may come up.”

He unfolded the paper and glanced at the total under a short list of items. It was just thirty-five dollars.

Matchett gazed at the figures, too appalled to change countenance beyond a drop of the jaw.

Slowly, he pulled out his precious roll, and counted the money into the other’s hands.

“Receipt that bill!” he grunted.

“I’m ever so much obliged,” said the man glibly, his eyes on the paper as he signed the long name of a well known dry goods house, “and I wish you would explain to Mrs. Matchett.”

“I will,” returned Enos shortly.

“You see, we’ve sold out recently,” pursued his caller. “We are collecting all old accounts. This, as you perceive, is very old. We have never bothered Mrs. Matchett. I hated to come, really I did, but the present conditions made it imperative. Before your wife purchased the goods, she went to Mr. Morley—head of the old firm, you know, and told him so honestly that she couldn’t tell when she would be able to pay, and her reasons for buying, that it quite tickled the old gentleman. He came to me—I have charge of the dress goods department—Parker is my name.

“Says he, ‘Parker, wait on this lady and I’ll speak to the bookkeeper as to the bill.’ He gave orders to keep it back, so it’s never been presented. Very unusual and unbusinesslike, of course, but Mr. Morley had peculiarities. Pity he died. Our new head is a very different sort. Very strict. So I felt it was my place to see Mrs. Matchett, as I sold her the goods and she would remember. Ladies are apt to forget their little bills if not reminded. I think your wife will remember.”

“I think so,” said Enos. “Well, the thing’s paid and that’s all.” His voice was steady, but deeper than usual.

“That’s all. Yes, sir. Sorry to trouble you, and very many thanks. I’m much relieved to find it was no inconvenience. So many people complain of hard times. Good day.”

Mr. Parker skipped down the steps. Mr. Matchett locked the door.

He went to the most remote room in the house and sat for two hours in a state of apathetic despair, broken only by short bursts of wrath. Oh, Martha should long recollect this day! Several times the bell rang insistently, but Enos paid no heed.

At last he settled on a plan of action and went wearily down to unlock the door.