In this observation, as in many of his others, the bard of Avon has reached the heart of the matter at once. Without love, we would have, and could have, no conscience, as we are only considerate of others when we have much at stake ourselves, and wish this consideration for reciprocal reasons. Had we no affection, we would have but little incentive to moral discrimination. In this sense, as well as for its happy memories,
“It is better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.”
In considering the advantages of real love, it is also important that the disadvantages of its counterfeits should be made clear. In the first place, many of the noted teachers during the last decade have called attention to the frightful reduction in our marriage and birth rates; and this, notwithstanding the fact that we feel that we are progressing upward in the scale of civilization. Now, while many of our political economists believe that the increased cost of living has been largely responsible for this, it seems that we should not, however, attach too great importance to the claim. There has been a growing of the moral sense among women of the Western nations, and particularly in America, during the last few years, which has tremendously influenced the foundations of our civilization. The Women’s Christian Temperance movement, under the guiding hand of Miss Willard, not only advocated the prohibition of the sale of alcoholic stimulants, but also became a tremendous power in the social purity crusade, which began to sweep over this country some twenty-five years ago. The agitation, which resulted from this reform movement, developed facts which were previously unknown to the general public, and in every way caused people to begin to think about subjects which had previously never been brought to their attention in a specific way. When the statistics were published that, in this country of eighty million people, we were having one divorce for every twelve marriages, and that every year showed a decrease in the marriage and birth rate, thinking people of all classes began to seek to find the cause for such facts.
It would seem that one of the primal causes for the decrease in the marriage rate is the ease with which vice has been allowed to become organized in this country into a regular system, which is conducted upon a basis of cold-blooded business calculation. The fact that we have between six hundred thousand and three-quarters of a million of prostitutes in America, and that this class of people is being recruited at the rate of over fifteen thousand per annum from foreign countries and about seventy-five thousand per annum from our own country, is certainly highly significant. Furthermore, the fact that probably three-quarters of the women in America who marry are forced to undergo major operations within the first five years of their married life, on account of the moral delinquency of their husbands, has certainly not given any impetus to marriage in our own country. We have also to remember that over one-third of all the blindness in this country is traceable to a like cause, and that this occurs in innocent children, who usually are less than a week old when their sight is lost, as the result of venereal infection. Furthermore, in many of the homes which we all have an opportunity to observe, there is not that happiness existing which would lead thinking people to rush ruthlessly into matrimony, and the necessity for making divorce easy and the marriage relationship hard to enter into was never as imperative as it is to-day. The majority of the children being born, and in whose hands the entire welfare of this state in the future will rest, are usually those of parents who are either unfitted or unable, physically, intellectually, and morally, to give them such character and education as will make them good citizens; in other words, vice and crime are breeding faster by far than moral restraint and virtue. Whenever we are able to have our young men understand that self-control on their part is a matter of first importance in the requirements of good citizenship, and a prime requisite if individual happiness is desired, then and only then will we begin to find marriage becoming more popular and divorce less to be desired by those who have entered into this relationship.
[CHAPTER VIII]
Problems of the Future
The close of the last century found humanity under a different aspect than ever before. Westward and ever westward had swept the course of empire until the early years of this decade found the Mongolian again demonstrating his superiority over the Slavonic people of Eastern Europe. For centuries the battles for individual freedom of body and mind had been fought in torture chambers, at heresy trials, at the stake of every auto-da-fé, as well as in the legislative halls of insular and continental Europe, and finally this struggle has culminated in the greatest, fiercest and most devastating war of modern times, which was America’s tribute to the cause of democracy and freedom. The nations of Europe have looked with wonder upon the growth and sudden rise into importance of the American Confederacy of States, and crowned and titled tyrants, ruling by the “divine right,” have long dreaded the absorption of American ideas by their subjects or American interference with the course of governmental procedure. With the advancement and dissemination of learning, democratic government has got to come, and woe to those who oppose it when the time is ripe. Poor, bleeding, ignorant Russia is at this minute in the throes of internecine strife, and no one realizes better than those of the autocracy who by their selfishness and sloth have brought upon themselves the engulfing tide of revolution, what was meant by the dissolute associates of the French Court directly before the horrors of the Commune when they used to say “After us the deluge.” And little as they expected it, this deluge did not wait for them to leave, but in many instances helped to usher them from the field of human activity, upon the block, before the guillotine. It is not at this time even improbable that the great Siberian prisons may soon be filled with the bluest blood of royalty, and perhaps the Kara mines will yet be worked in by their owners, for the benefit of the revolutionists. But whether this comes to pass or not, we know that we have seen absolutism gradually give way to constitutional forms of government, and these in turn become metamorphosed into republics. And in these democracies we see a tendency to return to a centralized form of government, particularly when the chief executive is an individual whose judgment, although it is in error, has been actuated by motives which no one can impugn. What then is the meaning of this—is humanity traveling in cycles? Politically, we can answer emphatically, NO. The ease with which knowledge is communicated among people to-day and the unimpeachable integrity of the great middle classes are the surest guarantee that never will we return to the degrading darkness and servility of the past, while the trenchant manner in which our press uses the weapons of ridicule and cartoon insures for our posterity an even better and more active public conscience, which will demand duty performed commensurate with privileges granted. Municipalities and commonwealths may be full of political rottenness and corruption, senates may be filled by the paid agents of capital, representative halls may be packed by demagogues elected by the most radical element of organized labor, but regardless of temporary mistakes, just as long as we maintain an efficient public school system and make education compulsory and leave the press unshackled, we cannot under a democratic form of government, where tenure of office is for a short period only, ever permanently retrograde.
