Horace L. Traubel - Chants Communal, second edition, 1914 by gnosisclassics

CHANTS

COMMUNAL

HORACE TRAUBEL

LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DAVIS

CHANTS COMMUNAL

CHANTS COMMUNAL HORACE TRAUBEL

ALBERT AND CHARLES BONI 96 FIFTH AVENUE

NEW YORK:

LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

1914

Horace Traubel

Second Edition

Pktet By Rest Vallty Press

DEDICATING THESE PAGES Worn with the burdens of rebellious years , Across the sea's scan matching birth with death t Like ships sky sailed that earthward come no more t Love's dreams must vanish

down the edge ofsight,

All spent ahead where

will follow on

life

Celestial children , soon beyond

Entering the unseen port

reach,

wait for me.

OPTIMOS In some faces

meet

I see vice

rampant and virtue

veiled,

In some faces I meet I see virtue smiling and vice curtained, In vice I know vice, in virtue I know vfrtue, I stretch the boundaries of neither,

stand apart not to judge but to witness I hold no discourse with fragments, supposing them complete I

men and

women,

each

accord

whole

faith

and from each

I receive in full

stream

the returning tide.

my call to set men apart, good, bad, indifferent ? my part to sentence man for one sin or pardon him for one virtue ? it my part to distrust the tree at its roots because its leaves in the fall

dead Is

palette to color the sun

rain-falls

Back of me Before

and

sea-drifts

Can

pour from

garden-pot

are a thousand friendly

are as

many thousand

women, myself, time I

are

arms holding me

modest judgment,

assurances demanding that I give men,

for fulfilment.

have toiled on stony roads, the hot sun overhead, in my heart the northern ice,

In the winter's night the snow beat across my face, the north winds ac cused my faith, in my heart the tropic heat.

The word you hear from my lips is but an emissary, The word is not me, it but announces me The song I hear from the illustrious woman is heart

not the song of her

Underneath the song which the audience applauds framed in her immortal desires.

hear the real song

The

artist paints his picture, it is honorably hung, it receives the prize of the salon, Lo 1 as I look tnese vanish, Is the artist here in this paint and canvas ? a dim beckoning figure appears, I follow. I

would

its

say,

do not

let this

heart this mystery

mystery worry you

is revelation, in its final

solution

offers a

cup

benign, If these things

see are all that

to be seen I

too would seek the

roadside and dissolve myself in grief, But these things I see are only forerunners, signals, flags, standards raised

whose I

significance

yet to be

known,

use them, sec them used, as I eat too much dwelling upon it,

They They

are ships to sail

forth,

dinner at noonday, joyously, not

wings for

flight, feet for

marches,

are lingerings this side, arrested deeds, hesitated heroisms,

shamed

fears,

They hav^ no

whoh As

apologies to offer, they are as truly a part of the perfect

as the

whole

consistent with

look out of these windows

silent

man

itself.

as I pass

where men crowd, where

this

alone,

I take solace of

As As

passwords to the future, I decline to sit on this bench as judge over any man or any object, I stand not indifferent to any thing nor as a spectator looking at some

As As As

degradation and bring to lives condemned eloquent

thing outside myself, do not distress

me the cloud, my sun its creator, re-born in every person I meet, every event, every starburst, I can be severely arraigned by myself, never by any other, cloud-barriers I

So do I melt

all coined gold into earth-veins again, render all bricks into clay-beds, return all stones to their quarries, that men may men everywhere without interferences

So, in all the faces I see,

maimed, passion-bruted, hounded, whatever the

cursory veils they bear,

AH bringing to me my own I

back meet

recognized, welcomed.

self

again and again, only in other dress,

THE CHANTS FOREVER FIRST OF ALL, 2 no early or late, 6 The boy comes along, 12

There

Because we love, //

The builder sings, 21 The world as it is, 23 Of many voices one voice, 27 God up there somewhere cries, j/ Said the master of men, 36

When

the enjoiner

enjoined,

The men who cry and keep on, 44 The blood of the martyrs, 49 What is the use ? 5J You, civilization, who are so very big, 59 There

no escape, 64

If justice is impossible, 69 I look defeat full in the face,

Of one Swear

profit and loss, 78 that you will call out loud,

What

is all

the noise about

AND THE HEART OF THE MATTER For

all

When

the world, 98 I see how slow you are,

103

The air is close, 109 The storm breaks, 77.5 Clear weather again, 121 When you decide to have

done,

HEART, 94

Way

off

somewhere,

What is your own, 7^7 What men might be, 142 For the sake of

you not

life,

146

see, dear brother

After everything else I I

have a word to say to am going to laugh,

What

can

757 755 you, 707 ?

paid,

770

Will you be ready ? 775 I want to be counted, 779

You

will say

AND

IT ALL

AMOUNTS TO

to yourself,

183 THIS, IQO

THE CHANTS

FOREVER FIRS! OF ALL

can wait.

The world

has waited long for me, I can wait for the world,

Justice has waited long for me, I can wait for justice, such love's love of passion, and I can wait Love has waited long for me,

for love,

such love's love of passion I can wait, beautiful assurance !

can wait, O Wait while things go wrong until they go right, Wait while death seeds life until life seeds death, I

until men laugh, can wait, I can wait, I can wait, And while waiting can love.

Wait while men weep I

CHANTS COMMUNAL FORE VER Forever first of all

is justice.

FIRST

Not

the food you eat. Not the luxuries

OF ALL

Is love.

the clothes

Not

you weai

you enjoy. But justice. must stand aside You have a Everything for justice. trade and you think your trade comes before justice. You

a man

are

of business

before justice. sion.

Yes,

and you

Your

You

practice

a profes

Fatal fal Justice precedes all the wit

comes before justice.

lacy.

profession Justice stands first.

nesses

You may

think that business comes

before love.

Justice

is the only final witness to life. other claim. But nothing is done for satisfy every life.

You have ordered your life. You have taken all left no room for justice. the details into account. But you have not taken the whole into account. You have forgotten or forsworn justice. life

until justice

is satisfied.

But you have

Andjustice

is Justice is the only thing forever first of all. that takes care of all. Justice speaks the only universal tongue. Anything short of justice is parley, apology or

The human spirit owes itself a supreme debt. The debt of justice. Justice is the common providence. Look for justice. When you see justice you do not see rul ers. You do not see bonds bearing interest. You do not see lands paying rent. You do not see the storekeeper pock You see men refusing margins and bounties. eting profits. You see men refusing to subject other men to their talents.

flight.

Justice declares that talent shall not

buy and

sell.

It grants

talent one privilege. Surrender. Talent does not belong to the individual. It belongs to all. Justice is first of all. It starts man with man on the square. It keeps the race on

FOREVER FIRST OF ALL with

loyal terms

It gives

itself.

What is

sanctions.

your own

best

life is

general not special

more than best the in-

I cannot separate my personal gifts heritance of the race. From justice. For justice is treasure the impersonal from .

I know what

the professional logicians the preacher says when say. Justice is not religion. he faces the money in his parish. What the statesmen say in their cabinets. Justice is not

forever first o] all. Justice

And when

politics.

says justice

What

not logic.

the doctor is filling

not medicine.

me with drugs he

And when the painter is paint

ing a picture for fame or for money he says that justice is not And when the poet has dedicated his verses to a pa art. tron he says that justice is not song.

yer

And when

the

when

law

And

in his brief he says that justice is not law. the tradesman hogs his excesses he says that justice

lies

not trade.

And when

the landlord evicts

And even when

not rent.

that justice

thers in his

wages he says that justice

a tenant he says workman ga

the

not hire.

And

All are not givwe have reduced bargain and sale. Each man giving his all for every other] ing life for life. man 's all. But each man is making the sharpest dicker he\ life to

Getting the most he can get of life for the least And this adjustment is the current ad he must give of life. This is what the justment of religion, of art and of law.

can for

life.

what

world

calls logic.

ness.

And when I come along cry ingfor justice.

This

the

calls righteous

Weeping

heart filled with sorrow seeing the lack of for justice. Filled with elation seeing the inevitability of just justice. ice.

They are

all at

heels

decrying

logic.

The

CHANTS COMMUNAL my heels. The statesman is at my heels. The my heels. The artist is at my heels. All the sell ers and buyers are at my heels. Even the wagemen, the innocents transgressed\ are at my heels. And I barely And yet justice is forever first of escape with my life. priest is at

poet is at

all

I am an You come tribute.

bring justice ? is

the strophe

assurer ofjustice. Science comes bringing dreams full. Music comes with

tribute.

A rt comes with its

its lips full.

But can you

I am an

alarmist for justice.

me bringing

Trade comes with its coffers full. But do you You can learn things and teach things.

learn

and

teach justice ?

Reft ofjustice all life

and antistrophe of emptiness. Science is empty I think that you have worked tn vain

without justice.

For you have not put

painting your canvas.

justice there.

And justice alone is what willfill your canvas. And every product of art,

and all theory and speculation, and all meta

physical learning, must be empty, empty, forever empty, without justice. I do not say justice is logical. But I say justice is justice.

Let

words.

I do

not say civilization

be civilization.

not civilization.

will not quarrel with you about civilization is not justice

But I say that as long as

You think so might as well be nothing. It is nothing. with can be half of society forgotten or trespassed. society ciety it

Justice forgets no one.

no villain.

any

victor.

To justice To justice

Invades no

one.

there is no victim. there

Nor

therefore

a common soul from which

all personal souls

emerge and to which

for restoration.

We are not millions 4

justice there

all personal souls go

of beings owing

many

FOREVER FIRST OF ALL We are all of one

debts.

This

being owing one debt.

may

Or Or religion. not be logic. anything the parsimony of the single consciousness can name. Or statecraft.

But

it is justice.

Or science.

A ndjustice is forever first of all.

Be prac all Be the lord Be practical. tical. Say high practical. Be as I am, says the religion that dares gods of the regime. Be as I am, says the art that dares not. Be as I am, not. And the boss says, Be as I the lover who dares not. says on And I am man And am. top says Be as I am. every saddest sometimes when I hear even the slave say, Be as I t

And wherever I go I

am.

hear

voices.

And

the voices

Be as we are. What is it all for? I am to be Be logical, says the world, and collect your rent. logical. Be logical and hoard your gains. Be logical and sing false all say,

songs.

mons.

care

who

Get on

logical.

Rend.

Starve.

Justice

Yes, preach lying ser somebody's back. Oppress.

Yes, paint false pictures.

is to

Murder.

suffer?

would be

supplants justice.

Only be logical. Logic will answer for

all right if it

Logic

Who

is to

all reproach. not for logic. But logic that exists. wrong Logic

was

any

the lie of the liar. Logic is the private greed of trade. Logic is the ship that puts out on the pirate seas. Logic is cruel in the bite of the economic north wind. Logic finds

room for all the wrongs. But logic finds no room for the No room for protest. No room for the sentiment of rebel.

a universal love. For justice. A nd yet your love is forever I have thought that justice is the only logic. first of all. That the land lords and the money lords and the profit lords 5

CHANTS COMMUNAL That

are not logical.

and

the priests

the poets

and the sub

anywhere are not logical. That only the cry er for at last logical. is That though my brain may not justice so ounces and weigh many my body measure so many inches orners

I am hate

I am

and make That men may But cry as I go forth cry ing for justice.

built in noble proportions if

the size

That men may not admire me.

ofjustice.

my cry.

that if I answer the questions ofjustice logic will endorse

measure and acknowledge the melody of my accent. not willing to follow logic into its ambushes. The

my I am

logic of The ascendant owner and the de history is the proprietor. scendant slave. Somebody always very high up for many

somebodies very low down. Logic is the crack of a whip. is the lockout and the strike. Logic Logic is the gun and

war.

Logic

hate.

least the professors tell us so.

Logic perpetuates the antithesis

and

of broadcloth

rags.

On the one side overplus Logic has two sides to its shield. and on the other side want. Logic has one foot on a throne and one foot

At least

in the gutter.

And their kind of history that justice

the only logic.

the professors tell us so.

so.

Eut I have thought

That

justice is forever first

tells

all.

THERE

There

NO EARLY

no early or late. only now. There is only

OR LA TE

not

day

after

tell

not

tell

tomorrow but

that truth tell

that faith

is all

faith.

right for the

no use today.

truth but that truth

that love

There

not

not imminent.

waiting for a right time yet

THERE

NO EARLY OR LATE

But that love must not act. Knowledge, you say, is for the present. Action is for Do not come to me confessing moral bank the future. I not ask you to project yourself beyond do ruptcy. But as soon as you have prayed I expect your dream. to

That love knows.

come.

you

Your time for service is leave your closet. of life is to live.^ You are on trial

Your way

near.

with yourself the instant you are born into the faith.V It is losing business for you to wait to be told the crea

moment

tive

trick

which to

your soul

that the world

ways ready.

schedule yourself. by postponements. You contend act.

not ready. To faith the world is al not your place to wait until the world your place to help make it ready. Faith

It is

It is ready. best faith in the contemporary now. Faith has no anxieties. It carries no watch. It never concerns it is

about the hours of the day. To faith all hours are one hour. The hour to speak words. The hour to do

self

deeds.

There

While you are argu While betrayed. you are asking whether yourself your faith asserted today would help your father's fortune. While you are asking yourself is

no early or

ing with yourself love

whether your

late.

faith asserted in society

may

not hurt

its

While you are asking yourself whether the time may not come when faith may be faith without While you look back. threatening industrial values. broadcloth.

And round you. time

is faith.

And ahead.

Time is betrayed.

When faith takes out its

And

watch you know

CHANTS COMMUNAL that

has lost

its

you know

table

nerve. that

When is

faith consults the

time

getting ready for retreat.

Hurries no voyage. Does not miss its Always knows where to go because never going anywhere. Anywhere in territory or time. Just stays about where it happens to be singing its song. Just stays about making the most it can of Do you think faith puts its ear to the immediate call. Faith does the ground listening for something far off ? not need the far off. Does not fear the beyond. It needs today's job. It will meet every tomorrow in the Faith puts off no voyage. cues.

same itself

Every tomorrow the chosen day of faith. spirit.

inquiring

among

its

becomes today finds Do you think faith goes friends for good will and counsel ? that

you think that faith

is faith

that

someone

for

cause

its

else will

because of something

or ceases to be faith be

friends advise delay?

Faith

never delay.

Delay we call by another name. Cowardice, who knows? Or treachery, who knows? Faith is not something dead

in the

mind.

It is

something

alive in

life.

So many of you have come to me with the same You agree with me. The commune is so question. It is It ultimates industry and property. beautiful.

bow of promise. But. And that but build very high and very broad. You take it and you You can of you so that it fills the road. it ahead keep the final fruitful

down

You

And

then you

sit

in the dust despondently and declare that the

ir-

not pass.

cannot climb over.

THERE

NO EARLY OR LATE

is not prepared for you. But what have the of the world ? I do do with irrelevancy you not ask the world to be prepared. I ask you to be pre And you are not prepared. You have only pared.

relevant world

got to

learned the language of love. You will learn the life of love.

You will yet be

When

prepared.

are prepared

you your ships behind you. You will not be satisfied until you see your last ship gone up in smoke. Until the last supposition of delay and escape

you

will

burn

all

You will not wait upon the summons of The world will wait upon your summons. Wait. Forever wait. The world will never summon you. You must summon yourself. You must sum is

destroyed.

the world.

mon

There yourself in tones that you cannot refuse. of of tens thousands confirm you everywhere, you are, ing yourselves in the disease of delay. You know

where you should go. But you are afraid to start. You hug your professorships. You hold yourselves down You tie yourselves in double tight in editorial chairs. are to You knots trade. lawyers and anchor in the law. Doctors and moor in medicine. Painters of pictures and wrap yourselves in canvas,, You write poems and are lost in a routine of words.

Whatever you

are that

you swear you must continue to be. In spite of your You know things must change. faith continue to be. That we are verging towards the windup of the com But you are continually consulting Like a pet clocks and your setting their hands back. tifogger going into court and sophisticating for delay. petitive regime.

CHANTS COMMUNAL For vive

Yet delay is death. faith can long sur delay. The time will come, you the treason of delay.

The present hour is a little too soon, you say. But to men in your mood the too-soons make up the whole of life. You think there is something in the way. There is nothing in the way that you have not say.

You

put in the way yourselves. alone.

Nothing

else.

You

hurl yourselves out of the way.

You

are in the way.

are grit?

Then you

will

You will press on. You

complain that I ask you to be heroes. I do not. I ask you to be yourselves. You will never be yourselves in this

humbug peace.

You will only be

genuine contests of justice.

ment

j j

purifies.

You

will

yourselves in the

Delay stagnates.

Move

not be yourselves well profes-

sored or well officed or well anything that persuades you to put off your departure. You will only be your-

when once you get your duds on your backs and to the past. Only then. Why should you I] say goodbye

selves

masquerade as courtiers ? hang around the court?

Why should you continue to Why should you stay in the

call to you from the Let me tell you. There is no danger outside. There is danger in the palace. Fly. You hold your heads up in a confident way as if nothing had hap pened. Let me tell you that something ruinous has happened. Something shadowed by the arch of the last tragedy. You have murdered yourselves. You To be dead while suffer that worst fate of all fates.

glitter

while your prohibited souls

outside ?

THERE

NO EARLY OR LATE

Sentenced to betray

living.

You

life.

have survived

your own deaths.

There is no early or late. Your eyes But you are silent. Will you word? Or will you bury that unspoken your heart and put a gravestone over it ? Are

You

are open. speak the

word

see.

you to be equal to yourself? Or are you to confess You saw. Then that you are smaller than yourself?

you listened for voices. You should have been deaf. But you listened for voices. Any man who listens may So you heard. You should have listened for hear. One nothing. Then you would have heard one voice. own But Your voice. voice. you lis superb saving The voices crowded ears. tened for voices. And your church had a voice. And its voice said Wait. And the state had a voice. And the bank had a voice. And And all the stolen incre all the professions had voices. ments and legislated privileges had voices. And all the voices said Wait. These eminent voices of retrogres :

sion.

And

obscure voices, nameless, numberless, hiss

ing and groaning. All were voices. And all the voices There was one little voice in all this bois said Wait. :

terous

medley

that said

But you did not hear And now you

on.

And

so the waits had their victory. are dead and buried in your own body.

it.

a stone over

And

there

your grave. on the stone. Wait. That word immortalize you.

That word

all

And

there

only one word

all

that

that is left to is left

tell

the story of your battle not too strenuously fought 11

CHANTS COMMUNAL Of your

defeat too easily welcomed.

you not see

through your delays, dear brother ? Do you not see that only one thing counts? Faith counts. Nothing else counts. And to faith there is no early or late.

THE BOY If was not for the boys, or for the boy COMES left over in the man, everything would alWe draw ALONG ways remain about where it

it is.

up against which we halt the boy. The boy walks He does not defy us. He does straightway over. not hear us. The boy has eye and ear for sights and sounds ahead. But no cries from the past arrest his a line

Every boy brings the youth of the race lost your boy re covers. When you say rebellion you say boy. The boy is not a blank wall. He is an open way. You get You cannot save your rid of the boy at your peril. The boy can save you. You can go to bed heavy self? He will dream for you. You can go down with sleep. town and trade swindle for swindle in the greed of the impatient

feet.

back again.

world.

you.

The hope you have

study and play and be honest for Have you ever built striker, the boy.

will

The born

high some boy could not climb it? Have you ever cried a no so deep some boy could not spade below it? Have you ever taught any religion, or any philan thropy, so good some boy could not better it? The rebellion of the boy is the salvation of the man. a wall so

If injus tice

could live in a world of grown 12

men

would

feel

THE BOY COMES ALONG Injustice fears the cradle.

safe.

Injustice

not afraid

your brain, your culture, your curiosity or your logic. The boy dreams. And Injustice is afraid of the boy.

boy believes in dreams. Grown men dream, too. But they are less apt to believe in their dreams. The boy tries fact by dream. The man tries dream by fact. That is what makes the man conservative and the boy That is what makes the man the apologist and radical. the boy a menace. The boy is the typical striker. He He thinks neither of fam is up at once for his rights. nor He thinks only of his rights. He is ily society. the

not a compromiser. letter

Ten

and

spirit.

Two

reads rules out of the limit of

and two always make

four.

The boy is a democrat. He screamed down from some ephem

hours are ten hours.

resents

your orders

eral elevation.

Who

any boss to any boy that any

boss should bond any boy to slavish service ?

Last year was the boy in one hundred and forty seven thousand men who went in anger out of the coal mines. This boy called capital to order. There may be ten thousand it

your problem. What are the ten thousand They look at their wage checks. They look ahead into the shadows that fall upon a workless man. They may be sullen. But they keep to their work. So the problem remains a problem. So injustice rubs

men to

its

to face

do ?

hands.

The boy comes problem.

along.

does not count costs. 13

He,

too, faces the

does not see

CHANTS COMMUNAL shadows ahead or any shadows behind. He sees only light. Everywhere light. What is any problem to any man who stands in a center of light? The boy is

the

illuminated. ft

refuses

dicker with conditions.

make

a few conditions of my own," he says. He will not drive your mules. He work. stops will not carry your packages. Your messages. He will not feed your presses. He goes to the men who despond and fortifies their hearts. In the presence of The boy the boy the problem shrinks and disappears. is the born striker. The boy is unreasonable. Yes. But are you proud of the reason of his seniors ? I watch him as he faces his complex life. His rights and re I will

The boy is quite as well able as his an sponsibilities. cients to describe the squares and circles of justice.

The boy dogmatic.

come

not

But the best articles

impudent, vain and of courage and sacrifice is

through the boys. The also make you happy. not cruelty of their oppo

to the jaded conventions

boys make you mad.

You

infallible.

But they

resent the crudeness

sition.

You

only thing in

glorify their impervious self belief. important than the boy is

man more

The well,

The is nothing more important than the boy. dream of philanthropy is the boy at work in the secu lar heart. When you appeal for justice you do not go to the stepping off place and endeavor to trim the joints You appeal to the boys. of old age back to battle again. The old men are deaf and blind. The old men see sunsets and coffins. The boys are alive in all their five there

THE BOY COMES ALONG senses.

old

men

They

see only

dawns and immortality.

deal in postponements.

The boys

The

are disci

ples of right way.

The boy makes history without ifs, buts and peradventures. The boy is the blow direct. Jesus untempled the temples with the heat and heart of a boy.

Sixty years

would have found reasons

for treat

changers with a tactful prudence. But or twenty years saw only the evil and pressed thirty years without wait up to its total downfall. The world is ing the

money

still

young with Jesus.

the

invasions

men

are eternally young.

the

compliment we can pay

Jesus was boyhood resisting

Hebrew

plutocracies.

Some

We think the most significant to old age

speak of its In a civilized man years accumulate no burdens. youth. Years rather lighten his load. They have taught him how to organize life. They have added power not is

There is something wrong with any civilization which develops grown men with the boy left out. You might just as well be dead as cease to be a boy. The boy looks round and over everything. He keeps his par weight.

turns ents, his neighbors, his civilization, guessing. short corners. refuses to do things in regular ways.

When

you think you have got him on the spot he is somewhere else. When you reach for him far off he

When you speak of the he does it. When you qualify impossible goes and events by rote and rule he shows you how big events become when they are left to their normal impetus. stands smiling at your elbow.

CHANTS COMMUNAL The boy demands room

for

life.

accepts

all

mar

wanders across all borders. The church gins. and the state do not exist for the boy. He acknowl edges religion and natural law. But the institutions ap He will not respect your police rituals. To pal him. life is watched, restricted and under a con all maturity ditional ban.

boy ute.

Life

acquiesces in

the boy all guards are waived. The none of the contingencies of the stat

Life can be trusted. life alone, he says. But life will not grow in the entitled to growth.

See is

county

jail.

Every man lives ten thousand lives all by Yet he may miss all life if in the ten thousand the boy is not buoyantly superior and triumphant. Bosses dread the boys. So do the kings. So do par When you get nasty and arrogant with the liaments. himself.

boys remember your own dreams. You may have boy in yourself. That was your business. Perhaps. But spare the boys in the boys. Let every boy grow to maturity and be the boy still. Let thirty's manhood open into fifty's calm. But save the boy. The real boy is not the boy who dies with boyhood. He is the boy who survives all revolutions of flesh and spirit. Why should not the boy who comes through killed the

the cradle outlast the coffin

when he

said,

Come

little

Jesus divined the boy Whitman divined

children.

boy when he wrote, There was a child went forth. No boy in Athens was ever younger than the old So I remember that Liebig said that the youngest crates.

the

WE LOVE

BECAUSE The scholar in his school was Liebig. fire. His fuel chronic is asm.

His

light

boy is

enthusi

exhaustless.

never dims. If you grow cold in faith move Before you surrender consult the

up near the boy.

The boy will not preach to you about The boy will blaze that path. escape.

boy. of

the path

Did you think the boy was young or old

never knew the

He may have lived ten or seventy years. not The boy does cosy himself in the comfortable years. He is unconscious of years. The boy is divinely and age of a boy.

forever that izes its rebel rior,

somewhat

in the

The

dreams.

would

EECA USE WE LO VE

boss, the master, the supe

But without

does not like this boy.

gravitation

cosmos which immortal this

boy

social

find itself annulled.

Because we love. Do you suppose that our blows are malign ? That we are fight

ing because we love fight? That we derive any pleas From being hated ? That we are ure from negation ? bores because we like to be bores ? That we are look ing for chances to be gratuitously rude and unruly?

That we talk on purposely long after we are done? That we refuse to talk when silence is a crime ? That we malevolently quarrel and brawl in the avenues and incidents of experience to this cause in

not

know

at the

some

the truth.

back of

all.

Have we

dedicated our lives

spirit of light revolt?

You do

not

Why we 17

know what

You do is

really

are severe with you.

CHANTS COMMUNAL How after being

severe

How How

we go home and weep.

we nights wrestling with you. with ourselves. Can spend longer nights wrestling you not see that we would rather say the word that will

we spend long

you than the word that will give you grief? But we must first of all say the true word. The true word is the only word. And the true word is just as much You may not know it. But as our word word. your please

your word. I swear to you it is your word. God knows we do not start out to speak false words. Words We must speak words that will irretrievably wound. With mediable wounds we ward off that wound. wounds that wound to the death. And this is all because we love. The Is it love that makes the present world ?

it is

world of parish interests? Rockefeller's love also love

can say for itself?

But

say that

lover speaks. is

has

itself.

I will

make

explain.

acquitted itself of that trust?

account.

convict

I will

not love.

not the love

destroy such love with a love that I will impeach such love again

test with epithets.

this love is it

I will call it to ac

been the depository of

It has

count.

do not say

this love is love

I will

greater than

with love.

Is Is Parry's love love? Is this the best that love

a trust.

How

not sully the this older love to I will

I will only call not convict it by my lips. I will make with its own lips. I will not be cruel.

I will itself

only

call for a report.

for a report.

And

rent.

And 18

will call profit.

upon

interest

Yes, any priv-

BECAUSE

WE LOVE

ilege that transgresses one way in order to benefit an social compact that goes short with the other.

Any

go long with the rich. You will not For you will not dare say you do not be You can only say: This is not justice. lieve in justice. And it is there we must fight the issue out. What is

poor

in order to

dare say no.

You have got to report on justice. justice? court and report on wages. Will high into wages

Bring wages bring justice ? Or is justice impossible with any kind of wages? Would a better Parry bring justice or is If all who justice impossible with any kind of Parry ? who saint over all are turned and employ employed night justice would still fall short of justice. Justice is What will deliver justice? Hate? Love? in bond. I say: Love's hand will deliver. A hand that may need to be severe. But a hand that loves. Because we love, I say again.

Or some

church.

Not love a few. Or love a class. Or some petty social or national in

Because we love all. For no solution that would not be a solution for all would be a solution for one. As long as we do not solve the trouble for all we do not solve it for one. It will forever recur until The law of the last unit is enclosed in the operation. A law for one day. It love is not a law for a parish. is a law for the whole world. For forever. The law of love could not put one item of social evil under ban or under approval. As if things wrong stood each As if the law of one was not the law of every alone.

terest.

CHANTS COMMUNAL Do

other.

world? street

into

you think that profit stands alone in the That landlordism stands alone? That Wall stands alone? That you could march a mob

Lombard

That you could

hit

its

its detail

settle the riddle there alone

out at random and bring

disease with a single

ure from

and

street

the

enemy ? Can you isolate a struct Can you separate the body from

So many things need

flesh?

down

done in order But they must all be to be

one thing may be done. done for the one result. The many things that come from the same root. The things that it will hurt your But they must be done. feelings to have disturbed. They may be done roundabout. They may be done that

think

straight to.

They must be

like to say things straight to. But they must be said.

said with love.

I know you Said to be understood. Eternally said. That the thing that we attack is declare it is useless. so big. That the thing we attack it with is so little.

The big. it.

Yet

justice

littler

than

word

of justice

attack.

And even the little. I concede bigger than big. And injustice is And if our unpretentious word is the

concede

little.

it.

not awed by the big thing it is to not weighed in a scale. Or measured

it is

Justice It is not scared when the guns a surveyor. When the millionaire takes account of stock.

someone reports

off.

When

tumble in the market. Justice, too, But it does not have to make a has to make a report. It reports in the im report in numbers and sizes. In the uptides of streams. In the mensities of ideas. a

THE BUILDER

SINGS

That is why justice is never no parade of greatness shakes its dismayed. Why when all claim. things seem to go against it just Why ascents of infinite spaces.

does not dodge or retreat. Why justice can afford be generous. To swallow our insults. To have the To have Standard Oil against figures all go against it. ice

it.

have the

And may

thing.

still

And we

Justice can wait.

cause

bonds against it. keep cool. Still keep its

last issue of

Any faith.

can wait for justice.

love.

