“Rough!” exclaimed the Professor; “it’s as rough as civilization.”
“Oh, come,” responded Kearns, “you’re always criticising civilization.”
“Do you think it’s a success?” demanded the Professor.
“Do you dispute it?” challenged Kearns.
“Can it, after all, be said,” answered Professor Dean, thoughtfully, “that mankind at large has really gained any practical good by that progressive evolution known as civilization? Suppose you were the chief of a great tribe existing under primitive conditions, and suppose that you, possessed of all the knowledge of modern life which you have to-day, were confronted with the proposition as to whether you would leave the tribe as it was, or would introduce all the conditions of our present advanced civilization, what would be your decision?”
“Without having given the matter much thought,” replied Mr. Kearns, “my offhand answer would be, I suppose, that I should divest my primitives of breech-clouts and put them into top-hats and trousers, and supply them with churches, theatres, hospitals, hotels, a stock-exchange, a police headquarters, and all the other and usual adjuncts of civilization.”
“And if I were the chief of such tribe, and you brought such proposition to me, I should hesitate long before accepting it,” rejoined the Professor. “I should ponder carefully whether it was not my bounden duty to the tribe to decapitate you, lest you should escape and give the world knowledge of the existence of me and my tribe and thus bring to us by force the civilization which you proffered. What would your civilization mean to the tribe? It would give us great cities and the million and one artificial adjuncts which form part and parcel of modern life. Would the men of the tribe be as happy, as healthy, or as really comfortable in the teeming tenements, or box-like flat houses of the cities which had sprung up, as they were under their tents upon the plains? For those tenements and flat houses they would have to pay rent, and to earn that rent they would be compelled in many instances to convert themselves and their families into industrial slaves. Who ever heard of so-called savages being evicted for non-payment of rent, or dying by the hundreds for want of food as a consequence of economic conditions? And yet, let a great city spring up and you have thousands of such cases every year! You have spoken of the churches which your civilization would erect, but for every church which your great city of modern civilization would bring into existence, it would also create ten, nay one hundred, drinking-shops and gambling-houses and brothels. And as to morality, is a primitive community without churches ever as immoral as a civilized community with a church to every other block? You have spoken, too, of hospitals. It is true, your civilization would bring fine hospitals, with an army of doctors and vast stores of drugs, but with these your civilization, with its artificial forms of life, would bring into existence a thousand and one diseases utterly unknown to men living in a primitive state. Your cures might be very comprehensive and marvelous, but surely it would be infinitely better to escape the diseases themselves, in the first place. With pardonable professional pride, you have also alluded to the existence of a police headquarters, but under primitive conditions such a place would be needless, for the causes which bring about the majority of crimes in a civilized community would not exist. In a word, the primitive tribesmen to whom I have referred would be safe as to their liberty, their homes, their health and their morality, whereas under civilization, and in return for the artificial and really superfluous adjuncts it has to offer, these primitive people must become industrial slaves and rent-sweaters and must surround themselves with all the evils arising from corruption, crime, immorality and disease. Who, I ask you, is the happier? The tribesman procuring his means of livelihood at will by fishing in rivers or in streams, or scouring the woods and the plains in search of game, or the free-man in name, but industrial slave in verity, who under the beneficent sway of our modern civilization ekes out a miserable subsistence in some sweatshop of the city at a dollar and a half a day.”
“I must admit your tribesman would seem to have the best of it,” declared Mr. Kearns.
“And look, too, at the social relations,” continued the Professor. “In primitive life, the savage maiden mates according to her fancy, according to the promptings of her heart. In modern civilization, if we are to judge from what we so often read and hear, a great number of marriages turn upon the question of position, or of money, rather than of true affection. Winsome May, stung by her necessities or her ambition, offers herself up to chill December, or, her dainty flesh quivering with repulsion, surrenders herself into the arms of hoary Midas, and the children of such union are the offspring of Gluttony mated with Disgust. You see, these are questions which affect the very life blood of the nation! In this and a hundred other ways, the tide of social life is interfered with and changed by the ever present influence of that one controlling factor in civilized life—money, money, money! Upon my word, it would seem as if the primitive tribesman had much better, in the interests of his true happiness and well-being, remain as he is!”
“What you say as far as crime is concerned,” replied Mr. Kearns, “is undoubtedly true enough. If you except those offenses perpetrated under the influence of sudden passion, the great majority of crimes arise from the necessities and temptations which form part of modern social life. A good deal has been from time to time written about persons with criminal tendencies. There are undoubtedly such cases, but my experience is that a career of crime involves more hazard, harder work and less pay than almost any other form of occupation a man could go in for. The average criminal would be perfectly willing to undertake any amount of honest work to accomplish his ends, if it were within his power to accomplish them by such means, and he only perpetrates his crime because he sees no other way out of the situation. In saying this I am not justifying his methods, or warranting the soundness of general deductions, but am merely stating a fact. Crime is, as a rule, the result of environment, and this environment grows out of the conditions of modern social life.”