he dawn of my ambition to become a Cartoonist is dated as far back as 1870. Of course, for some years prior to that—I refuse to be more specific—I was much given to the lead-pencil. I had developed a facility at drawing which was recognized by my school mates, and even by that formidable personage, the "Master," who, I gratefully remember, made me a present on a faraway Merry Christmas, of a box of paints, anticipating, no doubt, that it was my destiny to shine amongst the great ones of the then future Canadian Royal Academy. It was also significant, perhaps, that one of the books presented to me as a prize for general proficiency in learning at the same institution was a work on "The Boyhood of Great Artists." I cannot help thinking that this "reward of merit" was more of a testimony to the liberal views of the examiners on the subject of proficiency, than to my own deserts. I am afraid I cannot claim to have been a diligent student.[4]
I suppose there never was a school which was quite destitute of boys and girls who displayed something of a taste for drawing. And the ability to make pictures of some kind furnishes so pleasant and convenient a method of getting rid of time which hangs heavy, or of becoming oblivious to studies which are not attractive, that the only wonder is so few juvenile artists develope into professionals, especially now that drawing has a place in the curriculum. I do not regard it as remarkable, therefore, that the talent should have been displayed in the seat of learning I refer to. There was no attempt in those days at systematic instruction. The tendency was perhaps rather to discourage it as a means of wasting time, except on special occasions. There was a day set apart—the golden Friday afternoon as I used to think it—on which the severity of the week was graciously relaxed; perhaps through the genial influence of the approaching Saturday holiday and Sunday rest—when the time was devoted to the more fancy branches of culture, the writing of "compositions," reciting of selections, and drawing—which chiefly meant the unsupervised copying of the colored pictures of birds and animals which were the only artistic decorations of the room. I have, of course, some recollection that I was numbered amongst the pupils who had a talent for drawing, but I am not honestly able to corroborate the stories which I find extant of wonderful feats of portraiture on the school black[5]board with which I am credited. Many of these accounts are to me novel and interesting, but I regard them as due to the (perhaps unconscious) fictional powers of my contemporaries of that day. I will say, at least, that if it is true that I ever depicted the head-master in a clearly recognizable way and in any other than a most complimentary fashion, I must have been rash and reckless to a degree. Tales have come to me, on the alleged authority of an earlier master in this school, of the many times he had to thrash me for blackboard caricatures. He probably believed this himself, but it was not so. It seems to me, too, that in harboring such a delusion the good man did himself little justice as a pedagogue.
My interest in Cartooning was first awakened by the work of Thomas Nast in Harpers Weekly. I was amongst the devoted admirers of his elaborate and slashing full-page attacks in that "journal of civilization" on Boss Tweed and the Tammany Ring, as the paper reached our town each week through the local bookstore. Nast had the field of political cartooning practically to himself for years, and must have inspired thousands of boys as he did me. I had meantime been exercising my gift in a casual way, but the fact that such efforts had to stop with the picture in pencil or ink without any possibility of its appearing in print was a discouraging circumstance, and my occasional cartoon sketches of our town editor, the[6] journalistic dictator of the district, were merely passed from hand to hand for the enjoyment of the select few.
The first subject of more than local note to afford material for my pencil was Matthew Crooks Cameron who, as Queen's Counsel, was often in attendance at the County Assize Court. His spare, intellectual face, with the tuft of hair beneath the lower lip, and the unruly mass falling slantwise over his brow, made him a "good subject," and one I had subsequently much use for in "Grip," when he had become leader of the Opposition in the Ontario Legislature.
Responding to the mysterious charm which printer's ink had always had for me, I attached myself as a compositor to the office of the Whitby Gazette. The Gazette was owned and edited by Mr. George H. Ham, now known from ocean to ocean as one of the chief human assets of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and a man who enjoyed amongst his townsmen a reputation for geniality and ready wit which has now grown to continental proportions. Although I recognized that my immediate services appertained to the composing room and consisted in the setting up of type, and, on one particular night of each week, performing some function around the Washington hand-press in the getting out of the paper; and that it was for these services alone that I got my pay, yet from the first I regarded the mechanical department as[7] the mere vestibule to the career I had chosen. My asperations were higher; that is to say, they were fixed upon the editorial chair, which was upstairs. Since it was impracticable to contribute cartoons to the paper, which I would gladly have attempted, had there been any method of producing the cuts, I endeavored to find an outlet for my pen, and from time to time had the satisfaction of seeing the results in print, though I was all the while conscious that this o'ervaulting ambition of mine met with the unspoken but quite definite opposition of the foreman when it happened to trench at all on labor hours. I had perhaps begun a valuable contribution for the next issue upstairs during the dinner interval and found it unfinished when the bell struck for the mere mechanical operations to resume; but did this foreman consider what it meant for the literary reputation of the Gazette; did he consider how much more valuable such service was to the proprietor than any I could possibly render "sticking type"? Not he; he would come to the foot of the stairs and in a most peremptory and dictatorial voice intimate to me that I was required below, and, of course, he was quite right technically.
But an unexpected oppor[8]tunity arose. Germany suddenly declared war on France and the whole world, including the Gazette office, was agog. The frenzy for war news immediately sprang up, and our proprietor, in a spirit of commendable enterprise, determined to get out a daily edition, in the form of a four-page war bulletin. The enterprise met with popular favor, but it happened (fortunately, as I thought) that frequently the despatches were not sufficient to fill the available space. Here, then, was an aching void that I felt was a providential opportunity. Copy was needed, and it ought to be literary copy. With the approval of the proprietor I undertook to write a serial story. I did write it, and it was printed in daily instalments. It is not for me to appraise its quality as literature, but I think I can safely affirm that it was read, and that it produced a certain effect. It was a story with a purpose, and that purpose was to keep the reader guessing as to what it was all about. So far as I know, nobody ever guessed it, but I have an uneasy feeling that it was the incidental cause of a great amount of profanity in the town. It might be argued that nobody was obliged to read the serial, and that if they didn't like it they might have left it alone. Ah! but could they? I have only to state that the title of this work was "The Murderer's Scalp, or the Shrieking Ghost of the Bloody Den." Could you leave that alone? In the intervals of writing the chapters of this great story (which I think it might be a promising[9] speculation to revive now as a photo-play with Mary Pickford in the title role, if she could discover it) I divided my time between mechanical duties for sordid wages and poetry for the good of humanity, and meanwhile I kept an eye on Thomas Nast, the cartoonist. I remember how shocked and resentful I felt upon hearing some critic say that Nast was not a good draughtsman; that his work was far from being technically perfect. The critic was quite right, as I am now obliged to admit, but I still share the general opinion that notwithstanding any shortcomings in execution—attributable largely, I believe, to the wood-engraving process by which they were reproduced—his cartoons were wonderful, and their moral force in many cases great and even terrible. I was full of enthusiasm over the fall of Boss Tweed and the Ring, and of course ready to endorse the prevalent opinion that this desirable result had been brought about chiefly by the Cartoonist's weapon. I had read the reported remark of Tweed, that he did not care what was written or said about him, but hated those pictures. To signalize the occasion I made a pencil drawing as nearly as I could in the Nast manner of handling, representing the members of the Tammany Ring, Tweed, Conolly, Hall and the rest, standing in a circle around the artist, and with uncovered heads paying him obeisance. This I sent to the editor of Harper's Weekly, and it was with no little pride and gratification that I[10] received a letter in reply conveying the editor's congratulations on "the accuracy with which Mr. Nast's touch was reproduced," and adding that the artist would himself greatly appreciate the compliment. My satisfaction was complete when subsequently I received an acknowledgment from Nast himself in autograph form, supplemented by something I prized greatly—an impression from an etched caricature of himself by himself.
I went to Toronto about 1871, and considered myself in great luck in obtaining a place on the city reporting staff of the Globe, then under the editorship of Mr. Gordon Brown and the general oversight of his more widely known brother, Hon. George. There was at that time no thought of a cartoon for the Globe, or indeed for any daily paper in Canada. Even the most enterprising journals of the United States had not yet introduced the cartoon feature and it was to be a good many years before the ubiquitous syndicates would spread everywhere the doings of "Mutt and Jeff," "Buster Brown," and the "Katzenjammer Kids," that have since become something of an affliction to the newspaper reader. But even the plain, purposeful cartoon, that is so well adapted to reinforce the editor's argument, had apparently not been thought of in daily journalism, and I can well believe that to have seriously proposed such an innovation to the proprietors of the Globe would have been to cast them[11] into what "Jimuel Briggs"[1] would have called a "dangerous condition of aghastitude."
I continued, of course, to nurse my artistic ambitions, and being convinced that a course of art study would do me good, I enrolled myself as a student in the evening class conducted under the auspices of the Ontario Society of Artists. If I had only appreciated the advantage of persevering through the dry and irksome early stages of the course, I should no doubt have had reason to be thankful ever after, but patient plodding was not to my taste, and the copying of the placid countenances of Greek deities in plaster casts proved too much for me before the end of the first term. I foolishly preferred to "study from life."
One of the faces which attracted my notice was that of Hon. James Beattie, Senator of Canada and proprietor of the Leader, the old established and atrociously-printed organ of the Conservative party. Mr. Beattie was less reverently referred to in print as "Old Jimmie", and it was his pleasant custom to take his ease on Summer afternoons in an armchair on the sidewalk in front of his office, which happened to be on the shady side of King street at the corner of the alley still known as Leader Lane. There he sat in quiet contemplation [12]of the movements of his fellow-citizens, and ready to receive the greetings of the faithful, especially those of the true-blue L.O.L. persuasion, who regarded him as a venerated chief. The face and figure of the eminent gentleman were irresistible to an incipient cartoonist and after careful observation on a memorable day I produced a pencilled portrait of the subject. This I showed to a friend who requested leave to show it in turn to Mr. Sam Beattie, the old gentleman's nephew, who was business manager of the paper. I refer to the day as memorable because the sketch led to developments significant for me. Mr. Sam was greatly amused with the caricature, it appears, and within a few days I received, not the original drawing, but a lithographed duplicate thereof which had been produced at the neighboring establishment of Rolph Bros. I had not up to that time known anything of the mysteries of lithography, and the ease and accuracy with which the reproduction was done struck me with amazement; but further, it gave me an idea. Why not start a weekly comic paper with lithographed cartoons? The way was certainly clear mechanically; and not much consideration was given to the financial aspects of the project—though this was not due to the consciousness of an available bank account. Only a very modest capital was called for, however, and with the friendly co-operation of Mr. A. S. Irving, manager of the Toronto News Co., the project was brought to[13] fruition and the first number of "Grip" made its appearance on May 24, 1873. There was no great public furore over the initial number, and it is hard to say what might have been the outcome of the venture had it not been for the sudden occurrence of a great political sensation which is now known in history as the "Pacific Scandal." The whole country was at once aflame with interest and excitement, and an absorbing theme adapted to keep "Grip" going for many issues had thus been supplied at the right moment. The circulation increased rapidly, and the permanent success of the publication was assured. It went on without a break for over twenty-one years, during which I remained as Editor and Cartoonist.
After experiencing some changes in the mechanical production of the paper, going from lithography to wood-engraving and back again, we finally settled down to zinc etching. Some time in the late '80's there walked into the office one day a quaint figure of a Scotsman, who announced that he had a method of etching on zinc by which he could make an autographic reproduction of a drawing which could be printed along with the type, thus combining the advantages of lithography and wood-engraving, while being cheaper than either. This was William Stewart, who accordingly settled down in the "Grip" establishment and impressed his personality upon all connected therewith. He was deeply immersed in the mysteries of his new art—I think he claimed it as[14] his own discovery; which I now regard as doubtful, though he was unquestionably the pioneer of zinc-etching in Toronto—but he was rarely too preoccupied to be ready and willing to discuss the fine points of theology with any "foeman worthy of his steel." On such occasions he supported the position of the Agnostics with an absorption which not only endangered the orthodoxy of his opponent but the successful outcome of the batch of cartoons on the sheet of zinc he had at the moment in the acid bath, which he was meanwhile rocking to and fro like a cradle. Poor old Stewart! He was a kindly soul with all his queerness—such as his preference for working with what he called 'fakements' rather than having a proper equipment of his work room; and his sublime indifference to appearance in the fit and style of his clothes. He remained with "Grip" long enough to see the art of photo-engraving develop in the city to a degree which quite superceded his crude methods, and at length he drifted out of the establishment as quietly as he had drifted in.
"Grip" had scarcely any artistic contributions apart from my own. The cartoons which appeared for a time dealing with current political issues in the Province of Quebec, and signed L. Côte were not an exception to the rule. When the first of the series appeared I remember that a connoisseur in art, high up in the city schools, happened to come into the office. He was looking through the current number on the counter, and[15] when he came to the Côte cartoon he gave a delighted start and became immensely interested. "L. Côte," he cried, "Who is he? Where did you come across the chap? That fellow can draw; no offence, you know, but really you ought to model yourself on his style." Of course I felt gratified; so much so that I couldn't refrain from telling the visitor in strict confidence that I had done the work myself, purposely adopting a slashing "French" style of handling. He was the only outsider to whom this important fact was ever "given away," so far as I know.
But it is time to recall that the present volume is concerned with Chalk-Talks and not with journalism. However, Chalk-Talking is merely doing the work of a Cartoonist on the public platform, with spoken exposition instead of letter-press. My first appearance in this capacity was made on March 20, 1874, during the first year of "Grip's" career, at the Music Hall, corner of Church and Adelaide streets. For this, to me, momentous occasion I made due preparation well in advance. The general interest which the paper was attracting was, of course, the immediate apology for a public appearance, and the experience I had had as a reciter gave me confidence that I would be able to face the ordeal of drawing and talking before an audience. But I must have the talk in readiness,—in short, I needed a lecture; and I concluded that I must have it written by an expert.
This conclusion landed me in[16] no little trouble and anxiety, but the idea of going ahead and "getting it up" for myself either did not occur to me at all, or was dismissed as something beyond my capacity. At all events, I decided to give the job out, but before seeking a writer I must be in a position to tell him what I wanted written about clearly. It was not a case where a man had to find utterance for something he had to say, but to find something to say to which he could give utterance. After lengthened cogitation I hit upon the title "Pleasantries of Public Life." That, however, was not deciding upon a subject, for I did not really know then, and have not been able to find out since, precisely what the title meant. It had an attractive sound, anyway, and that was a strong point. The writer I had selected was Mr. Wm. J. Rattray, of whom I had heard as a literary genius who had done fine humorous work for the Grumbler (a Toronto comic paper of earlier days) and had won high distinction at the University. I went and introduced myself to Mr. Rattray and came to terms with him for the "contract." He certainly looked the part of the literary genius. He was frail of figure with a thin, pale, intellectual face and a great mane of unkempt hair. He was also the traditional humorist, in deportment, for there was nothing about him to suggest "touch and go jocularity"; he had all the[17] required air of melancholy. He undertook the commission without even enquiring what the title meant, and indicated a time when he would have the work ready. He failed, of course, to keep his engagement, and it was only through repeated visits and much urgency that at last, a month or more beyond the date appointed, I received the manuscript. I read it with deep interest, and discovered that the writer had expounded the title as having reference to the frailties and foibles of various classes of people who are more or less in the public eye.
Deeming it desirable to make my first bow under good auspices, I fixed upon the Mechanics' Institute as the most suitable organization, and upon putting the matter before Mr. John Taylor, the president, it was taken up cordially and the date was arranged.
The eventful evening at length arrived, and on ascending the platform in company with the chairman of the occasion (the late Ald. J. J. Withrow) I found myself in the presence of a "large and fashionable audience." My mechanical equipment consisted of a tripod easel furnished with a supply of white newsprint paper, and a quantity of black conté crayons not much thicker than slate pencils. In addition I had my manuscript—"mine" since I had paid for it!—which I had fairly mastered. It may be allowable to append here the report of the occasion which appeared in next morning's Globe (March 21, 1874):[18]
The Pleasantries of Public Life.—Mr. J. W. Bengough delivered his lecture thus entitled, and having the novel feature of pictorial illustrations drawn offhand by the lecturer in full view of the audience, last night in the Music Hall, under very auspicious circumstances. Mr. Alderman Withrow, one of the directors of the Mechanics' Institute, in connection with which the lecture was given, presided, and in introducing Mr. Bengough remarked that this was the first occasion on which that gentleman had appeared in this public capacity, though his name had become familiar to them all as the artist whose pencil had produced all the clever caricatures which had appeared in "Grip". Considering the comparative youthfulness of the lecturer, even so intelligent an audience as that which greeted him last night must have been somewhat surprised at the ability displayed in the literary portion of the essay, [2] as well as at the artistic talent indicated by the accompanying sketches. The lecture had evidently been prepared less with a view to its affording entertainment as a piece of composition than to its being a vehicle for the introduction of the sketches, a setting forth of the latter, so to speak, yet in some parts of it a very promising literary merit was shown, particularly in the exordium, and in the original [3] rhythmical peroration descriptive of Canada's probably glorious future.
