Cæsar's Column: A Story of the Twentieth Century

by Ignatius Donnelly

"Civilization," he replied solemnly; "what interest have we in the preservation of civilization? Look around and behold its fruits! Here are probably ten thousand industrious, sober, intelligent workingmen; I doubt if there is one in all this multitude that can honestly say he has had, during the past week, enough to eat." [Cries of "That's so.">[ "I doubt if there is one here who believes that the present condition of things can give him, or his children, anything better for the future." [Applause.] "Our masters have educated us to understand that we have no interest in civilization or society. We are its victims, not its members. They depend on repression, on force alone; on cruelty, starvation, to hold us down until we work our lives away. Our lives are all we have;--it may be all we will ever have! They are as dear to us as existence is to the millionaire.

"What is civilization worth which means happiness for a few thousand men and inexpressible misery for hundreds of millions? No, down with it!" [Immense cheering. Men rising and waving their hats.] "If they have set love and justice adrift and depend only on force, why should we not have recourse to force also?" [Cheers and applause, mingled with cries of "Take care!" "Look out!" "Spies!" etc.] "Yes," continued the speaker, "I mean, of course, the force of argument and reason." [Great laughter and applause.] "Of course none of us would advocate a violation of the law--that blessed law which it has cost our masters so much hard-earned money to purchase;" [renewed laughter and applause,] "and which restrains us and not them; for under it no injustice is forbidden to them, and no justice is permitted to us, Our labor creates everything; we possess nothing. Yes, we have the scant supply of food necessary to enable us to create more." [Applause.] "We have ceased to be men--we are machines. Did God die for a machine? Certainly not.

"We are crushed under the world which we maintain, and our groans are drowned in the sounds of music and laughter." [Great applause.] "We have a hell that is more desperate and devilish than any dreamed of by the parsons--for we have to suffer to maintain the pleasures of heaven, while we have no share in what we ourselves create." [Laughter and applause.] "Do you suppose that if heaven were blown to pieces hell would be any worse off? At least, the work would stop." [Great applause, long-continued, with cries of "That's so!">[

Here a great uproar broke out near the end of the hall. A man had been caught secretly taking notes of the speaker's remarks. He was evidently a detective. On the instant a hundred men sprang upon him, and he was beaten and trampled under foot, until not only life, but all semblance of humanity, had been crushed out of him; and the wretched remains were dragged out and thrown upon the pavement. It is impossible to describe the uproar and confusion which ensued. In the midst of it a large platoon of police, several hundred strong, with their belts strung with magazine pistols, and great clubs in their hands, broke into the room, and began to deal blows and make arrests right and left, while the crowd fled through all the doors. Maximilian seized me and the poor clergyman, who had been sitting in a dazed and distraught state for some time, and dragged us both up a back stairway and through a rear exit into the street. There we took a carriage, and, after we had left the bewildered clergyman at his residence, Maximilian said to me as we rode home:

"You see, my dear Gabriel, I was right and you were wrong. That workman told the truth. You have arrived on the scene too late. A hundred years ago you might have formed your Brotherhood of Justice and saved society. Now there is but one cure--the Brotherhood of Destruction."

"Oh, my dear friend," I replied, "do not say so. Destruction! What is it? The wiping out of the slow accumulations made by man's intelligence during thousands of years. A world cataclysm. A day of judgment. A day of fire and ashes. A world burned and swept bare of life. All the flowers of art; the beautiful, gossamer-like works of glorious literature; the sweet and lovely creations of the souls of men long since perished, and now the inestimable heritage of humanity; all, all crushed, torn, leveled in the dust. And all that is savage, brutal, cruel, demoniac in man's nature let loose to ravage the face of the world. Oh! horrible--most horrible! The mere thought works in me like a convulsion; what must the inexpressible reality be? To these poor, suffering, hopeless, degraded toilers; these children of oppression and the dust; these chained slaves, anything that would break open the gates of their prison-house would be welcome, even though it were an earthquake that destroyed the planet. But you and I, my dear friend, are educated to higher thoughts. We know the value of the precious boon of civilization. We know how bare and barren, and wretched and torpid, and utterly debased is soulless barbarism. I see enough to convince me that the ramifications of your society are like a net-work of wires, all over the earth, penetrating everywhere, and at every point touching the most deadly explosives of human passions and hates; and that it needs but the pressure of your finger upon the pedal to blow up the world. The folly of centuries has culminated in the most terrible organization that ever grew out of the wretchedness of mankind. But oh, my friend--you have a broad mind and a benevolent soul--tell me, is there no remedy? Cannot the day of wrath be averted?"