THE BUILDER

The most

potent war is peace. But apolthe answer of peace. not Peace ogy SINGS invites a stern retort. It is out of the stubbornest opposition that order will finally emerge. is

are entangled in a system which Justice is order. leaves us to the chance episodes of the seasons. This

chaos cannot be perpetuated. Its revel must pass. soul demands order. Order. Order. Always

The

Theft is not order. Only integrity is order. Per cent is the industrial conqueror. But it will not

order.

survive the poison of

its

own

success.

Nor

can an

bond and half free be fixed. And yet, though we must twist the crooked back to the straight, we do not propose to hate that incident of history income

half

which has warped the general will. We will sing at our will work. We will repair that which was broken. But we will not rebuild that which was thrown down.

hate the destroyer.

will sing as 21

build.

And

CHANTS COMMUNAL build

The

old

will. The children cry to us, and we men and women cry to us, and we build.

stalwart laborers cry to us, and we build. in behalf of income.

The

We take

incomes away

build.

see

all

pri

fortune lapse in a general fund. That is the we build. For of the we out will build way imperfect the perfect. And out of a race of men and women and

vate

children maimed and half done we will build a race of men and women and children unmarred and complete. But we will always sing. For the workman who sings

can work.

Through whatever hand

distress can work.

heavy we

And

not admit that it crushes our faith. And no blow given us will be will only love and build. And even the returned. The master will feel lash of the master will be useful.

though the

of the tyrant

will

its

sharp return.

make use there

of evil

For we know that if we could not we could not make use of good. For

no barbarism too stubborn

to be turned to the

uses of our ideal. I am assailed and bleeding. And yet do not resent assault. And why should I not bleed ? For I am so intent on the big ackievement ahead that I I

not worried by the

deterrents around.

little

The

The rehabilitated bodies beautiful prospect allures me. The happier faces allure me. The good allure me. earth cleansed allures me. this I

see that

no man

will after

consent to tax any other man or hoard his own work. man will swear himself into the gen

see that every

eral service.

I see a

world 22

which the only errands

THE WORLD are errands of succor.

AS IT

see a world in which the lips of

man have

ceased to speak of property. I see a world in which farcical social maxims now celebrated in the orthodoxies of culture have given place to the simple doctrine of universal ownership. And this consumma tion is so surely within sight that I can afford to wait to

have the

come and can

It is not afford to sing as I wait. with the ideal who needs to rant and swear and

man

It is the

suspect.

who may

man who

sees only the alien present

and and swear and suspect. For we live in a world in which we cannot be at home. But we are to make this empty world full. For a world full of homeless people is of all worlds emptiest. But when we have accomplished our miracle earth will be home enough for all. And that miracle we will effect. For the builder is building his home. And the builder rant

sings as he builds.

THE

WORLD

The world as it is The child born into

AS IT IS

the world

world its be born.

its

a world of conflict.

the world does not find

friend.

The world makes

The

child finds the

hard for a child to The world makes it harder for a child to live than to be born. The world offers an ominous passage foe.

to those

who cross its birthline.

enough

for

but few.

all.

And

The world as it is is rich

yet the world as

The world

all

it is

refusal or

gives riches

all

favor.

you catch the world in one humor it will spoil you with its If you catch the world in another humor it gifts. 23

CHANTS COMMUNAL Fathers and mothers destroy you with its frosts. view their children with alarm. The child is a threat. Love itself is a peril. The world promises you har But few can survive the disastrous springs and vests.

will

that precede the harvests. The world sends for But when the children. children appear prayers

summers up

the world does not protect them. The world drives children to the treadmill. The world takes the young sters before they have had their playtime and feeds them without remorse to the commercial maw. And the lives of these children are

rents

and

profits.

served up to you in interests,

The world

invites

you

to a feast.

Then the world forbids you to eat. The world calls you a freeman. Then the world forces you to crawl. Man is

His breakfast His dinner his supper. His coat

enslaved to his meals and his clothes.

threatens his dinner.

The world as it is ties me to a stick in the ground. The world as it is submits me to its vio I fail in its success. lent will. I am dead in its life. The of itself. world is afraid But Always. Always. what does the world after all know of itself? It has never tried itself. It has never given men half a chance. his shoes.

A chance to mature

To escape social despotism. Man is teased not allowed to see. with a heritage which he is not to enjoy. The world has upper and lower, superior and inferior, hirer and hired, boss and workman. It lacks the even hand. The world turns its virtues over to dreamland and

Man

has sight but

life.

The world has learned how

keeps its vices for everyday. 24

THE WORLD

AS IT

do things.^ The world has not learned what to do with things when they are done. x^The world has in vented a word with which to insult itself. Pauper. to

you like it? Every time the world finds use for word it submits to its own whip. That word is It falls across empty tables and de always a shadow. nuded hearts.

that

The world

Men

ought

it is

to love the world.

not believed

But they

in.

distrust the

They do not know when the world may not them play scamp. The world may be hiding round some world.

The world may talk The world does not per The world is not your

corner prepared to knife them.

them

fair

suade.

and do them

The

foul.

world drives. The world

boon companion.

is your master. If the world does nothing to get you on good terms with it. If the world spoils its democracy with prefixes and If the world plays to favorites. If the world suffixes. man much chance another one too and man too gives If the world is all over fences. If the world little.

mocks you with plies tions.

the

thumb and

forefinger of its sup If the world trips your best inten

and demands. If the world makes

impossible for you to be

If the world just to your neighbor or just to yourself. stunts you root and branch. If the world honors trick If the world concentrates in the mill does the world not do but dissipate it

ery above talent.

What

ionaire. self in a

it is

cloud of damning contingencies ? a world of negation. It writes

The its

world noes and

CHANTS COMMUNAL It signs away its titles in a ciphers over your brow. It surrenders soul and salad to or a maybe perhaps. It the market. It ties up its own feet and hands.

seals its

own

lips.

It deafens its

own

ears.

It blinds

own eyes. Then it weeps over the ruin of life. The world is destined for order and remains chaos. The plan is stayed. The proposition is not put The world's resolution somewhere gets tan through. and postpones itself. The world means to gled be fair. But the world is an invalid world. The world needs a breath of oxygen. The world was to its

have undertaken a journey of justice. But the world missed its train and put off its journey. When will the world start? The world as it is keeps all its children at The world has fastened an anathema upon labor. bay. The world has done big things to the ear and little to the hope. The world cries trespass against its children. The world as it is is not a home. It is an incubator. It is an inn. It is anything. But it is not a home. The children are at once made to feel that they are not born into a home. The children are born alien. IThe world as it is is not the open palm. It is the It is Jclenched fist. The world as it is is not a world. a battlefield. vation.

It is a black threat.

The world

it is

It is potential star

does not celebrate man.

celebrates property. The world as it is honors prop and discredits man. The world as it is gives its erty to financial The world as it degrees prestidigitation. 26

OF MANY VOICES ONE VOICE is is

made uncomfortable

stake

its

for simplicity.

does not

It risks all for fortune on original results. This world of the mines and the fac

the big shows.

This world of the storegirl and the clerk. This world of the trainhand and the roaddigger. This world This world impaling so of purity and prostitution. cial justice. This world as it is scarred all over with This contrast, contradiction, cruelty and concubinage. man of the on world as it is sworn to the service top. As if there could be any top or bottom in a democracy. As if there could be any top or bottom in a world of decent diameters. Look at it. This magnificent mal evolent world. This beautiful brutal world. This world as it is. Our world. This world every inch of it the rock and dirt and moisture of our own hands. This world as it is. tories.

OF MANY

VOICES ONE VOICE

traded

are learning a lesson. The lesson of inviolable unity. The masters have

The one quarrels. the isolation of the slave.

our

solid asset of mastership is refuse longer to remain isolated.

We have learned

to stick together. You can defeat any man who comes to you alone. But when the single man comes to you

one hundred and

thousand strong you have to lis have so often said no that no has become your habit. But labor is learning not to no as It is beginning to see that your no. accept your no may mean no to you but does not mean no to labor. ten to his appeal.

fifty

You

CHANTS COMMUNAL You

have been spoiled by the effectiveness of your Your weapon was never good. It seemed only good because the opposing weapon was so Now bad. that labor has a weapon with which to meet ancient weapon.

The laborer himself lost its edge. has rather accepted your estimate of labor. And labor has admired your superior clothing and your superior speech and your overdressed women and the sports of you your blade has

your

leisure.

And

so you have

A change has

firmed.

realize its majority.

come.

felt

Labor

yourselves con is

beginning to

It sees that all the fine things

you

has admired you are but the creation and property of labor alienated to a private from a common fund. And that consciousness has

possess and for which

lifted labor

out of the

It has inspired labor

dirt.

with

a conviction of its right of way. Labor now Labor leave. By your says By

no longer says my will. Labor no longer fears your anger. Labor is no longer a sin Labor is an army con gle man exposed to a tempest. :

Its inveterate energy centrated in a single command. must finally prove resistless. Labor is the active source of wealth. That makes labor invincible. Labor handles Labor arrives first. You come all the earlier laws. Without labor all would be lost. Without you after. The values are being inexor all would be better off. be under the wheel. Once will soon shifted. You ably when labor came to you you buttoned your coat and

replied

torney.

See

Labor

Now

attorney.

says: Treat with 28

labor has

its

own

attorney.

You

OF MANY VOICES ONE VOICE gag. It

But you

treat.

has hoed well.

Labor has had

It has

a long

kept the faith.

row But

to hoe. labor's

harvests bring along also their parasitic weeds. These weeds come by the same law as the wheat. But the

weeds have threatened the wheat. That is one reason why labor is resolved to remove the weeds. In the long night, when interest and profit and rent deserted, labor kept the torch aflame. And when the day returned, interest and profit and rent returned with it vulgar in Labor is learning to hold its own. Not self-acclaim. Not a pittance called its own by a portion of its own. the powers that have been engaged in exploiting it. All its own. One hundred per Its absolute own. cent.

The

forces

on top are beginning

to look worried.

They are feeling that in the submerged world of labor something is going on. Something that does not mean

They do not know what that something They know that whatever it is it is to be fought to a finish. They know there is some calamity threatened.

well for them. is.

And

they are preparing to meet the dreaded event. Labor, too, knows there is something in the wind. And labor itself does not always know what that some

But labor by an

instinct of self-preservation so far overdue. That lesson may the lesson is learning seem inchoate and imperfect. But the elements all ex

thing

is.

and they are taking counsel of each other. When is ripe they will coalesce with such vigor and upon such terms as will permit no doubt to be enterist

the time

CHANTS COMMUNAL The masters may as well be tained of their purpose. Their one last weapon is effete. La in time.

warned

bor has closed up the gap.

Labor

striking for favors?

you think that labor is demanding justice. La

bor will take nothing as a gift. Keep your gifts. ask you to render an account. After all you have been do not acknowledge you beyond only a steward.

your stewardship. And we call in your short loan. You have got to meet us in the open. Not back of

Not

closed doors.

in a distant town.

Not

helplessly

one by one. You have got to meet us where we choose and when as well as where and when you choose. We come to you no longer begging pardon, hat in hand. We come with a demand, our hats on our heads. The We break a way office boy can no longer dismiss us. in to the throne. You have got to hear and you have to be We are teaching you manners as well got polite. We come to you hundred thousands as matters. Our one man is the sum total. The little dago strong. who cannot speak a word of English and who is known by a number rather than a name is the big American

who

has the power to demand an audience of kings. sends his idea up to headquarters. And there you

have no apologies to offer for disturbing your peace. You have had that sort of It is a peace that is no peace. peace long enough. Peace without honor is the worst war. You have had the sort of peace which has made all the decisions one

have to meet

way and

that

it.

one way yours. 30

Now we

take you aside

GOD UP THERE SOMEWHERE CRIES We are no respecters of say: That will not do.

and

The properties must take care of them The meanest man takes precedence of the

properties. selves.

most formidable and magnificent edifice. When the most ignorant and the most obscure workman has a But grievance you must hear it. You may shudder. his voice is as potent as

any voice.

you hundred thousands strong.

doors.

fill

the highways.

We have come to We clamor at your We crowd you up to

The single man's the very porches of your heart. voice is withdrawn. send you this voice instead.

This This

the voice of thousands welded for one voice.

are practic is the voice of a new democracy. You will an art which will respect. ing compel your

take your

broom and sweep back

not sweep back

will

at the sea.

When we come

at us.

put your antiquated broom away. voices one voice.

But you you will

who make

many

GOD UP THERE

SOMEWHERE

client.

shrink when labor

bor

will sin

cate.

CRIES

not apologize for your Do not shuffle and

Labor has sinned greatly. La Labor hates the half advo you in the thick and thin of battle.

sins.

some more.

looks to

You

are to be in the right place at the right time. are not to come arguing that you should not

You of

You come.

are not to go to the front and dispute the virtue war with the acting general. The fight is on and 31

CHANTS COMMUNAL you know your post. You are not to throw down your arms and tell your enemy that you love him. You do Of course. But you are fighting this fight love him. So you will love as much for his sake as your own. him. And you will fight. Labor is not making a de mand based on superiorities or virtues. It is making a demand based on addition, subtraction and division. It It is building a demand on the multiplication table. not asking for more money because or one wife. It is not asking for more is

has played the good Samaritan. It it deserves more money because

that

has six wives

money because is it

not proving observes the

commandments or obeys the laws of the state. It is willing to rest its case upon the multiplication table. To you who object to sentiment we quote the multipli ten

cation table.

We will meet you, the other you, with any weapon of your choice. We will meet you way up where the clouds clash. We will meet you way down where the roots fasten themselves in the soil. We will meet you on the surface of the earth. We will meet you in your parlor, in your office or on the street. We We will meet you with an arithmetic or a scripture. and scripture into We will follow own. your meet you on your field or

will turn arithmetic into scripture

arithmetic.

Your

choice

where you lead. We will will meet by on our own or on neutral ground. your watch. We will meet you with the glove or with plain knuckles. Anyway you choose. Anyway. Any-

GOD UP THERE SOMEWHERE CRIES way. And we will lick you. We are going to make We are going to be hot. We are going to mistakes. do you some

We are going to be stern. We

injustice.

are going to use words that overshoot and words that undershoot the mark. We are going to fight you with are going to our fears and with our challenges. For we are to drive you hard and give no quarter. are We are not to take hold and let go. fight. That is to take never let hold and go. Fight. going our word. It is a brute word. But we are forced to

use

it.

fight itself.

other word so well says fight as that word do not fight because And fight it is.

hate but because

We We do not fight to take anybody. We fight to give away

love.

away anything from It is a miracled everything to everybody. Fight. word. Its root is love. Its fruit is love. Fight. Not fist.

Only

Not gun. love

Not fight.

knife.

These

None

of these are fight. Love saves. destroy.

No fool apologies. No mushpotteries. No retreats. No attempts to mend a mistake by surrender. No soft phrases to turn away wrath. Your biggest fist. Your most austere front. Beware of us. When we Fight.

strike

strike to kill.

Not

with a weapon of blood. you think we are out for

Not to kill your body. Do your body? No. No. We are out for the idea. We will never rest with that idea at large. We will game it. You have tried to make us think we were

That is a mistake. jealous of your material possessions. are jealous of that idea. You will not give up your

CHANTS COMMUNAL We idea without a struggle.

do not expect an easy For the forces on our will But it up. give you fight. side go back to the elemental laws and forward to the We will get whipped. ideal and cannot be frustrated. But we will fight. And we will get whipped again. But less whipped. And we will fight. And we will get whipped again. And all will seem lost. And the sun will go down on our dismay. But we will fight.

And you will hurt us. And we will cry out for pain. And we will be silent for philosophy. But fight on. And that is why finally you will go to the ground. For we can

lose everything

and

still

fight.

dream

War

not to

to the ideal.

War

hear nothing but fight. fight. Never was such war. but fight. nothing the knife.

War

to justice. to stop the not to shed blood. to stop the wasting tion sheds.

War

see nothing

but

blood that starva blood of the chil

War for with War War without truces. clothes, food, leisure. out paroles and spies. War direct and cruel. War without malice. War without concession. War of War that sends its weaklings and wordstrong men. mongers to the rear. War that does not fight a staunch War upon

dren.

battle

War

luxury.

War

for

life.

today and beg your pardon for it tomorrow. War. War. is not for babes and sucklings.

that

War.

When

you meet us you meet the greatest It is an that ever arrayed itself against a crime. it that weeps when it fights. Though fights.

army army army

GOD UP THERE SOMEWHERE CRIES would rather pay you a compliment than hurt your An army to which the business of fighting is feelings. But an army which for this very reason fights hateful. An army not bargained for at so harder than ever. much per head. An army which love has sent to the It will field and which only a superior love can defeat. will It But it be scared. intrepidly fight. may be on But it will not fly. This army so the point of flying. This fight so full of love. Brutal with full of love. that

The army

love.

The army of the fight of the people. There are feeble advocates among us.

ing democracy. But do not let them deceive you. as

our weakest corporal.

strongest corporal. will

need them

all.

We are not as weak

are as strong as our

Keep out all your guards. You For we never sleep. We have

But they count for noth are liable to be our veteran hosts. ing against when think your opportunity has come. you strongest We have our grammarians. We do not find much use The people remain. We have the plain for them. The people who are unspoiled by the gram people. The people who fight. The nasty, dirty, marians. narrow people. The ordinary, everyday people. The crowding many who are dragged over rough roads by

some

tenderfeet of our own.

the scattering few.

The

people, conservative, slow, lethargic, patient, only dreaming of revolution when every other dream is gone. The people who will not fight until they must but who when they must fight, These fight, as Captain Bluntschli says, like the devil. 35

CHANTS COMMUNAL are

And

left.

these will always return.

matter

what the terror of the rout. These will report next day as usual. For the people and this fight are of one stuff. You can only get rid of the fight by getting rid of the people.

And we mean.

so fight

Fight of

many

said.

And fight

Fight.

Fight of more de But fight. expect no

retreats.

feats than victories for us.

victory until the final victory.

only fight. fight not knowing whether we have won or are whipped. hear the voice ahead. fight the same fight.

We We

The

see the light. light

gone

Fight. are heroes.

do.

Fight

down

voice

That

fight on.

are cowards.

That is somewhere

fight on.

God up

Fight.

have to do.

The

fight on.

out.

there

here somewhere cries

God

all

is silent.

is all

fight on.

we have

cries: Fight! !

SAID THE MAS- Said the master of men: "Keep TER OF MEN off the earth. Keep out of the Do not swim in the water. Do you suppose the air. harvests that the

of the air

you suppose

field

are

intended

yours?

Do you

for

that the water

you

made

suppose

breathe?

to drink?

You

have a licentious imagination. Why do you suppose have fenced in the earth? Why do you suppose charge you a solid rate for the opportunity to live ? you believe you have some rights to life which the the water, the field, in spite of me, are bound to 36

I I

Do air,

re-

SAID

THE MASTER OF MEN

You do

not count up your twos and threes. I and am you are my toll. I am the gatekeeper I am the of heaven and you must pay me to get in. spect ?

a tollgate

portal to

Through me you

the vista of time.

all

eat,

you deny me you starve, for me life would not live. mourn. But you thirst, you But for me the earth would be a desert. Useless, am drink and

make merry.

Where

did you go to school ?

Sixty generations

As many gospel. women have suffered and starved to prove me true. I am the taxrate and Ideas may be true. Dreams may be true. the tax. You may have a Hebrew or another Bible that is true. of children have been taught generations of grown up men and

But nothing

omnipresent assessment. I take from the earth till its I drain the clouds dry. I take from the heart of man till last blossom wilts. What could so much prove me its last hope is lost. is

so true as

arm ? That arm will reach its true as the length of palm into any pocket, into any estate, into any heart.

And when

several names.

withdrawn nothing is left. I live by But these names rightly spelled spell

By some I am interest. By some

one name. called

neither court nor

reject

my convenience my convenience I

suits

say theft.

By some

called profit.

any name.

my object equally willing to go

can accomplish

name and

called rent.

But

long as

willing to accept without a name.

I I

any

When When it

myself rent. myself interest. I never say rent and interest. Yes, and profit, too. I call

call

CHANTS COMMUNAL The people

I fool

profit are just as sensitive as the

They do not mind by people when they get a fool themselves fooled. They being But they prefer to be fooled in the right way. chance. They like to be fooled gracefully and according to the So I have to be perpetually on my guard. For code. as long as I rob right I am called shrewd and am envied I

rent and interest.

fool

by my victims, who are my fellow robbers. But if I mix my etymology a mob of professors is instantly at my heels threatening my increments. To show you how popular I am with the people I need only remind you of history. The people do not make the laws. But they make the lawmakers. And they always make the sort of lawmakers who protect me in the laws. The people do not own the factories and the stores. But they create the ies

and the

men who

stores. first

hold the

to the factor

titles

And all

they always create the sort berth shall be take care that

And so on. Now, if the people did cheerily fattened. not mean me to be exactly what I am the people would refuse to make it possible for me to live just as I do. The people

are very good.

They provide

for

fore they provide for themselves. They take care that And I have enough to eat even while they starve.

enough are

wear and

cold.

look.

You

to cover

bed even when they

dues whatever happens.

get my see the people in trouble.

They

are

You wor

rying over something. You may perhaps imagine that they have children at home without enough food to go 38

SAID

THE MASTER OF MEN

Or that some other domestic tragedy has de veloped. You are wrong. Their grief is all about me. They are afraid they may not be able to do justice to me. They have no money and no work. They ask them selves What will interest, rent, profit do to get along if I have no money and no work? They see me going round.

So they wander wearily about the me. And sometimes they get de spondent and jump into the river or blow their brains out. Just because they would not like any hurt to come to me. For if anything was to happen to disable me the country would go to smash. The farmers all farm their farms for me. Every spindle in every fac Every machine at Lynn shoes for tory spindles for me. me. The stores are conducted for me. The railroads

to the poorhouse. streets grieving for

my estate. The people are my They are my stubborn friends. When

run in furtherance of

sworn

allies.

my integrity is ple themselves

The

defense.

They

When

threatened by some minority of the peo I do not need to lift a hand in my own

people do

all.

They defend me.

are only too glad to demonstrate their loyalty. rebellion rebels I simply hold peace and

order that

the battle

homage

that attaches to

interest.

for

The

will die in

world may red But none of my blood is drawn. over I reappear and receive the

may live.

den with carnage.

Thousands of people

usufruct and smile.

When

who am

clay of this

my sacred rent.

prerogative,

who am

profit.

who But

the political state, the lord of the land, the lord 39

CHANTS COMMUNAL money, the lord of the tool, could not live over a I sit on every hearthstone and wait. I night.

of the single

every birth.

in at

decalogue or postpone me.

in at every death.

fixes the social seasons.

one can dodge

one can order life with me left never premature and I never quit.

out.

No one.

the exigencies of your career, from the cradled terms of settlement.

all

start to the coffined finish, I fix the I

life

when you I

you when you surrender and death

revolt.

who am

profit."

who am

you

who am

rent.

That

what the master of men

interest.

said.

WHEN THE ENJOINER IS ENJOINED

It is

God no

It is Injunc-

longer.

tion.

The air is

full

of injunction.

It is injunc injunction simple, injunction complex. If you tion monosyllabic and injunction polysyllabic.

want to do a certain thing you are enjoined. If you do not want to do it you are enjoined. The hat you put on your head is enjoined. The love you put into your The thought you put into your head heart is enjoined. is

enjoined.

Even

Democracy has given way

cloud of the interlopers.

So thick

to injunction.

So thick

religion retires before injunction.

the crowd.

the

thick.

The

courts are finding

some use

We had long been wondering why we ish the courts.

But

we had no 40

for themselves.

should not abol

courts

who would

WHEN THE ENJOINER IS ENJOINED We

could get along without punishing men But we could not get along for murder and robbery.

enjoin?

without enjoining men from the pursuit of liberty. The Left to ourselves we courts save us from ourselves.

So we submit our souls

justice too fast.

might get

The courts say courts say: Don't go at all. impossibly far ahead. And

the courts.

Go slow, very

slow.

The

For liberty does not seem we seem dangerously near its protectorate. Liberty would be very perilous for somebody. The somebody with something that does So we must not be allowed to get not belong to him. within hailing distance of liberty. So we cry to the courts: Save us from ourselves. And the courts save us.

The

courts enjoin. I

self.

told

saw a man who loved him

him he should not love

And

himself.

he stopped himself in time. I saw a man who loved his wife. Yes, who loved his wife and children. Yes, his family and many families. Yes, many families and all families. This man was surely a madman. Love was capable of making any man mad. The truer his love the

madder

to dollars.

And madness

the man.

Especially dollars that are stolen.

not a world for love. court restrains.

It is a

world for

madman

dollars.

enjoined.

menace This is So the

monished against love. Love will do for gods, an gels, children and the insane. Nothing but dollars will do for the man. Dollars indeed prove the man. So the court's edict is published. Love slinks shame4*

CHANTS COMMUNAL facedly back to the nursery. has saved the race again.

The

Yet the but

court

happy.

race is never saved

sooner have the saviors gets lost again. their business of salvation than the disinte stopped it

grating devils have courts have patched

resumed

work.

their

After the

up a legal peace a lawless nether the rebursts The courts are never bulge faulty dam. able to complete their case. They tinker away at it.

They Then

get it about where it seems to them to belong. the roof falls in or the foundations cave. Then

a cyclone breaks across the country. oned meat is delivered at the door.

Then some

pois

Something, any

thing, appears to disturb the court's best laid plans. But the court keeps on enjoining. You find an injunc tion

under your

your plate

pillow. breakfast.

You The

headlined with injunctions. do not pray.

sun.

find an injunction

great newspapers

are

Injunctions

enjoins

last.

What

the

enjoin.

He who

eclipse

can you do

enjoins best

injunction will

not enjoin? If the injuncted will not be enjoined? What can you do if injunction is laughed in the face?

The

people are getting quarrelsome.

They

are laugh hurl your

ing at your Niagara They threaten to The enwaters back over the crest of the cliff again. the But not enjoined may joiner may enjoin. stay en joined. joy their

Let the courts have a

sundown

prerogatives. 42

Let them en Soon the day will be

little

fun.

WHEN THE ENJOINER IS ENJOINED should capital not have a few delights with which to conclude the epic of its piratical husbandry ? It is the last throw of Injunction is its last game.

Why

gone.

It is the final flicker of an expiring a dying marplot. flame. grudge capital the sweet delay of the in ? aside. Give it air to breathe. Its Stand junction

Why

doom

Injunction

appointed.

Be generous.

Let

departing

life.

Let

the terms of its farewell.

it fix

the breath of

is it

die in

its

own way.

For now the enjoiner to be enjoined. The people have risen. The courts are adjourned to the court. The court is the people. The people enjoin. Ten thousand injunctions are dis is

posed of by one injunction. You have gone on suppos The courts were ing there was nothing above the courts. of final resort. But the people loomed above the courts.

alone are

seems

final,

said the people.

logical as long as the

people sleep.

The

injunction

But when the

people awake the injunction sinks to chaos. Nothing is The courts have assumed that logical but the people. they could get along without the people. The people have proved that the people can get along without the courts.

Injunction enjoined ten or a thousand times The people were satisfied to stand

more than enough.

The people are slow. Thevj expedients before they try the last expediem But the injunction is enjoined. What are the best oi

a little trifling of that sort. try

all

your courts ?

The

worst of the people are potentially your courts. The courts betray

better than the best of

CHANTS COMMUNAL the people.

They

place themselves as a breakwall be will discredit

tween the people and justice. The people and destroy the courts. The courts are

They must go. state, must die. mandate.

The

The It is

in the road.

political court, like the political proving itself unable to fulfill the

courts

injunct democracy.

But the

people injunct the courts. The enjoiner is enjoined. people who enjoin last are the people who enjoin

The

best. It is Injunction

no longer.

THE MEN WHO

It is the People.

father and his little child were traveling a dark road to The father asked the child: "If something gether. happened to me now if I was killed or disappeared what would you do ? " The child replied " I would The great men and cry but I would keep right on." women of the world cry but they keep right on.

CR Y AND KEEP

Some people are failures even in their successes. Some peo The great souls ple are successes even in their failures.

The great souls never admit suc souls are not after failure or after suc great look at the big men and we find they are all

never admit cess.

The

cess.

of one

root.

failure.

They

all

seem

come from

the same

The same raw material. They differ in degrees and particulars but they do not differ in kind. They have the same sincerity. They have the same simplic stock.

ity.

They are after the same results. 44

You always know

THE MEN WHO CRY AND KEEP ON where the great man

man

The

happens. great not turn up somewhere

The men are

a given spot.

The strongest the man is gentle he he

will

men

And

else.

bound

to appear

great men are the strong men. the gentlest men. And because

And because he is strong

will cry.

keep right on.

can cry.

likely to be if a certain thing does not default. does

And will

will cry as

keep on

only gentle

as only strong

men

can keep on.

you suppose men like to be mis Yet they would rather be misunderstood

understood? than be traitorous.

your future

good

They Or

will.

up your present for they give up your good will your good weal. You may give

altogether in the interest of not see that they cry. But they cry nevertheless.

In the

the public sneer. But you will see that they keep right on. Think how Lincoln must have cried to get those rings round his eyes and those closet.

Away from

down

his face. But Lincoln kept right on. John Brown smiled when he was exe When he smiled the scaffold disappeared and cuted. was never seen again. But we also know that the gran ite man in his solitude cried for America. Yet he kept

deep

They

lines

said that

right on. back if there

not look for on.

And he

one suspected that he might have turned had been some chance of escape. He did It was his business to keep right escape. kept right on. In the end we always admire

the strong

man.

He may temporally fret and worry us.

