A young man with a cold face, much nervous energy and a tired-of-the-world expression leans over the polished, silver-mounted drinking bar.
You look at him and order your drink.
You know what you think of him, and you think you know what he thinks of you.
Did you ever stop to think of ALL THE STRANGE HUMAN BEINGS besides yourself that pass before him?
He stands there as a sentinel, business man, detective, waiter, general entertainer and host for the homeless.
In comes a young man, rather early in the day.
He is a little tired—up too late the night before. He takes a cocktail. He tells the bartender that he does not believe in cocktails. He never takes them, in fact. "The bitters in a cocktail will eat a hole through a thin handkerchief—pretty bad effect on your stomach, eh?" and so on.
Out goes the young man with the cocktail inside of him.
And the bartender KNOWS that that young man, with his fine reasonings and his belief in himself, is the confirmed drunkard of year after next. He has seen the beginning of many such cocktail philosophers, and the ending of the same.
The way NOT to be a drunkard is never to taste spirits. The bartender knows that. But his customers do NOT know it. ——
At another hour of the day there comes in the older man. This one is the fresh-faced, YOUNG oldish man.
He has small, gray side-whiskers. He shows several people—whom he does not know—his commutation ticket.
He changes his mind suddenly from whiskey to lemonade. The bartender prepares the lemon slowly, and the man changes his mind back to whiskey.
Then he tries to look more dignified than the two younger men with him. In the midst of the effort he begins to sing "The Heart Bowed Down with Weight of Woe," and he tells the bartender "that is from 'The Bohemian Girl.'"
He sings many other selections, occasionally forgetting his dignity, and occasionally remembering that he is the head of a most respectable home—partly paid for.
The wise man on the outside of the bar suggests that the oldish man will get into trouble. But the bartender says: "No; he will go home all right. But he won't sing all the way there. About the time he gets home he'll realize what money he has spent, and you would not like to be his wife."
The bartender KNOWS that the oldish man—about fifty-one or fifty-two—has escaped being a drunkard by mere accident, and that he has not quite escaped yet.
A little hard luck, too much trouble, and he'll lose his balance, forget that there IS lemonade, and take to whiskey permanently. ——
At the far end of the bar there is the man who comes in slowly and passes his hand over his face nervously. The bartender asks no question, but pushes out a bottle of everyday whiskey and a small glass of water.
The whiskey goes down. A shiver follows the whiskey and a very little of the water follows the shiver. The man goes out with his arms close to his sides, his gait shuffling and his head hanging.
It has taken him less than three minutes to buy, swallow and pay for a liberal dose of poison.
Says the bartender:
"That fellow had a good business once. Doesn't look it, does he? Jim over there used to work for him. But he couldn't let it alone."
The "it" mentioned is whiskey.
Outside in the cold that man, who couldn't let it alone, is shuffling his way against the bitter wind. And even in his poor, sodden brain reform and wisdom are striving to be heard.
His soul and body are sunk far below par. His vitality is gone, never to return.
The whiskey, with its shiver that tells of a shock to the heart, lifts him up for a second.
He has a little false strength of mind and brain and that strength is used to mumble good resolutions.
He THINKS he will stop drinking. He thinks he could easily get money backing if he gave up drinking for good. He feels and really believes that he WILL stop drinking.
Perhaps he goes home, and for the hundredth time makes a poor woman believe him, and makes her weep once more for joy, as she has wept many times from sorrow.
But the bartender KNOWS that that man's day has gone, and that Niagara River could turn back as easily as he could remount the swift stream that is sweeping him to destruction. ——
Five men come in together. Each asks of all the others:
"What are you going to have?"
The bartender spreads out his hands on the edge of the bar, attentive and prepared to work quickly.
Every man insists on "buying" something to drink in his turn.Each takes what the others insist on giving him.
Each thinks that he is hospitable.
