MUSIC, NEWSPAPERS, LYNCHING AND ARBITRATION.
Question. How do you enjoy staying in Chicago?
Answer. Well, I am about as happy as a man can be when he is away from home. I was at the opera last night. I am always happy when I hear the music of Wagner interpreted by such a genius as Seidl. I do not believe there is a man in the world who has in his brain and heart more of the real spirit of Wagner than Anton Seidl. He knows how to lead, how to phrase and shade, how to rush and how to linger, and to express every passion and every mood. So I was happy last night to hear him. Then I heard Edouard de Reszke, the best of bass singers, with tones of a great organ, and others soft and liquid, and Jean de Reszke, a great tenor, who sings the "Swan Song" as though inspired; and I liked Bispham, but hated his part. He is a great singer; so is Mme. Litvinne.
So, I can say that I am enjoying Chicago. In fact, I always did. I was here when the town was small, not much more than huts and hogs, lumber and mud; and now it is one of the greatest of cities. It makes me happy just to think of the difference. I was born the year Chicago was incorporated. In my time matches were invented. Steam navigation became really useful. The telegraph was invented. Gas was discovered and applied to practical uses, and electricity was made known in its practical workings to mankind. Thus, it is seen the world is progressing; men are becoming civilized. But the process of civilization even now is slow. In one or two thousand years we may hope to see a vast improvement in man's condition. We may expect to have the employer so far civilized that he will not try to make money for money's sake, but in order that he may apply it to good uses, to the amelioration of his fellow-man's condition. We may also expect the see the workingman, the employee, so far civilized that he will know it is impossible and undesirable for him to attempt to fix the wages paid by his employer. We may in a thousand or more years reasonably expect that the employee will be so far civilized and become sufficiently sensible to know that strikes and threats and mob violence can never improve his condition. Altruism is nonsense, craziness.
Question. Is Chicago as liberal, intellectually, as New York?
Answer. I think so. Of course you will find thousands of free, thoughtful people in New York—people who think and want others to do the same. So, there are thousands of respectable people who are centuries behind the age. In other words, you will find all kinds. I presume the same is true of Chicago. I find many liberal people here, and some not quite so liberal.
Some of the papers here seem to be edited by real pious men. On last Tuesday the Times-Herald asked pardon of its readers for having given a report of my lecture. That editor must be pious. In the same paper, columns were given to the prospective prize- fight at Carson City. All the news about the good Corbett and the orthodox Fitzsimmons—about the training of the gentlemen who are going to attack each others' jugulars and noses; who are expected to break jaws, blacken eyes, and peel foreheads in a few days, to settle the question of which can bear the most pounding. In this great contest and in all its vulgar details, the readers of the Times-Herald are believed by the editor of that religious daily to take great interest.
The editor did not ask the pardon of his readers for giving so much space to the nose-smashing sport. No! He knew that would fill their souls with delight, and, so knowing, he reached the correct conclusion that such people would not enjoy anything I had said. The editor did a wise thing and catered to a large majority of his readers. I do not think that we have as religious a daily paper in New York as the Times-Herald. So the editor of the Times- Herald took the ground that men with little learning, in youth, might be agnostic, but as they grew sensible they would become orthodox. When he wrote that he was probably thinking of Humboldt and Darwin, of Huxley and Haeckel. May be Herbert Spencer was in his mind, but I think that he must have been thinking of a few boys in his native village.
Question. What do you think about prize-fighting anyway?
Answer. Well, I think that prize-fighting is worse, if possible, than revival meetings. Next to fighting to kill, as they did in the old Roman days, I think the modern prize-fight is the most disgusting and degrading of exhibitions. All fights, whether cock- fights, bull-fights or pugilistic encounters, are practiced and enjoyed only by savages. No matter what office they hold, what wealth or education they have, they are simply savages. Under no possible circumstances would I witness a prize-fight or a bull- fight or a dog-fight. The Marquis of Queensbury was once at my house, and I found his opinions were the same as mine. Everyone thinks that he had something to do with the sport of prize-fighting, but he did not, except to make some rules once for a college boxing contest. He told me that he never saw but one prize-fight in his life, and that it made him sick.
