Thoughts of a fool
services receives the slenderest reward; as though the delight in
rendering service were in itself not sufficient.
Yes, it is true, that many of those on whom is conferred the honor of
performing the hardest tasks, do not appreciate the distinction thus
lavished upon them. Society could not exist without classes. Our best
people would be in pitiful plight if there were not a tired class from
which to recruit its asylums, its social settlement work, its houses of
prostitution, and its police force.
Society requires a class that must build houses, plan and supply the
furnishings for these edifices, make the roads, grow foodstuffs and
fashion the clothing. It also needs a class that will use the stuff
created. We need people to live in the houses, make use of the roads,
eat the stuff which is grown, and wear the clothes fashioned. Then we
need another class to keep the peace between them that make the things
which they care not to use, and the class that uses the things but
makes none. I once asked one of these working fellows why he wanted to
be on the police force. He replied that he might as well have an easy
job as any other fellow, and, he added, “we must have a police force,
just as we must have sunlight. Life and property would not be safe
otherwise.”
It would seem that the less one has the more he requires protection for
what he has not, against the other fellow who also has nothing.
Workers of another class are those that do not work with the hands.
Theirs is brain work. They furnish the intelligence for the manual
laborer, and give him permission to work. They are called employers
of labor. They work the workers and become forceful factors in social
life. What would become of our poor ignorant working-classes who
know only how to work and obey were it not for our better classes who
furnish employment for them?
I remember hearing of an occurrence that illustrates how sadly our
workfolk would fare if they were not given employment. During the
reconstruction days following the close of the Civil War, an old darkey
sauntered into the handsomely appointed offices of the Freedmen’s
Bureau at Memphis.
“Is dis yer de Freedmen’s Beuoh?” he asked, in open-mouthed admiration
of the walnut and brass fittings of the handsome quarters.
“This is the place,” courteously answered the sole occupant, who
appeared to be the officer in charge.
“Well, wot yer gwine do fer de cullud man?” was his next inquiry.
“We can’t do anything for you just now,” said the functionary. “The
last appropriation for this office was only about enough to put up
these fixings and pay our salaries, and Congress will not--”
“Lor bress ye, suh,” interrupted the recently emancipated citizen, “I
aint axin’ fur no money, no suh! All I want is jess a job er wukk.
Kain’t you all fine me airy job?”
The Mississippi was high at the time, and lots of driftwood was
floating down the stream. The official tried a bit of pleasantry.
“I’ll give you a job,” he said to the old man. “There’s lots of
driftwood coming down the river. You go out there and gather all you
can, and I’ll give you half you get.”
“All right, boss,” said the darkey to his new employer; and away he
went.
By next night the diligent employee had piled up a considerable stack
of wood. He was congratulating himself on the success of his work,
and making a mental survey of his half of the proceeds, when he was
approached by a man whose gold-braided cap gave evidence of officialdom.
“That’s a pretty good pile of wood you’ve gathered, uncle,” said the
newcomer. “I’ll take this half over here,” he said as he indicated one
end of the pile.
“Lor’ bless my soul!” ejaculated the old fellow. “You doan look like de
Freedman’s Beuoh gemman.”
“No,” he replied; “I have nothing to do with the Bureau, but I’m the
wharf master, and according to the city ordinances I’m entitled to
one-half the wood that’s piled up on this levee.”
“Ef dats de law, all right; go ahead. You tekk your harf, and de
Freedman’s Beuoh tekk his harf--only I hope you gemmen won’t mine ef I
tekk one little stick off’n you all’s harfs so’s I kin mekk a fiah to
cook me any little ting I mout be able to steal fore mornin’.”
I tell this little story to illustrate in a convincing way that there’s
no excuse for any able-bodied man ever to be out of a job. There are
always benevolent employers who will give us work. We can hear this
same truth from every pulpit, though perhaps lacking the anecdotal
form. And there is always some sort of government that stands ready
to protect the producer against the curse of a surplus. Nor do these
various governmental agencies neglect to protect the employer in his
share of the product--and help him get it from the producer.
Brain work is very effective. It gathers more in one hour than the
toiler can produce in twelve. Therefore the brain-worker does not need
to work as long as does the man who works with his hands. It is a fine
disposition of things.
The brain-worker requires an occasional vacation. The manual laborer
can dispense with such a rest. The latter needs to work longer and more
continually so as to keep him out of mischief. The employer’s food,
too, must be of better quality, his clothing of finer texture, and
he must have servants to wait on him. The working person must learn
habits of thrift, and should not partake of expensive foods. Indeed,
adulterated and coarse food is more in keeping with his position in
life; while shoddy clothing will give him a feeling of decent humility,
without which he could not so readily be kept under the wholesome
control of his benefactor.