[19]A very subtle sense of humor was also evinced, which, no less than the telling caricature, gave the audience great amusement and provoked repeated roars of laughter. Mr. Bengough's first drawing was a sketch of a house such as idle school boys are in the custom of making on their slates; his excuse for this was that on an occasion like the present the first thing to be done was to "draw a house". A good house had already been drawn, however, as the hall was well filled. He then went on to explain that the "public men" who were the subject of his lecture were not members of Parliament, as some might suppose, but embraced many who figured in various other roles. Who the latter were become apparent as the lecturer proceeded to hit off in capital style the peculiarities of the newspaper interviewer, the author, the editor, the critic as well as the Senator, the leaders of Her Majesty's loyal opposition, the young member who moves the address in reply to the speech and other legislators. The manner which Charles Reade, the novelist, has for measuring swords with his critics was cleverly set forth in a description consisting almost entirely of the titles of several of his novels. During the lecture about fifteen or twenty sketches were made, and the facility with which the physiognomies of well known individuals were delineated in caricature was very striking. The artist seemed to be able to put the right line in the right place at once, and so far from any rubbing out or alteration being required, the majority of[20] [21]the audience generally testified that they had caught the draughtsman's idea before the sketch was nearly finished. Among those who were portrayed in different characters were Lord Dufferin, the Hon. Alex. Mackenzie, Sir John A. Macdonald, Prof. Goldwin Smith, Wilkie Collins, John B. Gough, Mathew Crooks Cameron, Hon. A. Mackellar, Chief Justice Wood and Alderman Baxter. At the conclusion of the lecture the sketches were put up at auction by Mr. Davy, the secretary of the Institute, in accordance with a wish expressed by the audience, and after a spirited duel between Mr. R. H. Harrison, Q.C.[4] and another gentleman they were knocked down to the former for $45.
It is natural, no doubt, that my recollection of this first appearance should be quite clear. One of the features of it which I recall gratefully was the genial and sympathetic aspect of the audience, which I found a great help. Had I then given the heed to sartorial matters which lecturers are supposed to do, I had some reason for disquiet in the fact that I was not wearing the regulation full-dress, but was arrayed in all the glory of a brown velvet sack-coat. No riot ensued, however. Either there was a fine democratic spirit in the audience or the costume was deemed suitable for an occasion on which a suggestion of the studio was in order.
An immediate result of this success was a de[22]mand for my services in various parts of the Province, and so during that season and in each succeeding year since I have been more or less upon the platform. Cartoons drawn in these early years are still extant in many of the places visited, and citizens still linger who are able to give all the details of the "local hits".
The period covered is now well over forty years, and the field of action has embraced not only the whole of Canada, but a goodly proportion of the United States, Australia and New Zealand, not to mention some casual appearances in the Old Land. I may mention with due gratitude that in all these travels I have never had the personal experience of an accident either by land or water, nor have I ever witnessed a disaster of any kind. Furthermore, during the years when "Grip" was running I continued my work while absent on tour. In the case of my first visit to the Pacific Coast I furnished an illustrated page in the form of an autographic diary for every issue. I think it rather remarkable than only once did the matter thus sent by mail fail to reach the office in time for publication. This exception happened, however, in the last week of the trip, and I arrived home just in time to do the work over again. It was a close call, but the record was saved.
It will be interesting, perhaps, to jot down now some platform experiences peculiar to myself on account of the nature of my entertainment. A[23] main feature has been the cartoon sketches, and I have made a specialty of doing pictures of well-known local men.
This has always been immensely popular with the public, especially when I have had subjects with attractive faces from the caricaturist's point of view, and good material in local issues of an amusing character. I have made it a rule to avoid anything that could reasonably give offence in these "local hits," and, as a general rule, the "victims" enjoy the fun as well as their neighbors. I have had eminent citizens come to me and proffer their assistance—offer to "lend their countenances," as it were, and only in a very few cases have I been made aware that the subjects didn't like it. On one of these occasions the irate individual waited outside the door of the hall breathing out threatenings and slaughter. His breathings attracted the attention of the departing audience, and there was a good deal of excitement in anticipation of the "set-to." Cooler counsels prevailed, however, and I was pleased to find that, after all, it did not become my duty to personally chastise the poor fellow.
Other unpleasantnesses of this sort I recall in connection with my first visit to the Maritime Provinces. At a town in New Brunswick one of my sketches represented a pudgy gentleman coming a cropper on the ice while declaring that he was "going to learn to skate if it took all summer." The original was a notable character of the place,[24] familiarly known to every man, woman and child. He sat in the audience, and might well have been gratified at the indication of his popularity furnished in the "loud applause" and "long-continued cheers and laughter" which greeted the cartoon. But he took another view of it. He considered his dignity interfered with—and I think myself this was a fair enough conclusion.
At all events, having taken his wife home, he was returning to the hall when we met him. I was accompanied by my manager. He stopped us, but with no pugilistic intentions. He proceeded to vindicate his dignity by a vigorous speech delivered in short, quick sentences, punctuated with frequent repetitions of his habitual phrase, "What say?" The conclusion of his impassioned harangue was to this effect:
"Wha' right you got—what say?—to go round the country caricaturing respectable people—what say? You'll be gittin' killed some o' these times—what say? All right enough to make caric'tures of John A. Macdonald—what say?—Albert J. Smith—Anglin—what say?—but what d'you want makin' caric'tures of respectable men like me—what say?"
What could I say? I could only tell him no offence was intended, and when the manager interposed to suggest that he come with us and have a cigar or something his anger passed away and the incident closed.
Nova Scotia presented the next example of the[25] man who couldn't take a joke, in the person of an old chap at Pictou. It was perhaps fortunate for me that he was not present in the audience, as his disposition seems to have been somewhat murderous. I was blissfully unaware of any trouble, and it was only after I had left the town (which happened to be by a very early train) that I learned he had gone to the station with a big club, threatening terrible vengeance. A little later in this tour I was at Yarmouth, a city which was at that time only reachable by stage-coach. I gave two evenings, under the auspices of the Y.M.C.A., and the net result of the local sketches was three very mad men. One of these, a retired sea captain and shipbuilder, made a personal assault upon a citizen whom he charged with having "posted" me, and the consequence was a rough-and-tumble fight, during which the plate glass window in the shop where they chanced to meet was smashed.
To indicate the fragility of some people's tempers. I may mention that the cartoon which excited the captain to such a display of wrath represented that worthy—a complimentary likeness, too—pointing with pride to a ship he had just built as the largest ever launched in the Province. Sketches on the second evening—equally devoid of malice, of course—set two more eccentrics on the rampage. Though no actual violence resulted, there was a rather ridiculous crowd gathered around the stage-coach upon our[26] departure, and to cap the climax the leading paper of the town had a solemn article deprecating the action of the Y.M.C.A. in bringing so disturbing an attraction to the place. Yarmouth is now on the railway, and its citizens have grown broader-minded. At all events, I have had no sort of trouble on subsequent visits.
I think the instances I have referred to exhaust the list of the offended—unless I include the case of an Alberta gentleman who, in more recent days, took vengeance by tearing up a sketch which he regarded as not doing justice to his fatness. He was about as stout as a skeleton, and the study for the drawing was made from a sitting which he had most agreeably given me.
The local sketch feature, which, so far as I know, is a specialty attempted by no other platform artist, is one which involves a lot of trouble and anxiety, apart altogether from the possibility of giving unintended offence to the supersensitive. It does not often happen that I am so lucky as to have a sufficient number of available subjects brought to the hotel where I can comfortably make preliminary studies for the evening. This, of course, is the ideal plan. Ordinarily the right ones have to be sought after, and often they cannot be found. It has frequently been my experience, too, to arrive at a town late, and to find the audience already assembled and perhaps growing impatient for the "show" to begin.
This is a decidedly tight box to be in when one[27] knows that interest is centred on the "local hits." Yet I do not remember an occasion on which I had to own myself beaten. In one way or another I have managed to secure a supply of faces, and sometimes these vertible snap-shots have proved as successful as all-day studies could have been. As a rule, I deem it absolutely necessary to see my man, or at least a photo of him—though I never work from photos if I can help it. But I scarcely expect ever to repeat the hit I made on one occasion with a cartoon done entirely from a verbal description of the subject. This happened at Erin, Ont. The parties interested in the entertainment were extremely anxious to have a certain citizen included in the sketches, but they regretted he was not in town, and there was no picture of him to be had. "What type of a man is he?" I asked. "A stout man, weighing about so much," was the reply, and I then went on with a cross-examination as to the shape of his face, form of nose, style of eyes, character of mouth, etc., and having thus formed my conception I produced a pencil drawing and submitted it. "That's he to a dot!" was their verdict, and during the evening when I reproduced the face and figure in crayons there was a universal shout of recognition.
If I had been able to do the same thing in the case of a character in Bridgewater, N.S., I might have spared the poor old fellow some unnecessary terror. I thought to get a look at him by calling at his shop as an ordinary customer, but no doubt[28] his fellow-citizens had been teasing him in advance, and he was sensitive to the point of dementia. The moment I opened the shop door he recognized me, and never have I seen dismay and horror depicted more clearly on a human face. He gave one terrified look and an unearthly screech and darted toward the back room, pulling his coat-collar up over his head and screaming "Get out, devil! Get out! Get out!" I got out.
On the other hand there are some who, to put it mildly, are more appreciative of my attentions. At Ingersoll for example, on one occasion I had the celebrated poet McIntyre on my list. I pictured him in the act of reading one of his matchless odes to an Ingersoll-made cheese, and the acclamations of the throng inspired him to rise in his place and treat us to a brilliant impromptu:
I have not always had as smooth and pleasant an evening as this, and I have a record of one memorable occasion which might be entitled "The Entertainer Entertained." It was also a striking illustration of the old saw, "Pride must have a fall." A flamboyant newspaper-man had announced himself to deliver a lecture on[29] "Journalism" at the opera house of one of our Ontario cities, and he engaged me to be present and make illustrations of his remarks, sagely reasoning that this would heighten the interest and success of the affair. I had never met the distinguished gentleman before, but within five minutes I had sized him up as a "bombastic puff-ball". When I suggested going over the manuscript of the lecture he scornfully mentioned that he had nothing prepared beyond a few headings.
"I am an orator" he declared; "I never write anything down. I can speak any length of time. I've been on the platform with Cartwright and Tupper, and can talk all around either of them!" I have not the heart to write out the full comedy of the evening, but I may say that a more abject and ludicrous fizzle never happened on the platform. He began bravely, but broke down completely after uttering half a dozen sentences. I suggested that he take a seat while I filled in the time with a sketch. After a short rest he resumed, but collapsed again about the same place. I came to the rescue again, while he stepped out to the wings and took a refresher with a big stick in it. Another start, another break, and another refresher, while I made another sketch. And history repeated itself for a third time, but when he began for the fourth, the stimulants had taken full effect, and he could only babble some incoherent apologies about having been drugged by his enemies. Then he made a final disappearance, and left an[30] anxious public to wonder what he had to say about "Journalism." For a failure this lecture was, in its way, a tremendous success, and in consideration of this the people did not get their money back. I may add that I am still out fifty per cent. of my stipulated fee, but perhaps the experience was worth it.
As an example of the Irish manner of getting over an awkward situation, this instance would be hard to beat. At Souris, Man., in a quest for material I saw what I considered a specially good mark in an old Irishman who was sunning himself on a bench in front of the hotel. On making enquiry I was assured that everybody for miles around was familiar with him; so I sat down beside him to make my study, which does not necessarily involve the making of a sketch. We soon started a friendly chat which somehow quickly drifted to politics, and it became apparent that he was a true-blue Conservative. Apropos of something, he entered on a denunciation of "thim Grits" as a "pa-arcel iv humbugs". "Mackenzie an' Caartwright an' thim,—they're no good," he said. "They couldn't make good times at all. Caartwright was nothin' but a fly-on-the-wheel, he said so himself. An' Mackenzie was just as bad,—they couldn't do a thing to dhrive away th' haard times!" I ventured to suggest that Sir John A. Macdonald, too, had failed to bring good times though he had promised to do so with his National Policy. At this the old fellow looked stag[31]gered for a moment; then he said with a deprecating gesture and in a pathetic tone—"Ah well, now; we'll say nothin' about the dead!"
Speaking of Sir John Macdonald it is somewhat curious that though he was for years my chief stock in trade in the cartoon line, I only met him personally on one occasion. This was a brief interview in the Parliament Building at Ottawa brought about through the kindness of Senator J. B. Plumb. The quality in the great leader which impressed me most during those few minutes was his air of shrinking bashfulness!
It has been my good fortune to meet many of the outstanding masters of cartooning in the course of my travels. In America they are to be found domiciled chiefly in New York. There, on the occasion of an engagement with the Canadian Club, Mr. Erastus Wiman, the president, provided a pleasant opportunity by bringing together a company of notable artists at a dinner in the Brunswick Hotel. At the great round table in a special dining-room were seated Thomas Nast (who had come from his home in New Jersey for the occasion)—a dapper little man with a hooked nose, bright eyes, a curled moustache and a beard trimmed to a fine point at the chin; Joseph Keppler, the originator of Puck, still more picturesque in appearance, Bernhard Gillam, the chief[32] cartoonist of Judge, Grant Hamilton, his colleague (who is still working on the Judge staff), McDougall of the World; McVicar, whose dainty society sketches were a great feature in Life at that time, and Baron de Grimm, a Russian artist, who contributed to the papers in general work which was greatly admired—and others whose names were less widely known. In the course of the "shop-talk" that was indulged in (though sparingly) Gillam remarked with much feeling that he would give a good deal to have such a "subject" as Sir John A. Macdonald among the public men of the United States. I was looking forward to something specially good upon the "removal of the cloth," but this expectation was dashed when Nast stipulated that there should be nothing in the way of speaking—a suggestion which I was sorry to see heartily endorsed by the others. A few words from Mr. Wiman was, accordingly, all that followed the dinner, and then somebody—I think it was Keppler—proposed that we go in a body to the formal opening of Coster & Bial's new restaurant—a house of entertainment which was fashioned on the old German model. It was all kindly meant, no doubt, and I was "in the hands of my friends," but I am afraid I fell short of their reasonable expectations when they discovered that I had no use for beer, with or without pretzels.
Visits to Chicago have given me the privilege of meeting the late Luther Bradley of the News, who[33] passed away in January, 1917. He was a very fine and forcible draughtsman, and a man whose work was done earnestly in the cause of democracy. John T. McCutcheon, of the Tribune, is no doubt still more widely known. Mr. McCutcheon's strength is his humor, and his fertility in ideas. Personally he is a quiet, gentlemanly fellow, and in appearance and deportment always reminds me of Sol Smith Russell, the actor. He is personally very popular, and is credited with drawing an excellent salary as well as excellent cartoons. He does not work in his shirt sleeves in an upper chamber of the Tribune building, by the way, but has a palatial studio in the Orchestra Hall block on fashionable Michigan avenue. The Tribune's sub-title of "the World's greatest newspaper" is well founded if the number of cartoonists employed on the staff is the criterion—it has no fewer than half a dozen who lay claim to the title.
In Sydney, Australia, I met Livingston Hopkins, whose name I had known since the early days of "Grip," when he was a contributor to the comic papers of New York, and where he published an illustrated humorous "History of America." I found him a wealthy, elderly gentleman, who made himself comfortable at his club after his duties on the Bulletin were over for the day, and before he motored out to his handsome country home. He went to Australia many years[34] ago and had quite become a native; so much so that when he had recently gone back for a visit to New York he declared he had been so over-come by home-sickness that he had hastened back to his beloved Antipodes. I believe he is (if still alive) part owner of the Bulletin, and that of itself means competency. He was one of the original friends and admirers of Phil. May, the artistic genius who began his career on the Bulletin and ended as one of the stars of Punch. The Sydney Bulletin with its inevitable red wrapper is familiar in every corner of the Antipodes, and wherever beyond their limits Australians gather. It holds its place by the sheer ability of its writers and artists, because to the straight-going, orthodox people of the community it has from the first been regarded as an organ of everything that is wrong-headed and questionable. The paper has certainly been the portal through which much of the literary and artistic talent of the commonwealth has found recognition. Scarcely a writer or artist of the many Australia can boast but made his or her original bow in the pages of this weekly. Will Dyson and Norman Lindsay, names that are now[35] known in the art circles of the Old World, are other graduates of the Bulletin office.