Students of contemporaneous American history who have followed closely the exposure of municipal officials guilty of the worst forms of malfeasance, will probably be led to believe that we are going from bad to worse politically in our larger cities. Owing to the publicity, however, which such matters get, and the fact that our citizen body in the aggregate respect honesty and integrity, we have nothing to fear. The reform wave which oftentimes sweeps with violence over our cities, to be checked only when persons of much influence have their liberty jeopardized, will inevitably bring about an understanding on the part of the majority of the citizens that politics must not be corrupted by people who make a business of seducing the electorate of our cities. The commission form of government has already done much to lead the way to a better state of affairs, and even if it had not, it would be only a question of but a short time until publicity itself would bring about a better, purer, and more economic administration of government.
As a nation, we are more seriously menaced by the accumulation of gigantic individual fortunes than from any other one and perhaps from all other sources combined, as in but very few cases does a competency mean the use of time for a leisure of culture and ennoblement, but rather for the development of selfishness, avarice, cruelty, and immorality. Christ certainly did not overrate the awful disadvantage of riches, particularly if considered in relation to the recent developments of our criminal trials in our great cities, when He said that “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter Heaven.” Wealth in the hands of the young is the worst condition with which they can be surrounded—it almost forces them into the company of irresponsible and immoral persons who lead them into vice, thus sapping their vitality, as well as engrossing them in habits of infamy, which their weakened mentality can usually never shake off. The direst poverty, on the other hand, pinches and confines both the body and mind through lack of proper nutrition and time for rest and recreation, so that it is of double importance to the State to see that enormous private accumulations of wealth do not exist, and more especially that they cannot be inherited. A reasonable sum should be fixed upon by our lawmakers as the maximum amount which could be inherited by any one individual, and any part of an estate which was not legally disposed of under this act, by will or otherwise, should pass into the undisputed possession of the State and should be spent, not for the ordinary administration of the law, but for the building of schools, hospitals, parks, museums, and the purchase of public utilities, such as water, lighting, power and transportation companies. Should the means above suggested prove too slow in operation or inadequate to meet present emergencies, an income-tax might, for a decade or two, be a necessity—the returns from which should be expended as suggested above. Unless something of this character is done within the next century, it would seem that our country cannot continue to advance in civilization, although she might in political prestige and commercial importance, but would follow in the steps of so many other great states, and sooner or later arrive at a time where her present would be but a meagre shadow of her majestic past.
If we would have the most that is to be got out of life, we should see to it that more time and attention is paid to the development of the æsthetic side of our natures. Our public buildings are to-day usually designed upon grand and majestic lines; some of our public parks are laid out with the idea of showing the beauty of simplicity and harmony; a few of our private mansions are architecturally works of art; we have in our large cities a few museums which are kept open a few hours to the public upon days when it has leisure, but, further than this, how little are we taught, or do we see, the beautiful aside from its arrangement in nature in the ordinary routine of life? With all but the wealthier class, the getting of a livelihood and the attention to other material things, consumes all the time and energy available under the present régime so that no leisure is left to cultivate an appreciation or desire for the beautiful. It is the amount of development of the æsthetic nature of the masses which is the surest and most certain index of any civilization. Schlegel has most justly observed that “when men are left to the sole guidance of artificial law, they become reduced to mere empty shadows and soulless forms; while the undivided sway of nature leaves them savage and loveless.” It is therefore in this middle ground that we should provide stimuli for the growth of this cult of the beautiful, and to do this we must begin with the children. It should be the care of the state to see that our streets are kept clean, that grass plots and flower beds are harmoniously and tastily arranged at the intersection of the highways, wherever possible, and that all houses intended for tenement purposes be so built that plenty of light and air can be always available. Powerful and elevating music should be performed in public parks at frequent intervals, whenever the weather will permit of general gatherings in the open air. The best talent should be secured to address the people upon subjects of a general nature, such as topics of the day, political economy, popular science, etc. Our school rooms should not only be clean and well ventilated, but their walls should be hung with interesting and beautiful pictures, and our school libraries, as well as our public libraries, should be numerous, and filled with the best literature that money can buy. In our homes, we should see that every refining influence possible is thrown around the children, and, above all, they should be taught the beauty of self-sacrifice and heroism. Particularly should they be taught the value and beauty of affection, and they should be both told and shown that the pleasure derived therefrom, and its value to the human species, depends almost wholly upon the self-restraint and self-sacrifice which is exercised in connection with the intimate relations arising from it. Schlegel again speaks right to the point, “Every inordinate indulgence involves a corresponding amount of suffering.... Others, on the contrary, who devote themselves to glorious deeds and seek enjoyment only in the intervals of more serious exertion, will have their best reward in the pure, unchanging happiness purchased by such self-denial. Pleasure, indeed, has a higher zest when spontaneous and self-created; and it rises in value in proportion to its affinity with that perfection of beauty in which moral excellence is allied to external charms.”