Then there are workers who teach others how not to work. This is one
of the most important branches of our Democracy. We call it education,
and worship at its shrine. The end and aim of education is to impress
upon its victims the necessity for a ruling class; and the rewards
which are promised to the faithful pupils is either entrance into the
aristocracy or a good job serving the people. The teacher may truly be
said to be engaged upon brain-work, for the efforts of the teacher’s
brain is to stunt that of the pupil. Neither the teacher nor the pupil
brag about this openly; both of them are very much impressed with the
nobility of their mission. An utter absence of a sense of humor assures
the teacher of promotion and the pupil of appreciation.
The nobility of the teacher’s mission is one of our most sacred
beliefs. We know that the teacher is overworked and underpaid. The
work consists of twenty-two to thirty hours per week for eight or
nine months in the year. During a year’s work the average teacher can
instruct fully one hundred pupils in the mystery of escaping work.
The ignorant masses who are taught only the dignity of labor do not
appreciate the fine work of teaching. The masses must be taught a more
proper esteem for intellect, and all our teachers are beautifully
intellectual.
The work of priest and parson is another branch of labor that is highly
regarded. These check the criminal intent of man. They teach peace
and brotherhood. They are the spiritual guides of society, God bless
them! Horror on horror’s head would accumulate were it not for these
indefatigable workers. Society requires of them only two hours’ work
per week, on the first day thereof, which being the Lord’s day is not
reverently regarded by the lords, but has some recreative value to
those who are not in the lord class.
The work of the Sunday workman is to convince the poor man that he
has a better chance to get to heaven than has his master. For this
teaching the master willingly and generously pays the hire of the
Sunday workman. The laborer of the pulpit proves to the masses that
it is foolish to desire earthly possessions--that the rich are better
able to endure the pangs of Hell, hence all earthly possessions should
be turned over to them, out of which to pay the parson’s salary. Many
fine preachments may be heard during those two Sunday hours. We learn
that the poor man needs only to inform the pastor that he is hungry and
instantly he will be fed with advice concerning Good Citizenship and
the proper humility of those whom it has pleased God to cast for the
humbler parts.
Were it not for these laborers in the vineyard of the Lord we should
never have discovered the close relationship between religion and
art. The trouble, we are told, with the disinherited is, that they
are soul-hungry. Let them go to the art museum during the Saturday
half-holiday, and to church on Sunday, and all will be well.
Now and then a preacher or college professor succumbs to the temptation
of the devil. They blaspheme the highest and mightiest of earth. They
see smirch and taint on the wealth from which they have been fed.
There are not many of these, and they are easily silenced. They are
not taken seriously by the good people, and are consistently ignored
by the masses. They are the victims of the sympathetic temperament.
They commiserate the poor. They suffer agonies of excruciation through
their compassion for the sufferings of the downtrodden. And their pain
is all for naught. For the very people with whom these generous souls
sympathize are not suffering, in actuality, anything like the pangs
that their champions are enduring in their commiseration.
The downtrodden do not chafe. The poor do not suffer. They are lulled
to sleep by the hope that they, too, shall have their innings at the
lord game. Dear me! if the disinherited should ever really get to
the point of suffering that the “reformers” think has already been
reached--but why dwell on that picture? We did not like what happened
in the French Reign of Terror. That was too large a dose of democracy
to contemplate complacently.
As education is the teaching of methods whereby we can find the way
to let others do our work, so religion seems to be a method of saving
lost souls that are not lost. A shepherd who left his flock afield and
strayed into the village tavern insists to this day that it was the
sheep who were lost. There is no soul that so much needs saving as his
who thinks all others are lost.
I lost my garter this morning, and the loss caused me much worry. It
is very annoying to lose one’s garter. The loss of a garter implies
loss of control of the stocking. However, there’s an immense difference
between the loss of a garter and the loss of a soul. In both instances
there is a minus mark involved, but as to the garter one loses, one
seeks to recover it for herself, while in the matter of a soul one can
scarcely lose it before all one’s neighbors are diligently undertaking
to save it for her. Moreover, one is promptly made aware of the loss of
a garter by the unrestrained and licentious behavior of the stocking,
while one may lose her soul and go about her usual avocations without
any sense of stress or strain. To judge from the demeanor of those who
have been gathering lost souls, it is a fair inference that all the
decrepitude of their many finds has clung to the finders. A sour lot of
souls some of them must have assimilated in the saving.
And some souls seem to require frequent if not periodic saving. It’s
like a fellow with two shirts that he sends to the laundry each week.
In the course of the year he had one hundred and four shirts washed,
yet he has but the two. Hence when we hear the ardent soul-saver
recount his triumphs, and he tells of ten thousand souls saved, we are
justified in demanding an itemized account. Did he save the same soul
ten thousand times? Or two souls on five thousand several occasions?
Or--but the mathematical combinations are infinite.
I attended a revival meeting once, and saw the operators in the act
of saving souls. The revivalist by one sentence saved fifty souls,