The political cartoonist who is best known in the old country outside the pages of Punch is undoubtedly "F.C.G." the initials of Sir Francis Carruthers Gould—on whom a grateful Liberal Government bestowed a knighthood within recent years. F. C. G.'s medium is the Westminster Gazette, an evening newspaper[5] printed on sea-green paper with attractively wide columns and large type. The cartoon is a pretty regular feature, and is no doubt one of the chief assets of the journal, though it also has in Mr. Spender one of the ablest of London editors. F. C. G. is evidently allowed a free hand, and accordingly works under the most favorable conditions. He has consequently scored a high percentage of bull's-eyes in his time and is still (1922) going strong, though no longer in the vale of youth. His work from the technical point of view leaves a good deal to be desired, and there is some "poverty of invention" in back-ground accessories, but the point is generally there, and very often the cartoon is a palpable hit. The Gazette people publish a popular penny monthly under F. C. G.'s editorship and containing a selection of the cartoons from the daily.
This publication is frankly a Liberal campaign document representing at present the Asquith version of Liberalism. F. C. G. has also done a good deal, I believe, in the chalk-[36]talk way. On making a call upon him at the office of the Gazette I was greeted by a man of ample proportion, whose literally "outstanding" feature was a tremendous pair of eyebrows surmounting a face which was covered with a full gray beard and moustache. The eyes were so genial and smiling, however, that they redeemed the face from any appearance of grimness. I have called the beard gray, but I must add that the inevitable cigarette had tinted the hirsute adornments in the vicinity of the mouth a very decided yellow. Our conversation drifted to Chamberlain and F. C. G. made a number of pencil sketches of the great Tariff Reformer's face—to which he was indebted for a good deal of his reputation. Of course he had vigorously opposed the Chamberlain propaganda. One of his most memorable hits was apropos of Chamberlain's variability in politics. The cartoon represented the Premier (the Marquis of Salisbury) as a railway porter in charge of a head-strong pointer dog wearing Chamberlain's face. "Where is he going?" enquires John Bull. "I don't know, sir," replies the perturbed porter, "'E's et up all 'is labels, sir!"
Though I was not in England in a professional capacity, Mr. Preston, who was directing Can[37]adian emigration affairs, arranged some appearances for me. Amongst them was an evening at the Imperial Institute, Kensington. This is a staid and dignified establishment where representatives of the overseas Dominions and Colonies,—chiefly visiting government officials and parliamentarians—are in the habit of delivering instructive lectures on colonial resources, etc., with the inevitable lantern slides. It was no doubt a rather venturesome thing to break the traditions of this venerable British temple with something in the semi-humorous line, but the result proved that British audiences are capable of adapting themselves. When on the appointed evening the scholarly and polite secretary enquired whether I had my lantern and other fixtures in readiness, I gave him a perceptible shock in replying that I intended to improvise my illustrations as I went along.
The subject duly announced by the chairman, Sir Rivers Wilson, was "Facts and Fancies about Canada," and I opened by remarking that the Facts I had brought with me, and the Fancies I had found flourishing in the homeland. The main substance of the chalk[38]-talk was a satirical treatment of the erroneous impressions which prevail in Britain about Canada and its affairs, mixed with a certain amount of correct and useful information.
I have gone through the operation of being interviewed by newspaper men on a number of occasions—sometimes also by newspaper women. If the opportunity is given I much prefer to write down my views and hand the copy to the reporter; there is less danger in that case of finding one's expressions turned upside down. Sometimes the ordeal is made more severe by the taking of a snap-shot portrait which is to appear with the[39] interview, and which is likely to prove something of a terror when printed. At Seattle the young man of the Post Intelligencer requested me to make a cartoon of myself at work instead of using his camera. The picture, which appeared under the caption, "Canadian Cartoonist in Action" is here-with reproduced from the three-column space.
Though my chalk-talk work is still mainly for entertainment purposes it has of late years grown to have more of a didactic purpose. It has been made a medium for the promotion of causes which have appealed to me. I have been pleased to note as a sign of the times that audiences are becoming willing to think as well as to be amused. I have accordingly responded to many calls for chalk-talks on prohibition, woman suffrage, the social question, education and subjects of an ethical character suitable for school audiences—specimens of which are given in the following pages. Perhaps it is not necessary to say that the opinions therein set forth are those I have earnestly held for years on the subjects treated.
More than forty years of platform activity argues an exceptional measure of good health. I wish in closing these reminiscences to gratefully acknowledge the kind providence which has thus favored me, and also to record, as the result of my observation and experience, that if, as Stephenson asserts, "the world is full of a number of things" it also contains a vast number of very good and agreeable people.
While my purpose on this occasion is to provide an hour's entertainment, I do not feel at liberty to devote the time merely to foolery. "A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men" only if it has a substratum of sense and meaning in it. Though I do not assume that this audience belongs to the section of the public which "takes its pleasures sadly", I judge by its general expression of countenance that vaudeville is not exactly to its taste; that it is educated up to lectures, and when it takes its diversion it prefers to have the light repast made up of that which is nutritious as well as easily digestible.
For this reason I feel it incumbent on me this evening to provide something that is more or less profound, and accordingly I have selected as my theme the Pictorial Potentialities of Things in General. I will endeavor to demonstrate that in almost every department of thought and study there is an element of the pictorial; that suggestions for pictures are to be found practically[41] everywhere, if you only have the eye to see them. Of course, this is the eye of the imagination, which is the organ of the faculty of observation. People ought to be encouraged to cultivate their powers of observation. Not many do so. The average man doesn't really take notice of what he sees nor perceive what he observes. The man of artistic pursuits is more apt to develop along this line, and indeed it may happen that his propensity for seeing pictures and opportunities for pictures may become a distress to him. For example, suppose he goes to church and is conducted by the polite usher to a seat immediately behind a gentleman whose rear elevation—as the architects would say—looks like this:
He will be likely to find this distracting. How can he keep his mind on the points of the sermon while at the same time he is considering what a pity it is that such an expanse of surface for a picture should go to waste, and is secretly longing for a pastel crayon with which he could carry out the suggestion that has occurred to his resourceful mind—as thus: While this would distract the artist's attention from[42] the sermon, he could no doubt console himself by considering that he had at least mentally "improved the occasion".
But reverting to the statement that almost everything has a pictorial quality, let us begin at the beginning, that is, with the alphabet. Although you have been for some time quite familiar with the alphabet, perhaps you had not observed that it is available for picture-making. Suppose we select a familiar word—say the word Love (capital L) and write it down in this form:
That is what we may call the abstract form of the word; but to turn it into the concrete and infuse an element of human interest into it, all we have to do is put a line around it.
And then, with a few additional touches, we have the personification of Love in the lover, the hero of the drama upon whom romantic maidens dote.
Speaking of love-dramas, you must have observed that they are all a good deal alike, being variations on the same theme. The plot is[43] developed as a rule in four stages which we may call acts—and the typical outline may he given pictorially in this way, showing how simple an operation it is to make a picture-play:
(Here he is in the act of scooting. Note the dejected 'haviour of his visage, as Shakespeare says.)
[44]Then comes the climax. For this we need scenery and effects, so I picture the end of the wharf and the raging waves of the harbor.
Thus you have, incidentally, an illustration of the pictorial power of the single line, and we may pass naturally from dramatic Art to the higher mathematics. Euclid is not generally regarded as an Artist, and Geometry is not thought of as having a pictorial element in it, but I find the Mathematical figures very suggestive when they are looked at with the eye of observation. Take, for example, the angle. I set down here side by side an acute angle and an obtuse angle. (I do not know why they are so called, but perhaps the acute is the female and the obtuse the male).
Now, if I remember aright, Euclid asserts in one place that an obtuse angle, when it is in good health, is equal to several acute angles. That he sets forth as a mathematical truth, but it is also a truth of human nature, and I proceed to demonstrate it pictorially. I need not deal in such phrases as "produce this line", "join this and this", or "from this centre at this distance, describe this circle"—thus nevertheless we get the body of the proposition and come to an "understanding" of it. You see[45] I don't use letters of the alphabet on the corners as Euclid did, but on the other hand I use a little color—and on this hand too. Then I put a tint on the face, as well. I've often thought Euclid made a mistake in not using color in his work. It enables us to bring the demonstration to a head. There is the proof complete. Q.E.D. Anybody who understands juvenile human nature will admit it.
I would pass on at once to my next topic, because these sketches are hardly works of art it is worth while dwelling on, but I don't want to seem to do an injustice to the little girls, whose piety is quite equal to that of the boys. A few alterations and amendments will convert this sketch without turning over a fresh sheet. Bangs on the brow, hair pulled up at the back, decorative ribbons, and what the medical authorities call an Appendix behind; then lastly, the nether garments, that is the chief mark of distinction cut now on this pattern and just about the[46] length of the prevailing fashion—and the demonstration remains complete.
I would next call attention to the Triangle. That is a form which underlies many objects in nature. It might, for instance, suggest a study in natural history, in the feline department, when by putting in the eyes we let the light in on it. And then, by taking only slight liberties with the triangular shape, we develop a study in the department of ornithology and when we add a head and feet, we get the figure which ribald people use as a simile for the nagging wife—the Old Hen. With certain alterations to the head-piece, we may work out a proposition which Euclid overlooked, to demonstrate the sad results which ensue when an acute angle comes into matrimonial relations with an obtuse one.
Passing on, we come to the circle form, and it is interesting to observe that some of the most beautiful things in the floral domain are designed on mathematical lines. The sunflower and the daisy are a combination of circle and ovals, two very simple figures, yet their combination results in a thing of beauty.
Is there an aesthetic nature, a soul of sensibility in this audience, that can gaze upon this design without a thrill of emotion at its essential beauty? Not one. It is a form that has always made a powerful appeal to the Art instinct, and it is not surprising that the sunflower is the favorite subject for painting among the aspiring students of the young ladies' college. Let me show you how that theme is treated by the young lady usually. Over the centre she puts a delicate pink tint, and the surrounding ovals are done in a fashionable shade of mauve. If anybody remarks that there never was a sunflower in the world colored like that, she probably replies that the Modernist School aspires to improving on nature, so she adds a lifelike stalk and equally lifelike leaves and then she, so to speak, plants the flower in a beautiful jardinier of classic design, and there[48] you have a finished work of art that thrills the pulses of all who look upon it—if they are any relation to the artist who produced it.
Is there any captious critic here who shakes his head and says he can't make anything of it? Well, it seems to me that with the exercise of a little imagination we can make something very charming of it; we can bring a daughter flower out of the sun flower—the flower of the family—I mean the gifted che-ild so many families possess in the form of the little girl who is a born and inspired Elocutionist, and who, when there is company present, amazes all the guests with her wonderful rendering of "Little Orphant Annie", though she never had a lesson in her life. Here she is with her bangs and side tresses and soulful eyes—the joy and pride of the household.
To add one more illustration from the mathematical domain, it is obvious that if we take a number of these geometrical forms and throw them together at random we can hardly fail to get a suggestion for a picture. I set down, say, an oval, a cube, a triangle, an angle, a curve, and a couple[49] of parallel lines, and it only requires a casual glance to see that here is an opportunity for a tribute to the Sister Art of Music. We have here manifestly the "makings of a singer". It is only necessary to connect up these forms and to fill in some detail, including the abundant hair which is so characteristic, and finally put in what we may call the musical features of the occasion.
The more familiar department of Mathematics known as Arithmetic is not usually associated with picture-making, though it is, of course, a figurative subject. The Arithmetical figures are, however, so adaptable that even the fractions lend themselves to pictorial purposes. It will be remembered that during the local option campaigns in Ontario a great deal of dissatisfaction was expressed by the Temperance people over what they regarded as a very vulgar fraction known as the "Three-fifths requirement"—written of course in this way—Their contention was that this provision of the law helped the liquor party to steal municipalities that were really[50] in favor of Prohibition. According to this view the "true inwardness" of the Three-fifths can be elucidated pictorially in this way.
Let us proceed from the field of Mathematics into that of Etymology, and we find that some of the common nouns of our language are—at least when written down in certain ways—self explanatory to the observant eye. Here for example is the word Coon. I should suppose an intelligent foreigner though he understood no English, would be able to tell the meaning of that word from its personal appearance. He would see the colored person hidden in it. The development may be appropriately made to the accompaniment of a coon-song which was originally written for the admonition of delinquent husbands—a very worthy purpose. I recall something of the air but I will have to improvise the words as I go along:
Time is passing and we must hasten on to touch briefly on some other fields of thought. And speaking of fields let us pause a moment to consider Horticulture—the pictorial possibilities of fruit, let us say. Here then, is an apple and a pear.
As they have something of the contour of human faces they can readily be put to figurative use as specimens of the fruit of the drink traffic.
And then, descending into the more humble[52] sphere of the vegetable, suppose we take our old friend the potato, sometimes affectionately called the spud. I sometimes think that this would have been a more happily chosen emblem of Ould Ireland than that more fanciful vegetable the shamrock. I proceed to show that it would fit the case better and look the part at least of the proverbial stage-Irishman, who, however, is said to be a purely imaginary being.
From Horticulture it is an easy transition to Floriculture, and I desire to place before you the flower which the Scotch, with infallible judgment adopted as their emblem. If there is really a language of flowers, the Thistle certainly says, "Wha daur meddle wi' me?" and it[53] is easy to bring out its innate resemblance to the typical Scot.
To pay our respects to the Englishman in due order we must pass from the Vegetable Kingdom to that ruled by her majesty the cook, the Kingdom of Domestic Science, and I have pleasure in placing before you a plum pudding; one of my own making and a little underdone, perhaps, but I hope recognizable. This dish is usually associated with Old England, and I think it has really a more striking suggestion of the Englishman in it than there is in his official emblem, the rose. I have in mind, not Vere de Vere of the upper classes, but Hodge, the farm hand.
I select Hodge for the honor because he gets less than justice from his own countrymen, who are in the habit of picturing him as a phenomenal numbskull, and besides his face fits better into the design, as you see. The element of interest in all these studies (I hope there has been some) is the human nature in them. That is the one universally interesting theme. As the poet has said—"The proper study[54] of mankind is man", and I need hardly remind you that man embraces woman.
Any study of human nature must recognize the fundamental fact of sex:—that men and women are different, not that they are opposite in any militant sense. They are differently endowed, and yet nowadays the outer difference is not so great, especially if we consider some varieties to be found in high society.
Here for example is Algy, a most popular young man at all the pink-tea functions. I take him as he poses at the door of the club.
Now, it is unnecessary to make a separate design of his counterpart of the feminine persuasion. The same general ground work will suffice; only a slight modification of the head-piece, the hair and the skirt is required—as thus.
But now it is time to bring this learned discourse to a close, and to be in the fashion we must do so with the exhibition of a moving-picture. An appropri[55]ate subject for the scenario will be a gentleman in the act of retiring, and here you have him.
It may interest you to see how moving pictures are made; the process is really very simple. Here we have a picture which is static. Now a gentleman couldn't well retire without turning round, and he certainly couldn't turn round without moving. To make the picture move, then, all we have to do is to bring the back of his head to the front with a touch of black chalk.
"The Boy is Father of the man."
This is a quotation from one of the poets, which you may have heard often; and perhaps you have thought it a topsy-turvey statement. You may have been puzzled to see how it is possible, as a boy is always younger than a man. And yet many of the truest things that have ever been said are false and ridiculous if you take them literally. This is a case in point. While, as a matter of fact, the man is father of the boy; it is a most important truth in reality that the Boy is always Father of the Man. It is this truth that makes Education such a vital thing. For, of course, what it means is that every boy has entrusted to him the making of a man. The man you are to be in the future is going to be the kind of man you make him; nobody else can interfere with your job. It is just as though you had full charge of a lump of clay to shape it as you saw fit. Everybody knows that a boy grows, and growth means constant change. I might make a picture to represent what one of you boys looks like to-day—as thus.
[57]A few years from now you won't look a bit like this. When you are 20 your nose will perhaps be somewhat more shapely and you will have grown a moustache. You will also have taken to wearing stand-up collars and probably an eye-glass.
At fifty you will look entirely different. By that time your hair may have disappeared on the crown, your eye-glass may have been exchanged for spectacles, and you will have grown a full beard. You would scarcely recognize yourself.