But the bartender KNOWS that those men belong to the Great American Association for the Manufacture of Drunkards through "treating."
Each of those men might perhaps take his glass of beer, or even something worse, with relative safety. But, as stupidly as stampeded animals pushing each other over a precipice, each insists on buying poison in his turn. And every one spends his money to make every other one, if possible, a hard-drinking and a wasted man. ——
You, Sir. Reader, have seen all these types and many others, have you not?
WHY did you see them? What REASON had you for seeing them?
The bartender stands studying the procession to destruction, because he must make his living in that way. He is a sort of clean-aproned Charon on a whiskey Styx, ferrying the multitude to perdition on the other side of the river. But what is YOUR business there?
You might as well be found inside an opium den.
The drink swallowed at the bar braces you, does it? If you think you need a drink, you REALLY need sleep, or better nourishment, or you need to live more sensibly. Drink will not give you what you need. It may for a moment make your nerves cease tormenting you. It may do in your system for an hour what opium does in the Chinese for a whole day. But if it lifts you up high, it drops you down HARD.
And remember:
You THINK you can take your occasional drink safely and philosophize about the procession that passes the bartender.
But the bartender KNOWS that you are no different from the others. They all began as you are beginning. They all, in the early stages, despised their own forerunners.
They were once as you are, and the bartender KNOWS that the chances are all in favor of your being eventually like one of them.
Even like the poor, thin, nervous drinker of hard whiskey, who once wondered why men drink too much. ——
The bartender's procession is a sad one, and you who still think yourself safe are the saddest atom in the line, for you are there without sufficient excuse.
It is a long procession, and its end is far off.
It is born of the fact that life is dull, competition is keen, and ambition so often ends in sawdust failure.
A better chance for strugglers, a more generous reward for hard work, better organization of social life, solution of the great unsolved problem of real civilization, will end the bartender's procession.
Meanwhile, keep out of it if you can. And be glad if it can be suspended, temporarily at least, on Sundays.
Sermons in stones are familiar, but few take the trouble to dig them out. Certainly none looks for sermons in a one-cent evening newspaper.
At the same time, will you kindly think over and answer the question that heads this column?
Here we are, marooned for a few days on a flying ball of earth.We don't know how we got here. We don't know where we are going.
We are full of beautiful and satisfying FAITH. But we don'tKNOW.
Into this Universe, and WHY not knowing,Nor WHENCE, like Water, willy-nilly flowing;And out of it as Wind along the Waste,I know not WHITHER, willy-nilly blowing.
That's the way Omar, the old tent-maker, puts it. ——
We drift from dinner to the theatre, thence to bed, thence to breakfast, thence to work, and so on. Or, if in hard luck, we struggle and wail, "cursing our day," or more frequently cursing society.
We rarely stop to think what it is all about, or what we are here for. ——
We know the pig's object in life. It has been beautifully and permanently outlined in Carlyle's "pig catechism." The pig's life object is to get fat and keep fat—to get his full share of swill and as much more as he can manage to secure. And his life object is worthy. By sticking at it he develops fat hams inside his bristles, and WE know, though he does not, that the production of fat hams is his destiny. ——
But our human destiny is NOT to produce fat hams. Why do so many of us live earnestly on the pig basis? Why do we struggle savagely for money to buy our kind of swill—luxury, food, etc. —and cease all struggling when that money is obtained?
Is fear of poverty and dependence the only emotion that should move us?
Are we here merely to STAY here and EAT here?
A great German scientist, very learned and about as imaginative as a wart hog, declares that the human face is merely an extension and elaboration of the alimentary canal—that the beauty of expression, the marvellous qualities of a noble human face, are merely indirect results of the alimentary canal's strivings to satisfy its wants.
That is a hideous conception, is it not? But it is no more unworthy than the average human life, and the average existence has much to justify the German's speculations.
What SHALL we strive for? MONEY?
