“Of what value are the sacrifices of those who at bitter cost bought us our freedom and privilege, if we are so lost to all sense of honor as to tacitly say, ‘everything has been done for us, to be sure, but we can’t be expected to go out of our way to see that it is passed along to those who are less favored’?”
Mr. Mather made a gesture of dissent and looked up as if to speak; but Mildred did not notice him. She was gazing with fixed eyes into the shadows, and seemed to have forgotten her little audience and to be addressing herself to an unnumbered throng of unseen listeners. Her bosom heaved and her breath came and went quickly as she went on with her relentless sarcasm.
“Yes, our business as immortal sons of God is first of all to look out for our precious selves. Let us all see to it that no annoying social or economic questions shall disturb our minds. Let us not be distracted from our culture and amusements by being forced to waste time in settling the prosaic bread and butter problems of the ‘lower classes.’ Let us wash our hands of all responsibility. Why should we hold ourselves debtors either to the Greeks or to the barbarians?
“Oh, we are not hard-hearted. We would live and let live. But we can count it no part of our business to soil our fingers by lending a hand to the poor wretch whose blind guide has led him into the miry ditch.
“Let him who ‘despises his birthright’ just think for an instant what citizenship on the continent of Europe means. You talk about finding ‘more fun’ in Paris and Vienna than here, yes, to be sure; for there you have nothing to do but to skim the cream of everything and dream away your youth surrounded by all that the thought of the ages and modern science can devise to stimulate your already fastidious palate. But suppose you were a citizen of Germany or Austria or Russia, and must spend from three to six of the best years of your life in active service in the army; suppose you were taxed to the extent of over thirty per cent. of your earnings like the people of Italy; suppose you knew that your country was growing poorer and taxation was on the frightful increase as is the case in continental countries; suppose you were taxed to support a church in which you did not believe, and a government which granted you no representation; suppose privilege and prejudice hung like a millstone round every effort for your social advancement!
“Why,” continued Mildred after a moment’s pause, “just imagine for an instant all that is involved in the difference in comfort and mode of life from the simple statement that during the ten years from 1870 to 1880, when the United States decreased its aggregate taxation nine per cent., Germany increased hers over fifty per cent. Imagine, if you can, what it means to the lives of millions of human beings when I say that during a period when the wealth of Europe decreased per caput three per cent. that of our country increased nearly forty per cent.
“It is one thing, I have found, to travel in Europe untaxed, unmolested, and unaffected by that gloomy war cloud which continually hovers over every nation; where, even in times of peace, one man out of twenty-two is withdrawn from productive industries to train himself to destroy his fellow-beings. It is quite another thing to be an irresponsible traveler, free to come and go and say what he pleases.
“Let those who count their American citizenship of such slight worth think what a delightful existence theirs would be if they were so favored as to be one of the subjects of the Russian Tsar! Think of the bliss of living in a land where one is never disturbed by the encroachments of foreigners, or expected to attend caucuses and polls; where, in fact, the less he knows about the government the better for him and his! Fancy the pleasure in reading newspapers where the news of the day is under such careful surveillance, through the kindness of the censorship, that one is never disturbed by troublesome political matters, and has always the calm consciousness that everything is going well, although ninety per cent. of the hundred millions over whom the Russian flag waves cannot write their names; where a man may not go from one town to another without a passport; where for joining a club that advocates a constitutional monarchy, as here you might join a club that advocates Nationalism, you may be subject without a moment’s warning to arrest and solitary confinement for a year or two without a trial! You have read Kennan and Stepniak. You know these are hard facts.
“So when I see men who have been ground between the millstones of caste, priestcraft, and governmental oppression come here and turn against all government, I have less contempt and more patience for them than for the young men of our land, who owe almost every blessing that they enjoy to this government, and who from mere indolence and apathy choose to allow the demagogue and ignorant alien to shape its destiny.
“You complain that we have a ‘stratified society.’ Are you not doing your best to make it a stratified society and create a caste system when you advocate a property qualification for the ballot, and would deny all but the barest rudiments of education to the poor boy? One would think that you had been brought up in a monarchy and did not realize that from the people we must choose our legislators as well as our voters, and that a system which can be tolerated in a country where rulers are hereditary is most perilous for a government that is of ‘the people, by the people, and for the people.’