Well, it isn't only the face and figure of a boy which changes with the years. There is a corresponding change in his mind and character. The old adage says, "As the twig is bent the tree inclines." And if the man you are at fifty is a noble type of man, a specimen of "a sane mind in a sound body," a man who is a good citizen whom everybody honors and loves, and who wields a wholesome influence in the community—it will be because that is the sort of man you have[58] moulded out of the clay you now have in your hands. Of course, what I say to the boys applies just as much to the girls, and I want every boy and girl here to think of the great responsibility that is resting upon each one of them. Really, there is no statesman or leader in the country who has a more important task than that of forming the character of a man or woman of the future. That task you can't escape, and you have to perform it yourself alone. You may receive good advice and earnest guidance, but it is for you to say whether or not you will act accordingly. This is one of the cases in which there is real meaning and very serious meaning in the expression—It is Up to You!
The making of this future man or woman is what we call education. Perhaps you have thought that a dry word, which only refers to arithmetic, geometry, geography, science and so forth; that it only stands for the ringing of the school bell, classes, tasks, home-work and examinations. It may be that some of you have occasionally asked, "What's the use of education, anyway?"
Well, let me answer that question with a picture.
Here is a boy who be[59]longs to the baseball nine. He prides himself on being the Babe Ruth of the team—the greatest slugger with the bat. Now let us suppose that there is a great match being played and it has come to the last innings with the score even and the bases all full. It just requires a good safe hit to bring in the winning run, and this boy goes to the bat. What would be the result, do you think, if he went to bat with a switch instead of a club? Everybody would suppose he must be "off his base." But that is exactly like the boy who goes into the game of life without an education. The purpose of education is to fit you for service. It is giving you a good stout club instead of a switch to face the pitcher with.
Or we might take an illustration from war time. Here is a chap who enlisted in a regiment. He had a hard time to get by the recruiting officer, because he was so slouchy. But when the regiment marched away after a few months drill that lad was one of the straightest and best looking soldiers in the company. This was the result of drill—physical education.
Man is made up of three great divisions and so[60] education must be a three-fold process. Let me make a picture of a boy to show these divisions:
1. The Body, the whole frame from head to foot:—Physical.
2. The Head, which is supposed to contain the brain, which is the seat of the mind:—Mental.
3. The heart, which is supposed to be the seat of the affections, feelings, desires, ideals:—Moral.
That is, Body, Mind and Heart must all be educated together to make a fully rounded man or woman. So, after the manner of the preacher, we have three heads for our discourse.
Firstly, Secondly and Thirdly.
First—Physical Education.
That a sound, healthy body is desirable requires no argument. The one who is condemned to the bed of the invalid is terribly handicapped in life, though there have been many cases in which persons so situated[61] have exerted a wide influence for good through graces of heart and mind. Others, like the historian, Parkman, have performed wonderful intellectual labors, though physically almost helpless.
Most of us have naturally a fair degree of good health, and the best way to improve and increase it is to take exercise; regular calisthenic and athletic exercise, or wholesome out-door play. I need not urge the duty of play, for this is one of the duties which boys and girls are always willing to perform. Out-door games are the best sort of physical exercise, and a strong body is like a strong horse. It will carry you through life, and enable you to make the most of your powers of mind and character.
When I say play, of course I mean play yourself, and not by proxy. There are many thousands of people nowadays who play baseball only with their mouths, sitting on the grand stand and giving instructions to the players and the umpire. The only exercise they get is for their lungs and throat. It does them no more good than eating the peanuts and ice cream cones they buy.
Speaking of eating, it may be well to warn some[62] boys that good health does not depend on the amount a person eats. They are mistaken if they suppose that the fattest boy is always the healthiest boy. Make it a rule always to leave the table feeling as if you would like just a little more.
While I am on the subject of physical education I want to point out the great importance of training your hands—to learn by doing things. If it is possible learn the rudiments of some mechanical trade. Boys sometimes leave school without any definite aim or plan, and they often get into a blind alley of employment, like selling papers or running errands. There is no prospect in such employment. Learn to do something. Notice the difference it makes.
Here is an old employer[63] who has advertised for a boy to do a certain kind of work and here is an applicant for the job. Notice the stern expression on the old gentleman's face. He is asking the question—Do you know how? And this boy has to say, "No, sir, I never learned to use my hands." "Then, you won't do," is likely to be the answer.
How different the case of the next applicant, who is able to hold up his head and say "Yes, sir—I know I can do your work. I've never done it before but I have got trained fingers and I'll soon pick it up."
"Ah!" says the employer, "You are the sort of boy I am looking for!"
No matter what you intend to go in for, manual training is a great thing for every boy and girl.
Now let us pass on to Secondly—Mental Education.
The cultivation of the mind. This is also accomplished chiefly through exercise—exercise of the brain, reading, memorizing, ciphering and thinking—especially thinking of what you are doing, whatever it may be—keeping your attention fixed upon it.
It is necessary to learn a great many facts about history, geography, literature, etc., and to learn many rules of arithmetic, grammar and so on, but the purpose of all this is the training of the mind. It is not, as boys and girls often seem to think, a mere matter of pouring facts into their minds as if the school were a funnel through which Education was ladled into their heads.
No, your mind is a sword you will need to use in the battle of life, and education is the power you get to handle that sword promptly and skillfully, and not only for yourself, but for others—in short to serve your day and generation.
It is a fine thing to have a great mass of knowledge, but I think the man who knows much more than his neighbors but keeps his knowledge to himself is a mean sort of character after all. Such a man has not educated his heart, and that is the point we come to as
Thirdly—Moral Education
This is the most important of all, because character is the greatest thing about a man or woman, and the human heart is naturally prone[65] to evil. It requires an effort to form good habits, but bad ones form themselves. It is easy to slide down hill, morally as well as literally; so we can make an allegory of the coasting game. Here is a boy on a sled at the top of a steep hill, and all he needs is a start. If it is a hill of bad-habit, such as drink, the end of the course is a ruined character that may be represented by the figure of the typical sot.
To avoid bad habits and to form and practice good ones is the work of moral education, and here again the matter is left in your own hands. You are the master of your own destiny. There is only one boy in the world who can do you real harm, and that boy you can see in any looking-glass. Nobody can form a bad habit for you but yourself.
We get to the root of the matter when we get at the heart. Out of the[66] heart are the issues of life, and a pure heart devoted to unselfish service is the assurance of a noble character, and that is the crowning glory of all education. Train your bodies, cultivate your minds, and devote your hearts to what is good and true and beautiful.
The one perfect life that was ever lived in this world was a life of service. It is described in the phrase "bearing the cross" and the cross is suggested in the form of a man who stands with out-stretched arms. Let that be the symbol of service to all about you—your hands being held out as if in sympathy and blessing to others. That, after all is the only way in which we can serve God, by serving our fellowmen.
When the Christmas season comes round, there are two names which little Boys and Girls always think of. One is that of a grand old man and the other that of a beloved old woman. Of course, you know I mean Santa Claus and Mother Goose.
Santa Claus travels all round the world at Christmas time, flying through the air—not with an aeroplane, but with a big red sleigh drawn by a team of reindeer, and loaded with Christmas trees and bags of toys, sweets and other nice things. He lights on the roofs of houses where good little children live, and comes down the chimney and fills the stockings which are hanging on the mantelshelf with delightful gifts, and then he sneaks into the parlor and sets up a beautiful evergreen tree that bears dolls and toys and candies instead of fruit.
Everybody knows what Santa Claus looks like. He is a big, jolly-looking old fellow, with a body[68] as round as the world itself. To make a picture of him I only need to put on one hand to hold the tree and one to hold the gift-bag; and then the skirt of his coat below the belt, and then his feet.
So there we have him all complete excepting the head. But before we put on his head we must put on his cap, because he is bald, and might catch cold.
He has two very bright eyes and two very rosy cheeks and one very red nose, so we must put them all in, and the rest of him is just whiskers. Santa Claus doesn't spend any money in barber-shops; he wants it all to buy presents, you see. When we put on his white whiskers, why, there he is, sure enough.
Well, next I must make you a picture of Mother Goose. I never saw her, but I suppose she looked like the rest of the Goose family, and so she has a long bill and a round eye.
Of course she wore a Mother Hat—the same as Mother Hubbard—and a sort of tippet which floated out behind her as she flew through the air. But[69] Mother Goose didn't travel with a sled and reindeer. Somewhere we are told,
But generally speaking she used a broom stick and as an old-fashioned lady of course she rode it side-saddle fashion. But, although her name was Goose, she was a woman, not a bird, so she had human features although I don't think they were what you could call pretty. Probably something like this:
Now, children, I wish you to understand that I came this evening by command of Santa Claus and Mother Goose to entertain you for a little while. Santa wishes me to do some picture tricks for you, and Mother Goose suggests that I show some of the charac[70]ters from her Nursery Rhymes, which I'm sure many of you know off by heart.
So, to begin with, I will show how we get a pig out of a snowball. First, you roll up a big snowball like this: And then all at once you see the pig's curly tail sticking out of it, and then you make a ring for the pig's nose, and another bigger one for its head, and then all you have to do is to put some dots for its nostrils and its eyes, put its ears on and then give it some legs to stand on and there you have the Pig out of the Snowball.
I suppose you little folks are learning to count and perhaps you already know the figures from one up to ten. But are you aware that pictures can be made out of figures, and that the figures from 1 up to 8 can be made to form a portrait of the old School Master who taught your fathers and mothers to do sums. Watch me as I put down the figures, and then pick them out—1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.[71]
Perhaps you think figures are rather dry, so let us have some fruit instead—some nice juicy pears—a pair of pears.
Boys and girls are fond of pears, and so are worms. Sometimes a worm gets hold of a pear and starts to eat it up—a big fat worm like this. There are two ways in which you could save the pear from the worm. The first is to kill the worm, and the next is to have the pear turn into a cat and fool the worm. I think that is the best way, so now please watch this pear while it becomes a cat. The worm will do very well for the cat's tail, so all we have to do is to put on its head and ears and legs, and there we have the Cat that makes such a noise on our back fence at night. And this other pear is another cat, or perhaps its the same one in the day time when it sits in the house so mild and sweet that you would not believe it ever disturbed the neighbors' rest at all.
There is one neighbor the cat does not like at all, and that is the D O G especially our dog "Spot". He's a terrible fellow after cats. That is a picture of "Spot" chasing a[72] cat. You say you don't see anything but the letters D-O-G—but you will when I put the outline on it. First I put a hind leg on the G and a tail; and then some front legs and a head and body. The o is the dog's name—"Spot".
A lot of pictures can be made with letters of the alphabet. Here, for instance, is the word Cook, and that can be easily turned into a portrait of Cook just when she is about to get dinner ready.
The letter O is something the shape of a boy's face, and so I might set down half a dozen O's to represent the different kinds of boys in a class, making their features out of letters. The first one is the A-boy. He comes first in the class and so he has a stuck-up look; the E-boy has a smiling expression; the i-boy has wide-open eyes and looks full of interest; the o-boy is surprised all the time and seems to be saying Oh! The U-boy and the V-boy have a modest, downcast look,[73] but I am sure they are good boys and would not put crooked pins on the teacher's seat.
So let us now pass on to the subject of eggs, because I am sure you are all interested in Chickens and would like to see how a chick is hatched out of an egg.
First, let us take a couple of eggs. We must be sure they are good fresh eggs, so we must examine them. If when we hold the egg up to the light it looks like this, it is good; but if it looks like this it is bad. So now we take the good one and put it in the incubator where it is nice and warm, and pretty soon we see its tail stick out and then its head and its wings and its legs and there is the chicken hatched.
But now Mother Goose says it's time I should make some nursery-rhyme pictures, and we may begin with one of that funny fellow who was called Simple Simon. I think I can make his picture out of the letters of his name.
You remember some of the silly things this simple fellow did, don't you? One of them was this:
[74]And he must have been a beauty for I suppose he looked like this:
Then, you remember, he went fishing one day. What does the rhyme say about that?
Well, here he is hard at work waiting to get a nibble, and here we will leave him as we haven't time to wait till he catches a whale there.
Let us pass on to another boy you all know—"Tom, Tom the piper's son". He had more sense than Simple Simon, and I believe he never stole a pig at all. Sensible boys don't steal pigs or anything else. And yet children all over the world have been for years repeating the words
[75]
I am sure Tom didn't steal the pig, because it was a great big one like this and Tom was a wee little chap. I believe the truth is that Tom was playing on the road when the pig came along rooting with its snout, and it happened to come behind Tom while he was hunkering down and just gave him a toss up in the air with its nose and so as he came down he alighted on the pig's back, like this, and then the pig ran away with him—so that is how the pig stole Tom.
Having set the matter right about Tom we may next pass on to another of Mother Goose's little boys. I'm sure everybody knows the Rhyme about Little Jack Horner. Let us repeat it all together—
[76]
Now it doesn't take very long to make a picture of little Jack sitting in the corner; we only have to draw his head, his hands and his feet, because all the rest of the space is filled up by the Pie. But what about pulling out the plum by putting in his thumb? Don't you think he should have used a spoon? I'm sure his mother would have been quite vexed by such an exhibition of bad manners as that, and I think the verse ought to be—"Pulled out a plum and said, what a rude boy am I!"
[77]But all these Rhymes have been about boys. Where do the little girls come in, for of course Mother Goose has many pet girlies, too, Little Bo Peep, Mary Mary Quite Contrary, Little Miss Muffett and others. But we have not time to picture any of them. However, I am going to close with a Rhyme about a little girl who came out of a Toadstool. This is not a Mother Goose Rhyme but one I made up myself just specially for you.
Here is a picture of the Toadstool. This Toadstool could talk, as you will see.
So, boys and girls, that will be all for the present. You are now excused.
Miss Dorothy Dix, whose wit is almost as great as if she were a man, is of opinion that "Nothing but a want of a sense of humor has made possible the spectacle we see in the world of government divided along the line of sex; a division founded on the idea that a human being who happens to be born male is superior to another human being who happens to be born female, and so is entitled to exclusive control of public affairs." That powers of government should be reserved for those who are fit to exercise them is reasonable enough, but that the boundary which divides off this competent class should be the line of sex is certainly a grotesque idea. It would be as reasonable that the division should be in accordance with the color of hair or size of feet. And yet the sex-line idea still persists and is still accepted seriously by intelligent men—and even by some women—in this twentieth century. Yes, seriously. I will endeavor to convey in a facial expression here the solemnity with which it is regarded.
This countenance illustrates what is meant by a "want of the sense of humor." The ridiculousness of excluding one half the race from a share in the duties and privileges of government because it is female has not yet dawned[79] on the mind of this thinker. But that is because he hasn't yet really thought on the subject. He only thinks he is thinking. Like many others he has just absorbed the prevalent opinion. But that opinion has of late been crumbling away before intelligent enquiry and discussion, and in every progressive land it is coming to be recognized that it cannot any longer be seriously held. The sense of humor seems to be awakening, and there is an increasing tendency to regard the sex-line idea with a more appropriate expression of face—more like this:
Of course there must be a line marking the limits of the franchise in every rational country. It cannot be absolutely universal. It is right and necessary that infants, idiots and incarcerated prisoners should be excluded, but why should women be put in this unfit category any more than, let us say, fair-haired men?
There must be a line, but it ought to be a hori[80]zontal line; our error has been heretofore to adopt a perpendicular line. Let me illustrate what I mean. I suggest first the fundamental fact of sex by picturing a man and a woman. This is the duality that runs through the whole of animated nature, and it implies only diversity, difference; it does not imply superiority or inferiority. The sexes are not rivals or antagonists, but complements of each other. But by this perpendicular line in government we have separated them, reserving all authority to the man and excluding the woman from participation. We have gone on the assumption that government is a matter of male concern, but in reality it is a matter of human concern, and the only question is—Is woman a human being as much as man? When the lyric poets describe her as an angel they are indulging in poetic license, but that doesn't aid the cause of one-sex government because on scriptural authority man was made a little lower than the angels, not a little higher. No; the perpendicular line cannot be justified; and being unjust it is contrary to the best interests of society in the matter of good government. We need to include in the franchise all the resources of wisdom and judgment of the com[81]munity, the intellectual, moral and spiritual forces of our common humanity, and so the dividing line should be a horizontal one, running through the adult citizenship just below the chin of the individual citizen. That would be to measure your citizenship on the Welsh method, as indicated by the British premier. Some rude fellow made a remark in a public meeting about Lloyd George's smallness of stature. "In "Wales," retorted Mr. George, "we don't measure people from the chin down, but from the chin up." Measured in that fashion Lloyd George is pretty tall; and the average woman compares very favorably with the average man. By the horizontal line of the franchise we would include all the best brains of the community whether they happened to be in male or female heads.