Get a thousand millions. Your day will come, and in due course the graveyard rat will gnaw as calmly at your bump of acquisitiveness as at the mean coat of the pauper.
Then, shall we strive for POWER?
The names of the first great kings of the world are forgotten, and the names of all those whose power we envy will drift to forgetfulness soon. What does the most powerful man in the world amount to standing at the brink of Niagara, with his solar plexus trembling? What is his power compared with the force of the wind or the energy of one small wave sweeping along the shore?
The power which man can build up within himself, for himself, is nothing. Only the dull reasoning of gratified egotism can make it seem worth while. ——
Then what IS worth while? Let us look at some of the men who have come and gone, and whose lives inspire us. Take a few at random:
Columbus, Michael Angelo, Wilberforce, Shakespeare, Galileo,Fulton, Watt, Hargreaves—these will do.
Let us ask ourselves this question: "Was there any ONE THING that distinguished ALL their lives, that united all these men, active in fields so different?"
Yes. Every man among them, and every man whose life history is worth the telling, did something for THE GOOD OF OTHER MEN.
Hargreaves, the weaver, invented the spinning-jenny, and his invention clothes and employs hundreds of millions.
Galileo perfected the telescope, spread out before man's intellect the grandeur of the universe. Wilberforce helped to awaken man's conscience. He freed millions of slaves. Columbus gave a home to great nations. We thrive to-day because of his noble courage. Michael Angelo and Shakespeare stirred human genius to new efforts, and fed the human mind—a task more worthy than the feeding of the human stomach. We ride in Fulton's steamboats, and Watt's engine pulls us along.
Men who are truly great have DONE GOOD to their fellow-man. And the greatest Soul ever born on earth came to urge but one thing upon humanity, "Love one another." ——
Get money if you can. Get power if you can. Then, if you want to be more than the ten thousand million unknown mingled in the dust beneath you, see what good you can do with your money and your power.
If you are one of the many millions who have not and can't get money or power, see what good you can do without either.
You can help carry a load for an old man. You can encourage and help a poor devil trying to reform. You can set a good example to children. You can stick to the men with whom you work, fighting honestly for their welfare.
Time was when the ablest man would rather kill ten men than feed a thousand children. That time has gone. We do not care much about feeding the children, but we care less about killing the men. To that extent we have improved already.
The day will come when we shall prefer helping our neighbor to robbing him—legally—of a million dollars.
Do what good you can NOW, while it is unusual, and have the satisfaction of being a pioneer and an eccentric.
The most acute suffering is that produced by FEAR, and those who suffer most acutely from fear are YOUNG children.
Who does not remember the intense agony in youth based upon the superstitious teachings of some foolish older person?
And how many children are made miserable through the hideous fear that comes from threats and from punishment postponed?
If a man should be whipped incessantly for three or four hours he would think his tormentor a monster of brutality.
Yet you say to a child:
"I will whip you for that to-morrow."
You sentence that child to hours of the most acute mental suffering, and if the child be nervous and unusually sensitive, you may permanently injure its health. ——
Here is a scene unfortunately not rare in this country:
A thin, nervous little boy, perhaps ten years old, was walking along a suburban street. Suddenly, on turning a corner, he was confronted by a man, apparently his father.
The child stood trembling. The man, in a voice of cold, concentrated anger, said:
"Didn't I tell you to come early. You go to the house and WAITTHERE TILL I COME BACK AND FIX YOU."
The man walked on, to get the drink of beer or whiskey that should add to his natural cruelty, and the poor child, without a word, started for home to await the coming punishment.
No more cruel treatment was ever endured by any human being than the punishment inflicted by that thoughtless man on the nervous, helpless child placed in his power.
Later, of course, there followed the punishment; a huge, powerful man striking repeatedly the delicate body of the child, emphasizing the brutality of his blows with more brutal words, and feeling when it was over that he had gloriously done his duty as a typical American father.
Of course, the actual brutal beating was only a small part of the child's ordeal.