The tears flowed down my face as I spoke, and Maximilian placed his hand gently upon my arm, and said in the kindliest manner:

"My dear Gabriel, I have thought such thoughts as these many times; not with the fervor and vehemence of your more imaginative nature, but because I shrank, at first, from what you call 'a world-cataclysm.' But facts are stronger than the opinions of man. There is in every conflagration a time when a few pails of water would extinguish it; then there comes a time when the whole fire-department, with tons of water, can alone save what is left of the property; but sometimes a point is reached where even the boldest firemen are forced to recoil and give up the building to the devouring element. Two hundred years ago a little wise statesmanship might have averted the evils from which the world now suffers. One hundred years ago a gigantic effort, of all the good men of the world, might have saved society. Now the fire pours through every door, and window and crevice; the roof crackles; the walls totter; the heat of hell rages within the edifice; it is doomed; there is no power on earth that can save it; it must go down into ashes. What can you or I do? What will it avail the world if we rush into the flames and perish? No; we witness the working-out of great causes which we did not create. When man permits the establishment of self-generating evil he must submit to the effect. Our ancestors were blind, indifferent, heartless. We live in the culmination of their misdeeds. They have crawled into their graves and drawn the earth over them, and the flowers bloom on their last resting-places, and we are the inheritors of the hurricane which they invoked. Moreover," he continued, "how can reformation come? You have seen that audience to-night. Do you think they are capable of the delicate task of readjusting the disarranged conditions of the world? That workman was right. In the aggregate they are honest--most honest and honorable; but is there one of them whose cramped mind and starved stomach could resist the temptation of a ten-dollar bill? Think what a ten-dollar bill is to them! It represents all they crave: food, clothes, comfort, joy. It opens the gate of heaven to them; it is paradise, for a few hours at least. Why, they would mortgage their souls, they would trade their Maker, for a hundred dollars! The crime is not theirs, but the shallow creatures who once ruled the world, and permitted them to be brought to this state. And where else can you turn? Is it to the newspapers? They are a thousand times more dishonest than the workingmen. Is it to the halls of legislation? There corruption riots and rots until the stench fills the earth. The only ones who could reform the world are the rich and powerful: but they see nothing to reform. Life is all sunshine for them; civilization is a success for them; they need no better heaven than they enjoy. They have so long held mankind in subjection that they laugh at the idea of the great, dark, writhing masses, rising up to overthrow them. Government is, to them, an exquisitely adjusted piece of mechanism whose object is to keep the few happy and the many miserable."

"But," said I, "if an appeal were made to them; if they were assured of the dangers that really threatened them; if their better and kindlier natures were appealed to, do you not think they might undertake the task of remedying the evils endured by the multitude? They cannot all be as abandoned and utterly vicious as Prince Cabano and his Council."

"No," he replied; "have you not already made the test? The best of them would probably hang you for your pains. Do you think they would be willing to relinquish one-tenth of their pleasures, or their possessions, to relieve the distresses of their fellows? If you do, you have but a slight conception of the callousness of their hearts. You were right in what you said was the vital principle of Christianity--brotherly love, not alone of the rich for the rich, but of the poor and rich for each other. But that spirit has passed away from the breasts of the upper classes. Science has increased their knowledge one hundred per cent. and their vanity one thousand per cent. The more they know of the material world the less they can perceive the spiritual world around and within it. The acquisition of a few facts about nature has closed their eyes to the existence of a God."