Speaking of horizontal and perpendicular lines suggests geometry. I don't happen to know what Mr. Euclid's views were on equal franchise, though I should infer from his assertion that "the whole is greater than a part" he must have been opposed to the principle of one-sex government. The man who believes in that theory virtually asserts that in the sphere of human rights the half is equal to the whole, and if the demonstration of this problem followed the Euclidean method it would proceed somewhat in this way:
[82]
Describe the circle A B C D. Let the line A C be the diameter.
Let the circle A B C D be the sphere of human rights, of which the arc A B C is male and the arc A D C is female.
Proposition—That the arc A B C is equal to the whole circle A B C D.
Demonstration. The arc A B C, being male, contains within its limits all the power and authority of Government; it therefore follows that the arc A D C is without such power and authority. But that which has no power and authority must amount to nothing, and that which amounts to nothing cannot amount to anything. But the possession of political rights is something, therefore the female arc A D C cannot possess political rights. And since the whole circle A B C D does possess political rights and such rights are not possessed by the female arc A D C, therefore, the male arc A B C must possess all the political rights of the whole circle A B C D, but that which possesses all the rights of the whole circle must be equal to the whole circle—therefore, the arc A B C is equal to the whole[83] circle A B C D. Quod erat demonstrandum.
This demonstration seems conclusive, but perhaps there is a fallacy lurking in it somewhere. I may, however, make use of the diagram to prove another proposition—though not on Euclid lines—viz., that man has certainly monopolised all the governmental power, and has thus displayed a hoggish disposition.
The Woman Movement is an inevitable part of the progress of humanity toward Democracy. In all countries, whether they be now ruled by Kings or Presidents, the ideal is Democracy. But that ideal has not yet been achieved in any land that has not equal franchise. Democracy is based on the consent of the governed, and repudiates the injustice of taxation without representation. Consent of the governed means their participation in the government. A government of the people by the people for the people means all the competent people; and if, as Abraham Lincoln said, a nation cannot exist half slave and half free—it cannot enjoy real justice with its people half enfranchised and half disfranchised.
A good purpose might be served, perhaps, if the Cartoon[84]ists when they picture the typical representatives of the nations, would set them forth in accordance with the fact of the lop-sided system of government that now exists.
Uncle Sam and John Bull, for instance, with one eye, one ear, one arm and one leg each would be more accurate though less pleasing figures—it would be a truthful representation of the systems which ignore one half the citizens in the conduct of the affairs of the nation.
A realization of the absurdity and injustice of one-sex government is making rapid progress in the world. Equal suffrage has in fact been established by law not only in many of the new and progressive communities but also in such staid old countries as Great Britain. The caricature of the "Strong-minded Female"—this sort of picture that was considered so funny in the days of the humorist Artemus Ward has lost all its point, because it is recognized now not to be true. A cartoon to carry any weight or influence must have the element of truth in it, whatever else it may lack. I doubt if the picture of the "blue stocking"—the vociferous and pugnacious woman who wanted to be a man ever had any real existence outside the heads of[85] irresponsible funny men. The quality which distinguished the suffrage leaders from the first was unusual intelligence combined with a desire to promote the best interests of humanity. This is not the material out of which freaks and oddities are made.
There are two general divisions to this subject of Equal Franchise.
1. Is Woman Suffrage just and right?
2. Is it expedient and desirable?
1. I think an affirmative answer may be taken as granted all round. If it is admitted that Government is a human concern and that woman is just as human as man, all the rest follows.
The fact that woman is different from man mentally and morally as well as physically is not an argument against her enfranchisement, but, in a representative system, a conclusive argument for it.
Nor is there any weight in the argument as to the unfitness of individual types of women; this applies equally to the corresponding types of men.
It is true there are classes of men and women who care nothing at all for such matters as citizenship, and it is a pity. But I think it is still more pitiful to find intelligent women who go to the trouble and expense of organizing to prevent justice to their sex. They are working hard in "Societies opposed to Votes for Women." I cannot conceive any justification for this, unless they can bring forth proof that the enfranchisement of[86] women would be wrong and evil, and so far as I know they have not attempted such proof. They are "opposed to votes for women" and leave it to be inferred that in their opinion the securing of the vote is all there is to the Suffrage Movement, whereas it is merely one of the details. The Woman Movement, I repeat, is a great note of World-Evolution for the achievement of true democracy. It is a movement for the emancipation of one half the race from disabilities of age-long continuance, to recognition in a full-orbed civilization. The ballot is only the symbol of true citizenship, and the underlying truth is that the State not less than the home, needs the co-operation of both sexes. Opposition to the realization of this on the part of women is something I find as hard to understand as the conduct of a captive who "hugs his chains." To speak of captives and chains in this connection is quite justifiable. Mrs. Jos. Fels in her recent book says:
"The whole course of history from savagery to the present day displays women, in the mass, as sunk in more or less profound servitude. It is part of the masculine constitution to be inherently disinclined to work. Primitive man was largely concerned with war and the chase...the hard and patient labor has always fallen to the lot of women."
I interrupt the quotation to supply an illustration from our own aboriginal natives. The Indian was not a believer in Equal Suffrage. He did not[87] allow the squaw to have a vote at the council-fire, but when they were moving camp he allowed her to carry everything by acclamation.
"Under modern conditions of civilization," Mrs. Fels goes on, "this relationship has remained unaltered. Apart from household activity, which is taken for granted, women constitute an increasingly larger proportion of productive labor in industry; this labor is alloted to her as a class and always distinguished as being underpaid. Work of quality and quantity equal to that performed by men receives, when carried on by women, a lower scale of pay. The one effective mode of righting the balance is to have a voice in the conduct of affairs. Here then, is a basis for a demand for the suffrage—for emancipation."
So far as I am aware, the main argument of the Anti-Suffragists is based on considerations of women's delicate physical structure. "Women's sphere is the home,"—it is therefore unbecoming in her to be a factor outside of her dwelling. It is an interesting study in consistency to observe that[88] the Anti speakers travel far and wide to proclaim this doctrine. This is worthy of being set down in chalk.
And the lecture this inconsistent lady delivers is notable for the inconsistencies of its arguments. I have a high respect for feminine brains and no doubt the Anti ladies are endowed with them, but to argue against a self evident truth is too much of a task for any man or woman. Hence we find that the customary Anti speech takes the form of a series of mutually contradictory arguments which may be condensed in this way.
1. Woman wouldn't vote if she had the ballot (but) she would neglect her home and spend all her time in politics.
2. Women would vote just as their husbands do (but) political differences would disrupt the family.
3. Voting would take the bloom off womanhood (but) they would be more corrupt than men.
4. Women cannot understand politics (but) they would become regular political bosses.
5. Women have the cat nature and cannot organize, (but) they would make trouble by organizing against the men.
6. The vote is not worth striving for (besides) men have the vote and we look up to them.
7. Association with men in politics will demoralize women, (though) association in the ball room is in no way harmful.
8. Woman does not need any weapon except her[89] moral influence (though) politicians don't pay any attention to anything but votes in the ballot boxes.
Of course the Antis are right about woman's sphere being the home. That in reality is the conclusive reason for her emancipation; and the reason for an affirmative reply to the second question—Is suffrage expedient and desirable?
The home is and always will be woman's special domain, but the home is the foundation of the State. In this day and age the home needs the support and protection of the ballot. "What the woman of to-day is attempting either blindly or consciously is not revolt or revolution, but the conservation of her share in the work of the world—the conservation of the home," says a recent thoughtful writer.
"Woman's sphere" to-day as the director and conservator of the home, is her responsibility for the vital matters of food, clothing, education and health, but it happens that the work of the home is now chiefly done outside the dwelling.
I picture Woman's sphere, as being her special charge, over the four spheres just named as pertaining to the home. These vital matters are now regulated by laws which deal with factories, creameries, dairies, canneries, mills, public schools, and health departments, and to[90] exercise her due influence she must be equipped with the powers of citizenship whose symbol is the ballot.
And apart from merely local and domestic matters, she must have a vote and influence in the great issues of the State, most of which so intimately concern the home. In short, to occupy her acknowledged sphere, she must be equipped with the rights and powers of full citizenship.
The homemakers pre-eminently are the wives, who are now in some places discriminated against even where widows and unmarried women with property are permitted to vote. This justified the popular parody, which ran as follows:
But this is primarily a man's question, for it is by man's action that the emancipation of woman must come; and it ought to come not merely as a matter of justice, but because experience has proved that in the affairs of the nation "it is not good for man to be alone."
The great wrongs of Society can never be overcome by the one-armed, one-legged and one-brain[92]ed system of government. It must be confessed that man has made a poor job of it. The world in its economic topsy-turvyism is like the typical bachelor's apartment. No man, without woman's co-operation can make a real home; and indeed no woman can either—not a real home, even though, as has been suggested, she has a tidy on every chair, a chimney that smokes and a parrot that swears.
Look at the conditions: Countries that are nominally free being made the prey of monopoly, privileges and injustice, with such evil fruits as the liquor traffic, white slavery, child labor and abject poverty side by side with unimaginable wealth. Man has been a failure as a housekeeper, and it is high time that he took an equal partner—the natural partner he should have had from the first.
[93]And the man voter is going to do this act of emancipation. The reform is coming everywhere. The opposition to it is not man: it is the stubbornness of custom, the inertia of the rooted idea and the slowness of the sense of humor. It has already come in happy spots here and there around the world, and it is justifying itself as it spreads. We are able to point to practical demonstrations in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Europe, and to assert with the confidence of actual experience that its blessings have been marked and manifold, while on the other hand none of the evils so loudly predicted have come to pass.
The enfranchisement of woman has meant everywhere the off-setting of an electoral element largely evil by the introduction of an element largely good. I picture the bane and the antidote.
A summary of the benefits secured would include these, among other, results: It tends to increase the native vote as against the foreign.
To increase the educated vote as against the ignorant.
To increase the moral vote as against the vicious.
To increase the interest of the men themselves in public affairs.
To secure a better class of candidates and hence a higher order of politics.
The sense of incompleteness and therefore of imperfection must always attach to the figure of a hemisphere and every just mind must feel it in connection with the constitution of society where equal suffrage is absent. And so I conclude with a design of full-orbed humanity presenting the figure of the circle, which, as the symbol of perfec[94]tion, is I hope, a prophecy of the world of justice and happiness that is to be.
To increase the harmony of the home by increasing the mutual respect due to the equality of privilege and dignity.
The infusion of woman's keener moral perceptions and stronger spiritual ardor into statesmanship is what is needed to meet the perils of the day, and to bring the triumph of the Cause of Peace by securing the triumph of the Cause of Justice. But will the average woman make a better use of her franchise than the average man? That is not the point. She is entitled to have her ballot all the same—the question, as I have said, is not merely "Votes for Women", but freedom and equality as human beings for one half the race.
This is a land of Freedom. Let any man discourse on
and the citizen in general will respond with hearty applause.
But let that orator include in his category Freedom of Trade and this is the expression he will produce on the face of his auditors.
Free Trade is under the ban. It is a sort of treason to even mention it.
Protection is the sweet and comforting word which embodies the national faith. "Protection!" Yet there is no braver people on earth than the Canadians. This is not only the land of the Free (barring Free Trade) but it is the home of the Brave. The Canadian is pre-eminently able to take care of himself, and he knows that the only[96] classes that stand in need of protection are the unfortunate:—The maimed, the poor, the blind, the sick, the aged and the dependent.
And yet this brave, competent and resourceful people say by their national tariff policy that they entertain the fear that unless they are protected against the other nations of the world, their country will be swamped and destroyed! Here is a great problem in psychology!
Now, there is not a sane citizen alive who will walk around a corner of a vacant lot when he is in a hurry, if there is no fence, and there's a diagonal footpath.
He would tell you that any man who wouldn't take advantage of the short cut in such a case is simply a Dub or a Chump. He probably has never taken time to consider why he acts in this way. He would no doubt call it just plain horse-sense. That's what it is, too, of course. But this common sense is based on a fundamental law of[97] human nature—that unnecessary toil and trouble are to be avoided in the great matter of the making of a living.
The American, the Canadian's next door neighbor, is the great inventive genius of the world, and the object of most of his ingenious contraptions is to save labor. They are mostly "cut the corner" devices. Yet he is "dead set" against Free Trade, too.
I should have expected the American to be the very first man in the world to see and appreciate the fact that
That, indeed, is its one great purpose. Only it is not an invention, it is the natural outcome of the fact that man is a trading animal. That is what constitutes his humanity, and makes him the head of Creation.
Trade, the short cut to a good living.
The ideal every intelligent man sets before himself as what he calls a successful life, is plenty of good things to eat and wear, a comfortable and well-furnished home to live in, and a reasonable share of leisure, to enjoy the refinements of society and to have a good time.
Well, as a matter of fact, how does he go about accomplishing these ends?
Let me show you what he does not do.[98]
He does not confine himself in a little barbed wire enclosure and undertake to make all his own clothes, boots, furniture, books, and everything else he wants. If anybody suggested to him that this was the best method of reaching his object, I would like to be around to hear what he would say to that party.
Oh, no! He acts on his common sense and takes the short cut to comfort. He has no use for the protective philosophy. He devotes himself to some one line of service or production, sells his product, whatever it may be, to the best advantage, and then buys the things he needs. That is, he uses the labor saving device called Trade, and what is more, he likes that Trade to be as free as possible. Let us look at the American. We may be able to see the truth more clearly when it refers to the other fellow. His own country is an immense stretch of territory, containing a variety of climates and capable of producing almost everything. It consists of some 48 sovereign States—or practically nations—with an aggregate population of over 100,000,000 and throughout this great expanse exchange of products is absolutely free. It would be interesting to mark the fate of any crank who should arise in Congress or the Senate to propose tariff walls[99] around each of these States by way of improving their prosperity.
I say the American citizen, accustomed all his life to these conditions of liberty, ought by rights to be the natural Free Trade leader of the race. His statue of "Liberty Enlightening the World" ought to hold up a torch which sent forth a message of Freedom, Fraternity, Fellowship, Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men; and signalled to all mankind—"Here is the land where a man's inalienable right to life, through the exchange of his products where and how he pleases, is the heritage of every citizen!"
Yet, here is a queer thing in the case of this intelligent and enterprising American trader—the term "Free Trade" is poison to him!
The explanation of this is, I think, that he has somehow got possessed of two or three notions that have played hob with his reasoning powers.
What are these notions?
First, that though he has proved freedom of exchange to be a great blessing throughout the domain of the United States, it would instantly become a disaster if it were extended any further. There are human beings living North and South of his boundary lines that have the same needs of food, clothing, furniture, etc., that he has himself, but somehow he thinks that to trade freely with them also would be the road to ruin.
Second, he has the idea that national boundary lines have everything to do with Trade; that the[100] country's Trade and the country's Flag are some-way bound together.
Yet, of course, he has taken notice that the migrating birds that go North and South every year pay no attention at all to boundary lines, and that the fish in the rivers pass up and down without any regard for these things whatever.
If he stopped for a moment to think, he would see that the birds and fishes are guided by a law analogous to the law of trade in the human race. In other words, that the instinct for migrating and flying in a bird, or of swimming in a fish, is the same as the instinct for trading in a man. There are natural impulses and they have no relation whatever to the work of Statesmen at Washington or Ottawa who contrive such artificial things as boundary lines and may shift them around as often as they please.
This funny delusion as to the relation between trade and boundary lines is no doubt promoted by the use of such expressions as "National Trade", "National Commerce", etc., when as a matter of fact there is no such thing. All trade is individual: the nation as such does not trade at all. But this notion has led the American citizen to very absurd[101] conclusions, which ought really to amuse a man with his sense of humor.
For example, there is Texas. A few years ago it formed part of Mexico, and free trade with its inhabitants was of necessity "ruinous". American industry, of course, required protection against Texas. But a Secretary of State waved his pen and Texas was taken into the Union, and instantly, lo and behold! economic conditions were reversed, and trade with the people down there became as profitable as trade with any other of the States.
Then, take the case of the foreign world. This clearheaded American is firmly convinced that Free Trade with foreign nations across the sea would be a sure enough knock-out blow to his home industries. He still holds this opinion, but he says it does not apply to the Philippines, Porto Rico and Hawaii and more recently he has added the Dutch West Indies to the list of exceptions. He finds that Free Trade with the Philippines is as good and profitable in its way as free trade with Ohio. If some fine day Uncle Sam buys the British Isles no doubt the Protectionists will discover that free trade with that country will be a big success, but the tariff will still be needed to ward off ruin from France, Spain, Italy, etc.