Question. How are you on the arbitration treaty?
Answer. I am for it with all my heart. I have read it, and read it with care, and to me it seems absolutely fair. England and America should set an example to the world. The English-speaking people have reason enough and sense enough, I hope, to settle their differences by argument—by reason. Let us get the wild beast out of us. Two great nations like England and America appealing to force, arguing with shot and shell! What is education worth? Is what we call civilization a sham? Yes, I believe in peace, in arbitration, in settling disputes like reasonable, human beings. All that war can do is to determine who is the stronger. It throws no light on any question, addresses no argument. There is a point to a bayonet, but no logic. After the war is over the victory does not tell which nation was right. Civilized men take their differences to courts or arbitrators. Civilized nations should do the same. There ought to be an international court.
Let every man do all he can to prevent war—to prevent the waste, the cruelties, the horrors that follow every flag on every field of battle. It is time that man was human—time that the beast was out of his heart.
Question. What do you think of McKinley's inaugural?
Answer. It is good, honest, clear, patriotic and sensible. There is one thing in it that touched me; I agree with him that lynching has to be stopped. You see that now we are citizens of the United States, not simply of the State in which we happen to live. I take the ground that it is the business of the United States to protect its citizens, not only when they are in some other country, but when they are at home. The United States cannot discharge this obligation by allowing the States to do as they please. Where citizens are being lynched the Government should interfere. If the Governor of some barbarian State says that he cannot protect the lives of citizens, then the United States should, if it took the entire Army and Navy.
Question. What is your opinion of charity organizations?
Answer. I think that the people who support them are good and generous—splendid—but I have a poor opinion of the people in charge. As a rule, I think they are cold, impudent and heartless. There is too much circumlocution, or too many details and too little humanity. The Jews are exceedingly charitable. I think that in New York the men who are doing the most for their fellow-men are Jews. Nathan Strauss is trying to feed the hungry, warm the cold, and clothe the naked. For the most part, organized charities are, I think, failures. A real charity has to be in the control of a good man, a real sympathetic, a sensible man, one who helps others to help themselves. Let a hungry man go to an organized society and it requires several days to satisfy the officers that the man is hungry. Meanwhile he will probably starve to death.
Question. Do you believe in free text-books in the public schools?
Answer. I do not care about the text-book question. But I am in favor of the public school. Nothing should be taught that somebody does not know. No superstitions—nothing but science.
Question. There has been a good deal said lately about your suicide theology, Colonel. Do you still believe that suicide is justifiable?
Answer. Certainly. When a man is useless to himself and to others he has a right to determine what he will do about living. The only thing to be considered is a man's obligation to his fellow- beings and to himself. I don't take into consideration any supernatural nonsense. If God wants a man to stay here he ought to make it more comfortable for him.
Question. Since you expounded your justification of suicide, Colonel, I believe you have had some cases of suicide laid at your door?
Answer. Oh, yes. Every suicide that has happened since that time has been charged to me. I don't know how the people account for the suicides before my time. I have not yet heard of my being charged with the death of Cato, but that may yet come to pass. I was reading the other day that the rate of suicide in Germany is increasing. I suppose my article has been translated into German.
Question. How about lying, Colonel? Is it ever right to lie?
Answer. Of course, sometimes. In war when a man is captured by the enemy he ought to lie to them to mislead them. What we call strategy is nothing more than lies. For the accomplishment of a good end, for instance, the saving of a woman's reputation, it is many times perfectly right to lie. As a rule, people ought to tell the truth. If it is right to kill a man to save your own life it certainly ought to be right to fool him for the same purpose. I would rather be deceived than killed, wouldn't you?
—The Inter-Ocean, Chicago, Illinois, March, 1897.