Humanly Speaking. Samuel McChord Crothers
who can look a sociologist in the eye. Most persons, when they do one thing, begin to apologize for not doing something else. They are like a one-track railroad that has been congested with traffic. They are not sure which train has the right of way, and which should go on the siding. Progress is a series of rear-end collisions.
There is little opportunity for self-satisfaction. The old-fashioned private virtues which used to be exhibited with such innocent pride as family heirlooms are now scrutinized with suspicion. They are subjected to rigid tests to determine their value as public utilities.
Perhaps I may best illustrate the need of some receivership by drawing attention to the case of my friend the Reverend Augustus Bagster.
Bagster is not by nature a spiritual genius; he is only a modern man who is sincerely desirous of doing what is expected of him. I do not think that he is capable of inventing a duty, but he is morally impressionable, and recognizes one when it is pointed out to him. A generation ago such a man would have lived a useful and untroubled life in a round of parish duties. He would have been placidly contented with himself and his achievements. But when he came to a city pulpit he heard the Call of the Modern. The multitudinous life around him must be translated into immediate action. His conscience was not merely awakened: it soon reached a state of persistent insomnia.
When he told me that he had preached a sermon on the text, "Let him that stole steal no more," I was interested. But shortly after, he told me that he could not let go of that text. It was a live wire. He had expanded the sermon into a course on the different kinds of stealing. He found few things that did not come under the category of Theft. Spiritual goods as well as material might be stolen. If a person possessed a cheerful disposition, you should ask, "How did he get it?"
"It seems to me," I said, "that a cheerful disposition is one of the things where possession is nine tenths of the law. I don't like to think of such spiritual wealth as ill-gotten."
"I am sorry," said Bagster, "to see that your sympathies are with the privileged classes."
Several weeks ago I received a letter which revealed his state of mind:—
"I believe that you are acquainted with the Editor of the 'Atlantic Monthly.' I suppose he means well, but persons in his situation are likely to cater to mere literature. I hope that I am not uncharitable, but I have a suspicion that our poets yield sometimes to the desire to please. They are perhaps unconscious of the subtle temptation. They are not sufficiently direct and specific in their charges. I have been reading Walt Whitman's 'Song of Joys.' The subject does not attract me, but I like the way in which it is treated. There is no beating around the bush. The poet is perfectly fearless, and will not let any guilty man escape.
"'O the farmer's joys!
Ohioans, Illinoisans, Wisconsonese, Kanadians,
Iowans, Kansans, Oregonese joys.'
"That is the way one should write if he expects to get results. He should point to each individual and say, 'Thou art the man.'
"I am no poet—though I am painfully conscious that I ought to be one—but I have written what I call, 'The Song of Obligations.' I think it may arouse the public. In such matters we ought to unite as good citizens. You might perhaps drop a postal card, just to show where you stand."
THE SONG OF OBLIGATIONS
"O the citizen's obligations.
The obligation of every American citizen to see that every other American citizen does his duty, and to be quick about it.
The janitor's duties, the Board of Health's duties, the milkman's duties, resting upon each one of us individually with the accumulated weight of every cubic foot of vitiated air, and multiplied by the number of bacteria in every cubic centimeter of milk.
The motorman's duties, and the duty of every spry citizen not to allow himself to be run over by the motorman.
The obligation of teachers in the public schools to supply
their pupils with all the aptitudes and graces formerly supposed to be the result of heredity and environment.
The duty of each teacher to consult daily a card catalogue of duties, beginning with Apperception and Adenoids and going on to Vaccination, Ventilation, and the various vivacious variations on the three R's.
The obligation resting upon every citizen to write to his Congressman.
The obligation to speak to one's neighbor who may think he is living a moral life, and who yet has never written to his Congressman.
The obligation to protest against the habit of employees at the State House of professing ignorance of the location of the committee-room where the hearings are to be held; also to protest against the habit of postponing the hearings after one has at great personal inconvenience come to the State House in order to protest.
The duty of doing your Christmas shopping early enough in July to allow the shop-girls to enjoy their summer vacation.
The duty of knowing what you are talking about, and of talking about all the things you ought to know about.
The obligation of feeling that it is a joy and a privilege to live in a country where eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, and where even if you have the price you don't get all the liberty you pay for."
I was a little troubled over this effusion, as it seemed to indicate that Bagster had reached the limit of elasticity. A few days later I received a letter asking me to call upon him. I found him in a state of uncertainty over his own condition.
"I want you," he said, "to listen to the report my stenographer has handed me, of an address which I gave day before yesterday. I have been doing some of my most faithful work recently, going from one meeting to another and helping in every good cause. But at this meeting I had a rare sensation of freedom of utterance. I had the sense of liberation from the trammels of time and space. It was a realization of moral ubiquity. All the audiences I had been addressing seemed to flow together into one audience, and all the good causes into one good cause. Incidentally I seemed to have solved the Social Question. But now that I have the stenographic report I am not so certain."
"Read it," I said.
He began to read, but the confidence of his pulpit tone, which was one of the secrets of his power, would now and then desert him, and he would look up to me as if waiting for an encouraging "Amen."
"Your secretary, when she called me up by telephone, explained to me the object of your meeting. It is an object with which I deeply sympathize. It is Rest. You stand for the idea of poise and tranquillity of spirit. You would have a place for tranquil meditation. The thought I would bring to you this afternoon is this: We are here not to be doing, but to be.
"But of course the thought at once occurs to us, How can we be considering the high cost of the necessaries of life? It will be seen at once that the question is at bottom an economic one. You must have a living wage, and how can there be a living wage unless we admit the principle of collective bargaining. It is because I believe in the principle of collective bargaining that I have come here to-night to say to you working-men that I believe this strike is justifiable.
"I must leave to other speakers many interesting aspects of this subject, and confine myself to the aspect which the committee asked me to consider more in detail, namely, Juvenile Delinquency in its relation to Foreign Immigration. The relation is a real one. Statistics prove that among immigrants the proportion of the juvenile element is greater than among the native-born. This increase in juvenility gives opportunity for juvenile delinquency from which many of our American communities might otherwise be free. But is the remedy to be found in the restriction of immigration? My opinion is that the remedy is to be found only in education.
"It is our interest in education that has brought us together on this bright June morning. Your teacher tells me that this is the largest class that has ever graduated from this High School, You may well be proud. Make your education practical. Learn to concentrate,