I am afraid we must conclude that the average American, as well as his Canadian neighbor who accepts the Protectionist doctrine, does not do justice to his reasoning faculties, when he fails to[102] see that Trade and Boundaries are in two different classes. Trade concerns material objects only; boundaries belong to the abstract and mental realm. There is no connection between them whatever.
Let us have an illustration on this point. Here is a hog. That is certainly a concrete and material object. A farmer brings him into the market to sell. Two possible customers appear. This one says, "Mister, I'll give you $10.00 for the pig." The other says, "I'll give you $12.00." The farmer is inclined to close with the latter, but just then a solemn Theologian steps up and says, "My friend, be careful. I happen to know that the man who is offering you the $12.00 is a Methodist; the other man is a Presbyterian like yourself. If you don't want to lose your religious faith you will deal with your own kind only." What do you think the farmer would say to that? He would probably say, "Sir, I don't see any connection between pigs and Presbyterianism."
In the same way there is no connection between pigs and boundary lines; between trade and diplomacy. One belongs to the world of material things, the other to the world of thought.
What I want to emphasize is that trade is a[103] natural thing, a thing that would go on among human beings just the same if there were no national boundaries on the earth or if there were twice as many. That great fact is the keynote to the whole subject, in my opinion. The tariff idea is a rebuke to nature and a contradiction of logic.
If a tariff is a good thing for Canada as a whole, it would be equally good for each Province—each county—each town—each family—each individual, and there you are back at barbarism.
If a duty of 20 per cent. is a blessing, a duty of 40 would be twice as great a blessing; sixty would be three times as good and 100 would be best of all, and there you are at confiscation.
Of course, the Protectionist gives a wide berth to logic. He waves it aside with the hazy expression that you mustn't carry the thing too far. This is a complete surrender. You can't carry a truth too far. It remains true and consistent to the very end. If free trade is a blessing (as it is) among the people of one part of the world, it would be an equal blessing among the people of the whole earth. You can carry the free trade doctrine right through logically, but a false doctrine breaks down, and that's the reason the Protectionist theory won't stand the strain.
To return to the matter of national boundaries. Although they have no natural relationship to Trade whatever, yet so long as people are organ[104]ized into nations we must have boundaries as a matter of convenience and order. But these artificial limitations of national jurisdiction should not be allowed to supersede in our minds the larger truth of humanity. Nations are only families in the wider community of the world.
Now, there are two things absolutely essential to the life of a nation, namely, Revenue and Trade. These two things correspond to Food and Exercise in the case of an individual man. Revenue is the food of the body politic and trade is its means of health, corresponding to the circulation of the blood in an individual body.
If Revenue fell from the skies into every national treasury I don't suppose we would ever have heard of tariffs, and boundary lines would never have intercepted the natural trade relations among mankind.
In other words, the restrictions on trade amongst the nations have sprung in the first place from the prime necessity of securing National Revenue. The great practical question for statesmanship is the getting of revenue. Is there a law of nature on this subject? Statesmen do not believe so; it is a matter, they think, for the "ways and means" committee. Yet, I don't know why they should be skeptical on the point. A nation is a form of life, and nature certainly provides for every other form of life; makes unfailing provision for revenue in the case of every raven, every sparrow, every sheep. A sheep is not con[105]sidered the wisest of animals but it could teach our statesmen something. You never knew a baby sheep that didn't know where to go for revenue.
However, there seems to be no nation that has as yet risen to the level of sheep-sense in this vital matter, and so those who have charge of affairs seem to have decided that there is no possible method of obtaining revenue except by interfering more or less with trade.
That is to say, there must be a "tariff" of some kind; in Great Britain it is a tariff for revenue levied on imports chiefly of luxuries; in Canada and the United States a tariff on all kinds of commodities levied chiefly for the protection of native industries.
Some faults are inherent in the tariff policy, whether for revenue or protection.
First—It is a policy based on the idea that a man should be taxed in proportion to his necessities, and not in proportion to the benefits he receives.
Second—It is a policy that puts the burden of taxation on labor products, and not upon special privileges.
Third—It is a policy which imposes taxes indirectly instead of directly.
Fourth—It is a policy which must unavoidably[106] raise prices to the consumer. The only thing that you can tax without raising the price is land, because it has no cost of production. Every article of human make has a cost of production and a tax must be added to that.
Here is a Hat. The wholesale importer pays the tax and adds it to the price, and then he calculates a profit on both cost and tax, and collects it from the retailer, who adds his profit on the whole sum, and finally the consumer pays the entire bill when he buys the hat—and this is how the innocent fellow looks—because he does not know how much tax he has paid. This is the case with every article on the tariff list.
In the case of the revenue tariff the increase is an unfortunate incident that cannot be avoided; in the case of the Protective tariff, the increase in the price of the home made article is the very essence of the scheme. That's where the "Protection" comes in.
Fifth—It is a policy everywhere and always characterized by clumsiness, inefficiency, wastefulness and expensiveness, with accompaniments of fraud, lying, perjury, delay, exasperation, among citizens at home, and incitements to hostility, strife and war with other nations abroad.
[107]
The United States and Canada ought to be to-day the two nations on earth showing forth the glory of true Free Trade, and to me it seems utterly out of accord with our ideals to find Jack Canuck and Uncle Sam trying to enjoy themselves in suits of mediaeval armor; standing as the chief exponents of the doctrine that Revenue MUST be raised by a method which interferes with trade.
The great purpose, of course, is to protect and encourage home industries. Well, if that be thought a sound policy, why not do it without interfering with Trade? Why not impose a direct tax of some kind and out of the proceeds pay bounties to the Industries?
Here are some of the advantages of this plan:
1. There need be no interference with Trade at all. Why should any sane man want such interference if it can be avoided?
2. You could give aid to all industries—and all are entitled to them if any are.
3. You would know how much aid you were[108] giving and what was being received in return.
4. You could stop when you had given enough.
5. It wouldn't cost nearly so much as the tariff does.
6. You wouldn't encourage fraud, perjury and bribery, and the meanness of satchel-searching could be abolished.
7. You wouldn't be fomenting strife and war with other nations.
8. It would not involve any increase of prices.
That is to say, the bounty system would be a fair and just method of Protection leaving trade free, while the Tariff system is unjust, inefficient and every way objectionable.
I can't imagine how it is that such an absurdity as the protection philosophy goes down with any hard-headed man.
Here's a system that punishes the millions for the sake of favoring a few thousands. Why do foreigners send goods here? Because our people want them and have bought them. What does the tariff do? Makes them dearer; at whose expense? The home citizen's. And this is protection against the foreigner!
The whole burden comes back with a dull thud on the consumer. Meantime, under the shelter of this tariff wall a few favored manufactures fill their coffers with easy money. The theory really is that monopoly is a good thing for the country. Make the monopolists prosperous and they will fill your dinnerpail. That is, they will pay wages[109] in proportion to their own profits. Will they? Not until there is also a tariff on workers coming in, or until workmen are free to go and work for themselves.
It is an arrant fraud on the consumer, but he, poor fellow, doesn't count for much in the Protectionist thought.
I marvel that the average man does not see that it is impossible to give real or fair protection by means of a Tariff.
How can you possibly benefit farming, ranching, mining, lumbering—the greatest of all industries—when there are no imports in those lines? And how can you protect any manufacturers that are not in competition with foreign makers? The truth is that only a few manufacturing concerns can benefit, while a great many are positively injured. You could save money by pensioning off all the industries that are now benefited by the tariff.
And this ancient pretence of "nurturing infant industries until they become self-sustaining!" I will make you a picture of an infant industry studied[110] from life. This infant has been on the bottle for fifty years, and keeps a lobby at the Capital to-day crying for more pap. And its employees are rattling their full dinner-pails and threatening to go on strike for wages enough to meet the increased cost of living! Is this worthy of a sensible nation as a system of securing the national revenue?
The gravest count in the indictment against Protection is that, besides being a detestable fraud, it is a strife-fomenter amongst the nations. It is no wonder that Protectionists talk of trade in terms of war, for the whole essence and spirit of Protection is anti-humanitarian and anti-christian, inasmuch as its keynote is non-intercourse and enmity.
Imagine a Protectionist Philosopher going abroad as a Missionary in a benighted heathen nation. As an exponent of Christianity he tells the natives that true religion is founded on love and brotherhood, and then as an exponent of Protection, he tells them that true Political Economy is founded on non-intercourse and "keeping your money in your own country."
And yet, after all these considerations, I fear[111] the average citizen is too busy as a free trader at home to give consideration to the absurdity of being also a Protectionist abroad, and so he will continue to be the easy mark of the schemers, and with a bandage of prejudice over his eyes will continue to shout thoughtlessly, "Anyway, the tariff builds up Industry. The country would go to smash if it wasn't for the tariff!"
No man of inventive genius can have any respect for a machine that is such a failure for revenue producing as a tariff. Compared with the taxation of land values it is like Prof. Fakerton's talking machine compared with Edison's phonograph. The Professor's machine was about the size of a fanning mill, and was a wonderful contraption of belts and pulleys, but the general outcome was that it couldn't talk. Then Edison came along and gave us the phonograph—a perfect success, and yet in so small a compass that a little boy or girl could carry it.
This tariff invention is a mighty elaborate and expensive contrivance, but it can't be made to work fairly. Indirect taxation is essentially fraudulent. It is, moreover, an insult to the intelligence of the people, for it assumes that they enjoy being robbed if only they do not know the[112] amount that is being filched from them. It is the system which the cynical French statesman commended on the ground that it enabled the Government to pluck the greatest quantity of feathers from the geese with the least amount of squawking.
Why was Edison's phonograph a complete success and Prof. Fakerton's talking machine a miserable failure? Because Edison put himself in harmony with a natural law of physics, and Fakerton tried to invent something based on an erroneous theory. This brings us back to the question, Is there a natural law of revenue? If so, does not common sense say, Let us adopt a system in harmony with it?
I would expect to find Nature's law one that would be just, equitable, practical and economical and, if it is true that Nature has made man a Trading Animal, I cannot imagine that her law of revenue would interfere with Trade. Nature does not contradict herself.
The belief of the average, easy-going citizen is that it doesn't matter how the revenue is obtained. Any old way will do, provided you get enough money. He doesn't bother about natural laws in the matter at all. He leaves it to the Ways and Means Committee to do the devising, and when[113] Congress or Parliament passes a tariff scheme, his part is just to shout.
I submit that there certainly is a natural law of revenue for every nation and every division of the nation. Providence, which cares for ravens and lambs has not overlooked the needs of human communities. This law does not interfere with trade; it leaves trade absolutely free.
It is not the Bounty system. That is better and fairer than the Tariff system, but it is only another man-made expedient.
The natural law of Revenue presupposes absolute and real Free Trade. John Bull is called a Free Trader. He is really only a half-free Trader. There is no restriction on exchange, but production is tied up. Here's how he is fixed.
Before anything can be bought or sold, it must be produced, and whether it is a bag of wheat or a diamond pin, it has got to be produced from land. The foundation of all possible trade is production, and the essentials of production are the elements of nature on the one hand, and labor (in which I include capital) on the other. In Britain and other countries the natural factor of production is tied up. There is no equitable access to land, and meanwhile taxes are levied[114] on labor products—which is another name for wages.
Now I want to point out the natural law of revenue, and like all natural laws you will see it is simple, obvious and universal. Though the trade of a nation is only the trade of its individual citizens, the revenue of a nation is a strictly national thing. Trade is a matter of you and me; revenue is a matter of us. Whatever value I as a citizen obtain by my individual industry, service or trade, is my private property; but whatever value WE as a nation or community obtain belongs to US, to all, and is in its very nature Public Revenue.
The value of this building where we are assembled was created by the labor of specific individuals who co-operated for the purpose, and put together the materials. That is a labor value, and it belongs to the individuals who did the work or those who paid them an equivalent for it.
Whence came the value of the land? Once it had no value at all. The value came because population came, and it therefore belongs to population. It is a value which exactly measures the benefits of Society to this particular site, and therefore, is precisely the revenue required to provide those benefits. Put this value in the public till by the process of taxing land values and franchise values, which are also created by the people as a whole.
In order to set trade absolutely free both in[115] production and exchange, we only need an amendment which will bring our laws into harmony with the admonition—'Render unto the people that which is the people's, and to each private citizen that which he earns.'
And that amendment only requires the insertion of one word in the present law, which says, "The man who owns land shall therefore own all the value which attaches to that land wherever that value comes from." Amend that by inserting the word NOT, so as to read "The man who owns the land shall not therefore own the value."
This is fair and just to the land owner. It leaves him the land and the exclusive use of the same without taxation of his improvements, but it asks him to render up the value. And why? Because they are not land-values, but values attaching to the people. They constitute the natural public revenue, and the fundamental injustice is that they now go into private coffers instead of into the public till.
Ladies and gentlemen, I submit the case. Think it over.
Though I am announced to deal on this occasion with the "Single Tax", I am not going to devote my time to a discussion of taxation. You will no doubt be relieved to hear this, for to most people it is a dry and uninteresting subject. My reason, however, for avoiding it is that I do not believe in Taxation. I regard it as a waste of time to spend an hour in discussing a thing I don't believe in. I have two good reasons for disbelieving in Taxation; first, it is a very vexatious thing; and second, it is an entirely unnecessary thing.
I am going to discuss a subject that is not dry but juicy, and one that is of universal interest, namely, the subject of Human Society.
We are all familiar with the word Society—with a capital S., and it happens to represent a thing which can be presented in picture form. I accordingly begin by making a picture of Society. You know all our enterprising newspapers have a society column or page; a very absorbing department of special interest, it is said, to lady readers, containing paragraphs about pink[117] teas in the upper circles; and recherché functions in the form of banquets given without regard to expense to select companies of pet poodle dogs. My main criticism of the society editor is that he has only a partial view of his department. He seems only to be aware of one end of Society—the fat and comfortable end—represented in such a figure as Fig. 1. But there is another end to Society as it has developed in the Old World, and is developing on this new continent.
At one end the multi-millionaire (by which familiar word we mean the human being who has more wealth than any human being ever earned) and at the other end a figure like this—the fellowman who doesn't know where his next meal is coming from, and who pleads for the favor of a job of work by which he may be able to keep body and soul together—the pauper, the tramp. When we have these two figures confronting each other across a great chasm[118] that is constantly growing wider and deeper, we have the complete view of Society. We have in the concrete the "Condition-of-the-people Question", and surely in a "Government of the people, by the people for the people" there can be no problem of deeper or more vital interest. And in my view there is no question in any of the political platforms more important than this, the Social question, which I may state in the phrase of Artemus Ward—"Why is this thus?" What causes this cleavage between the rich and the poor, not merely in the effete nations of Europe but here in America, on a continent capable of supporting ten times its present population in comfort or even luxury? What is the cause of this paradox—in the matter of stomachs, for example—for in the one case, though the stomach is obvious, nay prominent, it never gives its owner a thought, while in the other case, though it is invisible or apparently non-existent, the man can't think of anything else. How came to pass this travesty of Christianity; this satire on the doctrine of the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man? For these are brothers. You would scarcely believe it; the family likeness has been lost. That is the great question—what causes this split in human Society, and how is it to be radically remedied? For, my friends, it is inevitable that if we do not find a means of closing up this chasm, if it continues to grow wider and wider, there is certain to be a calamity, a catyclism of ruin.[119]
This is the spectacle which struck the eye and the heart of Henry George, and set him upon his quest to find the cause and the cure. The outcome of his prolonged study was a book which is now known throughout the world. It is called "Progress and Poverty" because the question to be answered was, why does Poverty accompany Progress? Why are the great masses of the people as poor as ever notwithstanding that progress in labor-saving inventions enables us to produce a hundred-fold or a thousand-fold more of the things we want? George's answer was in one word, monopoly.
That is the monkey-wrench which has been thrown into the machinery of Society—only it hasn't been thrown in by wicked design, but has been legislated in by shortsighted and stupid statesmanship. Listen: I want you to mark my words—We have enacted laws under which the natural public revenue does not go to the public, but into the private coffers of a special class of the citizens. This is what makes it necessary to have taxes—which, I repeat, are really unnecessary as well as vexations.
I asked you to mark my words, and I suppose you noted my use of the phrase "natural public revenue". This means that nature has provided for public revenue in every community, be it city, township, county, province or Dominion—by a law as sure and unfailing as that of gravitation. Such is my conviction, but it is not shared at pres[120]ent by our practical statesmen. They apparently hold that nature has nothing to do with the matter; that public revenue must be raised by tariffs and other methods devised by the Ways and Means Committee, and that therefore taxation is and must continue to be "as sure as death". I presume, however, that if I can prove my point, and demonstrate this law of nature, all statesmen will agree that it will be the part of wisdom to put ourselves in harmony with it. It does not pay to fight against nature. So I will proceed to my proof.