CHANTS COMMUNAL He may ments. But he

seem dangerous

our increases and incre

He may seem possessed of a malign fanaticism. He will sur will sternly endure our distrust.

vive our suspicion. may always think the man's idea wrong. But we will admit that the man is right.

For the man who keeps

right

on has put himself

into

And this is an ap partnership with moral gravitation. The child peal to which we must all finally respond. The child divined said it would cry but keep right on. more than

You

You You

are

clock.

knew.

fought. turn back

You

You turn back. You stop your You apologize to

are ridiculed.

turn back. its

hands.

yesterday for today. You are afraid of the issue. Your comrade dies at your side. The bullets fly. Back you

Why

go.

Back you

should you press on against such odds? You are at the beginning again. Is this go.

home ? The homestead has disappeared. You are lost. You are full of rebellion until the rebellion occurs. Then you are empty of rebellion. You are crazy to pay your bills. The bills are presented. You refuse

You have got your ideas locked up in a desk. You have printed them in a book. You have painted

to pay.

them

in a picture.

But you have not got them

into

your heart and your feet. Your very ligaments must become the extract and potency of the ideal. When the

drum sounds

how dare you hear ? The But you will not turn against The child would cry and keep on,

for retreat

battle turns against you.

yourself.

Never.

THE MEN WHO CRY AND KEEP ON What

has

become

of the child in

you

that

you would

run self-baffled from the field? I

do not pray

for ideas.

Ideas

may pray for spirit. Ideas may be disproved by ideas. Ideas may be bought and sold. But spirit is never disproved by anything. You will be tempted but you will not see temptation. You will I

faithless.

You can go without see only your own guarantees. meals. You can go without laces back of your win dows and on your skirts. You can go without the opera. But you cannot go without your faith. You can give up everything else and still be rich. But if you give up faith all the rest cannot save you. I do not ask you I do not ask you to do mir to rise above your build. I do not ask you to put two and two together acles. and make them five. I ask you how you can know what your build is until you have put on your roof? How can you know? You think yourself little. But

man who thinks You think yourself

the

self

himself

little

weak.

The man who

weak can think himself

make

How

itself

can think himself big. thinks him

strong.

What is your voice heard on the cryday of our civili

get free from the crowd of voices? Is it to stir about a little and then shrink into a stagnant calm of despair? It may bring you sorrow. It may

zation

can

The chief thing is that it brings Stick to you. Cry if you must. But keep yourself. You have no business with the persecutors and the on.

bring you persecution.

CHANTS COMMUNAL You must have but one eye. That is for prosecutors. the light ahead. Your faith is far too big for contem porary favor. It misses reward. Stand irrevocably by yourself.

It finds blessedness.

not let the dis turbances of the road dull the pith of your intention.

Whatever you in resentment.

are be that thing strong. Strong in affirmation.

misinterpreted.

They

will call

Not

You

strong will

you harsh and cruel.

The

Even the dis dispossessor will call you a robber. possessed will not know you or say "How d'ye do?" though you do his work. Your children will think you queer and your father and mother will cast you out. You will go to a thousand crosses martyred and serene.

Wet the ground with your But you will keep on. You will be will keep on. Or strong. But keep Or evil. But keep on. Or good. But keep on. on. What will loss or failure hurt? You will keep on. What will success or fortune help ? You will keep on. I came upon you unawares. There you were weeping for sins. But when you saw me you to yourself your smiled and kept on. What can run short if your What can tire your feet if your soul faith runs long ? does not tire ? What can make you trespass if your What can turn you into stone heart refuses to invade ? if your sympathy melts the very rocks of the hills ? To are full of To the world grief. yourself you you are Back there alone you weep. But before the austere. world your eyes are dried. Yet if the world could look You

will cry, cry, bitterly.

blood and tears. weak. But you

THE BLOOD OF THE MARTYRS with eyes that are

more than eyes

would see you sor

rowing for its guilt. You who sorrow but keep on. You who must be cruel. You who being cruel keep on.

soft

That hand

You feel its small The child that cries

the gospel of the child.

your harder palm.

but keeps on.

The

child in

you

that cries but keeps

on.

THE BLOOD We worship the destroyer. We deOF THE spise or at least ignore the builder.

MARTYRS street

When a fi'e of to the

soldiers

drum and

comes down the

fife

marching your pulses dilate, your blood thrills and you are creatured into a mood of But if a file of laborers comes along exalted feeling. nine chances out of ten you will say something sarcastic about their clothes and turn from them without interest or expectation.

file

of soldiers bent

upon war.

file

workmen bent upon a strike. One threatens liberty. The other condones liberty. The soldier with his tuft The striker with his axe is malign. Watch is holy. Your heart will get away from you. I know yourself. you only too well. I know where your heart belongs. I know where your heart goes. But I also know where Where liberty belongs. liberty goes. You look with awe upon a battlefield. Do you not look with as much of

awe upon your tunnel? battle with the rocks.

Here Here is 49

an honest

a battle

battle.

without an en-

CHANTS COMMUNAL Here

emy.

a battle without murder.

Here

a bat

which no brother takes up

his arms against a Yet this battle, too, has its victims. And you look on and think and say nothing. You are non chalant and uninformed. What is the matter? Here This battle is fought on a fair level is an honest battle. tle

brother.

You look down into these holes and ground your pulse is undisturbed. You turn round to Broadway, meet a battalion of soldiers, and you become alive with the fire of a martial exaltation. What is the matter? That man is a hero who kills somebody. But the man who ransoms is a slave. We have mistaken murder for manhood and given it a first We have confused labor with place in our respect. and reduced it below the plane of its proper degradation into our schools and ask the chil If nobility. you go dren to tell you the name of a contemporary hero they No child is so will tell you that Funston is a hero. a Do you he think of Debs as hero. that would taught of

human

enterprise.

in the

wonder shovel?

grow up able to respond to the and unable to respond to the pick and

that children

drum and

fife

When

the

manufactures

state

emblems

makes them

of a military or juridical character. state has ever yet thought to symbolize itself in the in

struments of labor. Yet labor starts all and finishes Labor bestows the first rough and the last finesse all.

upon

No state, no life. would for an in no stand parlor, anything, with labor removed from its foundations. Labor all

the art and circumstance of

church, no stant

THE BLOOD OF THE MARTYRS even put your bible on your pulpit.

even put your

love into your heart. The very labor that is blasting a tunnel under your metropolis. The very labor whose

victims are day by day carried up from these under ground caverns and to their homes in the shadow of a

dreadful popular unconcern. Day by day until the victims black and dense. cloud is five hundred

The sol You pension his wounds. You pension his The more he kills, the more ornamental the

dier kills.

death.

incidents of his rapine, the more his pension, the greater The laborer saves. You condemn his his renown.

You

wounds.

His family made paupers.

ignore his death.

made

pensioners. event of his death

They

are

are not If the

sufficiently dramatic you put him vaguely in the category of "ten men killed" in the dis play head of the daily papers. Then finis. The sol The laborer's dier's family reports at the treasury. is

That is as far along family reports at the poorhouse. But justice has not got far along. as justice has got. medieval ideals. Doubts itself. defers to still Justice was justice you would take off your hat to men. They patiently go into the ground to do you their perilous service. You would regard them with Their soiled hands and clothes would be reverence. come irradiant. You would pay the account. Gladly If justice

these

pay

it.

Every

cent.

These martyrs of

you and

in spite of themselves. 51

are martyrs in spite They are martyrs

CHANTS COMMUNAL Their martyrdom is not a mar and decorations. flummery tyrdom They can expect Not even good wages. nothing for their martyrdom. Not even the kind words of the master. Their mar tyrdom is lowest in form and highest in substance. Their martyrdom is a cry. You are deaf. A picture. because of themselves. of

You

It is a martyrdom that sleeps in a gar are blind. and winds up on the poorlist. It is a martyrdom of which history says nothing. It is a martyrdom that has to be satisfied with martyrdom. It gets no honors. The formal plaudits of the world go to the formal mar

ret

tyrdoms.

The

soldier reappears in salons, in halls of arms and on the arms of coats.

legislation, in coats of

But the laborer he passes into oblivion by the easiest and darkest way. You sun your soldiers. You shadow your laborers. Some men die that you may live. Some on scaffolds. Some on crosses. Some on battlefields.

Some

in tunnels.

Why should What

holy as the cross?

which removes

not the tunnel be as

there about the tunnel

from the prescriptions of your rever ence? You can understand Jesus on the cross. You can understand Savonarola, burned at the stake. You it

can understand John Ferry.

Why

do you

Brown, executed fail

understand

Harper's

this

somebody

I do not say that the cross and ? the stake and the scaffold have tricked you. But I do that the tunnel has Or that tricked say you. you have

sacrificed in the tunnel

tricked the tunnel.

For

you

fail

understand the

WHAT

THE

USE?

You affront the con tunnel you deny all martyrdom. the tunnel For of history. belongs to the cross tinuity by the same subtle chain of

faith that gives the cross

to the tunnel.

He died humbly crushed underneath a have brought him out of the ground. They His face is pale but satisfied. Your city of millions will not stay in its heavy round to regard his anonymous Yet this unknown man has saved your city. visage. But for him your city could not exist. All labor lies Come out of your there prostrate in his inert form. rock.

Leave your churches, all of you, and worship here. creeds behind. This is creed enough. Worship here.

Here

religion

WHAT IS

enough.

What

the. use?

That's so.

THE USE?

Why

should we prolong this fight? Is the not hopeless ? Do we not owe our family an im fight mediate debt ? What business of ours is the business of the future

Have we any

right to starve the pres

we not sharpen our knives and our wits and do what sanguinary execution we can with the conditions that exist? The Why past has given me an inheritance of struggle.

ent to feed the future

Why should

I not pass that inheritance on ? Why should I sweat and bleed and go hungry and cold for the sake

should

unborn

have suffered long enough. I have submitted to dispossession. I have seen robbery all about me and have not robbed. Why should I not of the

CHANTS COMMUNAL rob

robber

What I

but robbery can protect

against the

have wandered across the earth hungry with But what is the use of a conscience

conscience.

keeps me hungry ? The table is spread with I have refused to eat. Why ? I have doubt plenty. ed my title. Why should I doubt my title ? Why should I not make my grab ? The world does not admire the hungry man. It admires the man who has proved that he can confiscate. It admires fat necks and bulging bellies. It doffs to the overfed. Who is He is the man with two appetites and the overfed ? no conscience. He is the man who grows tired of ar guments over the rights and wrongs of history. There Nor is no right to a man who goes without his meal. So I is there any wrong to a man who has plenty. if

am to slice out my share of the universal patrimony. The priests have warned me off. The police have warned me off. The state, the church, the castes, have warned me off. But none of the warners get off them selves.

Why

should

get off

Why should I stay out Or go about in the cold clad only in a conscience ? with a stomach empty of everything but its conscience ? What is this nettle that pesters me ? I start into the

me am

want to swindle. It determined to take the roses holds me back. I from the cheeks of the children. Others do it. Why should I not do it ? But that nettlesome something or scramble.

holds

back.

WHAT

THE

USE?

me back. I thought if the night got very I could sneak a fortune out of some shadow. dark very But dark as it was my tormentor found and frustrated me. I thought if the day got very very light and the streets very very crowded I might successfully work a flush on the commercial world in the confusing dazzle and hurry. But I felt the sunbeams prick me off my other holds

suicidal design. I

Why Why should I not me.

have murder in me. I have theft in I not maim and kill the children ?

should

tax the first youth

and the

last

Why

old age

should I not extract my fellow beings ? the returns of toil the soul and sinew of reward? of

should

scruple in a world unscrupulous to see the man that I rob suffer ?

me hurt me

hurt it

a timid adventurer.

from

Why

Does

Why does Why should I

There is nothing if not do I went to work as villainy might villainy does works and cared as little for the grief of wronged men pioneer for love in an age of graft? I

and women and children as villainy cares. I am at I am hungry to be a cross purposes with myself. I am eager to rob. scoundrel.

Why should my faith be loafing round with Buddha and Jesus and Whit man and Morris when it might be busy cutting cou pons

poor ? For this world of the trespasser.

off the souls of the

world.

It is

the transgressor is velvet. at seven in the morning

When

coupon

The way

the factories whistle

the fleeced 55

return

the

CHANTS COMMUNAL The

fleecer.

The

land always

landlord

takes

sells

reverts

the

landlord.

you your own land each day and

back without pay before

The

nightfall.

har

vest reports to the owner instead of to the man. Civili zation reports everything in profits rather than in souls.

Why I

should

go back on civilization ? Why should odds with myself ? Why should I What can the future do for me ? I can

get civilization at

not conform ?

do everything for it. cannot reciprocate.

It stands

beyond.

My nest needs I

not feather

debts.

who work

Why in

Helpless.

can

make you pay

your expense ? should I let the chance

shop.

You who

Should

feathering. I

slip

scribble at

You, any of you, who honestly produce.

You desk.

You who

run the necessary errands. You who turn the neces I am too much disturbed by your mis sary wheels. eries. should I spoil my good dinner for think

Why

ing of your bad dinner

should I stay awake soul can settle the debts of

Why

nights wondering how my the poor ? Damn my soul.

Damn the poor. What business have the poor to their poverty anyway ? should I have a loss column on the other side of my

Why

ledger

The world is a world of profit. Why should not accept the standards of the profit-bearing world ? I know that profit is I know profits are not nice. For profit is theft. But theft cannot be wrong. the name of in God and proin the churches preached I

WHAT

THE

USE?

vided for in the legislatures in the name of the state. So profit must be right. How can I expect to survive if I

myself up against the laws of nature and the cus talk about love. But love is not ?

set

toms of man

intended for a world of competition. What can love do for a man who has got to hate all his neighbors to save himself from economic perdition ? What use can

What use has supply and love be put to in a musket ? demand for love ? I ask interest what it can do for love and interest replies

can do for me.

" :

The same

can destroy love."

thing that love I ask rent what

can do for love, and profit, too, and rent and profit can do for love what interest can do for answer "

love."

The

shed fool tears over the woes of the slave.

slave?

Who

the slave?

the slave.

The

bubble bursts.

go fast asleep as be from Everybody stealing somebody. Some steal from everybody. We live in a lawless world ded We worship the legislature and blas icated to law. pheme against gravitation. Justice is gravitation. But of what use is justice in a world of ambushes ? Let ambush Let me ambush some me, too, somebody. body in a sermon. Culture is an ambush. Theft en dows culture. Let me ambush somebody in a poem. I

honest.

Every

just as well

an ambush in a picture.

I will sing an a song. is an ambush. Every factory store is an ambush. God does not reign. Jus

will paint

ambush tice

might

does not govern.

Ambush 57

both reigns and gov-

CHANTS COMMUNAL What

erns.

makes the

that

America so deathly pale

mothers so quickly old? backs of the fathers? It has

ambushed

Why should I tential

that

makes

that

bends the

Our

ambush.

the

civilization

The

peoples are decoyed. undertake to resist a force so tragically po

your heart after them. heart

the peoples.

Throw your

children's faces in

What is What is

Throw

children to the ambush.

Of what use is

only in the way.

Give

hell a

the heart

Your

chance to

fire

and get a start. Ambush. Civilization does not say " Love one another." It says " Ambush one anoth

That is the path of safety. The most successful ambusher is regarded as the most civilized man. Am bush lest you be ambushed. Instead of " Do unto oth ers" read "Ambush others before you are ambushed er."

yourself."

tide

form.

I to be a jack and attempt to stem that have resisted long enough. Now let me con No one will buy my dreams. No one will buy

love. Let me coin my native clay and trick with hate the opportunities of the market. If the children die then I What have to do with any die. well, they

child not born

under

my own

roof?

The

reasons

why

children

There

themselves are a menace to each other.

are

the parents of every child should hate the

Why

should parents of every other child. inviting the scorn of the unregenerated ?

we go about I

give

up to the nearest stall. Take me. Buy me. me. For cash. For influence. For heaven. self

my Sell

For

WHO ARE SO VERY BIG

CIVILIZATION,

For anything. Take me. I am labeled and Take me. What is the use ? priced. hell.

YOU, CIVILIZA- You are a big thing, civilization. TION, WHO ARE But why should I be afraid to You are mak SO VERY BIG challenge you? You are full of a noise. loud swag and swagger. ing You are much too big for your size. You are much too little for your name. You have possessed yourself of the earth.

you

But why should

be afraid to challenge

Yes, civilization, you do wonderful things. You perform miracles. You invent marvels in mechanism.

You have

taken the material forces of the universe into

your confidence. You have done enough to have done more. You have failed in so much I wonder that you have succeeded in anything. I stand here with my I stand here with hat off loving your magnificence. shame. You, civilization, you my hat on hating your

with your loud words. big brute body.

You,

Why

you with your be afraid to challenge

civilization,

should

you?

Why should my Why

soul confess

judgment

to a

sky

should I admit that the biggest thing scraper ? can you produce in the world outside of my heart is one bit as great as that heart itself ? should J

Why

do not

why should not say so ? If I do not like its ways and means why should I amen it in my daily prayers ? Why should

flatter civilization

If I

like its face

CHANTS COMMUNAL I

go on monkeying the formula of the market ?

formula of the market

The

so big in acres and will sell for so many dollars, therefore civili zation is civilization. should I be scared when is

this

Civilization

Why

railroad against me apologize to the telephone

you quote the

ideals

big in my soul abase the world outside my soul ? that

Why should my Why should all

itself to all that is little in

That little all which knows no appeal beyond the stock exchange ? Why should I go on swearing the old oaths ? Why should I take the catch of secular culture and of the up phrases church and count them as the ark and covenant of eco nomic revelation ? I am willing to be your fool. I am But I will challenge willing to suffer your disdain. you, civilization. I

want

to ask

you why you have so

much money and are you how you can lock ries

and

call

I want to ask so very poor? the hungry outside your grana yourself civilized ? You have talked too

long about your manners and your miles. Civilization does not demand quantity. It demands quality. I am

not humbled when you certain size

you enjoy.

ble questions. a certain kind

you

demand live.

me how many incomes of a am barbed with uncomforta

tell

know how many

Until you

lives of

live all lives

the standard of the exceptional life your bond is void. Until every child is given a chance to enjoy childhood

without the fear of maturity. Until every parent is given a chance to enjoy maturity without the haunting 60

CIVILIZATION,

WHO ARE SO VERY BIG Are you, civilization, number of people who

dread of the master and of want.

doing anything to reduce the suffer your neglect ? Why are your lights so abnor white and mally your shadows so abnormally black? I do not see that any questions Tell me these things. And are answered until these questions are answered. I intend asking these questions until you have answered

them

in the spirit of a universal providence.

uncomfortable.

They

are bitter.

You

hate

They are them be

You hate me because they are the cause they hurt you. rebel progeny of my gestating dreams. Hate me. But I ask them. And you must answer them to the last letter.

You have But you must

expatriated the darling faith of the race.

home.

call it

not afraid to avow

myself against your show. I would give tons of show for an ounce of your substance. You think your that because you are big nothing can happen to you. But the big bad thing can have anything happen to it. all

And

even as to bigness.

How

big are you if you are an oppressor ? big are you if the most of men are afraid to go to bed at night because they suspect that you may play them some cowardly turn while they

How

sleep

How much

smaller than small

any immen

with justice left out ? How much bigger than big any atom whose miniature circle encloses justice ? I am not fooled when you pro Civilization is justice. the to magnificence of your private for fanely testify Civilization impeaches the private fortune. tunes. It

sity is

CHANTS COMMUNAL refuses to consider the individual

as conclusive in a

crowded world.

admit no private

deed.

mass

Civilization

acquiesce in no policy by which the is betrayed to the individual. I am not afraid of will

Civilization, the thing

civilization.

a brazen bastard civilization,

conceit.

huge

will

the world.

The world

call civilization,

came, avowing

itself in

came asking questions of

Civilization

I come asking questions of civilization. can as easily get rid of civilization as civili

me. You are a big thing, civiliza But you may break of your own mass. Only one thing can save you. Equity can save you. The poor man given enough can save you. Private become zation can get rid of tion.

public property can save you. The land reverted to the people can save you. Everything for all can save

Three thousand miles

you.

Nor

many

miles of sea.

can save you.

Free men.

Men ers

rejecting the owner.

and

fathers.

not save you. cations in

of land cannot save you. But a world of free men

Men

refusing ownership. Children born of free moth

The hovel can cannot save palace you. Nor va Nor cigars and wines and dinners

These can save you.

The

summer.

and dresses. Nor tennis. Nor ease and indulgence. For ease and indulgence are always enjoyed at someone else's

damn

expense. you.

These cannot save you. they

may

These may

be the evidence of your

dam

nation. I

asked you how big you were,

you handed

a pair of scales. 62

civilization, and But could any man

CIVILIZATION,

WHO ARE SO VERY BIG

by weighing anything find civilization ? You referred me to the astronomer. But the heavens sent me no

You referred me to the microscopist. But the me no news. But when you referred me to For the heart sent the heart, the heart sent me news. And with love was aroused in man the obscured love. For man has a right to splendors of his exiled faith. believe that he may exact a full return for the labor of And a full return is not property his hand and brain. news.

dust sent

but opportunity.

Man does not want property. He He does not ask civilization to and cents. He asks it to give him

wants opportunity.

pay him dollars

A man with a million

chances. is

dollars

and no chance

poor as the most abject serf. A man without a and with a chance is the acknowledged heir to

dollar

the utilities of the spheres. Civilization, you how to keep every dollar eternally shut.

all

learn

must learn how

must

You

keep every opportunity eternally a You are But until you open. big thing, civilization. have learned the lesson of the shut dollar and the open opportunity you will be big for bad rather than big for But you are good. You are a big thing, civilization. not big enough to survive the lock and bar of your

own

You are a big thing, civilization. proscriptions. is a cry going up from the heart of man that

But there is

bigger than the trebled syllables of your braggart

creed.

not

let

You you

are a big thing, civilization. But we will have satisfied the last call of you

rest until

the economic providences. 63

You may

stop

short of

CHANTS COMMUNAL your own demand.

But you cannot stop short of this accrued. You must pay. You from the But you cannot hide from hide sun. may this intimate call of the equities. You, civilization,

who

word.

last

The

debt

are so very big.

THERE IS

There

NO ESCAPE to civilization.

no escape

got to report. Civilization is

You have

for you.

You have got

to report

asking you questions

which you must answer. You with your millions. You with your thousands. You with your dollar. You have got to report. Civilization is examining its dol It is trying

lars. is

every dollar by a test of justice.

going back of the reputation of the dollar to the char the

acter of sition.

dollar.

It is granting

no exceptions.

The

You

soul

no concessions.

It is

making

Property has got to report to the soul.

is civilization.

We dollar clean.

cannot escape the inqui

We will wash

are going to and wash until

dollar

dollar.

wash every

Every suspect every hands of Lady Macbeth. Property

as the

and mixed with cruelty.

We must

it is

clean.

bloody

tangled

make property hu

Property now starves one to feed another. will have property starve none and feed all. not permit one item of value to escape unscrutinized.

man.

will

We will subject dictment.

The

possession to the most drastic in first dollar of the poor, the last dollar all

of the rich, the stolen dollar of the thief, the prayed 64

THERE

NO ESCAPE

dollar of the anchorite, the soiled dollar of the prosti must all come to the

tute, the virgin dollar of virtue,

same

bar,

must

all

be justified in the same court, must

confess judgment to the same tribunal of the heart. There is no escape. You think that you can dodge with all

your dollars round the chairs of professors

You

or of editors in sanctums.

think that

in colleges if

you can

put your dollars into the prayers of the priest all will be You think that if the poet will rhyme your forgiven. dollars, that if the singer will sing your dollars, that if the painter will paint your dollars, your dollars may es But after the rhyme has cape the perilous questions.

been rhymed, after the song has been sung, after the picture has been painted, after the cherished silences have convened, the question still remains, interrogating, forever interrogating, your fortressed fortunes.

Every time an injustice appears in a world every dollar in that world must turn back to the heart to report. Some

may be sanctioned. Some may be condemned. Some may be forgiven. But all must report. Every

dollars

must report to the pale face of the Every dollar must report to the overworked men and women. Every dollar must re port to the tenements. Every dollar must report to the table without food. Every dollar must report to labor. dollar must turn back to the heart suing Every for permission to live. But for labor no dollar can ex ist. But for the consent of labor no dollar can loaf. dollar in the world

child of the courts.

CHANTS COMMUNAL But

no dollar can yacht or dine or jewel itself There is no escape. You have enjoyed your extras. Now they are being called in. Labor is finding that it has been too generous. for labor

in the leisure of exploitation.

It is wondering why it should fatten you with plenty and starve itself. It has been comparing the rosy

cheeks of your children with the pale faces of its own It has been first asking itself a few questions. darlings.

Now

asking the same questions of you.

It asks

you to report on yourself. It demands that reasons for your superior increments.

you give

it is

Why

they continue

What

are

What

you doing

should

did you ever do to create them

to give

them

vitality

It calls

you

indulgences. What can you say for plea of exemption or incompetency will

home from your yourself ? be allowed.

No No

proxy will be recognized. No coun put in an appearance. The court is convened to hear you, sick or well. You must answer in the first person. You must plead. This is a court which palliates no default. You dare not pettifog sel.

You must

You must set up a defence. You must case. come here with every dollar and justify its genesis. For this is the court of the industrial democracy. This is the rallying spot of the verities. Every dollar must your

be checked off with justice. Every dollar that justice Here cannot check is forfeited. Here you are called. listen. you must come. Speak.

Your

And

your fortunes are so big. 66

the heart

cities is

and

so small.

THERE Yet your

NO ESCAPE

and your fortunes must win the acqui

cities

escence of the heart.

With

the favors of the heart,

which are the favors of justice, withdrawn, your cities Dare are depopulated and your fortunes are ciphered.

you

call a city

single

without heart big

humble man

full of

Dare you call any ? Come, now,

heart small

Look us hear what you have to say for yourself. labor in the face and tell it the truth about yourself. let

Labor has been very decent with you.

It has tolerated

your inroads for a long time. It has never flatly re sented your incursions. You have built up kingdoms

and plutocracies on the back of charged the costs

culture

labor.

You

have

Every

col

The avenues of lege represents an enforced tribute. has labor initiated leisure which you have enjoyed.

You

have charged labor every sort of toll on the very roads which but for labor would never have been

Now

labor has seen with at least one eye, heard with at least one ear and questions with at least

broken.

What have you got to say for yourself ? no escape. Labor is not going to borrow the weapons of earthquakes and waterspouts. It is simply going to swarm on its own roads, occupy its own home steads, enjoy its own pleasures, work out the measure and shape of its own will, and leave you to fall in line in the one way that will secure you against annihilation. Labor is not going to destroy anything. It is not go It is going to use everything. ing to destroy even you. one

lip.

There

CHANTS COMMUNAL It is

Labor does not say you are Labor says you are useful. And to prove

going to use you.

useless.

you against yourself labor is going to make use of you. Labor is not going to let you loaf any longer. For la bor has decreed that the loafer shall not loaf. Only the worker shall loaf. Labor says that when you have earned your loaf you shall have it. But you may no longer loaf on the earnings of others. Labor believes that you are deaf and blind. It believes that you have

not heard the cries or seen the wretched tenements of

Labor believes that if you knew from what your surfeiting usufruct was derived you would refuse its gifts. So labor will instruct you. The best instruc the poor.

tion for

any doubter

work.

He who

knows what work may mean and what There is no escape.

Come now, you

does work is

its

due.

with your yachts

and your perfumes, you with your margins and priori ties, you with your lorded lands and palaces. Come, dollars. them. Do not Explain bringing along your You will be required to ex leave one dollar behind. This is a court of last resort. You plain them all. have escaped other tribunals. Here is the everlasting eye.

Here

the everlasting ear. Yes, here is the Call it labor. Call it justice. Call

everlasting heart.

This is I do not care what you call it. it civilization. where the beginningless God begins and the endless God ends. This sacred enclosure, this holy open. This valley of interrogation, this hilltop of question. 68

IF Here at last

JUSTICE

IMPOSSIBLE

the long enchained labor of the world stands free

demanding your

IF JUS TICK IS

There

report.

Impossible

no escape.

Why is it impossible

IMPOSSIBLE Why must you surrender without a fight? You have fought? Yes. But you have not fought enough. Do you mean to say that the big fortunes

scare

They should

you?

not

scare

you.

You

talk of the impossi They should inspire you. What is impossible to the soul ? As long as the ble.

soul itself

possible anything

Does Morgan seem too big

The

smallest soul

too big for the soul. and outsize the biggest fortune. that you carry vicarious burdens.

robbed and despised.

And that

But

the soul all

possible to the soul.

for the soul

Nothing is must outclass

I know know that you are

Come, now. I

But you have the soul left. and invulnerable. I know

is invariable

booty cannot save civilization. your soul can save civilization. I ap

Rockefeller's

know

that

peal to your soul.

Impossible possible

If justice is

Was

impossible

your mother im

how

did

happen

you were possible ? Do you mean to tell me that when Parry talks the weapons drop out of your hands ? Do you mean to tell me that when Carnegie that

down ? Do you when Morgan buys a picture the Do you mean to tell face of your ideal is clouded ? me that you confess bankruptcy when Rockefeller talks

gives away a library your pulse goes

mean

to tell

that

CHANTS COMMUNAL What do you mean when you speak of the impossible ? Anything is possible to a man with jus tice in his heart. The arrogant personal fortunes have religion

been possible only because you are sterile. But the instant you fructify the confusing mists will dissipate. The beneficiaries tremble. They exist by your yes. you say no they resign. Your will has been their

When

Your will becomes your own way.

way.

has dallied

Let the impossible be sacrificially will of man. Then no for come the possible in the tune will be a menace. Then no fortune will be sworn with the impossible.

to the welfare of the castes.

