Of the menace of hypocritical office-holders and senators, Edwin Markham has spoken eloquently in these ringing lines. They should be known to us all in these times of shattered dreams and false avowals. The old established Ship of State could weather the gale if the crew were honest and remained on deck.
THE FEAR FOR THEE, MY COUNTRY
In storied Venice, where the night repeats
The heaven of stars down all her rippling streets,
Stood the great Bell Tower, fronting seas and skies—
Fronting the ages, drawing all men’s eyes;
Rooted like Teneriffe, aloft and proud,
Taunting the lightning, tearing the flying cloud.
It marked the hours for Venice: all men said
Time cannot reach to bow that lofty head:
Time, that shall touch all else with ruin, must
Forbear to make this shaft confess its dust.
Yet all the while, in secret, without sound,
The fat worms gnawed the timbers underground.
The twisting worm, whose epoch is an hour,
Caverned his way into the mighty tower;
Till suddenly it shook, it swayed, it broke,
And fell in darkening thunder at one stroke.
The strong shaft, with an angel on the crown,
Fell ruining: a thousand years went down!
And so I fear, my country, not the hand
That shall hurl night and whirlwind on the land;
I fear not Titan traitors who shall rise
To stride like Brocken shadows on our skies:
These we can face in open fight, withstand
With reddening rampart and the sworded hand.
I fear the vermin that shall undermine
Senate and citadel and school and shrine;
The Worm of Greed, the fatted Worm of Ease,
And all the crawling progeny of these—
The vermin that shall honeycomb the towers
And walls of State in unsuspecting hours.
CHAPTER IX
DRYING UP THE OCEAN
There is a little town in Wyoming which, outwardly, is as arid as that waste of desert not so many hundreds of miles away from it. Yet for a consideration one may obtain all the moonshine and gin one desires at another village near by. The lady prohibitionists, all members of the W. C. T. U., as they pass the erstwhile village drunkard (on their way to some sanctimonious meeting), remark what a wonderful thing the cleaning up of the town has been. Poor devil! only a little while ago he was literally in the gutter. Now, look at him, as he sits in the merry sunshine on the porch of the post-office, whittling his life away, where aforetime he drank it away. (They do not know that the poor devil is about the only person in the village—except themselves—who fails to obtain whiskey, though his reasons for the lack are hardly similar to theirs. He simply cannot afford the price.) It costs a few pennies to get to that neighboring wet village; and, after one is there, it costs a little more to procure the stuff he once drank with such avidity. But the flappers—oh, yes, they have them even in Wyoming small towns!—and the boys who are their friends, can dash over in a Ford and get all they want. Concealed on the hip, they feel no lack of stimulation when the evening shadows fall. They do not get tight in public, as the town drunkard used to do—not at all. But they are up to all the tricks of sly drinking. If they were burglars, they would be called sneak-thieves. America has taught them a thing or two; and where the previous generation, at their age, never dreamed of taking a cocktail, they think of nothing else, and will get it at any price. This is true the country over. But the obviously enforced reformation of many a village souse is pointed to as perfect evidence that all is well. I suppose those virtuous W. C. T. U. ladies go to bed o’ nights and sleep serenely, happy in the consciousness that they have helped the race. And even as they slumber, hip-flasks are opened, corks are popping, and an enjoyable time is being had by all.