In the first place, let us understand what is meant by revenue. You say it means the public income, the funds which are needed to pay for the upkeep of the public institutions. Everybody recognizes that this is an absolute necessity; the country must have sufficient revenue or it cannot go on.
We may say that literally revenue is the food on which the community lives. In the case of an individual man, food is the first thing that must come first. He must keep body and soul together by eating. That is the condition he is under on this planet, because man is an animal. In this primary matter he is on a par with every other animal, however humble. If you think it seems humiliating to say man is an animal I hasten to add—so is woman. Eating must precede everything else; science, art, literature, philosophy, music—all these are secondary things. The[121] economic comes first—the man must keep alive, and so he must eat. As the Irishman asked, "What's the good of a man if his wife is a widdy?"
Now, nobody questions that Nature has something to say as to what a man shall eat and drink. Personal liberty is strictly limited. If he eats poison the question is at once closed. If he eats unwholesome food or drinks unfit beverages, he violates Nature's law of diet and must bear the penalty. When you see a man with a face like this—you don't require to be a great medical expert to be able to diagnose the case. You say, here is a chap who ignores or defies Nature's law; and you may see cases of the opposite kind, where dyspepsia is the punishment for an unwise indulgence in pickles. We all recognize this law of Nature—if you would enjoy good health you must eat wholesome food.
My contention simply is that this law applies also to the community—to the Nation and all its subdivisions, and dictates that the public revenue, which is its food, must be wholesome.
Why should anybody doubt that Nature has as[122] much to say about what a Nation consumes for revenue as what a man eats for food? A Nation is just a gigantic man, and is subject to all the laws of life which apply to an individual. A Nation is as distinct a form of life as is a raven a sparrow or a lily, and if, as the Divine Teacher assured us, Providence has a care for these, we may well ask, is not a Nation of human beings of more value than many sparrows? The ravens and the sparrows are fed—that is, they receive their needed revenue. They are placed in a suitable environment and endowed with the instinct to avail themselves of the abundance provided. Let me picture a calf. It is a harmless animal, not distinguished for sagacity, and yet Nature never fails to provide for its sustenance, which is only another word for revenue. I would not say that the average statesman knows less than a calf, but I have never heard of a calf that did not know where to go for revenue. And where does it go? To Nature's unfailing supply. There is always a mother cow in the case. Now, if I brand the calf "comm", meaning community, and the cow "Val.", meaning values, we have an allegory which illustrates the idea. The community should subsist upon revenue in the form of natural values.
That would be obeying the law I have referred to. Why is it not done? Because, as I have already indicated,[123] we have foolishly legislated the natural values into the possession of private monopolists, and by law we compel the calf to subsist on an artificial diet of corn-shucks and shavings painted green; that is, on revenue obtained by the taxation of labor-values. Meanwhile a stray goat is permitted to butt in, and absorb the natural revenue. You observe that I am merely contending for the fair and reasonable principle enunciated by the Great Teacher—"Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's". If you do this, you can then afford to render to the private citizen the things that are his, and the outcome will be peace, because it is justice. In a free country like ours Caesar means the community, and the values which exist in any country fall into two classes, viz. public and private. These are easily distinguished, and all I ask is that public values shall be reserved for the public, and private values for the private individuals who justly own them. To make this idea clear let us present two spheres, which, as you see, stand quite distinct and apart.
The one represents public values, the[124] other private, and the line which divides them is the line which separates the works of nature from the works of man. That is surely an obvious distinction, though it is not recognized by our laws, unfortunately. In the category of public values I place all those values, translatable into terms of money, which arise by reason of natural law; and in the other category those values which are the result of human labor. On the one hand, land values, franchise values and the value of natural resources; and on the other hand, houses, furniture, machinery and all the multitudinous things that man creates by work of hand and head. These values are utterly different both in character and origin. Public values are, in short, another word for population; private values are the fruit of conscious individual effort. What excuse can there be for confusing these values? I might enforce the point by referring to our situation at this moment. We are gathered in a building which stands upon land, and both building and land have value. There was a time when this plot of land had no value; it is now worth a great sum of money. How is this accounted for? Clearly by the growth of population, and the consequent competition for opportunities. Did the house arise because population came? No, it represents a labor-value. Now it seems obvious to me that the free gifts of nature[125] to the community ought to belong to the community, and the fruits of human labor to those who do the work or give a full equivalent for it. That is really the whole contention of Henry George and those who think with him. But it is repudiated by the existing system, which taxes labor values for public revenue, and permits public values to go into private coffers. If I transform these spheres into a pair of spectacles and work out a face, I may get a composite portrait of this audience "seeing the point". That point is the fundamental thing in the social question—the existence of legalized monopoly as the basis of our social system.
This is, however, a digression. I have asserted that there is a natural law of revenue, and although it is implied in the illustration I have just given—the taking of community values for community use—I wish to set it forth in another form, in a picture which might be entitled "Public revenue and how to get it for the public". I ignore for the moment franchise values, water powers, forests and mines, which are sources of natural revenue, and take what is called land[126]-value as the subject of this illustration. Here is a horizontal line which represents a stretch of land, let us say a prairie, at a point remote from settlement, with the tent of a squatter upon it.
The only value this land has is its inherent power of growth. It is good for crops, and will respond to labor, but this is not what we mean by land-value in economic discussion. Now, let us suppose that a population of 100,000 people suddenly arrives at this spot, intending to establish a city. Two things simultaneously occur, viz. 1. There is a need for revenue, and 2. there is a rise of land-value. There is no exception to this law; it is as certain, I repeat, as the law of gravitation. Each lot in the proposed city has an opportunity value, and the aggregate of these values is a fund sufficient to supply the needed revenue.
It is as though the weight of the population transforms the settler's tent into a fountain of value, translatable into dollars in the form of land-rent. The revenue problem is solved by placing the public till under the fountain—or, in other words, the opportunity-value of each lot is taken (under forms of taxation) as the sole[127] revenue, all improvements being exempted. The cost of public service is only another term for the opportunity-value of the lots. This holds true in every community, large or small. The city has an ample revenue without any taxation whatever, properly so called. Each lot-holder merely "pays his footing"; the use he makes of his opportunity is his own affair. Here, then, we have a community established on the basis of the natural law of revenue; and it is only necessary for human society to be in harmony with natural law to enjoy justice and prosperity. Here is a city in which the community and the individual citizen enjoy their mutual rights; it is the condition which should prevail everywhere, and would, but for the selfish perversity of man-made laws.
Observe what might and probably would happen in this case. After the city has been flourishing, say ten years, along comes a sleek-looking stranger—possibly Mr. J. Rufus Wallingford—who displays a title-deed to the land on which the city has been built, and calls attention to the fact that the law provides that "the man who owns the land accordingly[128] owns all the value which comes to the land regardless of its source". The natural revenue becomes his private perquisite, and he interjects his private hat just above the public till. The whole fountain belongs to him henceforth; and he may demand a cheque for all the community has collected in the past. Literally in any situation like this as things are, the owner of this title to the land could "get away with it". But if this community continued its policy of obtaining revenue only from land values, it could make no real difference to this supposition city, as Wallingford would simply take the place of the lot owners in supplying the public revenue. His would be the only name on the "tax" list, and what he collected in rent would be precisely the measure of what he would pay in "taxes"—the community value would still go where it belonged, into the public till. There would be a "rent" of another kind at the other end of his hat. As a monopolist, he would be effectually thwarted, and justice would be vindicated.
This process of vindicating justice is usually[129] described as the "taxation of land-values". I object to the phrase on two grounds. First, it is not taxation, as it does not take anything for the public to which a private citizen has a moral right. It is a case of the community simply taking its own. And second, the values in question are not "land" values. They do not attach to land. They attach to people, and for that reason justly belong to the public. They should be called people-values. To show the relation between land and land-values (which many suppose to be identical) allow me to make a little study of human nature here—a picture let us say of a "Dude".
It is alleged that a dude has not energy enough to cast a shadow, but this is a libel. He can, when he has a fair chance, and his shadow is quite an uncommon one, too. In this case let us suppose it falls on a hill in the back-ground; and let us suppose further that shadows were mercantile commodities, bought and sold on the stock exchange; and that this one was worth a considerable sum. Of course, the moment the shadow appeared we would hear from the old gentleman[130] who owned the hill. He would display his title deed to the land and claim the value of the shadow now attaching to it, as by law provided. This is an allegory in which the Dude represents population, the hill land, and the shadow value. But it is not land-value, as becomes clear when the Dude moves on. It is not attached to the land, but to the living human element. That is manifest where there is movement of population. What we call land-value is the demand for opportunities, and bears the same relation to land as a shadow does. The relation might also be illustrated by the reflection in a mirror which is not attached to the mirror but to the living person whose presence and movements are reflected. When we speak of the value of a city lot, therefore, what is it we mean? Not the land itself, because an equally good piece of land of the same size could be bought in the country for a hundredth of the price. The value consists of the site, and that means its access to good streets, lights, schools, churches, theatres, etc., in short, public services. To have possession of that site is to be able to enjoy these things. The value of the lot is just its proportion of what these services cost. The vacant land dealer is not selling land, but public services, which are people-value.
To put this same idea in other words is to say that every citizen should contribute to the public revenue in proportion to the public services he enjoys; and he does this only and exactly when he[131] renders up to the public till the annual value of his land, for that is the true and accurate register of the service he receives. He should pay the public for what the public does for him, not, as at present, for what he does for himself.
Payment for service is, in fact, the principle underlying all honest business, and it ought to be made the foundation of the system of obtaining public revenue. Compare the present method of obtaining revenue by all sorts of taxation with that by which the owner of an office building secures his revenue from the property. He simply charges his tenant a straight sum for the space occupied in accordance with its size and location. It is a business opportunity worth so much, and this the tenant is charged. What he makes out of the opportunity is his own concern. What do you think the owner of such a building would say to a crank like this, who would come in and propose that this simple business-like plan should be abolished, and a plan substituted under which the tenants should be taxed on their imports, exports, furniture, volume of business and an infinity of other[132] things? That is, the national system of getting revenue suggested. He would probably telephone for the police—or the officials of the asylum.
Now, a community—city, county, province or Dominion—is nothing but an office building on the horizontal, with its spaces on the ground.
The natural law of revenue I have endeavored to set forth is superior to the artificial law made by legislators in every respect, but chief of all in that it respects and protects the right of property, both public and private. The prevailing system invades both. By confiscating private property through taxation of labor values it stands condemned before the ancient statute—"thou shalt not steal". It not only robs the private citizen of that which is justly his own, but it aids the monopolist in appropriating that which justly belongs to the community. And so it must continue to do, until we have secured the radical reform of our social system by the amendment of the existing law. And that amendment need be but a small one—not more than the insertion of the little word NOT—the land owner shall NOT be the value-owner also.
That little word makes all the difference between justice and monopoly; be[133]tween society as it might have been and society as it is.
It is because the law has down to the present given the owner of land the right to own also the value that may come to it through growth of population that I lament the ill-luck of poor Robinson Crusoe, in that he was shipwrecked on Juan Fernandez instead of Manhattan Island. Oh! what a difference it would have made to his heirs and assigns forever, by virtue of this Christian law of land-tenure.
The license system, so far as regards the public sale of intoxicating liquor, is a thing of the past in America—by which I mean the United States and the Dominion of Canada—with the single exception of the Provinces of Quebec, and B.C., where beer and wine are still legally dispensed. The bar-room is gone forever, and there appears to be no one to mourn its departure, unless perhaps here and there an old toper drops furtive and maudlin tears over the loss of such a convenient means of gratifying the appetite that is his master. Poor fellow, he is a fit subject for pity, and if he is also to be blamed, that blame must be shared by all who helped to uphold the license system.
This man wasn't born a toper. Topers are made, not born. At the dawn of his manhood, as he stepped from the door of the public school or college he gave every promise[137] of being a good and useful citizen.
He was probably a bright, hopeful, intelligent young fellow looking something like this—ready to step out into active life, and by taking up a man's share of the responsibility of government repay the benefits bestowed upon him in the form of a good education. He was probably moved by high ideals and a noble ambition. But he stepped out into an environment whose atmosphere had been created by the license system. On all hands he found temptations and opportunities to learn the drink habit—bar-rooms that had over their doors the practical approval of the government, places that were lawful and might therefore be regarded as safe and respectable. The popular tune was "Everybody's doing it", and it is no great wonder that he felt an inclination to be in the fashion. So he took his first glass, and that brought him into contact with the insidious habit-forming drug, that was never adapted to be used as a beverage. This subtle and powerful agent, alcohol, is the very substance of the liquor traffic, and it is a thing essentially destructive by nature. As soon as this young man got the drink habit, the habit got him. The first signs of its mastery were in the neglect of his personal appearance. He was less particular in matters of neatness. His patronage[138] of the bar diminished his patronage of the barber. Before long he reached the stage when he was not ashamed to go about in bad need of a shave. Then he deserted the laundry man, and his spic and span collar was replaced by a handkerchief he had apparently rescued from the ash barrel.
Meanwhile he had ceased (through financial stringency) patronizing the hatter and the clothier, which I may remark is an incidental commentary on the argument of the liquor advocates that the abolition of bar-rooms is fatal to the business interests of a community. Thus by gradual degrees he reached the stage in which he illustrated the proverb—The drunkard shall come to poverty and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags. The cane he brought from college was now put to more practical use as a staff on which to carry his wardrobe when he went abroad on his travels. In outward appearance he was now a tramp, and in mind and spirit he was a moral derelict, whose one purpose in life was to assuage the craving he felt for alcohol. He was the finished product of the bar-room and represented all that it ever did or could do for a young man. We find it hard to realize that there ever was a time when such an institution was authorized by the people to carry on such a work of demoralization.
The bar-room is gone, and there is general rejoicing. The prohibitionists point triumphantly to the improved conditions and say "I told you so"; these evidences have led to the conversion of many who voted against the policy. But, most remarkable of all, we have two fat gentlemen joining in the jubilation. I picture them in the attitude of hilarity dancing a jig of joy. You may be surprised when I mention that their names are Brewer and Distiller. They are to-day declaring that they are glad the bar is gone, and that they will not lift a finger to bring it back. It was, they say, a disreputable thing, and brought discredit to an otherwise respectable traffic. While there is ample cause for rejoicing all round, yet we find evidence on all hands that we have by no means got rid of the problem of drunkenness. The police magistrates are trying many cases up and down the country-side, and sentencing many of the culprits to fine or imprisonment. Not one of these cases is due to bar-rooms or liquor shops being open; and few of them are owing to violation of the Provincial law. They are accounted for by two facts chiefly, first, that the Provincial law does not prohibit the use[140] of liquor in the private house; and second, that, when enacted, it had no jurisdiction over importation.
It would seem that there are three distinct stages to the evolution of bone-dry prohibition—1. Stopping sale; 2. Stopping importation; 3. Stopping manufacture. We are now in the second stage in all the Provinces outside of Quebec and B.C., and we may look with some envy on our neighbor, Uncle Sam, who has in his constitutional amendment made a clean job of all three. Under the circumstances the old gentleman ought to be pictured wearing an expression of pardonable pride and satisfaction. If he acts consistently in other respects with his record as the first nation to overthrow that curse of humanity, the liquor traffic, he will indeed be entitled to the honor of the world. His smile of satisfaction may well broaden at the fact that the Supreme Court has decided that the constitutional amendment is constitutional, and so is the Enforcement Act. This latter act fixes the definition of what constitutes intoxicating liquor, and it places the limit at ½ of one per cent. of alcohol. The Enforcement Act is an Act of Congress and is liable to amendment. The great fight of the wets is to get it amended in the direction of a higher[141] percentage. They want more "kick" in their drink—they won't be satisfied until they can have a temperance beverage that will produce a drunk and do it quickly. So their aim is to get members of that way of thinking elected to Congress and secure "liberalizing" of the Enforcement Act. On the other hand the one and only hope of the friends of Prohibition is to keep on electing a dry Congress, and this means eternal vigilance at the primaries to secure the nomination of the right kind of candidates, and their election at the polls.