The

this is

impossible It is

possible.

everything, then.

Justice

Your whole

possible. is

not possible

your

Is life possible

For

possible.

with the

justice

Very

is life.

well,

Justice

and crawl ? Are possible and that honesty Are you to go back to your heart,

Are you

to concede that theft

business

your business to assume that anything,

immortality.

you

impossible destroys.

Impossible? What is possible if What have you got to do with the

impossible, anyway

The

possible saves.

to cringe

and concede the contention of the ex You have soul enough to dream of justice.

soul,

ploiter?

Have you

not soul enough to live justice

When

the

dear dreams of men become the one dream of man what becomes of the impossible ? You admit that in But you say that justice is impos justice is possible. Do you say that disease is possible and that sible. 70

health

JUSTICE

You admit

impossible

IMPOSSIBLE

that property for the

But you say that property for Do you say that an eclipse is possi all is impossible. You admit that ble and that the sun is impossible ? work the egoist is possible. But you say that work individual

the altruist

possible.

of the tree

impossible

Do you say that the foliage that the root of the tree is and possible

impossible.

Impossible

Before the trade union the

trade union was impossible. the trade union the thing that

union

morning

that

come

you have

after the trade

Why

should you say that the impossible because the night is tired ?

impossible. is

And now

Why should you toast your enemy as possible and set yourself aside as impossible ? The impossible is burial. The impossible builds possible is resurrection. no sinew. The impossible sets no table, smooths no The

bed, raises no children. The impossible The possible is reverence.

Impossible?

the impossible in place of

God?

blasphemy.

you put you remove

gravitation from its throne in the universe and substi will tute the impossible ? you say of birth :

have the impossible? Do like a stranger with the possible and feel at

have no more birth, we

you

feel

home

will

Do the bitter thing. The The thing necessary whatever that thing The impossible thing. The world is always Impossible. But why should you take your

with the impossible ?

sweet thing.

may

be.

saying:

CHANTS COMMUNAL cue from the world and say

Impossible

We are

are every year ducing the area of the impossible. surprising the protest of the world with new conquests. explore the unexplorable. outtelescope the

We below miniatures the last reductions We see telescope. of the microscope. We revise the codes The possi We

ble

always knocking at the door of the impossible

and refusing

to be refused.

Impossible lieve

it.

It will

not be

The same power that makes private property to make a better than private property pos The same law that injustice invokes we invoke.

possible sible.

not come right until

we invoke

right.

But when

we invoke of

its

it right nothing can prevent the enforcement You may work on while you are being decrees.

served.

But you And you is

You may work on while you

The

impossible is opposed to gravita^ impossible breaks the strings of your harp.

impossible-

tion.

are being robbed.

hope on, believe on, while you work. will see that to the man who works nothing

will

The

impossible shreds and patches your unstable vir The impossible is hell. The possible is heaven. tues.

The impossible is

sterile.

The

possible

is fertile.

you and leaves you for dead. possible perpetually waters you at the root. impossible starves

The The

Impossible

are to look the universe straight in the eye and For if justice in the find the whole universe possible. is universe impossible how can you be sure of the uni72

LOOK DEFEAT FULL

verse

THE FACE

You

are going to talk to the people about their But how can you talk to the people of the im

welfare.

possible

You who

talk to the people of the impos people that the universe is

as well say to the

sible

might dead and that the universe has forgotten the people in

its will.

LOOK DE-

So you have

FEA T FULL IN THE FACE

sorry for you.

loom

You

again.

your strike. I am You are back at your You have bowed to

lost

back with your bitter silent with your sore heart. You back thoughts. who are defeated. You whom the masters have whipped into your black stalls. You, the slave workers of the world. You, the master workers of the world. But the inevitable.

You

are

who

But the says you are defeated ? Your masters ? of is word not defeat. Or do you say your masters If you say you are defeated that you are defeated? If you say you are defeated then you are defeated. then I see your bare backs and I hear the whip whistle

and

see the blood flow.

defeated then

you

see

are defeated

you

safe

You

will

But if you say you are not from any blow. Who says

never hear me say that you are defeated, dear comrades. You may make conces But I will make no concessions. Do you think sions. that when I look at your children I can make conces Do you think I could look the sun in the face sions ? and make concessions ? Could I admit the light of the 73

CHANTS COMMUNAL sun and not admit the light of the soul ? Do you think I could admit that your masters can forever fatten and that the slaves of your masters can forever thin ? Do can admit that the crops will come year and that justice will not come ? I admit nothing but man. I admit nothing but man's work. I admit nothing but justice. Do you think I can ad mit hunger and cannot admit surfeit ? Do you think I admit the factory entrance and do not admit the fac Do you think I can admit that slavery can tory exit ? come and that release from slavery cannot come ? I concede nothing. I look defeat full in the face and concede nothing. If I conceded defeat I would con cede eclipse. I would concede death. I do not concede death. Nor do I concede defeat.

you think

after year

I know the worst that be made to mean. I do not concede But may I have seen all the ugliness of defeat. defeat. The

defeat

hunger and thirst of defeat. The chill, the cold, of de t have seen defeat take the pictures off feat, your Take the music out of your house. Take the walls. hope out of your heart. Still I do not concede defeat. Defeat brings you your landlord grown a

little

bigger.

more ex you your moneylord grown It puts still more poison at the sources of life. a

It brings

acting. It fills the

little

world with watchers, monitors, censors, taxusurers. Yet I do not admit defeat. and gatherers How could I admit defeat? If I admitted defeat I might as well draw my last cent from the bank and 74

LOOK DEFEAT FULL IN THE FACE

throw it away. I might as well wipe out the bank. If I admit defeat I might as well go out on your fields and destroy your harvests. What is the use of any thing if any concessions are made to defeat ? Dare you go home to-night and tell your hungry children and overworked wives that you are defeated ? Dare you go back to your loom to-morrow and tell that dumb instrument that you are defeated ? Do you have any notion what defeat means ? Cut your throat with a But do not admit that you are defeated. Jump knife. But do not admit that you are defeated. into the river.

Better than that.

not cut your throat.

not

Stay where you are, starve where jump not admit defeat. do Victories are not but you are, into the river.

sums feats. is

total of victories.

Victories are

A defeat admitted

sums

a burial.

de defeat denied total of

a resurrection.

Your masters have sent you to bed Will you get up to-morrow morning defi whipped. ant ? Your temporary report is made to defeat. Your You asked for ten per final report is made to victory. You asked for nine hours. You asked for some cent. thing. little

You

That

got nothing.

stiffening of the fiber.

is,

And

nothing except a you think you

were licked. But I tell you that strengthening of the fiber is worth more to you than ten per cent or than nine hours. Defeat ? This world is your world. But you have thrown away the title. And no admitted de feat will pick up that title for you again. But the de75

CHANTS COMMUNAL feats that

you

will

not admit

will in the

hour of your

You riper courage return you your rejected heritage. have gone back to your factories admitting that your title is forever lost or that it never existed. Your mast and champagne your defeat up the ecstasies of proprietorial intoxication. Is your Is their club victory for factory defeat for good? ? Will looms good your go on forever weaving a tale of your sorrow ? Will this too little money that maims ers

go back

to their clubs

the worker, will this too much money that maims the boss, go on forever passing its coin across the counters Is this world to be confirmed as a world of

of injustice

barter and

bond ?

Is this

world to be forever a world

What can you do to remove the elements of disaster ? The private fortune is a testimony of dis weave in your loom the dreams of social You aster. of shock

Chaos enslaves you to the loom. Order will plan your escape. Only when you go to the loom be cause you want to rather than because you must will that loom with your soul render to society its untrammeled due. Have you returned to your loom admit The loom may bring you wreck. The ting chaos ? loom that weaves defeat. The loom may bring you order.

sunshine.

The

loom, your soul, that

will

not concede

defeat.

Defeat is not loss. It is is nothing. a a a pause, consultation, anything, but it is not a rest,

Defeat

Defeat only becomes loss when you hand it To admit deto your competitor with an apology.

loss.

LOOK DEFEAT FULL IN THE FACE shame in your fight. But to deny renew battle. I concede nothing. Not a If I conceded anything I would be recreant to by which I live. No man, no power, can de

feat is to confess

defeat

cipher. the faith

me. I can defeat myself. Nothing can defeat but myself. The master cannot defeat me. But the master can defeat himself. And every time the master violates the canons of generosity and justice he He may feed till he bursts. He is defeats himself. feat

still

defeated.

No man

But any man can

can

defeat any

other man.

defeat himself.

not admit defeat,

Do not feel discouraged. I saw you yester crawl back to your loom. You were loth to go. day brother.

Because you had hoped that when you went back to your loom you would take justice with you. But you Do not weep, brother. went back without justice. You went back without justice. But you did not go back without faith. I will not believe that you went back without faith. And it is better to go back hun gry with faith than to go back fatfed without faith. And as long as you do not sign your soul away in a sur render of admitted defeat you have that soul left for fu ture contingencies. are building right.

You are building You are tired.

slow. 1

put

But you arms

about you. I cry to you with a strong voice. I cry to you with a heart that is stronger than my voice. I cry to you with a faith that is equal to any defeat. Do you not feel me near? Do you not feel my sustaining 77

CHANTS COMMUNAL touch

know

tremendous power

breaking loose buoys you up power yours, mine, mys against disaster and defeat. Do you not feel terious, overwhelming, magnificent. it about you now in my strong arms as I embrace you ? Do you not feel it now in my lips as I kiss you ? I

within me.

A power

not

my own

that

OF ONE PROFIT

AND LOSS

Everybody belongs

Nobody

to something.

a loose thread.

You belong to every You belong to his to you.

body can repeal the universe. man.

Every man belongs

History belongs to you. Do you dare come to Have you any boasting of your individual rights ?

tory.

Has anybody else right that belongs to you alone? he which individual may use against your right any welfare ? The social chain is continuous. It is end less.

melted again to gas.

No man

can es

The

universe can escape no man. If I could anywhere impeach the continuity of history, the dependence of one life on another, the whole fabric

cape the universe.

would fall to pieces. If you could in any the independence of a single atom in demonstrate way the physical world, all the globes of space would fall of society

They all hang together. Or they are all to The law of the universe is not the wrecked. gether Men belong to law of one. It is the law of all. Labors Values belong to belong together. gether. Products belong together. Labor should not gether. be quoted against labor. Value should not be rated asunder.

OF ONE PROFIT AND LOSS against value.

The

result.

Result should not be inverted against economic world belongs to unity. It be

harmony. Legitimate discord in any one of strings and the perfection of its melody is annulled. All things in the economic world belong to all men. No thing in the economic world belongs to any man. longs to its

It is better to to get man free of property. man. do not in either free of Yet you get property case get the one free of the other by separating one It is

good

from the other.

You

them

free

by confederating For the line from autonomy. man to property and back again from property to man must nowhere be broken or even mended. It must be

them

get

a mysterious

able to evocate an infallible succession.

life

lived alone

What

You

What is your income ? hermited your But how can you speak of

use that word society. society if you live alone in a palace in plenty and sur feit while other men live in huts and starve ? How can you speak of society if you contrive to separate your welfare from the welfare of the tramp ? If you

can anywhere break the line that leads from you to the starveling, from your million to my cent, you have de stroyed society.

That enemy in fragments.

There the

The

only one

enemy

of society.

man who would

perpetuate society heart does not legislate for good

and bad, for inferior and superior. It legislates for man. It does not legislate for exceptions. It legis lates for the rule. The heart knows no exceptions. 79

CHANTS COMMUNAL The

heart sees to the edge of every crowd. It con man as well as of the first.

siders the interest of the last

You You

dare to say society and starve any of its children ? dare to say society while you see so many over

shadowed

faces in the

world

What does

society

mean

No individual profit is honest. you profit? Social profit alone is honest. No gain can come to the

Your

Gain can only come to the Gain for one is defeat even for that one.

individual alone.

whole. for

all is

with you

social

Gain

You ask me to sympathize the only victory. when your stocks have gone down. Or when

your mill yields you less profit. Or when your store is empty. Or when no editor will buy your articles. Or when your land has lorded you off the earth. But why should I sympathize with you ? I could not sym pathize with you without sympathizing against others. That would be blasphemy. Every personal loss is so I cial gain. I want you to worry over your losses. I see what they mean. will not worry over your losses. You do not see what they mean. When you do see you will no longer worry. In the day when the person suffers his final loss, when the last atom of his property slips away, social chaos will have become social order, and no man will worry over the comings and goings of values.

You

delude yourself.

You

think your good

You clothes have nothing to do with my patches. think your rich meal has nothing to do with my poor grub. You think your overfat has nothing to do with

underthin.

You

think that heaven has nothing to 80

THAT YOU WILL CALL OUT LOUD do with hell. You arc wrong. You can never cut one You imagine you could somehow loose from the other. balance yourself on the piece of a globe ? That you could float the stars in angles ? You must not cheat yourself with a solar counterfeit. dustrial experiments against fire.

You are playing in You are staking prop

by which

it has been evoked. That have to tried why you separate the he producer from the thing produces. You have tried to round a world of contradictions. You have cut two to run in and tried it with their half your globe circumferences in collision. You have tried to show that the healthy child you have raised in your suburban home has nothing to do with the sickly child I have raised down town on food and air too little and too

erty against the law will

poor to sustain is

You

fail.

life.

But

I tell

that that sick child

you

the other half of that well child.

And

that they have And that

got to live together as parts of each other. neither one can be well alone or sick alone. got to

make

those two lives one

You

life.

You have have got to

rescue those two lives from contrast and restore

them

You cannot

send one to hell and the other to heaven and expect either of them to be saved. to likeness.

SWEAR THAT YOU WILL CALL OUT LOUD concede there. true and false.

Swear! you.

That Swear!

what

say to

not say yes not yield here and

and no. Do Do not admit that your case is both Insist upon your case. Grant its faults. 81

CHANTS COMMUNAL Still insist

upon

it.

The

not apologize for your

faulty

failures.

need not be

false.

not suffer shame

for your mistakes. Do not worry over your bad judg ment. Desert anything else. Stick to yourself. Swear that you will stick to yourself. Swear You have ene mies wherever you look. You are tempted. You are paid to conform. The conventional world offers you the bribe of its velvet. The world offers you ease and Do want ease and place ? Or do you want place. you Swear that you want yourself. That you yourself? want your idea. That ease and comfort are all very !

But

well.

fortable

that

something

else not so easy

Swear! are just the

you

not burden

Take

not

tell

yourself that

same man going

foul as going fair. with the of others. consciences yourself

care of your

hard task.

and com

better.

own

It is the

conscience. Of course this is a very hardest task there is. Just

your idea. To stick to it through the muck and slander of every day. To stick to it after every body has gone to bed. To stick to it before anybody is up in the morning. It is a hard job. It is hard to stick to

work

for a

man

to dig

down

no other way of getting

to his

there.

own

And

root.

There

to get there

Or to try to get there. But to make no effort to Swear Swear that you will get get there is death. into good terms with yourself. Swear that whatever life.

occur to alienate you from your fellows that noth Swear ing can occur to alienate you from yourself.

may

THAT YOU WILL CALL OUT LOUD that

you

will

not subject your unlettered ideals to the

thirty-nine articles of an effete social creed. Swear that nothing will persuade you to ignore the pale faces of

men and women and

the that

you

Swear

Not

a piece

out loud for

will call

Not

children of overwork. justice.

and anything that hap the Not to-morrow. justice of any other man. pens own best of dream. Swear Swear But the justice your Swear of justice.

justice to-day

am tired of halfway s. I am tired of jobs left I am tired of sym I am tired of apologists. of tired I am diplomacy. I have tried all. pathizers. I

undone.

have gone to bed sick at heart with have got up next day with the same Now I swear that I will key my faith to sick heart. I will not look right or left. I will look, a firmer note. I swear that I do not wish I will live, straight ahead. I swear to see anything else until I have seen this. that all else is useless until this has been made useful. I have postponed my I have dallied with luxuries. I have taken counsel of riches. I have given soul. honors to position. I have taken the boss at his word. Now I swear that I want no riches and none of the at And I will not take the boss at his tentions of riches. word. I will not take tyranny at its word. I will take only the free man at his word. Only freedom at its word. I would rather have a whole-hearted enemy All have failed. all

their failures.

than a half-hearted friend.

bad idea with

all

would rather entertain a

heart than a 83

good idea with

half

CHANTS COMMUNAL my

heart.

would rather

that capital was

all

right

and

wrong than that labor should compromise with half a claim for the sake of peace. I would rather have labor

all

world

full

of honest tyrants than a world full of dis I would rather have strength than

honest courtiers.

weakness even if all the strength was in the other camp. I want to get rid of all my weak allies. I want to get I want to know what rid of all the weakness in myself. I can depend on, in you and in myself. I would rather I have you but few, would rather have myself but few, and have your few and my few firm, than have a lot of you and a lot of myself gone to pulp in palsying con cessions.

Swear

Look nals.

in yourself.

You may

are a signal.

children factory.

Do not look in the heavens for stars. Do not worry looking about for sig

be your

own

Your poor wages

signal.

Your wife housekept in slavery. youth is left to die at the doorsill of a

Your

whose These may be your

signals.

The

children of

The children whose future is given the rejected mass. The who come and go in the gut children to disease. These may tered and alleyed barbarism of the towns. The neglected streets of the city. signals. sordid soiled mills. The too early in the morn

be your

The

workman. The too late These may be your signals. ing

in the evening

The

storms

workman.

may come.

Rain in floods. Wind in tempests fiercely malignant. But your signals are undisturbed. They are earthed and skyed in your heart. Other signals go out. These re84

THAT YOU WILL CALL OUT LOUD main.

Injustice

Treachery

signal.

Every overloaded feast is a signal. Every empty table is a signal. Every sunrise is a signal. Every sunset is a signal.

The world may

may wanton

with your

remain sound

eclipse its

own

ideals.

own hope.

But

as long as

at the root the signals are safe.

sacred signals. The signals that outbible bibles. Immortal signals. signals that outchrist christs. nals rendering

dreams true in

life

You you

The The Sig

and making life true

dreams.

You have yielded often enough. You I now the beliefs of others long enough. have believed I now call on call on you to believe your own beliefs. Swear

You have been issue. Because little things have gone wrong you have admitted that the big thing may not be Because the enemy was capable of making a right. noise you have kept silent. Now I summon you big Talk out loud. Talk out not only for to talk out. those who may be willing to hear but for those who do Do not give away all the first and not wish to hear. for yourself. them last words. Keep Especially the Do not say yes because you may hurt the last words. feelings of some man dead or some man unborn if you Do not try to be pleasant. Try to be true. say no. No one will ultimately thank you for your sycophancy. Every one will ultimately thank you for the truth. Let us warn the other side. From this day we concede you

to stake

all

on the premier

too easily led astray.

nothing.

From

this

day we 85

will hide, hinder, scatter,

CHANTS COMMUNAL no chapter of the tale. Everything shall be And in words that do not beg. In words down. put The task is too big and too sacred that hit and bite. to be frittered away in the overwrought etiquette of the Let us fight the rest of this fight right on the courts. There must no more be an up or down, a right level. Our or left. We will remain on the common road. Swear fight is the fight for the common road. obliterate

WHAT IS ALL

What

THE NOISE ABOUT?

you think we make

all

the noise about? this big

because we love noise

noise

itself?

do not love noise any better than you do, dear masters. But we love certain things which a noise big enough may bring to pass. That is why we make the noise. That is why we are getting a big noise now. Dear mas You stuff ters, you hear this noise wherever you go. Your hear the noise. You sleep may be your ears. very deep. Deeper than the soundings of seas. But this noise

very loud.

It is

You may make your But

of trade.

louder than the deepest sleep. lusty with the counter noise

life

this other noise that

outnoises your noise.

This noise

you do not

a noise for

even

How

could are sorry for you. are so sorry for we help being sorry for you? you that we are almost tempted to be quiet. But we the deaf to hear.

are so noise.

much

sorrier for ourselves that

Listen, dear masters.

our noise

Does

we must make

What do you

the

think of

grind and grumble in your ears 86

WHAT

ALL THE NOISE ABOUT?

Docs it lack the beauty and mellifluousness of harmo numbers ? Does it cross and clamber and clatter and crash against your tympanums. What do you

nic

? This noise so shameless. This This noise so without sense of pro portion and place. This noise of the common. This noise of every day. This noise of the high road.

think of our noise noise so blatant.

You be invaded, dear masters. You sit at noise breaks in. You have your table this and your

do not

like to

But the noise

concerts and soirees.

music and the

What

chatter.

does

is it

noisier than the

mean

The noise is place sacred against its irreverence ? Your fortune is a and this noise temple blasphemy. breaks in on

When

worship this noise violates your silence. You could not even go into your closet and be alone with God. This noise would get in too. This noise that is God. You won der. Through every chink and keyhole, through even it.

you attempt

the solids themselves, this noise imperturbably presses decree. I am sorry for you, dear masters. I am

its

far

Because

do I

not.

sorry for

you than you

sorry for you that

what pale and forlorn.

are for yourselves.

know what is going to happen to you. You But I am so much gladder for the rest than

the noise

do not want

you dread.

to listen.

who deaden themselves

my sorrow for you some

find

go about intruding, 1

make people

listen

who who

talk louder than ever to those

against

my intervention.

CHANTS COMMUNAL the sort of noise that does not

come

to say pleasant

come

to disappoint your temporary moods. things. I am determined to shake up those who are satisfied I

with themselves.

know

You

The

time

will arrive

that silence about the truth

will

know

civilization.

when you

not

civilization.

that a noise about the truth

am making

that noise.

will

the best

am not mak may be. I am I

ing the noise as ugly as such a noise making it as ugly as such a noise must be.

come

your church and interrupt the serene platitudes of I enter your editorial rooms and make the sermon. I inter it hard for you to dictate your paid opinions. into

lude harshly

upon

the ruffled verbalisms of the courts.

have supposed I was many things. And you have invented many words to describe me. Yes, even words to curse me. But I am all one noise. One word would describe me. I strike the note of discon

You

tent.

When

you hear

me you may know you

are in

the presence of rebellion.

Dear masters, you

are

doing

everything you know how to suppress me. You try You try the law. You persuasion. You try threat. You increase try injunction. your armies and navies. You cajole the courts. But all these are subterfuges.

These do not touch the nerve. So you find that our goes on increasing. You wonder. You try You throw a library at me. You come for charity. noise

me But

with a hospital. You uppercut me with a college. I remain unharmed. You discuss, this mystifying 88

WHAT

ALL THE NOISE ABOUT?

You ask the church to reply to my The church points to its creed. You ask the The state points to its po state to reply to my noise. You ask society to reply to my noise. Society lice. But how can my noise be replied points to its parlors. phenomenon.

noise.

from which it is a revolt? My noise can By surrender. Flat only be replied to in one way. Sur tery will not reply. Vituperation will not reply. to

by the

evil

render alone

will reply.

Do that this noise

part of me. to you. It

you think, dear masters,

only a noise ? The noise is the least alone would not be dangerous

My noise is

the silence back of the noise that

gerous to you.

dan

think that something in your blood

not in your brain tells you this. The symptoms disturb you some. But the fact will disturb you more. I do not love a noise any better than you do. Or a fight. Or to excite ill will. Or to seem to be if

may

taking any pleasure out of another's of my noise is the law of the heart. the humanities.

would

die.

life.

But the law

It is the

law of

my noise stopped the popular hope noise ceased you would have every

thing your own way.

This would not be good for you. for us. Just as bad as it would be for us to have everything our own way.. So we are noising about the world in order to even up the con trasts. Hear me. Even up. Not even down. That is what our noise came for. That is what must hap pen before our noise disappears. We do not intend

And

would be bad

CHANTS COMMUNAL to perpetuate the noise. We are only to keep up as We will gladly stop the noise necessary. long as it

it is

when

the cause stops.

Gladly.

Watch and

see.

Remember, dear

masters, that you cannot crucify on any cross. This noise has come into the world to save your souls. It may sleep. But it will not die. You may think it gone. But it will always return to worry you. Tyranny hates this noise. This noise is the one thing which makes it impossible for in This justice to granary the harvest of its perfidies. this noise

noise, dear masters,

going to save you in spite of It is not going to save you because you yourselves. Or because anyone alone alone would be worth saving. would be worth saving. But because the race is worth is

And this noise will save the race. You will saving. find that no one man is secure until all are secure with him. justice will

For money will not make you secure. Only make you secure. And this noise that to

day so puzzles and often so enrages you is justice. And justice will save your soul. I bring you a great You masters. dear noise, point your telescopes to heaven. But no telescope could divulge to you the se Do not expect me to be kind to cret of my noise. I am only just. I am neither kind nor harsh. you. I

not the noise of revenge.

procity.

other side.

am I

the noise of reci

neither for any one side nor for any noise is not a noise am for all.

WHAT

ALL THE NOISE ABOUT?

anybody to repentance. It is a noise reminding everybody of salvation. My noise is the one way of I am the voice and matter of the commune. salvation. You I am the cry and silence of the universal life. not them vain if for me. cities in do build build you I am the clamor of the underman. How can you build not on me I am ? the rebel famine is overman if your calling

suing its bulletin of warning. consciousness of its splendor.

labor

my noise you find Labor has too long taken

labor at last honoring itself. itself at your estimate.

Now labor is lifted to

of an adequate self-respect.

noise means.

That

to a

grown

the realm

That, dear masters,

what

noise means,

matter in what form or phrase it comes. Do not mis take me. That noise is a symptom and symbol of res urrection.

have trailed myself laboriously in

all

the ages through the phrases of the parleyers with words,

But

have found that words are only

when they report back to again and ask for orders : who am love am the only life,

loyal life

And I And therefore words must report back to me forever for their consequent realities.

CHANTS COMMUNAL Man is reckless of man The man is wasted in the child, The child is wasted in the man. :

do not revolt at your waste of goods, your waste of men waste all the goods of the earth if you would but save your

I revolt at

You might men

The

best of your goods are infinitely useless,

The

worst of your

men

are infinitely

precious.

You

call

upon me

of your I call

men

upon you

honor the work

to first of all honor

your men. I

acquiesce in your biggest claims, and then make a claim haughtier than all the rest

The

claim of the wasted restoration.

man

for

AND THE HEART OF THE MATTER IS HEART

You You

have passed in all the collaterals of love but where is love ? have brought me love's dresses and love's habits and love's alphabets but have not brought me love,

You make wars and bring me wars and call wars love, You rob men of their hope and serve up their hope at

your table to blind

guests and call your robbery love, You cut loose into classes and prey one class on another and call your preyscathe love :

But love brought So

who am

to love in

ways so profane

scars the intent of

love will not receive love so tributed with crime

Love so seamed and sored

will not

pay love's debt.

worship :

CHANTS COMMUNAL

AND THE HEART OF

And

the heart of the matter

heart.

Every other thing in the world must be TTER put aside until the question of social jusTHE tice is answered. IS The things that you to church to hear about must be The things go put aside. that the schools teach must be put aside. The things that the That the That the philosophers painters paint. poets sing. and metaphysicians dabble with. All must be put aside until the question of social justice is answered. The church stands with its lips shut and its tongue in its cheek. The do not The orators substitute They poets rhyme. sing. Governments make for law at the expense gesture for faith. All the institutions have become supreme artificers of life. in deceit. The colleges are awed into treachery by their en dowments. Nothing is left but your voice. But my voice. The voice of the unlisted and the non-elect. Will you speak ? Will I speak ? The question must be answered. Must be For until it is usefully answered every other first answered. be will useless. Unless it is answered and answered thing with the one answer of righteousness any other question will

HEART

No array of languishing No flamboyant exhibit of art. No hideous phal anx of smoky machinery. No crowding of the palaces and rookeries of cities. No gathering of the lackeys and lacquers No appeal from the masses poor to the classes of fashion.

finally

become unanswerable.

beauty.

Will avail as long as the Nothing. remains For the foundations unanswered. primary question are not set rock. of your buildings upon They are set upon rich.

justice.

Nothing.

Else there are no foundations. 94

And

the founda-

HEART OF THE MATTER t'wns of art

HEART

are not in skill or beauty or any superficial trick

They are in justice. Else ery or fantastic sleight of hand. I am tired of hearing the noise there are no foundations. 1 want to test it a lit that civilization makes about itself. tle

by the

By things

silences.

that are not made.

The false

that are not said.

can easily see the froth

luster of counterfeit

titles.

claims

and fustian.

But I am

looking for

and life than appears in the ruffian parade of its virtues. I am a crier up mysterious soundways. I am a searcher in the social beyond. I am a dig I tear up dead roots. I plant the seed grains of a ger. something more

like love

more gracious providence. Dig.

properties.

substance of justice.

Dig deep cuts into all your proud I am mad for the Eternally dig. I count upon nothing unless I can count

Justice everything short of justice. The matter has but one signifi belongs or nothing belongs. And this is the heart of it. Justice is the heart of cance.

upon justice.

reject

it.

The

make a living must be put men can make a living. You have no right to put yourselffirst. You must put your last. You must until all Then wait others are served. self be But served. is next. you may Society always calling question whether you can aside for the question whether all

there

no next.

ferences.

There

no first man.

Society provides for

all.

How

There are no pre is it

that all do

have enough ? Because you or you or you insist upon You attract to yourself the superior gifts. coming first. You leave every other man to take his chances with what is You seize. Keep. You use social increment for your left. not

CHANTS COMMUNAL own merely personal advancement. that the world is dead in you until for others.

This

life

that forgets no one

The

that simply loves.

That

the first

life

out of the

The life that takes

you must live.

The

refuses to assess

brothers.

That

me cry you

will

words are that

your

cry.

My cry fits into every

my my cry.

lived

Yes.

its rent.