The most horrible part was the waiting for the punishment. No man in the death cell ever suffered more than thousands of children suffer every day waiting for the brutality which is to exemplify our savage notions concerning the education of children.
If such a monstrous parody on a father should be met in some lonely wood by a huge gorilla and treated as that father treats his own son, he would complain bitterly of the gorilla's ferocity. Yet it would not equal in any way his own brutal and less excusable cruelty. ——
If a parent says that he cannot bring up his children and control them without beating them, you may say to that parent:
You never struck a child in your life except when you were angry, and you would not have dared to strike it if it had been of your own size.
Children born of decent parents can be brought up, and ARE brought up, without beatings, and if yours are a different kind of children it is a reflection on YOU, and on your whole brood and family.
The poor, ignorant hen can teach its young ones to scratch and hunt worms, and acquire whatever education they need without hurting them, and a human being should be able to do for his own as much as a hen can do.
You have perhaps read that Mrs. Isabelle Bailey, of Palmyra,N.J., was cruelly tortured by three little girls.
The unfortunate woman was eighty-five years old, paralyzed, and confined to her bed.
The three children, two of them eight and one eleven years old, tormented the poor woman in a brutal manner, of which details shall not be published here.
The helpless woman ultimately died, and the children were charged with murder. ——
This horrible story is mentioned in the hope of concentrating the minds of mothers and fathers on the fact that children are naturally more cruel, more vicious, than grown people.
The children mentioned in this case were, perhaps, abnormal and unusual monstrosities. But they serve to illustrate the fact that infancy and childhood duplicate, in the individual, the primitive animal life on earth.
Many children are brutally punished and ruined for life because ignorant parents imagine that childhood is naturally pure and innocent and good, and that a child which misbehaves must be abnormally wicked.
If parents knew more about the physical and mental development of their children, they would be better fitted to have charge of them. ——
It is a fact taught by embryology that the human body before its birth passes through numerous stages of development which correspond exactly with the lower forms of animal life.
After birth the child develops MENTALLY in the same way, passing through inferior mental stages and reaching a state of benevolence, honesty, truthfulness and self-restraint only as a result of long education and wise control.
A perfectly truthful child probably never existed. All childish races of savages are incessant liars and thieves. All children passing through the primitive stages of mental development are naturally given to deception, and even to theft, especially when they are frightened by the consequences of truth, and when things which they desire are denied them.
All children are cruel—and there is no greater brutality than confiding a helpless animal to the tender mercies of a young child.
There may be a few exceptions, but they are very rare, and there is no reason why parents should expect their particular children to be the exceptions.
You may see a man of mature age, kind-hearted, absolutely benevolent and just. And you may learn that when he was a baby he bit his nurse, lied, and was cruel to animals and to other children.
But parents are stupidly egotistical, and believe that their pretty children ought to be born morally perfect.
This moral perfection can be obtained only as the result of education.
Don't expect your children to be models of virtue.
Don't brutalize them by punishments and contempt because you discover that their primitive mental life duplicates the mental conditions of inferior animals.
Set them a good example, and by education make them what you want them to be.
The ignorant and stupid belief that children are born naturally good accounts for the brutality of many fathers and the ruin of many young lives, making cowards of children, accentuating their untruthfulness and cowardice and their cruelty through a desire for revenge.
The authorities of New York City, at this writing, have two babies to give away.
A few days since there were about two hundred babies in the city foundling asylum to be had for the asking.
Of all these little ones there remain but two whom nobody seems to want.
These two forlorn little things are described as "thin and nervous; inclined to cry, and not taking kindly to those who come to pick out free babies for adoption."
Hundreds of women anxious for children have gone to the asylum, have passed by the two little skinny babies, and have asked to be informed as soon as fat babies should be on hand.
Presently we shall tell childless persons—especially bachelors—why they should get a baby and bring it up.