This desperate determination of the enemy to bring back the old conditions as far as possible is in the face of the record of improvement that has been made in the first year of the Amendments' history, and in view of the many drawbacks and handicaps, it is certainly a wonderful record. As it indicates in a measure what we may look for in Canada when we have secured the abolition of manufacture and importation I make note here of a few of the salient facts—for it would be impossible to attempt to tell the full story of the glorious revolution.[142]
Midnight of June 30, 1919, is the dividing line between United States legally wet and United States legally dry. Make a note of that, for it is destined to be a red letter date in the world's history. Legally does not yet mean actually dry, but it is steadily tending that way. Notwithstanding all the imperfections attending the first year of the great experiment the results are declared by careful observers to be such as to astonish even the ardent supporters of the dry policy and to convert thousands of its former opponents.
Although the United States is an immense expanse of territory with a great diversity of climate and an equally great variety of peoples and conditions the results have been the same everywhere. There is practically no exception to the rule that:
Crime has been reduced.
Accidents have been lessened.
Industrial conditions have been improved.
Bank savings deposits have been increased.
Juvenile delinquency cases have diminished.
In short, every prophecy of calamity made by the liquor advocates has been exploded, and every prediction of improvement made by Prohibitionists has been more than realized.
Take a few brief statements of fact at random:
1. The State of Ohio records an increase in bank deposits of almost a quarter of a billion dol[143]lars, not including the National banks—nearly $100,000,000 ahead of any increase ever before recorded in the State.
2. Out of 526 replies of labor leaders to the question, "Has Prohibition been a benefit to the workingmen and their families?" there were 345 yes to 143 no.
3. As to the prediction that the hotel business would be ruined, the testimony is that never in the history of the country have hotels prospered as during the past year. It is found that the bars actually make more profit as restaurants, candy shops and soft drink parlors.
4. As to the criminal record, we have it on high official authority that the figures from 17 of the larger cities of New York State show that there has been a decrease of 34 per cent. in crime in the first year of Prohibition.
5. The alcoholic wards in the largest hospitals of New York and Philadelphia have been closed.
But really I have not time to tabulate further. I must forbear telling of the vast reduction that has been made in the number of dependent families, of how the New York free dispensary for the treatment of the drug habits which did an immense business in the days of the bar-room has been ordered closed for want of patients; how the fire loss in the city of Birmingham, Ala., was reduced from $2,150,000 to less than half a million;[144] how the brewers and distillers have found new employment for their plants in the making of useful commodities, and according to their own testimony are making more money than they did when manufacturing liquid poison; and finally how all this reform has meant a tremendous saving to the taxpayers of the nation.
If these things can be done in a green tree, what can be done where the tree is fully dry? and if they can be done in the States, they can be done in Canada by the same process—the outlawing and extinction of the liquor traffic root and branch.
Meanwhile, it is a new experience for us to be compelled to look up to Uncle Sam as an example in moral reform; and it is a still stranger and more humiliating experience to find ourselves regarded as a bad and dangerous neighbor—one whose territory is being used as the stamping ground of rum-runners, boot-leggers and other miscreants actively engaged in nullifying the prohibition policy along the border line. We must press on to the final stage of the battle, and the final battle of the war, to totally prohibit manufacture for beverage purposes.[145]
But the experience of the United States warns us that even when that is accomplished we must remain under arms to secure enforcement. Though the policy may be safe from a frontal attack we will do well to look out for tricks and stratagems. It is manifest that the line of policy to be adopted by the enemy is to secure a compromise on what they call the harmless drinks, beer and wine.
No Canadian who knows the existing conditions in Quebec can be fooled into believing that the licensing of beer and wine is to be called a temperance policy. Apart from the fact that such licenses provide a cover for the sale of spirituous liquors, the truth, of course, is that beer and wine are not harmless, but about the most dangerous of intoxicating liquors. The whole agitation in the States is based on the fact that the law has fixed a percentage of alcoholic content which makes these harmless. That is the head and front of their offence—½ of 1 per cent. of alcohol won't produce a drunk. And yet these bold hypocrites profess that what they want is an unintoxicating liquor. They are just as strongly opposed to 2½ per cent. liquor authorized by the Ontario Act. What they really demand is old-fashioned beer and wine, and so they do not hesitate to declare that these are temperance drinks. Surely everybody who has any knowledge of history is aware[146] that all the drunkenness in the world from the earliest times down the tenth century was the result of beer and wine drinking, for the art of distilling was not known until the 10th Century of the Christian Era. Most people know something of the Bible, if not of the classic writers, and they do not need to be told that the nations of old, who drank only beer and wine, had the terrible curse of drunkenness upon them.
But it is truly an exhibition of hardened impudence in these days of popular scientific knowledge for people to seriously assert that true temperance would be served by the licensing of these destructive liquors. To authorize them in the States would be to restore 95 per cent. of the liquor traffic; and I am sure we all rejoice to believe that the answer lately given by New Brunswick so emphatically against the beer and wine proposition expresses the views which will be taken by Canada as a whole. The fact is that in this contest—as in all the fights for moral and social reform—the real enemy is the selfish human heart. We are up against the original sin—selfishness. The liquor traffic is built on a two-ply selfishness—of appetite and greed—it is maintained by the victim of habit who is determined to gratify[147] his passions regardless of consequences to himself or others, and the maker and seller of drink who seeks fortune by exploiting this craving. The innocent and respectable moderate drinker is the lynch-pin of the whole evil, and chiefly responsible.
This responsibility is now greater than ever before, because it is the moderate drinker chiefly who keeps his cellar supplied through importation, and the cellar has practically taken the place of the bar in catering to the habit. The boys and girls must now get their first lessons in drinking at home, and so the issue before every citizen who keeps liquor in his house is whether he prefers his own personal gratification to the safety of his children. It is still the old issue of the Boy or the Bottle?
But I must bring my remarks to an end, and this naturally suggests the end of the liquor traffic which, of course, means the prohibition of manufacture. Our policy up to the[148] present has been that of the curtailing process, and with the stoppage of sale the cur's tail is gone altogether. You see the liquor hound consists of body and tail—like this:
We began the work of amputation on the caudal appendage and the first operation was personal abstinence; that lopped off an inch or two; then we had local option in townships and villages, and that cut off some bars; next we had county option which shortened the tail still more; and finally Provincial Prohibition denuded the animal of his tail altogether. But we have discovered that in this case the tail did really wag the dog. When we note the havoc caused by the importation and the impossibility of enforcing our Provincial law adequately while liquor is allowed to come in we appreciate that the teeth of the liquor traffic are at the other extremity of the animal.
In short, we have arrived at the common sense conclusion that to end the evil we must remove its source, which implies that the sane view is to amputate the tail just behind the ears. Prohibition of the making of the[149] stuff is the essential policy and must be the aim of our concentrated effort from this time until it is accomplished. The only good liquor traffic dog is a dead one.
I am going to make a talk on the phrase "Do Your Bit"—an expression which was often heard during the days of the great war.
"Bit" is one of the little words which is after all a very big word; only three letters, but a very extensive significance. Of course it suggests the importance of little things. As the poet has said:
Bit by Bit—that is the process of the growth of the whole universe.
First, let us consider the physical universe, or perhaps it will be enough to take just a small portion of it—our own world, which I may picture as a big ball. It is a ball of tremendous size, thousands of miles round, as you know, and yet it is literally made up of atoms or particles. It could really be all reduced to bits[151] so small that you would need a microscope to see them. This is remarkable enough, especially when we consider that the same is true of the whole universe which contains millions on millions of planets, many of them so big that our world is only a tiny "bit" in comparison with them.
But now, I put some features on the face of the world. You have heard of the man in the moon, but we know for certain that man inhabits the world; and by these human features I want to indicate the moral world, which we might call "a world within the world"—that is, the world of mind and spirit, all that we include in the term human life.
Now, the thought I want to bring before you is that this world also is made up of "bits". That really concerns us even more than the other. To make clear what I mean, let us take the Dominion of Canada. When we use those words we mean more than the merely physical things—land, water, hills, valleys, prairie, and mountains. These are certainly grand and beautiful, and we have a right to rejoice in our heritage of fields, farms and forests, rivers, lakes and bays—all made up of "little drops of water and little grains of sand"—but these are not what we are thinking of chiefly, what our Dominion means to patriotic hearts, thoughts—ideals, moral forces in the form of manners, customs, laws, parliaments,[152] schools, colleges, churches, factories, offices. When we enquire how this country came into existence the answer is, Bit by Bit. That is the process of civilization as well as of creation. At first, in the days before Columbus, there were but a few rudimentary ideas among the wild Indians, and these concerning only the primary needs of life. The Indian's chief interest was in his bow and arrows, and his chief anxiety was to be sure of his next meal. His whole language, I suppose, was concerned with these primary needs.
Well, in the lapse of years the French voyageurs crossed the ocean and the pioneer settlements began on the banks of the St. Lawrence. That was the beginning of Canada. They brought a stock of thoughts and ideas with them, and the whole future history was merely the adding of bits in the way of ideas as to how life should be lived; and out of these thoughts, opinions and ideals, through additions to their numbers, gradually emerged the vast body of institutions that in the year 1867 receive the name of Dominion of Canada. The Confederation Act which formed the basis of this Nationality, was itself the result of two political leaders putting the bits in which they agreed together, and it is fitting that we should honor their patriotic action. I shall do so[153] by making cartoon portraits of them—the Hon. George Brown and Mr (afterwards Sir) John A. Macdonald. From the day they made famous—July 1, 1867—to the present time the Dominion has gone on growing in population, wealth, and prosperity, but always by the process—Bit by Bit.
To come back to the expression "Do Your Bit", what it means evidently is "Make your contribution—do your share." When the expression was used in war days it meant, Do what you can to help secure victory—and there certainly was a great response to it by boys and girls as well as men and women.
But it is as much in season in Peace days as in War days. It is good all through life, and is specially good as a rule of action for the young. Oh, what a thing it is to be young. You little people don't realize it at all. I know, because I didn't when I was of your age. I suppose most of you have hopes of becoming rich when you are grown up. But listen. You are rich now and you don't know it. I know of a man who has a thousand million dollars, and I have no doubt he would gladly give his whole fortune for what every one of you possesses, but which all the money in the world could not buy—youth.[154]
Now is your time for making the right start—and you couldn't have a better rule than this—To do your bit every day.
Every boy and girl is a bundle of powers, and all these powers are capable of being put to good use.
You have hands. Use them in doing deeds of kindness and generosity.
You have feet. Use them in going on errands of charity and helpfulness.
You have a head with brains. Use it for thinking good thoughts and the tongue in it for speaking words of truth and good will.
You have a body with a heart in it. Cultivate feelings of friendship and helpfulness.
Then every boy can do his bit every day. And this applies to girls as well, so I will fix up the figure and put a skirt on it.
Of course you will understand that all I say applies to boys and girls[155] equally. And one of the things worth considering is the Poet Longfellow's words "Life is real, life is earnest", and every boy should take an interest in it. When a boy takes an interest in anything he shows it by his eyes and his actions. If for example he takes an interest in school, he shows it in a bright morning face and a lively gait—not like this.
This is the sort of boy Shakespeare mentions who "Creeps like a snail unwillingly to school."
These poets, by the way, have said a lot of wise things. None of them ever wrote a truer word than the one who used the expression the "Battle of Life," though he was not the poet who wrote
If anybody supposes that the time will ever come when strife of all kinds will cease, and all people will be of the same opinion on all subjects, I think that person must be in the position of the old lady who fell asleep and dreamed that she was awake and then woke up to discover that she was asleep.
No doubt, since life is a battle, it is necessary that we should be adapted for fighting, as we all certainly are to some extent. We have a faculty called combativeness, but let us remember that it has a good purpose and was not given us to encourage quarrelsomeness. We are admonished if it be possible, so far as in us lieth, to live peaceably with every man. Yet there is a good and proper use for the instinct of pugnacity, and it may be admirable in a boy to strike an attitude like this.
It all depends on what else he strikes. Not the other boy; but the real enemy, whose name I write here in front of the boy—e. v. i. l. By putting a line around the name you see I convert it into a punching bag and that is the thing on which to exercise your moral muscle, the evil within and the evil around you. Attend to that and it will keep you so busy you[157] will not have time to fight with your companions.
When you are fighting evil within, you are fighting yourself, the good book tells us greater is he that conquers himself than he that taketh a city. Here then is a portrait of your real foe in another form.
What makes the heart evil is an evil principle which lodges in it like a poisonous snake, and which if it came out and twisted itself might spell its own name—Self.
We generally think of selfishness as meaning greed, and in accordance with our fashion of symbolizing each vice or virtue by some repre[158]sentative animal or bird, we have selected the Hog as the type of greed. The man who is greedy we call Hoggish, and it is not a compliment. A greedy man may be a glutton, too fond of eating, or he may be a grabber after money. It is said there is a law by which a man gets to resemble the animal whose traits he develops, and if that is true I would warn boys who are too fond of their meals to look out. I will make a picture of such a greedy boy and show you what he may finally come to.
Here he is with his dish of porridge. He has emptied it twice and is calling for more, and while he is waiting for the next helping we seem to notice a change coming over him, and at last he gets to look like this.
Why are people selfish? because they think that is the way to happiness and satisfaction—always looking out for number one. Getting,[159] not giving, that is what they believe in. And so the boy with a pocket full of apples thinks he gets more pleasure by eating them all himself than by sharing up with his chums. He's the kind of chap who, when some fellow with his teeth watering asks for the core, says, "there ain't goin' to be no core."
But that greedy boy is wrong. He would get far more satisfaction out of his apples if he gave half of them or even the whole of them away. Let us show you how it works in the case of a selfish girl who has two dolls and refuses to let her little playmate have one of them. Here is how she stands with a proud look as she says, "No, I'm going to keep 'em both myself, so there!" And notice the sad expression on the other girl's face. There is a picture of selfishness, and it never means happiness. Now notice. Suppose that this little girl suddenly recalls that she heard somebody say "It is more blessed to give than to receive," and she thinks she will just try it. So she gives her little chum one of the dolls, and says, "Now come on and play with them and have fun." Just notice the change.
See the smile drive away the sad expression and notice how the happiness is re[160]flected in the face of the little girl who acted the unselfish part. The only road to happiness all through life is to put self in the second place; to do good to others rather than to seek good for yourself.
The Battle of Life is chiefly a battle against the spirit of self.
I said awhile ago you couldn't do better than make a rule now to do your bit every day.
But, really, it is not a matter of choice at all. You have to do your bit—you can't possibly help yourself. Because another poet has used another true expression in "The River of Life". It is simply a flowing stream. Just as a river is made up of little drops of water so life is made up of little moments of time; and just as a river flows, time passes. Now, here I picture a rapid torrent like the Niagara, and here is a canoe with a boy in it, without paddle or[161] rudder or oars. Do you think that boy could stop in one place and just look at the scenery, if he wanted to? Not for an instant. He is going down the river at a mile a minute. That is like the river of life, and every moment of time means a thought, a word or a deed. You can't help it any way you try. There is only one thing you have any say about it; what kind of a bit yours will be, whether for good or for ill. Every moment a good thought, a kind word or a helpful deed. That is for you to decide, but if you don't so decide, then it must be the other kind. The stream goes swiftly on—and the life must be either for self or for service.
Don't be like Old Scrooge who failed to find out the true path to happiness until his life was almost at an end. Old Ebenezer Scrooge! Charles Dickens has told his story in the Christmas Carol—don't fail to read it. As the name suggests, Scrooge had a sour face. He was a rasping, paring, scraping, clutching, avaricious old sinner—whose whole life was lived for self. The story tells how it was revealed to him how much better and happier a thing it was to be kind and generous to others than to live for yourself. He was transformed—you will be delighted at the story of how it was done—and as by a sort of miracle he became a kindly generous, charitable man. At the beginning he denounced Christmas as a humbug; at the end it was said of him that he knew how to keep Christmas if any man did. From being hat[162]ed he came to be loved. But Scrooge's was a rare case. Men and women do not often change their characters in old age. People who are selfish usually die as they live with nobody to drop an honest tear of sorrow over their graves.
It is better to start life right and form your character on noble lines. And how? By doing your bit every day and every hour—fighting against the mean and evil tendencies in your nature, and filling your heart so full of service of others that the serpent of self will not have room to live there.
[1] The pen name under which Mr. Phillips Thompson wrote a notable series of humorous articles in "The Mail."
[2] Borrowed plumage, alas!
[3] This was a poem by E. W. Thompson which had appeared in "Grip".
[4] Afterwards Chief Justice Harrison.
[5] Recently changed to a morning issue, and with a new editor in succession to Mr. J. A. Spender.
Several minor imperfections in spelling and punctuation have been corrected without comment.
Captions were added to many illustrations to assist vision-impaired readers.