Listen ,

If you hear

contention.

Early and late

language.

life

The life

and absorb that

know

others into account

that refuses to collect the labor of men.

life

lives that

many

and remembers no one.

the heart of

know

Yet you ought it lives

matter that

what my

cry.

whatever lan

That is the whole story guage every hour of every day. dear brother. The heart of the matter is heart. A II reports You are not to report to your must be made to the heart. ,

You are to report to the heart. Be a But be a man. Any kind of a worth more than any kind of a mere artist.

trade or profession.

artist if you must.

clumsy mere man

if on the earth you must square your-

see

anything wrong with that wrong. Every transgression you see is your You must square yourself with it. You transgression.

you

self

have charged up a big account. Now you must commence You have postponed payment long enough. You to pay. You must keep on paying until the must pay every cent. entire amount is squared. Though you must give up every What becomes thing you have to do it, it must still be done. of the substance of property when property tries to get along without justice ? There is no inalienable property but jus tice.

Property

of no use in the 96

wrong place.

All prop-

HEART OF THE MATTER erty not

swathed

in justice is in the

wrong

HEART

place.

You

act

as if we were thousands of men living in thousands of worlds. are one man living in one world. are less and more.

All life that

Yet commerce

How

worth

contingent upon the affections. nine tenths fight and hardly one tenth love. life

will you square yourself with the affections ?

Private

Love The The land lord threatens love. is under ban. money The profit lord threatens love. Wages lord threatens love. is

property

against love.

How

threaten love.

with

Square yourself with love.

can love escape?

Square yourself

love.

So I do. But the evil, too, repeat myself? As long as the evil repeats itself I will repeat repeats itself. Let evil go where it may I will follow it. I will myself.

make

can stand

my whip

no longer.

weapon of good

est to bear.

you

too

will harry it until it will not use the weapon

of evil against evil. the

evil uncomfortable to evil.

will use the weapon of good. not the easiest to bear. It is the

concede nothing.

Let defeat

concede.

But hard Are

to assert your whole case ? I will assert itfor Not half my heart. contend for my whole case, It is the case of the heart. heart. I say it over

timid

you.

All

and over

again.

The

The heart. The world belongs to heart.

claims of the heart. heart of the matter is the heart.

The inexorable the heart. The

Nothing else. After the have talked and talked the truth. After the fig ures are all in and are honestly counted. After the last ar gument is heard and conceded. After the debate is over and economists

the debaters are gone.

After all the evident sayings are said 97

CHANTS COMMUNAL and confirmed in

Then the heart comes along. visible letter. the heart puts in the last word. Yes, the last fact. the heart institutions. humble Yes, arrogant disposes of

And The

The heart has decided against you. institutions. The heart has decided against all your babeled structures. The heart takes everything into account. And the heart

you proud

crowns the vexed

You say as far as

who can

reason. its

feet

issues

with peace.

I know what you

say.

But I say heart. The reason can travel But feet can only go so far. But can go.

a bound for the heart ? commercial margins you set a bound set

When to

you

collect your

When

the heart.

you pay wages or accept wages you set a bound to the heart. But the heart passes out into spaces articulate with revela Into that sphere in whose invisible corridors piracy must lower its last standard. And the heart of the matter

tion.

heart.

An Englishman wrote a novel in which FOR ALL THE WORLD he prophesied an alliance of the "stars and stripes and union jack against characteristic of the old regime to It is always It is

Men

It is all the world." be against the world.

dreaming of conquests, disputes, severances.

always seeing men in small corners. Races. in fear. Sharp boundary

Men hiding. lines.

One

It is always seeing man nation sworn against another. It is not inclusive. wholes. kind in parts rather than in

It is exclusive.

Against the world.

The new regime not against the world.

It is for the world. 98

It is for

FOR ALL THE WORLD the whole world.

War

out.

knows no world with anything

not the world.

Wages

left

are not the world.

Slavery is not the world. The stars and stripes are not Nor is the union jack. Nor are stars and the world. stripes

and jacks together the world.

Love alone

the

The

absorption of the welfare of the individual in the welfare of the mass is the world. The world can

world.

never be anything

little.

must be something

big.

Nor is the parish politics are not the world. Nor is any king with any President with his cabinet. The world is too big to be juried by a coun premier. Your

And too big to be sequestered between the try court. leaves of a catechism. And too big to be arrogated into What would you do

an Anglo-Saxon plaything.

the world you had choked The world cries to you for help. the world of itself. after

Then you go and

Against the world. against you. has the world

Why done

are to

with

into your province

rob

The world is not ? What

you against the world

you

that

you should be against

has religion taught you? What has the state What does trade say? said to you on the subject? has are you always against something?

it?

What

Who

Why

taught you the sort of economics which says it is cheap has convinced you that to be against the world ? can to be the world ? What sort of afford you against

Who

humanity is it you have to talk about? Is that the best thing you can do with your stars and stripes ? With your union jack ? Poor stars and stripes. Poor jack. 99

CHANTS COMMUNAL You might

have given them a meaning that is good. But you have preferred to give them a meaning that is You might have made them in favor of the world. evil. You have made them against the world. You might have squared them with the new economics. With the economics which have declared for the eternal peace of the communal equities. With the economics which do not cease at the shores of seas.

With

the unshuttered windows.

With the opened doors. With everything that

tend to bring men together. But you have given out pirate bids. You have closed the seas. You have narrowed life to border lines. You have made it im possible for men to know each other. Just as we are will

about to get acquainted you slam the door shut in my You do not offer treaty. You offer war. You

face.

do not

offer to

smooth away

new I

difficulties.

You

create

hear the tramp of your armies. difficulties. I read your tariff see the ships of war on your seas. I

I know what you think and what you say about saved races and damned races. Your race is

schedules.

superior and

some other

aires are superior

race

communal

Your million

and the men who make your million

aires possible are inferior.

of the

is inferior.

faith.

You are against the loyalties You are sworn to private alle

subserve the interests of a fragment instead giance. You jostle the earth into of the interests of the total.

your back yard. You exile the big. You cosset the That is what you have done with your stars and little. With your union jack. You have soiled their stripes. 100

FOR ALL THE WORLD You

have covered their general meaning with The world might have expected your your better self. You give it your worst self. Not your trusted hand. Your knotted fist. The world that you might have been for. The world that you have pre ferred to be against. beauty.

mud.

local

When

will

we ever get

world

which the world will not be against itself? When will we get a world in which no man will pull against any other man ? When will we get a world in which we will all pull together ? In which property will not pull against man but in which property and man will In which the economic verities will pull together? of the heart ? In which state lines themselves possess will disappear in favor of universal lines ? In which there will be but one blasphemy? The blasphemy of the man who is against the world ? What is the use of

Anything short of

talking? feller.

him.

this is so

much

short of

You

are against the world. So is Rocke the Rather, so is system which has produced are going to destroy that negation. say

civilization.

that the time has

come

which you have got

yourself on the side of interracial

good

will.

to array

You

can

no longer cultivate your field with the tools of the gen eral chest, You can no longer steal your fire from the general flame.

You must

see that everything belongs

that nothing belongs to anybody. You must see that against is robbery and that for is benefaction. to all

and

You must

see that against 101

murder and

that for

CHANTS COMMUNAL You

You sneer at our Let me tell Well. propaganda. you something about that. You have tried to make clear what you will do and what you will not do. Let me tell you what we rescue.

point us out with scorn.

radical

to do.

propose

when we

may be

cranks and fanatics.

world

But

be a world of peace. Not the sort of peace that you speak of now. Not the sort of peace that consists with robbery and is not peace. Not the sort of peace that condones masters Not the sort of peace that exists treating with slaves. are in control of this

will

Not the sort of peace that wage system. Not the sort of peace in the of whose bluster many men cannot find work hearing to do, and other men who work are underpaid, and women and children must miserably piece out a mill When we come to requiem of death. My God, no

by the

leave of bosses.

aureoles the

the world offering

Our

peace

will

gifts it

will

not be

make government

and man of every consequence. property to the wall. Will refuse

gifts of disaster.

of no consequence

Will force private one man over

to put

Will rebel against the slavery of the tool. Will not be afraid of night lest men steal and of day Will not house people here in palaces lest men starve. and there in holes. Will not give the man who does not work everything and the man who does work no Will get and keep the idlers busy and will thing. reduce the hours of the industrious. Will use the state for universal man or abolish it altogether. That is what another.

our peace

will do.

It will 102

not sneak round corners

WHEN

HOW SLOW YOU ARE

SEE

upon weak nations or weak men and reduce them to It will enter into no alliance against anybody. captivity. It is a lesson of un It has learned its lesson well. bounded comity. It has no reservations. None of For it says all races are one race. None of pro race. For it says that all property is one property. perty. None of ownership. For it says that the best owner None of freedom. For it ship is no ownership at all. says that freedom is freedom only when all are free. None of bargain and sale. For it says that a system which entertains a thing sold entertains a soul sold and

Why should our peace have

therefore stands annulled. reservations

know

want

to get rid of all the old bars.

that this task to be

done

right

must be done

without equivocation. And it can never be done with out equivocation while any state or any race or any in terest within or without is against any other state or race or interest.

For the

interests of

men when men

live in

chaos claw and destroy each other. But the interests of men when men live in order coalesce in one effect.

For

all

the world.

WHEN I SEE

When

YO U ARE

care of yourself I to you for results.

HOW SLOW

the matter over a

And sults.

then I

little

see that I

see

are to take

wonder why

And

then

look

I I

think

do not

look to myself for

to look to yourself.

how slow you

seriously with myself. really look to you for re

results.

am 103

to leave

to look to myself.

you That

CHANTS COMMUNAL will

keep us both busy.

ful.

That

will

keep us both hope

look to votes for results

quent sermon

to an elo

economic prophet looked outward for I would results soothsayer? I would say It's no use. I would get discouraged. fritter away my faith. But when I look inside I am ?

to a

to an

If I

always serene.

Whatever

own.

see

the

faith there intact

holding its whatever the losses and moods,

my faith remains, unshad owed, unshaken, unashamed. So I have got into the habit of appealing from your neglect to my own abound I see that it is not my business to count ing belief. how slow you are to take care of yourself. It is my business to count how quick I am to take care of gains of personal prestige,

myself.

Election returns Allies desert you. The heelers count

come

Editors

lie.

and come Politicians

wrong.

slander.

you off the ticket. You do not get You are thrown out of a pulpit. You into Congress. The word of your lips, are not invited into parlors. the thought of your brain, is never popularly welcome.

You see business going. are laid off your job. Money is scarce and gets Your clothes are shabby. You do not always scarcer. Your have enough to eat. Luxury is prohibited. Friends turn away from you.

You

health

You life

impaired. And so on. What is it all for ? an atmosphere of defeat. Your creature

live in is

Nothing

You

save nothing from the ruins. Well, nothing but yourself. Nothing but

a wreck.

104

WHEN

SEE

HOW SLOW YOU ARE

your faith. Perhaps not even your faith. For often Life is a a man's faith goes with the rest of things. The battle is lost. Was it worth while ? You failure. dreamed great dreams. But meanwhile life narrowed. Little by little your earthplan was pared. Does it all worth what it costs ? These pay ? Is life on such a plan

A long

row of ciphers. The roof sold The soles worn under your feet. The

are the results.

over your head.

Was

heart broken between your ribs. price

answer.

price

Was it Was it ?

worth the But

not answer in your wrath.

worth the price

awful question.

Was it worth the Addressed not to your

stomach but to your soul. Not to your purse but to your love. Was it worth the price ? That depends. When you look for results you are anytime liable to track your proud inventory to a dust heap. What have you got to do with results anyhow ? You have got to do with inspirations. The best, the only, results, are The result that is not an inspiration is no inspirations. You were looking for results. For street result at all. results. For vote results. For preacher results. Well, you got them. They were largely against you. And will

be for a long time to come.

You

are doing for

the world what the world needs but does

not con

Until you have convinced the world's sciously want. want as well as the world's need you have got to be

hands of the other back upon yourself. If you

satisfied to see all the assets in the

people.

You

are driven

105

CHANTS COMMUNAL have not banked enough in yourself to stand the draughts of many postponements you will be unhap But if you prove adequate for all demands you py. will not care what happens against you in the world

For you

outside.

will

things are happening for

always

you

know

that

the

inside yourself.

best

Then

you have been weeping you will no longer weep. If you have been doubting you will no longer doubt. No ballot box can outvote you. You are never outvoted until you have outvoted yourself. You will often feel if

Every sympathetic man is distressed with But you will never despair. You where to look for results. You will not scan

distressed.

the social anomalies. will learn

the voting

answered

lists.

You

will

not expect your hope to be few voices will

immediate majorities. The most of men will be in

say yes. not hear you at

deaf.

They

will

Or they will hear you wrong. But all. keep saying your say. And if you say your say often enough the world will hear you right. That is all you have to do. Why should I cut my throat be cause men do not hear me ? I hear myself. That is

you

will

you robbed.

I see that you love your meddler. I am an alarmist. So I will have to do a lot of meddling on am. Both. your own account before you gain your proper place You have got to meddle with the in the social order.

enough.

robbers.

see

am a You

You have got to meddle with have got to kick up a lot of dirt with your angry heels. I hate to see you so slow about bosses and the masters. the landlords.

You

106

WHEN

SEE

your own business.

HOW SLOW YOU ARE

am often

with the flame of a wrathful

But

I will

Even

mind But

to stir

you up

can wait.

I can to rouse you. To make you care. not admit any doubt as to the general result. could not be slow enough to make me despair.

will

You

of a

fire.

all

you completely stopped my faith would keep on. Hungering, it would keep on. Thirsting, it would keep on. Ragged, it would keep on. Weeping salt it would on. tears, keep No one seems to care so little if

for the

workingman

is faithful

to his

as the

work.

workingman is faithful

himself.

to his boss.

He He

government. He is faithful to He is faithless to himself. He is guilty of the crowning disloyalty. Disloyalty to himself. He cares so much about God. He cares so little about himself. Do you suppose God anywhere could be is

faithful to the formal

social

custom.

pleased to have you desert yourself to please

The workman

lives in a prison.

him?

resents this pris

But he makes no attempt to escape. He thinks imprisonment is wrong. But he does not think the He sees his children starve. But he prison is wrong.

on.

refuses to see the cause. He blames himself. He blames the boss. But he goes about his work doing every day all he can to perpetuate the system which un does him. The workman lacks in self-respect. He does not value himself. He does not measure himself by adequate standards. Why should he push his knees

down

into the

ground and apologize for 107

his existence

CHANTS COMMUNAL He

has in his bones the substance of

ness. left

hand of God.

holiest processes. see himself as he

upon

I is.

belongs where

him

see

life

pursues its does not one day reckon

is.

know he will own sinew.

care.

wastes himself

seems

To-day he

witless of his treasure.

the lords

upon

righteous the

God and

the potentialities of his

seems not to

He He

final

belongs on the right hand of

god

of the market.

allows himself to be sunk in ships at sea.

lows himself to be shot to death in wars. himself to be choked to death in mines. All for the glory of money.

man who would greed.

It is

quarrel

not a

And

allows

so forth.

was

But it is men.

sacrifice of

for the glory of for the glory of

It is a sacrifice of

slaves.

You, the workers of

this world, will not always

be so slow to care for yourselves. You will know what you contain. You will know what you signify. You will then refuse to slave. You will be more than ever to serve. But you will not serve in another ready man's right. You will serve in your own right. Now

you take

care of your masters.

Then you

will take

care of yourselves. You will discover that you can best care for others in the right way by first taking care of

But All should serve. yourselves in the right way. no one should slave. Who will take care of you if you do not take care of yourselves ? How will you bestow if you do not first absorb ? I do not choose the hour for you to strike. But I say that when the 108

THE AIR

is struck you will find my prophecy on the fron When I with its welcome. I can wait. Wait.

hour tier

see

how slow you

THE AIR CLOSE

The

are.

cannot breathe, cries the doors and Civilization is choking with

air is close.

windows.

Let the

injustice.

It has

Throw open

civilization. air in.

lived too long in the atmosphere of It has stayed too long in the midst of the

oppression. crowding multitudes of the dispossessed. Now it calls for room. For the open. For the stars. For free

Take down everything that interferes. Take Take down incomes. Take down walls. Take down your all preferments. Take down wages. superior clothes. Take down your superior manners. dom.

down

all

It will It will die. is gasping for breath. Will you kill it ? Or will you help to revive its Direct sinking powers ? The cry is directed to you.

Civilization live.

ly to you.

Whoever you

are.

The storm is near. not know what. very

ill.

Its faith

air is

close. I

happen. going Something But something. Civilization lies there

Its brain is thick. Its lungs are congested. wanes. Can it be kept alive ? Can it be re

emoluments

Can

be led to assert the more inclusive crescendo of humanity? Or is it to be allowed to die here half done? Not only not com Die in retreat. For lately civilization has not pleted. meant advance but retreat. It has not found room stored to

its

109

CHANTS COMMUNAL It has done no pioneering. It has been driven back and indoors. It has been confined to a room. It is growing pale and thin. It has called in a nurse. What is to be done ? Every day it cries for room. And

ahead.

Its cry is the cry of the future. Its cry is the cry of the hunted. Take your hounds off. Take your millionaires away. Stop the chase. Take your

every night.

trusts away. Take your estates away. Make room for civilization. Have you supposed that civilization

can exist where there civilization can

prosper

no room

you think

perpetuated dark

in the

that

The air is close.

Civilization there

writhes for a chance to live.

You

have driven

to bay.

its

bed groans and

What have you done ? You have forced it back

You have given it no options and all vista. You have left it there to die. called in the doctors. The false doctors.

to the last trench.

refused

You

have They have

prescribed. They have administered have added poison to poison. But their drugs. They wisdom was not wise. It has not brought civilization off its sick bed. The quackeries quacked but would not cure. The patient has not needed your drugs. all

Your Roosevelts. liating sciences.

Your Sunday

The

schools.

Why

do not think

pal

your polite leisure. It Fresh air. Always fresh

has needed only one thing. do you not give it fresh air

air.

Your

arts of

civilization can survive

The air is close. many more days

THE AIR

There must be some way Some way of getting rid of the ob

with things just as they are. of getting it free. structing debris.

Some way

of opening to

the sources

Do not bring your colleges. They are of no use. Do not bring the professors and the doctors. Do not bring the editors and the reviewers. Do not of

life.

bring anyone.

Give

First of

all

civilization a chance.

get out of the

Let

bring anybody bring the people. Do not bring the elect. castes.

alone.

way yourself. If you must

Do not bring the Do not bring influ

The wageBring the outlaw. the Bring tramps. The un fashionable. the man Bring everybody hates. Bring the cause everybody distrusts. Bring them. But do not bring any preferred person. storm is well brewed. storm will soon break. ence and position.

worker.

The

failures.

The

air is close.

think

the reason the atmosphere is so thick and civili zation has such a hard time keeping its breath. And I that

if the storm does not break soon civilization have departed from civilization altogether. For so far it has not lived near enough to its prospectus.

think that will

has kept

its

practice too far aloof

from

its

promise. blood to permitted Nothing but a storm can save it.

It has disintegrated.

It has

its

get impoverished. Room for all the fresh air to get in. Room for ideas to move about. Room for love to find itself. If the

doctors will only go out perhaps the fresh air will come Something must break soon. Walls, fences, roofs.

in.

Ill

CHANTS COMMUNAL Anything that cribs and confines. Civilization has been fooled and drugged nearly to death. Now let us see what the fresh air can do. Let us see what the storm can do.

The

air is close.

You

take great pride in your

But your civilization die and you do not know

civilization.

a sickly affair.

You

have made it a You have made it a tyrant. You have plaything. resorted to it as a source of crime. You have made it anti-social. You brag of it as though it was something extra fine. You travel the world over with its stocks and bonds. But after all your civilization is in danger. It is threatened with dissolution. You have made it too delicate for any weather. Yet it must be prepared To be eager for any weather, to stand any weather. hard or easy. You have got somehow to get it up off is

like to

it.

its

bed.

You have got to get

into the

open

air.

You

With your private With fortunes. your poor and rich. With your castes. With your universities endowed by robbery. With your charities and your jails. What will you do to meet the storm ? What will you do to make the storm have vitiated

with your injustice.

You have

built

For the storm

is sure to come. such obstructions in the road that noth blow will remove them. What will you

easy for civilization ?

ing but a fierce save from this tragic crash of worlds

The phantoms.

air is close.

Fevered. Seeing tossing on its bed. of broken promises and forfeited Dreaming

I see civilization

112

THE AIR

Gasping, grasping, choking, calling. Sick near Sick Sick of me. to death. Delirious. Sick of you. Sick of incomes. of what we have falsely done for it. Sick Sick of wages. Sick of professors and priests. ideals.

of high and low. Sick of seeing the tiny children go to work. Sick of seeing the hipless and breastless young Sick of seeing the boys tied and manacled be girls. fore the

manhood

them has had

a chance to root.

Sick of seeing the worker de spised and the loafer honored. Sick of official arro Sick of pride. Sick of the gance. Sick of humility. squabbling governments. Sick of seeing everybody Sick of the strikes.

Sick of seeing quarreling with everybody. Do Sick. Sick. at war with all society. that any

one

little

matic.

little

offense has

virtue can cure

done

all

It is the sickness of a

all this ?

all

society

you think That any

This sickness world with itself. ?

is cli

It is

cannot be cured by any of the ordinary It is a world trouble and de Such a crisis is never tri solution. a world mands umphantly passed except by a storm. It must be It

planetary.

emergency remedies.

short, sharp

and severe.

It is

fought against

when

it is

It is

when

cursed before arrives.

It is

comes.

glorified

passed.

The

air

close.

The

patient

You will rescue the patient. Once calling for rescue. men went to rescue what they called a holy sepulcher.

You do not need to go anywhere to You can stay just where you are. 113

rescue civilization.

Stay with yourself.

CHANTS COMMUNAL Commence where you

down

stand taking

the barriers.

Get the incubus off the highway. Prepare storm. But prepare best for what is to be

What

storm.

know.

this I tice

the storm

know

cannot

that the storm

replacing injustice.

is justice.

Fresh

you think

for the after the

But you. the act of jus

tell

air is justice.

Freedom

that civilization will ever be

able to reconcile wages and freedom ? The poor and man can be freedom ? Wages are not justice. until men in are freedom And paid paid free wages. dom they are not paid justice. They might be paid the

amount

wages and yet wages would not be jus Nothing but justice can get civilization off its sick bed and to its feet. Nothing but justice. Noth ing but the great storm. Nothing but a surmounting and sustaining communism. The air is thick with illu sion and fallacy. The storm will come. Nothing but full

tice.

Are you

justice is finally just.

afraid

Do you propose

You try to evade the issue ? have sepulchered the living body of civilization. Do you not hear its cries for help ? You have got to rescue it. You have got to give it air. Get it out under the sky. Give it a chance to breathe. Give it justice for injustice. Give it a whole

to get

under cover and

cannot do

it.

You

people for a caste.

body of

mean drag

civilization.

life.

its

The

helpless

whoever you

are.

air

You have sepulchered the living You are making civilization to You have got to is very close.

body from

premature grave. You, Especially you who brag of civiliza114

THE STORM BREAKS tion. faith.

whoever

The

am.

Especially

who am

of great

air is close.

THE STORM BREAKS

The storm close

has come.

and

still.

The air was The omens

very was hard to breathe in the atmosphere of Men choked and gasped. Truth choked and gasped. Justice was faint and congested. Some Oppression oppressed too much. thing had to occur. Greed was too greedy. Our civilization looked about upon itself wondering what to do. The seers warned The old regime, they said, was about to end. us. End in storm. We were glad. Or we were incredu Or we were contemptuous. But all the while lous. The clouds closed over all of us were short of breath. head. What was on the wind ? Civilization cried for There was finally one dead moment of lull and life. terror. Then we knew that the issue had been sternly drawn. The storm has come. The trees rock to their roots. The palaces are shaken. Fortunes go begging gathered. the castes.

Estates are looking for their masters. The proudest king becomes the humblest subject. Money has turned beggar. The most certain has become the for owners.

most uncertain. You were sure But to-day money is not sure of

money

yesterday.

Riches knock at the door of poverty asking in vain to be let in. Calico ransoms silk. I see that in the storm all are equal.

All

men

are off the

itself.

same piece of goods.

115

CHANTS COMMUNAL hurried away from each other yesterday. To-day we hurry together. Nothing is spared. All your sacred Your pieces of paper called properties are scattered. Your interests. stocks and bonds. Your profits.

Your

rents.

Proudly elected gods yesterday.

To-day

dethroned.

The The

Yesterday's revellers to-day's penitents. in the massacre of this storm. outarmied army wrecked up the rockshores of its own das navy Priests lost to their religion. Statesmen in the perversity of office. God! how the

tardly seas.

damned

wind blows.

Did we reckon up our

ures so easily dissipated ? Was that the first real attack takes

counted so much upon goods. Of what use are goods to-day? use.

Greed

The is

parlor

use.

alone are of use.

use.

Profit

Love

and

alone.

its it

civilization in fig

foundation so

frail

had

down?

Men

little

upon men.

now

alone are

The boudoir loss are

use.

Men

In yesterday's delusion

we paid

court to foliages and forgot roots. To-day in the fury of this storm the roots have been exposed and

we know where our worship must be bestowed.

That

worship so long squandered in churches and kept out of life. That worship so long lavished upon the things made by man and denied to man. That worship abundantly wasted in a world without social unity. The storm is furious. It is flinging values right and left. That which we thought eternal is gone. That which we have not thought much of has brought us strength.

The

millionaires are the first to go. 116

And

THE STORM BREAKS And

the rulers.

the scholars

who know

too

much

know

They go with the first onslaught. anything. The superior people are not the paupers stay. to storm. this superior They are not even superior to

And

own inferiority. The fratricidal institutions are gone up in smoke. The plain men and women re main. The everyday nobodies are equal to the peril. The wholesome laborer stands still erect not shirked their

from his

being sifted

from

So the storm is raging. from weak. So ephemeral

So strong

orbit.

being sifted

eternal.

house.

The storm has come. It is a clearing rich are paying their debt to the poor. paying its balance to justice. only

The

Now

Injustice

In the austerity of ownerships are recognized. this crisis only justified claims are allowed. Dress counts for nothing. counts for Courtesy nothing. Your city house and your country house count for nothing. Your club counts for nothing. This is no This court sits until the palliating court of appeal. real

last

cent

lish is of

paid.

Masks are of no avail. Manners are of no

avail.

Good Eng avail. Your

your voluptuous body, your dainty sensa no avail. This is a rough court. It talks the language of the common. It averages the vocabu the of street. It adheres to no elect code of lary soft skin,

tions, are of

It just says the say of right. behavior. It just balan It just talks straight out the ces the balance of equity. I see you feint as if to qualify its talk of command. 117

CHANTS COMMUNAL Do

you suppose this storm is not to do its work complete ? Do you suppose it will stop before It did not come in a hurry. its work is entirely done ? It was prepared for by all the forces of oppression and But it at last is here and it is full of prophecy. of menace. It came not by catastrophe but by law. decisions.

It will prevail until the

law

enemy

will depart.

It will

dispersed. foes in the rear. It

purpose of the law is subserved. But it will not go until the last

its

doing

Without mercy and without

not leave the

field

with

job with firm hands. It is not benevo

malice.

It does not hesi lent at the expense of the innocent. It knows that some one tate to enforce its sentences.

You were not sensitive yesterday when hurt in order that you should be spared. were many we be sensitive to-day because you are should Why hurt in order that all, including yourself, may be must be

hurt.

spared?

That

well as for

all.

what the storm

You do

not

now

doing for you

see

how

do not know what good the whipping

The storm

is.

You

going to do.

The

You

only feel the whip.

storm

You shrink, sting, suffer, perhaps the whip. But the storm had to come. You perhaps have

die.

here.

But the storm comes by appointment. It is And you who have worked so long for fulfilment. own your greed alone were all the time without know it working for this storm alone. I do not blame ing to die.

you.

But

storm

is as

necessary to you

trying to explain

118

the storm.

who have prospered

The as to

THE STORM BREAKS those you have dispossessed. Its

The

storm.

The

clear

Its inexorable

fierce

syllables appall you. But how could the sinews sharpen the edge of wrath. storm do a clean job of work if we did not suffer? ing.

How could

it strike a balance as between men and men and down, much and nothing, caste and class, up refashioned were not sternly in the measure and image We have too long gone on in of the eternal verities ? blindness led by the blind. The storm will open our Henceforth we must go on with sight led by the eyes.

prophets.

The storm is revela know myself. To know To know how much I belong to them and others. It is they belong to me. The storm is sympathy. The storm

tion.

It is teaching

has come.

knocking the devil out of me. But it is keeping the god intact. It is showing me how penniless I am own How more than rich ing everything in a world alone. How all I am owning nothing in a world of lovers.

my all

parchment fortune goes up in the first fire. How my proud incomes are afraid. How all my pov

erties are

undaunted.

tremble for their lasts

life.

How How

the stolen cultures

all

unlettered

the recurrent furies of assault.

thing from

but myself.

are yourself enough.

It is

wisdom out

It is taking every

It is saying to me: You that only when showing

I own myself alone and nothing else can other men own themselves alone and nothing else. And that only in

world in which

this

adjustment 119

reached

liberty

CHANTS COMMUNAL And

finally safe. safe.

For man

that only with liberty safe is man And therefore, that only liberty.

with liberty safe will the storm subside. the storm

teaching

That

what

in the inveteracy of its anger.