But first, learn that the best possible choice would be one of those two despised "thin" babies.
In all the world's history, the greatest men have begun life asTHIN babies.
You must know from common observation that in babyhood the head is big out of all proportion to the rest of the body.
A baby one year old has in its brain alone at least one-third of all the blood in its body.
THE BIGGER AND MORE ACTIVE THE BRAIN the more blood is required to nourish it, and THE MORE THE REST OF THE BODY SUFFERS.
A baby luckily born may combine a good brain and a fat body. But such luck is very rare.
Nine times out of ten the best baby MENTALLY is the poorest-looking baby PHYSICALLY.
We have told you in this column about the pathetic babyhood of the great Voltaire. Had he been in the foundling asylum during the recent selection of babies, he would surely be among the despised and rejected. Yet what a glory to have picked out and raised the wonderful Voltaire!
Voltaire, whose name as a baby was Arouet, was the thinnest and most nervous of babies. He had a disease very much like rickets; he cried night and day, and there was little hope of keeping him alive.
Pitt, the great British Prime Minister, was as sick and skinny a baby as was ever seen. Pope, when a baby, would not have seemed worth keeping alive to anybody but a loving mother.
We advise the women who have spurned the two thin babies in the asylum to take another look at them. They may be the best two babies in the entire lot.
If you will read Drummond's beautiful work "The Ascent of Man," you will learn that we owe to children the good that is in us. It is the child that educates the father and mother.
If you are a solemn bachelor, gradually drying up in your selfish life, try having a baby around for a while.
Get a despised thin one from the asylum. Get some good, kind old woman to take care of it. Give the woman and the baby the quietest room in your house or flat, and then watch the improvement in your character.
You can feed the baby for the cost of one or two cocktails daily.
Your health will improve if you give up the cocktails, and watch the effect of their substitute, milk, on the little child.
When you get up in the morning, if the hour is early, you will find the old woman giving the baby its bath. The poor, little thin thing will wriggle joyously in the warm water, once it gets used to the daily bathing. Its head will be soaped first, then sponged. It will be dried with a warm towel, and you can hit the tin bathtub with your keys to keep it from crying while its clothes are put on.
Hold the baby for a while each morning, letting its head rest on your shoulder that its neck may not be strained. (This will give the nurse a chance to prepare the bottle that follows the bath.)
It will get used to you after a few mornings. The first time it shows affection for you, you will be the proudest man in your office.
If asked to take a cocktail you will say:
"No, thank you. My cocktail money is spent to make a thin baby fat."
If others boast of their friends, you will know that YOU have a friend whom money cannot influence, one skinny little admirer at home whose affection is genuine.
If a man shows delight in the love of his dog, you will say to yourself:
"Any dog will like any man. But there are few that could get a baby to like them in six days as that thin Jimmy likes me."
If you go home early, before the baby is put to bed, you will find him trying to crawl along the floor, or trying to eat the pattern in the carpet. He will look at you out of his pale, little, blue eyes and reach his skinny arms toward you.
See if that does not make you glad that you tried the baby experiment.
Gradually the thin body will get fatter, and the small, busy mouth will begin a mumbling language of its own. The old nurse will pretend to understand everything it says and will insist that it knows your name.
The first tooth piercing the heated, suffering gum; the first feeble steps with the help of a chair; the first tottering effort all alone, with arms outstretched toward you, ending in a flabby collapse, will delight you more than much experimenting with race horses, if you are the right sort of man.
It will not be long before you will decide that the bringing up of babies is your destiny, and a good one.
But when you bring a wife into the house, and she brings you other babies, thin or fat, of your own, don't forget the original thin Jimmy baby. Provide for the old nurse and for the youngster. Say to your wife:
"Be fond of that Jimmy baby, for it was he who taught me that I could not get along without you."
[End Project Gutenberg Etext of Editorials from the HearstNewspapers by Arthur Brisbane]