Living the Radiant Life: A Personal Narrative

by George Wharton James

Never doubted clouds would break,

Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,

Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, sleep to wake.

Let us not merely come in for the rewards of life's conflicts in which the few battle for the rights of the many. Let us be in the forefront of the battle array; even if only as standard-bearers, or buglers, or drummer boys in the forefront of the advance army, and though our hearts are often shaken by human cowardice, let our souls triumph and keep our faces towards the foe, courage at fighting pitch, resolution indomitable, purpose invincible, so that, if fall we must, we shall fall with eyes heavenward, and breast fearlessly exposed to the fire of the enemy.

I know of no conflict now as severe as the fight for the abolition of the slave, yet I am in the fight to help women gain the suffrage, and in the temperance reform. I have been abused by my scientific friends as an anti-vaccinator and anti-vivisectionist; have been threatened with a thrashing several times for interfering with brutal teamsters and others who were cruel to animals and children; have lost caste and position (with a few people) because I would rebuke corporate injustice, greed, and tyranny; I have cast behind me much money because it was offered me in exchange for my independence and freedom. These are small things as compared with the heroic acts of the giants of past days, but they are the deeds my soul has been called to face. And I mention them not in boasting, but as another "declaration of principles," principles I wish to radiate on every hand, under all circumstances, to all people.

For I am anxious and determined that, according to the best of my ability, I will do my share of the work of my time for the benefit of the future. What would we be to-day without the advantages of Magna Charta, of the Bill of Rights, of the Declaration of Independence, of the Emancipation Proclamation? Who won these charters of our liberty? The heroes of the past. Then the questions I constantly ask myself are: "What are you doing to add to these liberties to hand on to future ages? You have received freely; how are you giving? I want to help make the future more glad and blessed, just as my present has been made glad by the actions of the heroes of old. I have been inspired to high resolves, heroic endeavors, blessed ambitions by what they achieved. Am I doing anything to pass on these high inspirations to endeavor and ambition? These men met obloquy, hatred, shame, contumely, contempt, danger, financial loss, physical peril, and in John Brown's, Lovejoy's, and other cases, death, because of their daring advocacy of unpopular movements. Shall I be any the less a man than they? Shall I have received so much, and then be craven and pass on so little?"

I believe that each generation must pay interest in kind on all their heritage of the past, or they mark the period of a nation's decline. Unless we are better, nobler, truer, more advanced, more free, more progressive, more generous, more philanthropic, more daring, courageous, lion-hearted than our forefathers, we have defaulted in our interest. And defaulters are always cowards if nothing worse. Let us not be cowards.

In California there are strong movements against the Japanese and the Chinese. It is easy to join the popular side, but it takes strength of heart and courage of mind and body sometimes to stand on the other side. I want to radiate my firm and unshakable conviction of the truth of human brotherhood, regardless of color, nationality, prejudice, or selfish and personal interest. Though the Japanese and Chinese, in open and honest business competition, take away my work, even then I want to radiate my firm belief in the universal brotherhood of man. And I want to do it without hesitation, as well as without fear. Hesitation too often means temporizing, evasion, shuffling, and I do not want to place myself open to any temptation to these things. Hence I would be prompt and outspoken in my adherence and advocacy of the fundamental principles of human brotherhood regardless of personal consequences and indifferent alike to praise or blame.

I believe in human democracy, in human freedom, in the equality of men and women; in morality, government, and household control; in resisting all tyrannies, whether of law, medicine, theology, or society; in the uplift of all the criminal and downtrodden; in the fair division of the profits of all labor; in the jealous preservation of the independence of every man and every woman; in the right of every child to be well born and welcomed, and of every woman to determine, without dictation from any one, whether she shall bear a child or not; in the abolition of all war; in the disarmament of all nations; in the abolition of land monopoly; in submitting every question to the test—the greatest possible good to the greatest number. These, as I now recall them, are the cardinal principles of my belief, my adherence to which I would fearlessly, without hesitation or equivocation, ever and always radiate.