For it is now plainly to be seen that the storm does not come to violate a law but to remind us that we have

The

broken a

law.

the root.

life at

human comity. The law law of social order at the root.

law of

The

law of communal service. have gone on stone and steel, making babel cities. Now piling up the law complains of our neglect. Now the law asks :

Meanwhile what have you done for me ? We have done much for grandeur. Much for aristocracy. Much for rulership.

Much

for the authority of the great.

What

have we done for humility ? For democracy ? For obedience ? For those who refuse to exercise au The law proclaims in this storm its resump thority ? of tion the law. It does not make an indictment. It does not reason. It does not browbeat. It comes in

You may die The storm will go

the storm.

running away or die staying Forever on. And still forever. arc in the midst of its trial scenes. One look for chapter after another is being unscrolled. here.

on.

The social struggle and rally for life. forms have narrowed to a few native gestures. All the mockeries of fortune and place are swept away in the fury of the floods. The storm means to strip us bare. The storm means that we have got to go naked into the future. Tkat we have got to clothe ourselves in shelter.

120

CLEAR WEATHER AGAIN I the righteousness of a just regime. I am arrogant and jubilant. sorrowful.

in the

wild hour of the chase.

me.

In you.

The

am cowed and I am harried

The storm

center

is in

tempests, the tides, the flames,

drown and flood me, only me.

You, only you.

stand in their midst without a weapon.

shielded into the passion of this storm. I careen in the midst of shadows. dark.

cast

It is pitch

I do not see there a I know I know is But And way. way that somewhere on the way out I will meet my true comrade and that my true comrade will not deceive me

out.

in the

beyond.

CLEAR WE A THER AGAIN

Clear weather again. The crisis was met. Man proved equal to

The race has come out of it unscathed. Yes, glori fied. The race has shown itself equal to justice. Many it.

of us

saw only

Did not

see

failure

beyond

and death.

the storm.

Saw only

the storm.

But the prophets were

always there. Their faithful voices could always be heard above the cry of the wind and the crush of de

knew that if the race could survive this storm it could survive anything. For this was not a storm up in the air. It was not a zephyred blow. It was not a flash in the pan. It was a storm at the It was not a test of foliages. foundations. It was a struction.

test applied to the very root-stock of social integration. It meant that you could hope for anything. It also

meant

that

you might

fear for everything. 121

For

came

CHANTS COMMUNAL It came after questions as a final question. been or had shirked answered questions wrong. It came as the question that had to be answered right. The storm of yesterday. The storm through which we have come to this beautiful morning.

after

many

Clear weath

Now

know how much the storm had to do How much the evil had to do with How much the millionaire had to do with the good. the communist. How much of my phantasmal self I abandoned with the storm yesterday. How much of er again.

with clear weather.

real self I have brought over. Now I see what the storm was for. Why I had to starve. Why I had to be hated. Why I had to be misunderstood. Why my dreams were so slow coming true. Why my friends deserted me and why my enemies became my friends. Why the universe seemed against me. Why as long as I was for myself the universe could not have been Why the work always had to be every against me. and why the pay always had to be nothing. Why thing the people did not hear me. Why it was enough for me to hear myself. Why religion was against the storm. And why art was against the storm. And why the state was against the storm. And why all the great and the powerful everywhere were against the storm.

The

editors.

And

doctored the body. soul.

And

the legislators. And doctors

And

doctors

who

who doctored

the

banks with vast treasures.

were against the storm.

And why 122

Why

all

these

only the weak were

CLEAR WEATHER AGAIN The we'ak. The people without money. The people without office. The in the people alleys. people. The children of perpetual hard times. Not enough fed. Not enough Not enough housed. Why only the weak clothed. were for the storm. The weak armed only with ideas. With dreams. With suffering. Armed only with for the storm.

The The

people without power.

starvation.

Why only

the

weak were

for the storm.

Why

the powerful and the great were against the storm the weak and could not prevent the storm.

Why

and the obscure were for the storm and brought the storm.

Clear weather again. Now I know what clear weather means. And that is why I know what the storm meant. What the days before the storm meant. What it meant for people to be overfed and underfed.

What

the temporary victories of greed meant.

Why

from greed. Why I sometimes wondered if love had not gone back on love. That is, if the universe had gone back on itself. For the sorrows of social wrong were, so sharp they drove the greedy were the

right into the soul. tions.

And

first

to suffer

And

the soul got to asking ques

the questions of the soul were not always

But they kept right on asking themselves in sorts of ways. And the troubles grew. The ques tions were more and thicker. And that was what made cheerful. all

And

was why the storm came on. And that was why this superb morning has fol lowed the storm. This morning of justice. All of the air so close.

that

123

CHANTS COMMUNAL which

did not

now

know

at the time.

But

all

of which

Clear to me, and jubilant and in miracle and law of a perfect to the me, satisfying

clear to

me.

result.

Clear weather again. Well, we have had sev But we have narrow escapes in getting here.

eral

And we

arrived.

are

Dead or

safe.

all

alive

are

safe.

But we

have got here with everything and nothing. All the are in good health. are safe.

property has been brought along. But all the owners The debris has been left behind. The mas are lost. ters

have

left

behind.

all

left

But

We call

reports.

Not

ing.

been

all

roll.

slaves have

all

are here.

We are not one item short.

Most

we were proudest of are left could not weather the capes. But all the other behind.

of the things

They

been

Every man we is miss need Nothing

men

the

a thing.

The

behind.

And things proved themselves capable of the ordeal. Scarred with the here we are, scarred but unhurt. of love.

scars

With

the

scars

of faith.

Yet un

touched. Clear weather again.

Think

it.

You

doubt always said we could not produce the storm. When the storm came you said we could not Now that we have lived live through the storm. we have lived for noth that the storm you say through See what Look about. for. worth was living ing that

who

still

see.

Ask

this that

you

you may Is

not

yourself your questions over again. see worth living for? You say you 124

CLEAR WEATHER AGAIN world of angels. Neither do uncomfortable in the presence of always of But is no this world This is a angels. angels. world of men. It is a world of men who are still frail. Who are -still victims of passion. But it is a world in which frailty has a better chance to be taken care of and to take care of itself. It is a world in which passion has a better chance to make peace with law. It is a world in which everything has a better chance to live out its own righteousness and live down its own vil

do not want I.

to live in a feel

which temptation is strong enough to strengthen but never strong enough to Do you think this an impossible world? tempt. Look again. You see the big things of the old world the little things of the new. You see property very lainy.

small.

It is

You

a world in

see

man

very big.

You

see that the

owner

You see that now gets big as ownership gets small. is for time the first sacred. You used to property think that the only thing that

made property

sacred

was ownership. Now you see that private property was always profane. Now you see the property of all that used to be the property of one become the prop Is this an erty of one by being the property of all. impossible world? Is justice impossible? In the old days you had to hold on to everything with both hands. But for that nothing was safe. You were always a drowning man. Now you may see that you need to hold on to nothing. Everything is safe. You must hold on to yourself. That is all. Is this an impossible 125

CHANTS COMMUNAL Did you think that men could always live on ? Did you think that man was always be tied to a life preserver ? That he was always to

world ?

the line of peril to

live

in fear

Going

bed not knowing but

that a

social cataclysm would before morning destroy him Malevolent social forces laying for him in the dark

His

by dreams of ruin

sleep disturbed

disturbed by facts of ruin

Was man

? ?

His wake

to perpetuate

this dynasty of hell ? Look about you once more. See what you may see. Ask yourself whether this world does not offer you an improved suffrage.

Clear weather

Clear weather has brought a new kind of a again. Or the old kind of a man living out a new kind man. of

life.

do not know

know

But

alien is

own

now

life.

room

lives

has cleared away

room.

just

what

rudder.

alien

sails his

Now

life.

find that

Nor how it is. own ship. man lives his Every

it is.

Every man now

it is.

that the

storm

everybody has plenty of knows there is enough

We find that every man for

That no man

all.

than he needs.

will

now

All that he needs.

find that the best

way

to induce

take more room But not more. We

men

to give them a chance to live apart. of enough room the human spirit

to live together

In the new world is

learning

how

have got property rights out of the way. live. have kept the property but abolished the rights. The storm unsettled wrong in order to settle right.

We It

came out

of dark days.

It 126

provoked

all

nature to

WHEN YOU

DECIDE TO HAVE IT DONE The elements

inevitable fury.

There was no

complete.

the prophets

still

work was done

prophesied.

Everything of

The

ruin

seemed

way of escape. But And when the destined

came out

the sun

the revelation of this

made.

raged.

visible

morning real value

find in again. that no mistake was

has remained.

Noth

ing has been lost that we cannot afford to lose. What we have gained is the one treasure to which all other

must converge or be worthless.

treasures

gained the chance to live.

have

betrayed ourselves to And property. property betrayed us to despair. Now we have seen that the man of millions with no chance to live

was poor.

chance to

That the man without

live is rich.

And now

a cent with a

that the storm has

had but one task. The task to give people a chance to live. That when it was treacherous to that task it was traitorous to the whole of life. That social order was not order but chaos. And that was why the air grew close upon chaos. And why the storm came after the air got too cleared

see that the social order never

close for breathing. And why now that the weather is clear again we see that order has been substituted for

chaos. to live.

That order which

exists in the universal

chance

Clear weather again.

WHEN YOUDE- When you decide to have it done. CIDE TO HA VE When you put your resolution IT DONE into unmistakable form. When you show

that

would be dangerous 127

to cross

your

will.

CHANTS COMMUNAL Then the old regime will pass away. Then the dreams will come true. Then injustice will apologize and ab Then and not till then. As long as you are dicate. uncertain about yourself As long as you are not quite sure what you want done. Not quite sure when you want something done. Not quite sure whether it .

would not be

safer to leave things as they are than to Not quite sure whether injustice is as risk a change. as unjust you imagined or whether justice is as just as

Just so long will Colorado be Colo so long will Rockefeller be Rockefeller. Just Just so long will every man continue to be against every man instead of every man for every man. There is no

you supposed. rado.

is the law of life. The law of be your will. To changed only by a succession you The whole yourself will have to prepare and induct.

alternative.

This law

universe of right waiting patiently upon your person al universe of wrong. Waiting. Listening for your word of command. Looking for orders nowhere else.

Knowing

that

no other order needs

to be obeyed.

You, You, the makers. The builders. You are expecting some one or some power outside of your selves to provoke economic righteousness. Looking

the workers.

Looking for benefactors. Looking for The good party. Stop right where man. good you are. Waste no more eyesight. All that you look for miracles.

the

for

within yourselves. All the righteousness. All All benefaction. You will be your own good

miracles.

128

WHEN YOU DECIDE TO HAVE

DONE When

men. You will make your own good party. you want eight hours you will get eight hours.

They

You will give not be given to you by somebody. them to yourselves. When you want co-operation bad will

to co-operate co-operation will appear. It will not will bring it to you on a platter.

enough

you

in the codicil of a last testament.

quire the mediation of a Carnegie library.

From your own

from your own heart. your own backbone.

It will

one

left to

not re

It will issue

insight.

From

The world is yours, you who are the workers of the world, you who make the world's good and bad for better or for worse. When will you your right to your own ? The castes will not as your right for you. You must do it for your selves. When your will at last is will your will will be Not you, a few of you. But you, the whole of done. The whole of you. The whole of you who work. who The whole of who build. assume the you you clean tasks of the world. Who take the ex and dirty assert sert

Who

tra risks of the world.

live for the world.

Who

The field is spread out before you. Will you harvest it ? Or will you always look on with out protest and see it gathered by alien hands ? The broad acres are yours. The choked prospect contains the plenty for which you have made the first and last sacrifices of loyal service. I do not say Take it with die for the world.

violent hands. lent hands.

be taken with vio say do not claim that you have any right to I

not

129

let it

CHANTS COMMUNAL take

You

for a few.

to take

for

The right

not up to the law of gravitation

not up to the survival of the not up to the benefactors to act.

It is

act.

right.

all.

It is

to act.

have only one

fittest to

the

the colleges. Or boards of chanties. Or any agents. Or any custodians. It is up to you to act. You are gravitation. You are the fit. You

churches.

will

think on and stumble on and despair on and curse

on and on and on hold a

which

until

you

are ready.

last council of war. will also

be the

first

The

last

Then you

will

council of war

council of peace.

Then

your orders will go out. Orders imperial in emphasis and purport. No man, no power, will think of diso beying them. Disobedience will be death. They will be orders of love. Orders of the commune. To-day there is mine and yours. And there is war. To-mor row there will be no more mine and yours. And there will be peace. The world will no longer discuss owner It will The castes have ship. destroy ownership. been able to remain castes because you have been una ble to

vants,

become the

a class.

You, workers, the master-ser

servant-masters,

the

fraternal

earth.

While you have waited and

troubled, wondering what it was your right and your will to do, the castes have But busily strengthened the formal titles of the elect.

power of repeal was always in your hands. You could at any time have stopped the alienations of your But you were irresolute. You only half inheritance. the

130

WAY OFF SOMEWHERE You only half dared. The eternal laws are ready to aid you. They will throw all their might on your side. All you have to do is to ask. All you have to do is to resolve. Nothing can stand out against you knew.

when once you stand

Your

the stranger.

Your

struggle

in for yourselves. Everything is to be contributed by

Nothing remains

ready for you. is

task

with your

with yourselves.

own

skepticism.

Inside.

Your own

There is no opposing power anywhere whose genius can shadow even the edge of your affirmation. nerve.

When

it done. To To have communities instead of justice. castes and classes. To ask to own nothing but to ask for the privilege of using everything. To take the lands home. And the stores. And all the properties, what

you, the workers, decide to have

have social

ever their form.

Take them

all

home

after the long

Home

to yourselves. When you, the estrangement. master-servants, the servant-masters, decide to have it

done.

WA Y OFF Way off SOMEWHERE paradise. house.

It is

your town.

way

off

somewhere

the

social

not in your own not in the house next door. It is not in It

In your country.

somewhere.

In your time.

Somewhere

where

in the years. In the in churches. your paradise

beyond.

events.

You

It is

Some

preach of not in the

But paradise is for laws paradise in legislatures. pass But paradise is not produced by the state. Paradise is

church.

You

131

CHANTS COMMUNAL Always put off beyond. Always always postponed. seen in the mists. Always approached but never reached.

man

Paradise.

The

with man.

The

Justice.

decent relation of

condition of social equity. All put off. called. Called by the religions. Always Predicted by the prophets. Called by the teachers. first

Yet always pushed away. Always refused. Eagerly answering the summons. Brutally rejected. The para dise beyond.

Always way

off.

Way

off.

Yet this day is

good

Why should we Why should we be

any day for paradise.

be afraid to take current chances ? willing to stake everything on the future and nothing on the present ? What is the matter with having para dise here and now ? Do you think you could not stand

Do you think justice would hurt you or paradise ? hurt anybody ? Do you think the human race could not immediately size up and out to the dimensions of ? Why should we skulk in the pre we apologize ? Why should we should Why be willing to admit that the future is good enough for justice but that the present is not good enough for jus tice ? Justice is good enough and not too good for us.

economic equity sent

Why should

we not be good enough and not

too

good

you think that the General Slocum is good enough for you but that justice is too good for you ? Do you think that Colorado is good enough for for justice

you but

that justice is too

good

for

you?

you

think that the insatiable robberies are good enough for 132

WAY OFF SOMEWHERE you but that the communal life is too good for you ? Do you think that when interest and rent and profit make a bed of sorrow for you that bed is good enough for you ? And yet that a bed made for you by justice Do you think that be a too easy bed for you ? would all the maimings and sacrifices of private property mer cilessly assailing you everywhere are proper and due ? And yet that a whole body and a whole soul and a fair outlook upon life is better than you deserve ? Do you think that the half-fed youngsters in the tenements get

what they are

when they

away to an early and enough play enough and fresh air enough and green trees enough are not Do you think fit for the starvelings of the tenements ? that the workers who do the work of the world are equal to the work of the world but not equal to the re wards of the world ? Do you think that the enslaved motherhood of the world is equal to slavery but is not equal to freedom ? Do you think ? Do you think ? Answer me. Or do not answer me. But think. Put death

And

fit

for

pale

yet that food

the question to yourself. The question not of the pre The question of the future to the sent to the future. It is time we stopped making confessions. present. It is time we made some claims. Not claims on ac count of the future. Claims for to-day. For this

hour.

kow.

For the street we live in. For the people we For the imminent paradise.

You sor.

And you

put everything 133

off

are a profes

beyond the

college.

CHANTS COMMUNAL are a lawyer. And you put everything off beyond You are anything. You practice any sort of the law. a profession or any sort of a trade. And you put off

You

everything beyond the profession and the trade. You put religion off beyond the church. You put equity off beyond commerce. You put even social honor off beyond society. Always putting off. If you belong to the trade union perhaps you put justice off beyond the trade union. Everybody is putting off. On every

Brave for to-morrow. Afraid of to-day. some one else. Cowardly for yourself.

pretext.

Heroic

for

Conceding that anything is possible to the future. Doubting if anything is possible to the present. De Yet lay the lord high god omnipotent. Starving. delaying the food. The spirit calls. Yet you delay with the

You

letter.

are learned in nonsense.

quote evolution against haste. favor of doing nothing yourself.

You

Against to-day. In In favor of waiting But what will evolu

do everything. you do nothing for evolution ? Evo you But it also includes hurry. It lution includes delay. includes things that retreat and things that stand still. But it also includes that which goes on. Why should you say that the present should not go on ? That only the future should go on ? Am I to be a dead tool of for

to-morrow

tion

for

evolution

Or am

I to

be a

vital factor in

evolution

say that anything in social justice that is good for the That I am going to future may be good for to-day. I

try

on to-day.

do not mistrust 134

my own

era.

WAY OFF SOMEWHERE own powers.

The potency

of the immediate event to

provide for beautiful results. I am willing to wait. But I am not going to force myself to wait. I am will ing to wait until the land lords and the other lords are dead and gone. But if I can hasten their death and going I am bound to do so. My haste is quite as sig I ask for nothing for the future nificant as your delay. which I do not equally ask for the present. I ask the future to give up nothing which I am not willing to I, too, see justice way off somewhere give up now. But I also arbitrating the destinies of a coming man. see justice very near, in you, in myself, in the everyday of the current chronology, arbitrating the intimate des tines of the life we live. It is a

dangerous

habit.

That

That of seeing the injustice of of putting off justice. the particular age we know and of refusing to see that justice is also possible in the particular age we know. to say discouraging things about human nature. to say that the endowed college will do but that the freed teacher will not do. Always to say that

Always Always

the individual will

do. will

Always not do.

until

do but

that the

community

will

not

to say that hell will do but that heaven Always to say that everybody must wait

everybody

ready.

Always

to say that

it is

use trying to be decent to-day but that somewhere way off we may all be decent in the fatness of time. I say no. No. The man who does not honor to-day will not honor to-morrow.

If I believed 135

my own

heart ut-

CHANTS COMMUNAL of justice I would not be willing to admit that some other heart a thousand years ahead

terly incapable

be capable of justice. I want justice to start right now, here, with you, with me. I do not doubt but that man even as he is would do decently well with justice. Think of what man has done with blindness and in Then try to think of what he would do with justice. his eyes open and with justice. It makes me giddy will

with justified expectation. It suffocates me with prom I ise. I do not need to go far to get the collateral. offer

man

as his

enough. and surrenders. son.

here.

own

After

Not The

all

collateral.

the delays.

Now

the first

I offer

His own recognizance After

you man

all

the apologies

in his

man way off somewhere. man you meet. Any man.

own per The man

You

have

with justice after another. You have broken them all. You were too busy to keep your engagements with justice. You had to instruct

made one engagement

You had to play judge in a classes in a university. You had pictures to paint. You had sales to court. make

your

store.

voyages of conquest. tions to

fulfill.

You had All

navies to start off on

manner

of palliating func

Justice was on the spot appointed.

But

you did not appear. You sent excuses. Or defaulted without a word. Somehow you have expected other men later on to keep their trysts. But you ask to be pardoned your own cowardly surrenders and neglects. But why should you demand from them what you do 136

WHAT not

demand from

It is right here.

yourself

Your

YOUR OWN

Your time

place in evolution

not way off. is not with

come. It is with men who have arrived. You cannot borrow righteousness of the beyond. You must set yourself right with the beat of your own heart. Re member your appointment with justice. Not an ap pointment in vague aftermists of history. An appoint ment in the clear noon of your personal career. Be at Even ahead of time. Push for the place on time. Let justice see that you ward. Do not drag back. have faith in justice as incarnated fact as well as in jus tice as a succoring dream. Do not go to justice saying: The time will come. Go to justice saying: The time

men

here.

Do not go to justice saying A man will come Go to justice saying: I am here to serve. :

to serve.

WHA T IS YOUR

What

your own you will says to you: Yes,

OWN My heart

fight for.

fight for : to for it. It is not you Yes, fight History says But a more baffling problem difficult to get this far. What is your own ? What does belong to precedes. it.

Are you so

clear about that ? Before any other that answered must be answered. question question for own Before you can fight your you must know your own. And that is where we stumble and fall. That is where we at least doubt and delay. For this very ex traordinary decision is hard to make. The more you think of it the harder to make. To tell exactly what is your own. To separate your own from my own or

you

137

CHANTS COMMUNAL from any one else's own. Almost anything harder is Yet this is the decision you make offhand. easy. You are deceived by great inherited and environing You are hypnotized by ancestral and cur illusions. rent fallacies. I

You

fight first.

ask you to reconsider.

fore

you

Then you

fight.

What

your own ? When I ask you if I asked you to repeat your

smile. Just as Well. Do you really know to the mercies of an honest inquiry. that

investigate.

ask you to investigate be

you

c's.

The

more complicated

commit you deeper you

becomes. Why ? Because it is unanswerable. Because the re But you think sult you expect can never be reached. Grant it. I do not ask you to believe I am wrong. I ask you to investigate. I am right. And when you have investigated you will see that I am right. Lots of men have started out on that journey. But they never reached its end. There was no end but the one end. I do not ask for a premature confession. Confession. get into that inquiry the

wait for your confession.

time.

What

your own

I will ?

give

Where

you plenty of the outer line

upon which your pickets and my pickets salute ? Can you divide the sunlight ? Can you separate the parti Can you dissever the atoms of love ? cles of the sea ? Can you reduce justice to ingredients ? You will fight But what is your own? What will for your own. make you acquainted with your own ? Will chemistry make you acquainted with your own ? Can you find 138

WHAT

YOUR OWN

your own under the lens ? By surveying the heavens ? I think there is only one thing that will make you acquainted with your own. That one thing is love. And what love fails to tell you about you will never be told.

have been happy. And I have let happiness I have been despondent. is my own. And I have let despondency search for what is my own. I have sent ships to sea looking for what is my own. And crowded the railroads with my messengers. And I

search for what

looked for redemption by telegraph. And I have cru cified myself with a professor on my right hand and a I priest on my left hand looking for what is my own. have listened to warnings looking for my own. And have taken counsel of all centers of learning stupefied by dead wisdom. And of all centers of power weak ened by tyranny. And when the prophets have come And when the poets came I have hurried to them. of callow print I have mazes their way through rhyming given their songs the

full

benefit of every doubt.

own. Always defeated. ways looking for what is own. Yet Always victorious. Never just sure of own. That some always sure that something was

how some day

would find my own. That we would meet and recognize and lose identity in each other. My own to be made flesh in me. I to be made flesh in

own.

I have questioned all the authorities. All the custodians of gospels. All the policemen. All the 139

CHANTS COMMUNAL All the voices that persuade and dissuade.

censors.

All properties and poverties. All mastership and impotency. Nothing has gone past me unseen. No claimant has spoken unheard. No threats have thun

dered and found ized

all

that sight

I have real irreverent or asleep. and sound could do to take me to To bring what is my own to me.

what is my own. But I still stand here with empty hands. With empty But there is just the trouble. What right have hands. I to expect my hands to be full ? There is another about me that is not empty. My heart. My thing hands are empty. My heart is so full. And now I begin to see what the search was all for. It was not for the hands at all. It was all for the heart. For this search was not really a search for property and rights my own. It was for a brother my own. All brothers my own. All men. For the brother my own. And the hands full may be against my brother. Yes, the more nearly full the more nearly against. But the is always for my brother. Is that very brother himself realized in a foreground of practical And I think that is what is my own. That faith.

heart full

nothing in this universe is my own but that brother. That if I miss that brother I have missed the universe.

The

universe ceases to exist.

You last.

After

all

the discoveries.

all

the jealousies

After all the quarrels about rights and After successions of religions and dynasties of

of possession. duties.

have the secret

After

140

WHAT

YOUR OWN

After wars and peaces after wars. After rulership. books and prophets and martyrs. After sympathy and hate.

After

all

Because of

these.

all

these.

The

That there is no thing your own after all. That there is no physical thing your own. That noth ing in all the medley and order of life is just your own. That nothing is just not your own. That somehow cret is out.

the things your

own

that

you have hungered and

thirst

ed and fought for are not worth while. Would not be worth while if they were your own. Are doubly not worth while not being your own. That the only thing your own cannot be counted up or measured or put into words. That your brother is what is your own.

Not ers.

and

more or

That everything else made All the properties and pow way. All individual prerogative. Dividends, discounts

a sliver

your own

devils.

less.

in the

All in the way.

That only one thing

your own anywhere. That love love that finds you your brother. all

men

for brothers.

your own.

The

The love that sees Not property and interests and

Only men. Men forever broth Love is what is your own.

rents for brothers. ers.

All men.

What your own you

Long you went not knowing what was your own. You thought prop That power was your own. But erty was your own. that was because you slept. You woke up. Then you from individual passed your nightmare into the glory the Then of average day. you knew what was your will fight for

141

Yes.

CHANTS COMMUNAL own. That only one thing was your own. That love was your own. And now I hear you saying better things of

own you

life.

You no

to revise yourself.

You have

You

Think

will love for. is

longer say that what

will fight for.

your own you

say that what

your enough your own you

Revised yourself.

it.

lived long

What

will love for.

WHA T MEN

What men might be if they were allowed to be men no arithmetician and no moralist could guess. The pros

MIGHT BE

could figure pect would baffle

would outfigure all do not encourage manhood in men. We figures. put the whole of civilization in the way. Look where

all

prophecy.

the man may the path is blocked. Men are permitted. The man is forbidden. You speak of men who are weak. What do you know of weak men and strong men ? The thing has not yet been put to a fair test. We have had half tests. False tests. Show tests.

Pious

tests of

Economic

churchmen.

Political tests of heelers.

Tests of plutocracy. Tests of trades. Robber tests. Tests of all kinds in the dark. But the honest man test yet remains to be The test in the open. The test out in the sun. tried. tests of tariff

mongers.

Weak men. What makes weak men

pride our

upon our weak men. We do everything to produce the weak men. The strong men are either seduced or destroyed. The strong man is given only one alternative. He can decide to be weak. Then he selves

142

WHAT MEN MIGHT

may be left to be honest. He may decide to be strong. Then he must be converted to the class of those who Our civilization leaves only honesty to the exploit. Is that a It leaves only robbery to the strong. to a conclusive build brotherhood ? basis upon which

weak.

build literatures and sciences and arts and states

and personality petuated

Is this the test

you want

to see per

Can any

race long survive the regime of Civilization takes good care of men.

exalted robbery ? But it cares nothing for man.

while you are taking care of

What becomes of man men ? Civilization takes

care of robbery. But it cares nothing for service. What becomes of service while you are taking care of

good

robbery

Yet

all

life

when

life

deserves to be called

mutual service he can for serving every other man serving all he can. Not service given according Service given according to power. to returns. I giv all the I with have to for ing power give you giving with all the power you have to give. Are you afraid to concede man a chance to live this life ? Are you afraid life is

rich or

men.

poor

in the quality of the

Every man

all

? Are you afraid to put this seed into the ground ? The seed of this test ? And help it all that help can to fruit? And eat the general

of the result of this test

fruit in the spirit of

human

you shrink from the

service

trial

Are you

afraid

What men might

You have Make an

be.

many points offhand against men. experiment the other way. Decide a few

decided so

143

CHANTS COMMUNAL points for men.

Try them

a few inferences in their favor.

Try

Try them

Try them in trade. Try them in your parlors. Try them in international relations. Try them in war. Try them in that war worse than war. Try them in commercial Whenever think mean things about man, peace. you Whenever you think yourself a superior try them. person, try them. Whenever you think you should in religion.

have a preferred chance to think that art

in politics.

live, try

a great thing

and

When

them.

that labor

you

not a

Try them. Try them. These great thing, try them. inferences you have for so long made offhand against men.

See

men may

called in the

See if men may answer man. When will always answer man.

not respond.

Men

not respond in man.

will

man

spirit

men

for a

good prophet

not take

Try men

for

be your own prophet. You yourself. will not need my word to back your word. Your word For the whole of life will be will be enough for you. back of your word. But make the trial. Create the Give man a chance case. Take away all the obstacles. man men The The in man in your be free. to

Then you

will

self.

What men might

be.

you took

all

obstructive

institutions out of the way. If you took the political If you took the anti-Christianity state out of the way If you took of the Christian church out of the way. If you took humbug peace out of war out of the way the way. If you took the military class out of the way. 144

WHAT MEN MIGHT

If you If you took the priestly class out of the way. took the literary class out of the way. The musical The mere painters and the mere orators and the class.

mere showmen

of any kind.

you took them out

If you took wages out of the way. the way. If you took the landlord off the land. If you took the store-

you took the factorylord out the boss out of the shop. took of the factory. you If you took all who are served without serving out of If you took heaven out of the way and hell the way. out of the way. Yes, if you took God himself out of

lord out of the store.

God to take God out of the never in the way.) If you took all these out of the way. Yes, all these and more than If you left no warnings and pitfalls and am these. bushes in the way of men. Then men would have a chance to be men. Then men would be man. the way.

way.

(It will not hurt

For God

What man might

But for you, whoever you are. If you most of the time in all your days putting did not spend You put your store in his way. things in his way. You put your profession in his way. You put up fac tories in his way. You put your Democratic conven be.

tion in his way. have got a whole

Your Republican Congress

President in his way.

You

convention.

Washington

in his

way.

stole the Philippines

and

in his way. You took a shabby fall out of Panama and put it in his way. And so on. And so Almost everything you do you do to put it in his on.

put them

145

CHANTS COMMUNAL Suppose you changed your life. Suppose you shifted your principles. Suppose you turned your face towards justice. Suppose you stopped putting every thing in his way. Suppose you commenced taking out of his everything way. Suppose you spent the whole of the rest of your life keeping out of his way. Suppose you stopped always demanding service. Sup pose you commenced always to serve. Would that not

way.

give a

more auspicious aspect

to civilization

average of social behavior ? To your own life not make civilization worth while at last ?

men worth at last

be.

? ?

the

Would

And

all

Even you worth while For then we should know what men might while at last

What men might

FOR THE SAKE OF LIFE

Yes.

be.

have had my I have been in strikes. troubles. I have been out of work. I have had enough to eat and to wear. I have starved and gone about in rags.

The

workman.

average experience of the average

been my experience. and done mean things.

workman

has

have done handsome things have not always been decent to my employers. employers have not always been decent to me. have lied to each other. I have sneaked their work. They have sneaked my pay. I have quarreled where 1 would rather have had peace. I have done my share to make Yes, to things better. I

My We

make them worse. Yes, to keep them where they are. I am a victim. But I am also a villain. Do not take 146

FOR THE SAKE OF LIFE good or bad. I am neither. I am both. Just Whoever you are you have employed the workman. me. I work under a million names but I have really

for

Whoever you have employed that man is me. The sneak ? That is me. The slave ? That is me. The omnipotently decent laborer ? That You know me. It does not matter in which is me. only one name.

one of the million names I address you. I address you. I call upon your atoms to assemble. Listen.

You am

For pay. For fighting a fight for wages. For better cigars. For costlier a glass more of beer. So I am. But clothes. get rid of rags. Well. think

only incidentally.

As long

really fighting for life.

wages high wages and low wages are wages But when wages are life I embody my plaint all one. are only

in a different song.

fought fights for wages.

fighting for

But

life.

have fought

have last

have seen that no fight for wages can be the fight of freedom. There is only one fight

fight for wages.

The

left.

fight for

life.

Wages

Ownership alone can give

the sake of

life.

Nor

a house. life

life.

ciples.

of one

For

life.

the fight for

can never give

Now

I fight for

Not

for the sake of

Nor for robbery. Nor for for luxury. life built upon the slavery of another

Life on first prin life itself. that think have the right to wish you you

the sake of

life.

All other considerations must retire

before the consideration for the

That

fight against wages.

The

freedom. life.

147

CHANTS COMMUNAL and that I have not the right to wish to be I to concede freedom to you while you re Do you think I wish fuse to concede freedom to me ? It is to live in order to have the privilege of living ? I want the privilege of living in the other way about. order to live. I would give up everything for the sake

to be free free

Real life. Even give up life itself. Your " Why should we pocket full asks my pocket empty on the of money ?" this discussion plane vulgar keep I but reason. Because ? can see one Surely. Why the will not insist full has all upon pocket money.

life.

We We justice.

we have are now on the Not on the way to money. On the way We incidentally say "money." We finally

vulgarity after

way

to justice.

Money is not for the sake of money. say "justice." It is for the sake of justice. Freedom belongs to labor.

Now

freedom

is in

one place and labor For it is nowhere.

Or, rather, freedom

will

in another.

always be

true that the victor in trespass will equally with the vic tim forever remain in bond. I am not a saint. But I see that results.

protest

spiritual.

Spiritual opportunities.

I I

after spiritual

want

to be free to

on a plan that will afford me the last equality. Or to I do not want to be bigger than anybody else. of man's I am not more any jealous margin. enjoy But I may be jealous of his opportuni possessions.

live life

have been tied down to a spot by wages. Wages have stood over me with a whip. I have been Not loved to work. Driven. And driven to work. ties.

148

FOR THE SAKE OF LIFE a man goes unwillingly is good work. not expecting to scant my work. To make less But I do not want work to make less of me. I

no work to which I

it.

do not want wages to make less of me. I am to be first. Always first. Before my stomach. Before pro For prietorship. I must be first. For the sake of life. For the sake of the immaterial the sake of poetry. that the material life

life

may be made

to destroy.

that I am only an animal ? That I only want and fondled ? Set me out in the desert. But I want a chance for my body because I free.

you think to be fed set

want a chance for my soul. I am not a feeder. I am a lover. I am not inanimate dust. I am animate song. Why should you have all the chances of life ? Why should class doors be shut in my face ? I do not de

mand

the privilege of privilege of living life.

owning

things.

demand

the

Living life until life is full. Do I with think quarrel you because you starve my you stomach. Go along. I quarrel because you starve my Life is not stomach though stomach is a part of life. life.

Why do I hate wages way. Why do I inveigh Because

it,

too,

Because wages are in my against private property ? way. All things must clear ?

ways for me. What would anybody do for the sake of wages ? Love ? Worship ? Play ? Labor ? Not one thing would be done for the sake of wages. There is not one thing but would be done for the sake of life. Life is what I want. What I must have. As I cannot all

149

CHANTS COMMUNAL see

the round with wages left in

life in

wages out of

passion's sake. extrinsic values.

it I

must

clean

Not

life.

for appetite's sake. Nor for for social prestige. Nor for any

Nor

But

for intrinsic

fect organization of experience. Is life to be forever progress.

For the per

life.

For

the last prizes of

yours and never mine

Am I to serve life forever for wages and never to serve for love

for life's sake that I

a slave

That

sink into devastating shadows of economic despair ? sake that the law is against me ? Courts? The clergy ? Is it for life's sake that the markets are I

Is it for life's

quoted on the other side ? That the operas and the concerts and the colleges and flowers in winter and voy I have ages are weighed against my enfranchisement ? all the have tried old methods. They all failed. I de

now

clare

for

Property. volt

life.

Honors.

based upon

put everything aside for

Wages.

All go for

life.

My re

life.

Your resistance is resistance why you must fail and I must

life.

That is against life. succeed. For life always belongs to life. Life never belongs to wages. To the physical rewards. To ma terial

possession.

thing in

fortressed

life.

always belongs to

way must be assailed. The opposition must be taught the

its

struction.

cause

Not

for the sake of

old coat

ragged

For the sake of

your

Every

life.

hosts of the

lesson of de

Not be

bellies.

in rebellion.

For the sake

that life of the spirit

well as yours or is nobody's to life for the sake of life or belongs life as

150

which

life at all. is

not

Life

life at all.

DO YOU NOT The

SEE,

DEAR BROTHER?

clouded.

Myriad discrepancies

have marred the landscape.

Have come between

social vista is

All the discrepancies life and its perfect expression. must be dissipated. All discrepancies of property and class which interrupt the free procession of life. For For the sake of life. the sake of life.

DO YOU NOT SEE, DEA RBRO THER ? settled but

unsettles

Do you

But peace

steal peace.

not come to the beggar, only come to law.

will

the borrower or the thief.

You

You compromise.

not see, dear brother?

You no sooner get your trouble You beg, borrow and again. It will

with trouble in

peace

Why

its

face.

You

arbitrate.

thing to get more. You go to bed But the sun in the are all calm.

Why

some

give

happy.

The

stars

morning comes up your peace never

settlement never settlement

You

The

are always chasing phantom hopes. thing you ex pect to happen never happens. It could not happen.

appeal to the wrong court. You think can hit or miss yourself into the equities. you That you can evade the law and appeal to the accident.

You make your that

You It

have seen what accident can do.

cannot check your

fall.

The

It disintegrates.

law upholds.

Do you not see, dear brothers ? Your masters are afraid of the law. But they are not afraid of the accident. The ac cidents are

all

grist to their mill.

you over their counter.

They 151

All are

money willing

paid by to

trust

CHANTS COMMUNAL themselves to chance.

They

not trust themselves

will

But they can are chance you Every willing to play The chance game a throw on their side of the table.

to law.

They

can cover the chances.

not trap the law.

game they

love.

And

it is

game you always

lose.

But the law plays you fair. The economic law. The It plays for law of the brain. The law of the heart. It plays

good.

for justice.

Dear brothers, you have taken your chances and failed. Every time. Failed.

The

current commercial code

It is a

code of law.

When

not a code of chance.

you play chance

against

you find invulnerable. It remains unhurt after your most angry assault. What can destroy it ? Law. it

A law bigger

law consequent. law than itself. without haphazards or peradventures. Intrenched be hind their law the dominant commercial classes may de fy you.

Defy you.

That

is,

as long as

you come

dragging along your hosts of accident and maybe. You are commencing to see that something is the mat After each defeat you arc nearer a realization of

ter.

the causes of your inefficacy. tires and reconsiders itself.

Your

accidents and your

Your

What

maybes

shattered

army

the fight for? the sleep sleep of de is

and depression. Are you ever to win ? Not by your present method. Not as long as you throw your feat

army

of chance

law.

You

against their

army

of intrenched

have got to mobilize laws against laws. kave got to learn the law yourself To learn the 152

DO YOU NOT better law.

SEE,

DEAR BROTHER?

The superceding

hurl the hosts of that law of the

law.

And when you

modern

spirit

upon

medieval code you will whip it. Yes, you will rout the disciples and missionaries of the ancient regime. Then. And not till then. fortified

Do not imagine, dear brothers, that anybody has anywhere at any time invented the creed against which you rebel. It came by is

law.

law

the accident.

ship

the law.

will be destroyed. Your trade union Your, strike is the chance. Owner It is for the law that you must de

Give up everything for the law. For the law will give up everything to you. But chance will give up nothing to you. It gives what it must. What you have the power to take. That's all. You go to your bosses quoting the commentaries of chance. Your clare.

bosses smile.

Chance

knife.

the lockout.

are willing to take chances with get your palm round the blade of the is starvation. It is low wages. It is

They

And you

you.

It is class arrayed against class.

Good

people and bad people. The four hundred and the masses. Law is a full stomach. Better than that, it is a full heart. Law provides. It is universal. Chance leads always from appeal to appeal. And while this is going on you are paying all the bills. You work not

only to pay the costs of your

own

of the case of the opposition.

Law The

contest but the costs

Chance

Chance needs sophistry

cheap. law can speak for

itself.

153

You

expensive.

to sustain

it.

have gone on a

CHANTS COMMUNAL long time sending out one fallacy to chase another. But your couriers never come back. The hazards of the

Your

task are too great.

couriers are swallowed in the

abyss.

Dear brothers, think of the chances you have Think of the stakes you have put up. What taken. can you show for it ? You have put up your bodies and souls. You have put up your wives and children.

You it

The

have put up the prostitute.

done

for

you

The

forever.

You might go on

fruit

When is

has

planting this seed

You

would be the same.

ways pausing with expedients. with solutions ? So much rent

What

jail.

right

are

you go on

will

and so much

So much interest is right and so much is wrong. So much profit is right and so much is wrong. Well.

wrong.

thresh out your problems that way. You get your But have you got right rent and interest and profit.

You

And

now you You have had your gamble. justice ? The stare blankly at the emptiness of your result. not with right interest or wrong interest. It is with interest. You can only reduce your trouble by reducing your rent. You can only get rid of your

trouble

by getting

and wrong Property

Ownership

rid of

your

interest are chance.

the law. is

the law.

rent.

Right interest

interest

the law.

the accident.

Private property is Private ownership

the acci

long as you put up one private right against another you are playing a game of chance. But when

dent.

you prove the private by the general right you are op154

AFTER EVERYTHING ELSE crating in the

brothers

domain of

law.

you not

PAID

see,

dear

Dear brothers, you are hanging round on the You outside of things. You are risking on margins. are toying with fringes of the garment but you do not touch the garment. You chance so much. You think that you will get your so little.

You law man half

your back. That if you can get him to put one foot on the ground half your burden will be gone. Half a burden is better than a whole burden. But as long as he holds on you are a victim. Chance says it is not Law says it right for all the man to be on your back. And is wrong for any of the man to be on your back. off

you appeal only to chance you will be carry ing some of the man. The law alone is your salvation. Chance is war. Law is peace. In every case in which law comes up against chance chance is licked. That is why I am always saying to you Quote the law. is some cent Law is Chance always per against you. always on your side. You have played the last play of

as long as

You The law

are

law.

will

you

still

AFTER EVERYTHING ELSE IS

Now

play the play of the into your hands. Do play game not see, dear brothers ?

chance.

PAID

a slave.

After

all

other thought then comes

the thought of the workman. After all other honors are paid his honors

are paid. worry about our yachts. About luxur ies for our tables and our backs. About a trip in sum155

CHANTS COMMUNAL mer and

And

the winter's season in town.

after

every

we worry about the workman. thing We make everything secure before we make him se worried about

cure.

postponed to the

last

hour.

put

nothing put him off for. Why should we take him into account ? He more than hon ors every one of our drafts. Why should we honor his ? Indeed, he presents no drafts. He comes with his hat off asking favors. And if we have any favors left after we have given favors everywhere we give what is left We forget him until we have remembered to him. off until there is

else to

He can have the crumbs. He every other claimant. can have the edges. After the guests have left the ta ble he can come in and make the best of the leavings. He sets the table. He provides for the table. But he must not eat its food. He would not cut a pretty fig His hands are soiled. His coat is creased. He ure. We could not let him mingle is lacking in manners. with the

The

elect.

from him. or chance to

elect derive

all

their substance

would have no time But that makes their manners. good study

But

for

him the

elect

no difference. He is the dog. He may bark outside. But he must not come in during the feast. He has his kennel.

entitled to the scraps.

He may

finally

be let in to get them or may wait in the yard till they are thrown to him. That is the way we pay our debt to Our first debt. The first debt of all which is labor. paid as the

you

it ?

last

debt of

all.

Well, workmen,

think you must like 156

how do You

pretty well.

AFTER EVERYTHING ELSE could stop

You do

any time.

you must be

not stop

PAID There

it.

When

satisfied.

you present your be paid. But as long as you hold back the You are afraid of your masters will not hunt you up. fore,

bill it will

own

case.

and

a bill

you present any

bill

at all it is

should you For the next

not present a bill in full

Not

only half

But why

presented with an apology.

for wages.

For ownership. For freedom. estate. For room to move. For decent air to For decent houses to live in. For decent breathe. For less work for your wives and for your clothes. For chances for the children. That's the kind selves. You have had wages long enough. of bill to present. Even fair wages. There is no such thing as fair wages. Wages themselves are unfair. Put in the charge. Put For

life.

in in a loud voice.

mind

the politeness.

Yes, with strong words.

That may take

The

will hear you.

on.

They

You

will take their places.

Why

fernally modest ? are fed ? should

Why

Do not

care of itself later

false guests will scatter.

Why

should you be so in

should you go hungry shiver

till

are clothed

? you be would taken care of. you nobody Why should you hesitate then to come in with the first peo You ple to get your share of the universal bounty ? need it. It is yours. Take it. Do not take it in bits.

But

till

for

Do not allow any discounts. It Let nothing come between it and Do you not hear the cries of your children ? Do you. you not hear the weeping of your wives ? Are you Take all

the whole of

it.

belongs to you.

157

CHANTS COMMUNAL not yourselves weak from want of food ? Do you not worry each night because of next morning and each morning because of next night ? Stop worrying. Take

what belongs to you. I have asked you this question do let Why you yourselves be thrust aside ? Now I ask you another question Why do you thrust your selves aside ? For after all if the masters pay all bills be

pay your bills it is because you have allowed yourselves to be superceded. Why should you have masters anyhow ? Why should you stand aside and fore they

Why

should

Why

allow the masters to take the center of the road

should you get off the

you get

off the sea for his

road to

let his

yacht

carriage pass

should you take your children out of school in order to Look at your get the children of the castes educated ? It is getting pretty late. watch. It is time for you to be doing something. When your masters want rent

you pay. When they want interest on their money you shake in your boots. When they want profit on their goods you hand over your last cent. Why do The it the the are do ? rent, interest, profit, yours. you Yet you pay it to them. Are you going to be fooled forever?

You

have got so in the habit of standing

now you stand aside for everything. The masters collect their claims so easily that they have no Your humility is their in idea of moderating them.

aside that

come.

Here

The The

master cries:

Slave!

and you answer:

master asks you to abase 158

yourselves.

AFTER EVERYTHING ELSE

PAID

You get on your marrows. He does not need to do you any injustice. You do yourselves injustice enough to save

him

He asks you to whip yourselves whip yourselves. He hands you

that trouble.

And you

for him.

every weapon of oppression. selves.

You

right back.

Your

oppress your weapons on the

The

experience has but one season. altitude of perpetual snow. God knows

bitter.

The

And you

will yet learn to use those But you are slow to learn.

school

Winter.

I despise I cry out to you in a you. God knows I love you. loud voice. I persuade you in a piteous voice. I take you in my arms. I try to open your eyes. I hate you

my hate. I love you with all my love. I want you grow as big as yourselves. I want to see you fair enough to be fair to yourselves. I want to wash you clean enough for you to see that the honest I want to stop you from dirt on your hands is holy. I want to stop you standing aside for other people. from standing in the way of other people. You stand aside until everything else is paid. I want to see

with

all

to see

everything else stand aside until you are paid. Paid ? Yes. But not paid by masters. Paid by yourselves. No man can have any paymaster but himself. Every

man may man will

be his own paymaster and payslave. But no stand aside while luxury wastes the hallowed substance of his work. That work which is his body.

Which

his soul.

My self-respect.

That

brothers, you are wanting in what's the matter with you. 159

CHANTS COMMUNAL When

the proper amount of self-respect you will get second to nobody. In this world, in the work of this world, in the justice of this world, there should

you have

be no seconds. There should be no firsts and lasts. There should be only souls. The world will not be made up of workers and somebodies else. There will be no somebodies else. The world product will not be divided between profits and wages. When wages get is due to wages there will be nothing left for ex

what

When will wages get the due of wages? When you come into your self-respect. When you know what is yours. When you no longer apologize for what is yours. My God Do you not see, my

ploitation.

brothers

complex. for food.

The problem

so simple.

You

you picking ashes for coal. Beating down each other for j obs. I

see

upon comfort from the

are so

Begging

Looking

Freezing to death in winter. Melting to death in summer. Uneducated. Possessed of work without leisure or of leisure with out work. Afraid of the days. Afraid of marriage. Afraid even of love. All this, brothers mine. And because of what ? Because of yourselves. Will you in

outside.

go on any longer ? Swear that you will not. Get a little Mirror yourselves in your self-respect. Then size of and act as men better idea shape. your Go to the masters of such size and shape should act. be a new Refuse to decree. put aside another reciting Maintain Take yourselves there. day. your places. let this

"Go to

your masters,"

I just said.

160

Now

say

"Go

HAVE A WORD TO SAY TO YOU

For yourselves are your masters or no masters. Let your bill be the first bill in. The full bill. Do not budge until it is paid. What can be paid after your bill is paid ? Nothing. For of The full bill of the bill life. bill the full is your to yourselves."

there are

soul.

HA VE A WORD I have a word to say to you, you TO SA Y TO YOU who are the masters and gentle

men.

Our

to-day's yes to-day's yes is for to-day. own yes. struck.

Our demand its

not an eternal yes.

Tomorrow

will

asked for more wages and less time. You said no. And so we had to fight you for it. We fought. We won. You had to give us ten per cent. You were forced to acquiesce in eight hours.

Now we being

are at

at peace.

work

Now we

again.

are described as

Do not deceive yourselves.

This

not

peace. Any per cent under one hundred per cent is truce. One hundred per cent alone is peace. have started out on a long journey. Some of us,

This

truce.

some

of you,

call it a campaign. Anyway, it is a long have journey. got to stop now and then for rest. These stops are truce. Five per cent is truce. The five per cent grub is not as good as the ten per cent But it is good enough to keep body and soul grub. We take what we can get. compromise. together. concede. We admit. keep ourselves in good humor. But while our bellies are fixed on the truce our souls are fixed on the peace. Peace is far ahead.

161

CHANTS COMMUNAL We see but dimly. But we it

see

When

it.

the eyes

the eyes of the spirit take it up. It It seems more like mira shines brighter than any sun. cle than any dream. But it is there. are afflicted. of the flesh lose

We crawl home tired at night.

But we see the beacon. It is way off. Lots of us will go wrecked up the shore before the goal is reached. But what of that ? The sacrifice is worth while. Nobody will go because he will go because he is anxious the light is there. They because go will go to the light as they go to their meals. Yes, as they go to their sleep. Yes, as they resume life when is

afraid to go.

Men

to go.

Nobody

will

morning comes

That is why they will arrive. again. If the struggle could be lost because men were timid or even because they were heroic it would not be lost or won.

Once

on the road we will not retreat. But going back is not

off

We may occasionally go back. retreat.

Policy

may

persuade us back.

We are often

most dangerous when we go back. Back there is fresh resolution. Back there we counsel together out of and your sight hearing and prepare for a greater ad

are not led astray by false signs. Ten per It does not deceive. cent does not dissuade.

vance.

have eyes to see through every ten per cent to another ten. And then we see through all the tens to the hun

The hundred

the goal. go hungry and die for the hundred. thirsty for the hundred. You find us all along your highways starved and left

dred.

to rot.

you go

bed

at night confident that rot is 162

defeat

HAVE A WORD TO SAY TO YOU

You

But the idea

the deserted corpses going on. Do you think

left

on the road.

physical

eyes are feasted on the star of the ideal in eras far ahead ? If left to physical eyes I should have lost

my way idea that

long ago. is

seen.

It is the idea that sees. It is the

It is the

idea that gives truce for

on the final gage. The final gage is hundred per cent. one Peace is peace. This is all very It seems just as if I held a scale before you vulgar. And you are spiritual. You ask weighing bellies. what wages have to do with happiness. You ask what wages have to do with virtue. You ask what wages have to do with the holier interests of the soul. True. What have they ? And if wealth has nothing to do with happiness, virtue and the soul why do you insist upon truce but insists

If men can get along quite as well appropriating it all ? without wealth as with it, why do you fight tooth and nail to

confirm your possessions

may

not be true

who make

the beautiful things of the world should enjoy the privileges that result. But it just as certainly is not true that people who do nothing that the people

to It

produce such miracles should rob the general fund. may be better to give than to receive. But the re-

ceiver

much

too

little

apt to

remember

ter to give than to receive. drive parasite a few terrible contrasts.

him has

that

it is

bet

are reminding

better to give ten dollars to the man who hard for them than to receive one dollar for

it is

worked

that

home upon our

163

CHANTS COMMUNAL We

labor that has not been performed. are reminding of accumulating ten per cents that enough

him by means tens

a hundred. be truce but that

may make

takes the

full

that ten

one hundred to

peace.

Now you when

the one

have thought that

Not

We are reminding him

make

all.

You

hear you ask, what is hundred goes to the

all

become

others.

We have not forgotten you.

out.

are not to be cast off.

Your minor

You

are to be

be ab are going to do better by sorbed in the one class. you than you have done by us. When you found no You con profit in us you threw us out in the road. to us humiliation and starvation. But there is signed You will find that to be no outside in our philosophy. done for you which you refused to do for others. Or, taken care

of.

classes are

all

rather, you will find that done for you which under your barbarous system no man found it possible to do You take up your slate and convince for another. that the hundred per cent crowds you out. It yourself out of a place in which you do not crowds you But in crowding you out of that place it belong. leaves you where life can be lived on more generous

terms.

You shudder when

speak of truce. Truce reminds you of battles fought and battles to come. Yet there are worse things than truce. Apathy is worse than truce. Your peace is worse than our truce. I do not say truce

the best thing. 164

say

a better

thing.

deed. tuous.

But

truce

AM GOING TO LAUGH

only the apology.

Peace

the

We do not ask each other to be ten per cent vir We ask each other to be virtuous. We do not

But the hundred always expect the hundred per cent. If you come at me in is what we are working towards. tending some assault and I protest, how would it sound " I will for you to say purify ten per cent of my mo other But the tive. ninety per cent you will have to :

take in the

submit. ed. after

neck"?

Your

suppose

cards are stacked.

would be forced

Your

fists

are load

could only take the deal and pay the pool. But with had cent fist your pernicious ninety per you I

wrecked ninety per cent of me would resume the fight.

collar-bone the rest of

It is

upon such agreements

It is in such that truce and peace may come to terms. temper that the ten per cents are accepted by the hun dred. The tens are sore from head to foot. But their

The tens see nothing, hear nothing, sores are holy. but the hundred towards which they journey. Any per cent under one hundred per cent is truce. One hun dred per cent alone to say to you,

That is the word I have peace. are the masters and gentle

you who

men.

AM GOING

I am going to laugh. Do not misunderstandme. Laugh. Why should I make myself miserable fighting this fight ? Do you think that good humor is weakness ? Watch me. See

TO LAUGH

165

CHANTS COMMUNAL good humor concedes anything. Do you not know that the fiercest weapons are concealed in a laugh? if

my laugh. And my laugh I am going to be cheerful. the pirates. That I am going into battle with a song on my lips. It will help me. And for the will not hurt the battle. I

have a whole sea back of

will

wreck

all

purposes of I

myself. laugh. a city.

this campaign I am doing all I can to help can destroy ten thousand sneers by one

A well placed laugh will bring down the wall of No

Blot iniquity can stand a righteous laugh. out the sun. I will still laugh. And laugh will

put the sun in the heavens again. I do not see why I should keep myself miserable trying to bring about

Why should

not be happy in the pro cess as well as in the result ? Yes, get some of the re

happiness.

Does it do the result sult into the process ? for to go about with a lugubrious visage ?

say that you should wear a

mask

any good I do not

I say you of joy. For I see the good

should be actually joyful. I am. time coming. And I am already borrowing upon

its

collateral.

Come now. Why should you bother with You are the owner of untold wealth. You grief? worship an ideal. You dream dreams. You see the new world

Why should other fel Let the ? sorrow you judgment the Let that be done by lows do that. people who think this world is to continue always to be as it is. Who do not see. the sunrise. Who cannot see round that

confess

are about to enter. to

J66

AM GOING TO LAUGH

hills or past any shadows. But well be in ecstasy. should go

any corners or over any

we on our

side

may

about our business each day chanting hymns. I would be ashamed to miss the significant optimism of my faith.

would be ashamed

to let

anybody discover

the least sign of fatigue, the least suspicion of de

shed no tears over

work. Except, per haps, tears of joy. The task I have in hand is so rich in present dividends that I could not doubt my invest ment. I hate to see a rebel put on a poor face. I say " You to such rebels belong in the other camp." I like to see a rebel walk with a light foot. Yes, with a heart as light as his foot. Just as if everything was to come true to-morrow. Just as if everything had al ready come true. For to the man with the real stuff in him the ideal is true the minute it becomes his own. spair.

No man ever keeps his ideal waiting. He keeps up. The real man has no

catches up. trouble in keep ideal has a lot of trouble

up with his ideal. His keeping up with him. He sings. happy. Life comes to him with ing

He dances. He full

arms.

Death hunts the apologists. shrinks away. are harvest of death. the ogists

Death

The

apol

My laugh is a challenge. It will

meet an

iniquity

on any terms.

It will confute

send that iniquity home sore if not dead. The wrongdoers do not always understand. It demands its due. laugh is uncompromising. It laughs out for the last round. It laughs away the that iniquity.

It will

167

CHANTS COMMUNAL darling trinity of the capitalistic regime. est,

profit.

It is

Rent, inter

It laughs

laugh away slavery. an accusation. It is a conscience.

question. that something which disturbs your sleep at night and worries your wake by day. For all its noncha

lance

its

concern tingles you

a tree, as blood

to the

Men come

faith.

at the roots.

body, so

me wondering

sap

laugh to

laugh

dangerous. They find it barbed. They find it an uncomfortable neighbor. They discover that it is a I sat down and cried searching and inexorable critic. and the evil went on. I got up and laughed and the I can afford to laugh. evil hurried away. Laugh is

money in my pocket but it is light in my soul. Weeping made me weak. Laughing made me strong. not

laugh private property to scorn. I laugh the million aires out of their increments. I laugh the workmen out of their lethargy. laugh is the last fact I treat I

with

when

may You may

laugh. I

first I

have everything

deal with

But else

I will

you

when

keep

will leave

want to show that

Rockefeller.

any single

my laugh is bigger than than any single man. Bigger than Bigger Just as big as

interest.

Just as big as

all

interests

how that the whole er than

bed and the

lose other assets.

get up. that.

my laugh.

all

men put

put into one.

together.

think some

material stuff of the universe I

think

somehow

made

that

small

my laugh was

For my to teach the material things a lesson. laugh is the soul of man made manifest in the destiny 168

of his love.

anny and

AM GOING TO LAUGH

laugh will outlast all economic tyr All slaved children and

social stratagem.

All

starved parents.

wagemen and

tollmen.

Weak?

Is flame weak when in the fire? gravitation weak? The sword water weak in the flood? Weak?

Is Is

might be laugh

easy.

will try

The bullet might

you

be a mercy.

But

to the end. I

had

a choice of

weap

chose the laugh. Laughter can do all that can then do more. I do not choose can do and weeping to be cheerful because cheerfulness is a gentle weapon. ons.

indeed.

Because cheerfulness

The enemy might survive my enemy will never survive my laugh.

on.

away from

vituperation.

every path of escape. say the whole story I

But

the sternest gravity.

weap But the

He might sneak my laugh guards

When my told.

laughter has said its had a choice of weapons.

Cheer accounts for so much more than Cheer is so inevitable. It appoints such

chose cheer.

depression.

inflexible alternatives.

It cavorts

about in such eternal

Cheer never suffers from sore feet. It knows youth. no old age. It is never reminiscent. Cheer is always pledged to to-day and to-morrow. Villainy may not keep tries

engagements with solemnity. But it never to escape my laugh. Cheer is philosophy. It its

I see that the privateers foregoes little effects for big. disdain your tearful chase. But if you watch you will

learn that they respect laughing summons of surren der. you know, a laugh gets into the muscle of

169

CHANTS COMMUNAL your arm. It pours along your capacity for thought.

your veins. It enriches your love its crown

It gives

Just a song. Just cheer ing efficacy. Just a laugh. at the right time and at the wrong time. Nothing can refute my laugh. Nothing can disconcert its imper When I came to the parting of turbable affirmations.

the roads I chose for cheer.

The sun

has been in

path ever since. And I can see heaven ahead. Jus All men with plenty and no man with too much. tice. Cheer.

Laughter.

be afraid of this laugh. cial

But

if there is any lurking so can by cant or by chicanery I am close upon it. beware. I

wrong which thinks

escape

let it

laugh

quote no useless

Laugh with the best No good thing need

laugh. the best love.

Laugh with

hate.

texts.

strike

no useless blows.

I just laugh. useless apologies. Laugh the world justice for its inhumanity. Laugh the world

offer

God. I think my laugh and God must be the same thing. Or if they are not the same thing then all the worse for God.

harmony

for

its

talk of

going to laugh.

WHA T CAN I

discord.

DO ?

What

can

others are silent.

others say money. I can keep asleep.

can stay up

can talk out

can say

when

man when others

are

on working when others have can give life big meanings when

stopped to play.

others give life others say hate.

little

meanings. can say every 170

can say love

man when

when

others say

WHAT CAN one man. try

can try events by a hard test

by an easy

myself to

DO?

when

others

test.

What can I do ? I can give life when other men refuse themselves to life.

My privileges are never cut off My faith never discounted is

unless until

cut

them

off.

low.

quote can stop looking at other people and look awhile at myself. I can say loss when you

What

can

I can say freedom when you say landlord. can say principal when you say interest. I can do my best while others do their worst. I can live nearer

say profit. I

myself while the others live farther from themselves. I can fight on while others surrender.

What I

can get myself into touch with

can

ideas.

I I

can

gather the fragments of my life together into one co herent life. I can take sides with the poor. I can I can let others wear broadcloth build on simplicity. while I wear rags. I can refuse to condone my own

What can I do ? Believe in man. Go without income. Walk on my uppers. Give life one hundred sins.

per cent of myself. think of me. Care

Not first

care

what

what other people think of myself. Not

first

declare against the sins of the world and go on sinning. Give up property for people. Not Stop sinning. stake my private interest against the total human inter est.

Not be

afraid of slander.

misunderstood. arrayed against me.

Expect

Not

to find

feel all

bad when

neighbors

Remain contented when no one 171

CHANTS COMMUNAL come near me.

will

what

can starve.

What

And now you to

say

do impossible

That

can die.

can do.

what

can

I call

You

may do nothing

upon myself,

You

things.

can do.

I call

upon you,

You

are wrong.

did not ask

fulfil

have told you.

me what

program.

asked

I will I

do.

may do

my philosophy. But the program and the philosophy remain as redoubtable as before. The spirit will succeed though the flesh may fail. I That say that property destroys but people save. your private virtue is useless in a world of isolated men. That the last slave will not disappear till the last owner That proprietorship and poverty go hand in dies. hand. That I would rather live in a poor world with I say all these justice than in a rich world with wrong. But I none of them ? do things. suppose Suppose I let them all pass for words ? I Suppose just keep on to have a time? trying good Looking for ease. Making my peace with the dreary round of present nothing to justify

Regard greed. Playing all life down instead of up. ing with nonchalance the suffering of the dispossessed. Forgetting the hut as long as I can maintain myself in

What I to say to myself then ? when soul is of through my myself give But can I live can talk big any time.

the palace.

What am

account can

with talk

big

can talk against

profit?

It is easy for

But

easy for

is it

But can

I live

against faith into words. to put I do not to put it into deeds ? profit.

172

WHAT CAN find

difficult to

make

But

a show.

cult to translate language into

life.

find

may

DO?

it diffi

be able to

do great things while the world looks on and applauds. But what can I do while the world looking on does not applaud or does not look on at all ? I can do miracles when you love me. But what can I do when you hate me ? What can I do ? I can place myself on the spot I can take where no other man will place himself. You say you risks while other men huddle in shelter. can love justice

when

the weather

good.

Can you

I do not know love justice when the weather is bad ? I want to do and what I can do. But I know what

what

can try to do.

What

can

make

I can keep the standard up. I be faithful. can talk out in company when it is fashionable to be I can do disagreeI can consent to be a bore. quiet.

bluff to

ble things.

can learn to say no.

can bear with

equanimity to have people point at me in the streets I can throw away every shred as a dangerous outlaw. of reputation in order to

My My

keep every shred of character.

voice

may outcry the noise of the farthest wrong. life daily may be consecrated to fraternity. What can I do ? I can perhaps do nothing to straighten out other men.

But I can do everything to straighten out can square myself with private property by myself. it. I can square myself with the law of the abolishing individual by squaring myself with the law of the mass. I

Why

should

hope

bask in the sunshine of 173

social

CHANTS COMMUNAL Why

should 1 not shrink into the shadow of I have tried to take care of social sacrifice ? myself by not taking care of others. Why should I not learn to plenty

take care of myself

lessons of

by taking care of others too hard to learn

real self

Are

the I to

grovel in the dust and confess against my faith ? I to live in the surfeit of honest starvation or die in the

I to measure emptiness of a dishonest surplus ? with littlest or with myself my opportunity my biggest What can I do ? Can I do only the opportunity ?

Can I not things that affect my personal life ? to the which contribute things general life ?

the I to

timidly hug the shore when so much remains to be done out in the stream ? What can I do ? Take chances.

Go where it calls upon a man's best art to brave ly issues of the destroyer.

without stop. Fight. ask me what I can do.

men have done I

not do

it?

Die.

the dead

Work

Without food.

Tire.

Is that too

You

much ?

Why can I not do that Other less reason, too. Why should ?

For

it.

always to shield myself behind to skulk with fine

Am I shortages and forfeits ? words ? When I get to heaven me damn me save

death

When

What

honorable

is ?

will graceful phrases hell will decent conduct to get all life for if not for death when

What

all

death for

not for

when life is necessary ? Steady. Now's for your Back of you the whole race pushes. Make no mistake. Treachery now may poison the issues of his life

nerve.

tory.

The

lords are

all

there in front of you. 174

The

WILL YOU BE READY? The lords of land. The lords of The lords ma The lords of luxury. power. are to obliterate. we the of Steady. regime lignant No quibble now. No compromise now. No com promise with the enemy. Most of all no compromise with yourself. Steady. Steady. What can I do ? What can you do ? Look at the gathered forces of lords of

money.

official

you not see trespass. not see what I can do ?

WILL YO U BE READY?

what you can do

Will you be ready

When the hour

Will you be strikes will you hear ? on the right spot ? Will you be there in your own best mood ? What have you done to prepare yourself for the crisis

danger appeared.

And

the responsi

upon you. Would you be equal to it ? You That you are to serve say you leave that to the great ? Do not abdicate. You yourself may be in the ranks ? bility fell

the great. Suppose you are found upon the crisis line at the august moment ? Are you to tell the crisis to

wait while care

you go hunting for a deliverer ? I do not are. I call upon you to prepare yourself

who you

for greatness. I say that the appeal may come straight to you. You dare not default. And it may come any

minute you live. It is your business to be within call. It is your business to be equiped. Crises do not have a habit of looking round for heroes. They happen when and where they choose. And the man who is in the

way

of the task gets

to do.

175

And

you

are the

CHANTS COMMUNAL right

man when

And

comes you do it the right way. you wrong man you do it the wrong And I know you want way. And I know your faith. to be the right man. And so I warn you. For I see And signal fires burning everywhere on every hilltop. I know that you may any time, in work in or your your play, be called upon to acquit yourself of this solemn So I say to you Be ready. Do not responsibility. waste a single minute. But be ready. For the lords brothers in And when god, your distress, may call. call must answer them according to their they you the task

are the

need. I

man I

am much

guilty than

done

less

when

bothered when

I find

to prepare for the resurrection ? am I to meet the new life

rich it

Or am

What have

myself guilty.

personal power to

find another

with gifts or go to

With what ?

a pauper

soliciting

alms

Am I to Am I

If the

crisis came to-morrow in what condition would I be to meet it ? The old theologians used to tell us we should

be always ready to die. I say so, too. I say more than that. I say we should always be ready to live. Are we ready without even a moment's notice to live ? Not live for ourselves. Live for our fellows. For under the life

new

lived at

man may arrange to live his Lives must be lived together or not be life lived all alone is barren. How near

dispensation no

alone. all.

ready are you for the communal life ? For the life of obscure service ? For the life of average greatness ? 176

WILL YOU BE READY? Could you live that life to-morrow if called upon to do ? Or would you still need your great men ? You have your great men to-day. What are they doing for you ? Why should you expect them to do more for you in the future ? Every man must be his own great man. Will you still lean upon exceptions ? Will you Do you still intend to submit still rely upon masters ? your fate to administrators and authorities ? Do you so

not possess within yourself the flame of a beatific life ? Are you feeding that flame ? Are you husbanding the treasures which in the turning point of battle, in the crucial hour of peace, would enable you to do men jus tice if their call

know your

was addressed

you

For you must

that the signal of distress is as likely to be flashed way as any other. I wonder when I see you

wasting time.

wonder when I hear you calling your I wonder why you do not save

enemy hard names.

think you will need

to get you God is very well. Religion is very well. But ready. Perhaps better. Perhaps getting ready is also well. all

that energy.

it all

God you

worship and the very religion you best be worshiped and proclaimed in could proclaim getting ready for the sacred tryst. the very

You

have got so in

You have been the habit of serving under masters. the subjects of kings so long. And of parliaments and And you have such false awe of profes presidents. sional

men.

Of men who

talk

and

write.

merely ornamental arbiters of social values. 177

the

That you

CHANTS COMMUNAL imagine that when you pass over the border into the

new

life

the leaders and professors will migrate with

That you

will still be compelled to look to them you. for the articles of social federation. You deify leader

You

ship.

are afraid to think of heaven as a

democ

How

can any place or event conditioned upon a racy. ruler and upon rules be heaven ? How can you have a social

democracy dependent upon exceptional leaders I do not care who you are. ? You are If you are not the chosen man then the chosen man. no man is chosen. All history is made to keep an ap for its existence

pointment with you. If you refuse to keep the ap pointment or come to it unprepared history will con fess bankruptcy and the social paradise will remain in complete. Everything depends upon you. You are your own Atlas. Upon your shoulders the social com monwealth must rest. Upon yours alone ? Upon your realize the

much

I do not believe you any. of I make you the task. magnitude your

shoulders as

upon

If you heard reproach and target of appeal. the summons this minute would you be ready to an

swer it ? Not answer it as a follower to a leader. But answer it as one man in the ranks to another man in the ranks.

Answer

competent deeds.

For when you

sail without a have your chart. But you will go without orders. You will have no commanders to tell you what to do. You will be expected to know what to do without whip or spur. Will you be ready ? Are

cast off

master.

upon

You

that untried sea will

178

you

will

WANT TO

BE COUNTED

you making the most of the present in the interest of Are you stiffening your courage ? Are the future ? you ripening your wisdom ? Are you better equiped to-day than you were yesterday ? Will you be still Is your lamp filled with better equiped to-morrow ? oil

your brain

filled

with ideas

your heart

When

the fateful day comes there will be no time to run for crutches or for asking or an filled

with love

swering questions. All your schooling must be got now. You have dreamed of a world without masters. The only substitute for a world with a master is a world in

which every man

claim in alarm

his

own

master.

you hear the voice will you ex " Wait I cannot see " Or my way :

you instantly respond in alert tones and ready and know what to do" ?

will

WANT

Are you your

When

own master ?

BE COUNTED

"I am here

want to be counted. I do not want to stand out from the rest. I I

I am will willing and glad to remain in the crowd. to for one serve and no to know me. The hum ing blest job in the cause is not too proud a job for me. The proudest job in the cause is not too humble a job I stand. I am ready. I want to be Come early or come late I shall hear the You may raise your voice in my hardest sleep call. and it will arouse me. Or in the blare of the boister ous day and it will single me out. God is not way off somewhere waiting to be worshiped. God is in the

for

me.

Here

counted.

179

CHANTS COMMUNAL cause.

And in

God. The count rounds solemnly enroll

the cause I worship

ers are abroad.

They go

ing their

allies.

want

their

be counted.

you think you would like to be left out? Do you think you would like the list all made up without your name ? We are all alike. We are sauced bad and good. We are as beautiful as a beautiful idea of God and as ugly But in spite of our criss as an ugly idea of Devil. I do not want to count cross each man may count one. more than one. But I want to count all of one. And I want that one to I want that one to be significant. enjoy the

full distinction

make my one mean make it a sunburst. up to me to make

its

universal office.

make it can make it an

or I can I

sacred. eclipse.

can

can It is

it conserve the noblest impulse. should I quote myself at the lowest figure ? That It is default. I must rate myself is not modesty. I make must my rating good. I want to be high. counted. I want to achieve the victory of that sublime

Why

classification.

the

list.

the

list.

Only

do not want

satisfied to I

want

my name

have

on the

in the assets of the world's love.

at the

head of

come anywhere on

list.

Life

want to figure

I is

a failure

when

quoted anywhere else. I do not want to be quoted dead at the root. I want to be alive all over. And then counted. Counted in the assets of love.

it is

Where do you belong, dear brother 180

Are you counted

for

WANT TO

BE COUNTED

Are you an enfranchised being awakened to the Or are you still bound to divinity of the figure one ?

love

in the nothingness of an indiffer think you, too, want to be counted.

and ciphered

a stake

ent heart?

Counted

for the children of the next frost.

Counted

Counted for, not against, the race. for the largest faith. Not of things that move on. side on the Counted counted on the side of things that stand

Counted

for the

oppressed.

Counted

for enlargement.

tion.

What

does

life

for

still.

Not counted

amount, to

Counted

the general if

joy. for degenera

betrays life?

What does life amount to when scheduled for retreat ? The issue is here. You must go ahead or go back. You cannot stay where you are. You have got to make up your mind and venture out upon the

historic cur

Man is taking account of hearts. Is your heart be counted ? Is your will to be given to decadence? To be pieced out, one piece for folly and one for faith? Or is your will to be one will anointed for the temple ? If you cannot count one what can you count ? You are You have brought yourself as an empty vessel void. to the feast of the future. You have violated the cov enant. Are you to be only a fraction hovering on the margins of performance ? Are you to stand by and rent.

see

all

things

done and you

do nothing

Are you

willing to have this crisis come and you slink away somewhere in some shadow waiting for the storm to

blow over

? Rather be counted for reaction. Rather be against the new world. Rather go bravely back than

181

CHANTS COMMUNAL weakling or sneak away like a coward. me in the rebel advance. Let me with the new Let me keep on with the pioneer day. stream. Let me be an atom of the plainest earth. Let me be a drop of the commonest water. Let me be an unseen star somewhere in space. But let me be stand

But

like a

still

me, count

as for

counted. I do not know the next turn of the road. know we are near by. And I know that when we make the turn we will see the light. And I intend

But

in with the

keep

My eyelids But

up.

may be

life

justice in the life

We lived

all.

may be

may be tempted crowd.

sore.

to give I

are leaving. But I ahead. lived the

know know life

We will live the life of to-morrow

yesterday for a few. for

heavy.

feet

will stick to the pilgrim

there are lures in the

there

crowd.

the

We will live the life

life

of yesterday for property. are

of to-morrow for man.

not asking for more food and clothes. are asking for more life. Life is what we want. Life full of life until it overflows with life. If we need food to help us to get want.

life

then

Life for

will

all.

have food.

Every cup I want

to thirst with a deficit.

what we one left be counted for

But full.

life is

life.

What will

give

will

give us

life ?

which gives free gift.

life

The

You do

life ?

not think

money

Or anything private property ? for a consideration ? Life must be a gift of the

whole to the whole.

182

The

YOU WILL SAY gift of all to

There

retrieve

Life belongs to

all.

of the best

enough

life.

life

all.

for

expect under the

TO YOURSELF Scamp and

saint

life

new arrangement

all.

expect

The celestial laggards will all catch up. The stomachs will catch up with food. The brain will catch up with thought. The soul will catch man will go ahead at the expense up with dream. see the ranks intact.

of the rest.

The man who

goes ahead

will

go ahead

the free will and as the delegate of the rest. will not increase his estate. will broaden the acres

But there are some terrestrial things of hie sympathy. that will never catch up. The interests will not catch up. The profits will not catch up. The landlord will not catch up. The deeds, the mortgages, the liens, the buyings, the sellings, will not catch up. I see the chase. I

see the dark road.

and are

know we grope and stumble

But we grope knowing we

are to touch stumble to tire something. get up again. to rest rest to start and once more. And we only only are almost at the turn of the road. And when we reach the turn we reach the light. And that is why I want to be counted. tired.

YOU WILL SAY

You

IT TO YOURSELF You turn round and walk away. snuggle a balance in bank.

will say it to yourself. resent my words. You

You lock your safe. You You regard your store with

What is your own you will fight royal overlordship. Is your property not your own ? I come to you for. 183

CHANTS COMMUNAL When I come everything is in danger. as a threat. Values shiver. Possession gets down in the mouth. I do not blame you for your I know all about it. do mean anything I do mean you fear. But you have yet to need to fear. That I do not come to unsettle values but to settle them. That val But ues are unsettled to-day. That I will settle them. me not now. So take as an not see this do you you I fair notice that but a menace. give you inspiration you are right. I also give you the fairer intimation You are right when you recognize that you are wrong. me. You are wrong when you fear me.

For if I trepidation. some of the things that learn that you do not

not going I am going to talk on and live on and be to shut up. But I do not expect still on from forever to forever. I

am only going to help you to con am saying disagreeable things. I see easily enough that I am not liked in certain circles. That when profit wants things its own way I am not That interest hates to see me pleasant to have about.

to convince you. vince yourself.

That

and deepens its thrust. That the proud vested tyrannies of the world meet me with angry gaze. But 1 keep on good terms Al I am always smiling upon myself. with myself. coming.

rent scowls

And that is all I need. ways encouraging myself. And though my enemies give me a sharp tussle and think they have thrown me I inevitably turn up the next day as strong as usual. Yes. And with the same 184

YOU WILL SAY And

questions.

TO YOURSELF

Answers

with the same answers.

yours to-morrow. Do to-day. with this kind of faith can wait? a man you not see that faith has no hunger which it cannot itself feed. No weakness which it cannot itself repair. So it can

Answers

own

to be

wait.

My faith

can wait.

say again and say once more

The

devil

words

to-morrow.

The

can wait.

And

say and

the disagreeable words. to-day that become the divine words words you hate to hear. The words all

That you try to put into jails and give to hangman. That visit you any time and any where When you are on whatever untoward occasions. forbid.

you the

Or praying a mocking preaching a false sermon. Or an editorial prayer. bought and paid for. writing

singing a song for a patron.

The words you

to say to-day. hereafter.

You

will

The words will

long resist me.

left

be glad to say

You

will

deceive

You weak. count me only one against a million. You will see the world seem to go on just as it is. One day another. One confirming injustice confirming another. Presidents succeeding Presidents in unvarying medioc Millionaires dead reborn in millionaire children. rity. Starvation handing starvation on. The people inno yourself with

You

initial victories.

will find

will

Demand and supply cently played against the people. cohabited for the production of a blind progeny. The landlord suborning the land. The moneylord suborn ing money.

The

storelord suborning production. 185

All

CHANTS COMMUNAL will

to go on just as it is. And you who resist be fooled. You will say the universe is against

seem will

You

me.

tenderer

will say I

moments ask

Or you will cursed. What's the use ? But

your

all this

be keeping on. Doing nothing unusual. Only keeping on. Asleep or awake, keeping on.

time

will

Compelled

to say the say of justice

all

by myself.

Willing to wait until you are shaken up and convinced. Until you will say it to yourself. And say it to your self

you

will.

There

are things ahead that will stir

you

out of your indifference or lethargy or doubt. Give you an immortal awakening. So you will never sleep

do not know

again.

thing.

And you

what

just

will be.

But some

know it when it comes. And why I am calm. Why I am Why I am not defeated by

will

then you will understand not worried by delay.

postponements. Why all the big things that seem to be against me do not seem to worry the one little thing that is for me. Why my faith maintains itself against

your property.

Why

Why my

soul maintains itself against

willing to say words that are thought personally unkind for the sake of a result that is universally sweet. I look in your face and see

injustice.

Why

you long before you are able to see yourself. you with all your fortified rights doubt and despair.

Why dent. little

without any right at all am cheerful and confi you tremble when one little man with one

Why

voice asks

you

a question. 186

Why

do not trem-

YOU WILL SAY ble with

mies

TO YOURSELF

the states and churches and political econo

all

heels.

you think I am only saying words I shall say for myself ? I am saying words for you. words for you until you say them for yourself. Then I

Now

shall cease.

When

necessary to you.

you recognize yourself for what you are rather than for what you think you are I will become unnecessary. Until then you

may

expect to meet

me anywhere. At When you collect meet me when

sorts of unpropitiating junctures. your rents you will meet me. You will all

you absorb powers or properties that belong to others. you pay wages. When you take and spend the When you visit morgues profits you think you own. and survey your dead. When you think you may look

When

without guilt into the starved faces of children. What ever you do while rights and wrongs remain as they are

you

will

meet me.

will

Hard

not come to say

things. true things.

things. Things Things that but for

That but

some other me

only

me ?

for

would go unsaid.

But you. would go unsaid.

do you think

You

evil

maim

will

the

not live an

hour without finding me lurking somewhere in it. Or dream a dream. I am not a shadow. I am a light. But the light is too much for you. Too much for you as long as it comes to you from another. But the light after a bit will come to you from yourself. Then it will no longer be too much for you. This is the thing you leave me to say for you. The thing I do say for 187

CHANTS COMMUNAL The

forever say for you. Yet you, It seems to be too, have an appointment with justice. But you have it. And you will farther off than mine.

you.

thing

I will

keep the appointment.

You

will yet say

say

to you,

beloved.

to yourself.

simple man, the man you meet every day and every where, drop in the stream that passes by

The

your door,

The anonymous

sap of the earthtree

announcing fruit, Lost in the mingling all, averaged the human lump,

Creator creating yet never imprinting his song.

188

AND

brother, this

It is beautiful to It is

beautiful to it

beautiful for us to

know know

know

ALL AMOUNTS TO THIS

that nothing is finally wrong with the world, that love may be out of place in the world but that

always has a place in the world,

It is beautiful to

It is beautiful to It is beautiful to

know know know

that the false things have a true place in the world, that the cruel things have a kind place in the world, there is nothing in the world however bad but it

has a good place in the world, know that even sorrow has a glad place in the world my brother, it is beautiful to know, it is beautiful to know :

It is beautiful to

When

everything goes back to

its

place

189

it is

beautiful to know.

CHANTS COMMUNAL AND IT ALL And all amounts world

TO THIS

is self

deceived.

settled.

problems

That

to this.

AMOUNTS

Has

the

thought

its

Has dreamed that

its

The world is rubbing its eyes. Soon it villainy is justice. will be awake. Then the churches will have less to say for Then Then the

the schools will

themselves.

and

have

less to

say for them

have benefactors less to say for themselves. This world has been so well done it has got burned. It has been so virtuous it has lost all the selves.

the endowers will

It has been so just it has missed the per The world will tell you it is all right. spective of justice. The priests will tell you the world is all right. The poli habits of virtue.

The moneymak you the world is all right. the moneythe is all Even world you right.

ticians will tell

ers will tell

workmen of

world, will tell you the world is all right. Everything will tell you the world is Goes on all right. Yet the world questions itself again. losers^ the rejected

suspecting it cold sweats.

Yet

wrong. It

is so

Dreams. certain.

its

Nightmares. Shivers in Yet it is not certain at all.

Yet it weeps. happy. Everything is at peace. has armies and navies to bear witness to peace. It

believes in the sacredness of to

this

show how

own

lemma.

true

victim.

may

A nd then own creed.

life.

be to

its

It has seized the

It has said the

little

loose

things in

destroys

horn of

a loud

life

The world is its

voice

own and

di the

This world has had its say about big things in a whisper. It has modest in the proclamation of its never been itself. own genius. Meanwhile men have fought and starved. This

a world of jobs.

One job 190

bids against another.

One

AND job

ALL AMOUNTS TO THIS

For this world is not a world The soul stands by the job hat in hand asking its The world has talked enough about its property.

quoted against another.

of souls.

favor. bout

its

It has talked until the soul

physical prowess.

sick of talk.

We know what the world can do for the body.

For the belly. For the classes. For society. For greatness. But we do not know what the world can do for the soul. For creature It has denied the soul. It accepts the dirt. All this time the soul has waited, waited, waited. returns. It has been patient. It has uttered no complaint. It has waited for its time to come. I declare that now its time has come.

Do not be too sure of your haughty civilization. Do not think that things are too big to be resisted. Civilization is master sophistry. Nothing is big but the soul. Profit is not big.

Nor

wages.

interest of the

money you say they are big. are smallest.

Nor

lender.

the landlord

rent.

You count these

Nor

in millions

the

and

all things in the universe these

The meanest quibble of a penny

virtue

worth

more than all your millions of stolen vice. You are so enor mous. You are so enormous you bulge out at all sides with glutton cheeks and me to crawl on the ground saying it my humblest prayer. But I do not find civilization attractive. Civilization would be all right if its liabilities were not

adulterous fat. thick neck asks

Civilization with

greater than its assets. If we would do it reverence.

charged up civilization is not without capital.

its

we judged it by But when

its

assets alone

the bills are all

It obliged to go into bankruptcy. But its substance has been squan191

CHANTS COMMUNAL Some of

dered.

missed

its

It has partners have betrayed it. It has gone along

connection with social justice.

man made rich by the That the poverty of the poor would make no difference. That it was not the business of civili zation to take care of all but to express preferences and hu

supposing that

might have a rich

poverty of the poor.

mors and do erratically what it pleased with the individual. Whims. Flatteries. Luck. Anything but law. Any Civilization has lived out thing but the universal solvent. It has paid the full price of competition. competitive life.

its

The barbarous price. It goes It wakes up in

into elysium.

bed at night to dream

the

morning

itself

in the gutter.

we see the best thing that civilization can offer Has it no better collateral than the collateral of

this thing that

for itself?

We ask

theft?

civilization

civilization:

shows us

its

Who

your master? And It shows us the I owe

rentrolls.

It brings us tables of interest. It yous of the borrowers. submits to us the profit records of the stores. Such things are our masters, says civilization. It shows us men who

write any thing for pay. It shows us artists who will paint any picture for pay. It shows us a man who will make any kind of a shoe for pay. Pay, says civilization ; pay is

master.

ilization.

Men

buy

Women

Women, souls for

civilization, are

sell their bodies

for money, says civ says civilization, are my collateral.

money, says civilization. collateral.

The

children go

cradles to the factory, says civilization. civilization, are

collateral.

192

The

Men,

says

from

their

children, says

They who do nothing have

AND

ALL AMOUNTS TO THIS

the most ease, says civilization. lization, are lization,

and women, and

civilization, these are

The donothings, says

I work men

collateral.

often children

collateral.

to :

civi

death, says civi

and these,

repeats

yes ! says civiliza

Japan and Russia, a big affair, says collateral. I am are my says civilization, civilization : I needed a lot of room for myself, so justice had tion

Japan and Russia are at war.

to go,

Room, says civilization, is my col says civilization. It is true, says civilization, that all men are at

lateral.

But

loggerheads with all men.

gerheads, says civilization, civilization.

their

that, says civilization, log

my collateral.

Starvation, says civilization.

Toll gates, says Men who hate

Luxury and squalor, says the slaves of men, says civilization. the slaves of masters, says civilization. Children the work, says civilization.

civilization.

Men

Women

slaves of the slaves of slaves, says civilization. Stores.

Chaingangs.

corruption. ilization, hells

Jails.

Imperialism.

Says

and more than

below

these,

tyranny and All these, says civ

Official

civilization.

hells, these, these,

Factories.

and worse than

these, the

says civilization, are

col

lateral.

A re we to stop here ? Is the starved child the

Is this the

end of

end of the journey ?

the journey ?

Is all this

wreckage the end of the journey ? Is hate, rancor, fight, the end of the journey ? Is thievery the end of the journey ?

Are sleepless nights and sleepy days the end of the journey ? Is man the enemy the end of the journey ? Are we to stop here ? Stop with social wrong ? Stop just where we are ? Disappear in this trench ? Cut down in the fury of eco193

CHANTS COMMUNAL nomic assault?

Is this where

and how

the journey

is to

dream of justice can do for but a beginning. This is a bad end making way for a good beginning. This is the moment This is the of the lapse of eras of force in eras of love.

end?

Is this to be the best the

man ?

God

no !

This

This is the mysterious archway of the rainbow. a juncture of promise and fulfilment. This is the And it all darkest shadow meeting the brightest light. A nd the best comes. to worst comes amounts this. The before bridgeroad.

This

all

amounts

to this.

This

is the moment of the lapse of eras offeree in eras of lo<ve, is

the bridgeroad, this archway of the

terious

This

the darkest

brightest light

shadow

meeting the

The 'worst comes before the 194

is the mys rainbow,

best comes.

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