XLIII
I used to recall, during the early and acute phase of this discussion, an incident that occurred in the old Springfield days in Loami, down in the Sangamon country. The little village in those days could boast an institution unlike any, perhaps, in the land, unless it were to be found in some small hamlet in the South. In the public square, on a space worn smooth and hard as asphalt, a great circle was drawn, and here, every day when the weather was fine, a company of old men gathered and played marbles. What the game was I do not know; some development of one of the boys’ games, no doubt, but with what improvements and embellishments only the old men who understood and played it could say. Its enthralled votaries played with large marbles, which spun from their gnarled and horny knuckles all day long, with a shifting crowd of onlookers gaping at their prowess. The players were old and dignified, and took their sport seriously. There were to be seen, about that big ring, sages who had sat on juries and been swayed by the arguments of Lincoln; there were gray veterans who had gone with Sherman to the sea and had been withGrant at Appomattox; and now, in their declining years, they found pleasure and a mildly stimulating excitement in this exercise. The skill they developed in the game is said by those who have studied the subject on the ground to have been considerable; some testify that these elders had raised their sport to the point of scientific dignity, and that the ability they displayed ranked them as the equals of golfers or of billiardists.
The exciting tournaments went on for years, the old gentlemen were happy, the little village was peaceful and contented, when suddenly the town was shocked by a new sensation. Loami elected a reform administration. How it came about I do not know; some local muckraker may have practiced his regenerating art, or perhaps some little rivulet of the reform wave just then inundating the larger world outside may have trickled down into Loami. What privilege in the town was menaced I do not know; what portion of eminent respectability felt its perquisites in danger I cannot say; but Privilege seems to have done what it always does when pursued—namely, it began to cry for the reformation of persons instead of conditions. The new reform mayor, like many another mayor, was influenced; and, looking about for someone to reform, his eye wandered out of the window of the town hall one May morning and lighted on the grizzled marble-players, and he ordered the constable into action.
Upon what legal grounds he based his edict I cannot say. It is not vital for, as there were about sixteen thousand laws then running in his jurisdiction,it would not have been difficult to justify his action on legal grounds. It will be remembered that the old men were playing in the public square; perhaps they played “for keeps,” and it may have been that there were certain little understandings of a speculative nature on the side. Above all, the old men were enjoying themselves, and if this were not a sufficient offense what could be? And if a constable’s highest duty were not to interfere with the enjoyment of other folks what would become of the constitution and the law?
At any rate the old men were forbidden to play, their game was rudely interrupted, their ring obliterated, their marbles confiscated. There was, of course, resistance; some skirmishing and scrimmaging; a heated, acrimonious proceeding in the mayor’s court, and afterward hatred and strife and bad feeling, the formation of factions, and other conditions catalogued under law and order. But at length the space worn so smooth under the trees near the bandstand was sodded, and the old fellows might gather in silent contemplation of a new sign, “Keep off the Grass,” and reflect upon this supreme vindication of authority.
But Loami is a democracy, or as much of a democracy as the state will permit it to be, and when the next election rolled around the old men were alert, and after an exciting contest they elected a mayor of their own, a liberal. The reform mayor was relegated to the political limbo of one-termers, the privileged few preserved their privileges, and the old men, skinning the sod off that portion of the publicsquare, drew anew their huge bull-ring, resumed their game, and everybody was happy and unreformed except, of course, the reformers; though perhaps they were happy, too, in their restored misery of having something to complain about and to wag their heads over.
In relating this veracious little tale of the lid of Loami, perhaps I have not sufficiently revealed that attitude of moral sympathy toward the good characters in the story which Tolstoy insists a writer should always assume and maintain. But this has not been due to any want of that sympathy. In the shadows of the scene the figure of the mayor, for instance, has ever been present—the keenest sufferer, the most unhappy man of them all. He was the one of all of them who was burdened with official responsibility; the marble-playing faction was happy in that it had no responsibility save of that light, artificial sort imposed by the rules of its game; its conscience, indeed, was untroubled. The other faction—the goo-goos, or whatever they were called in Loami—felt responsible primarily for the short-comings of others; their consciences were troubled only by the sins of other people, the easiest and most comfortable, because it is the most normal, position that the human conscience can assume. But the mayor was held responsible for everything and everybody, and in seeking to do his duty he found that difficulty which must everywhere increase in a society and a civilization which, in casting off some of its old moorings, recognizes less the responsibility of parent and teacher, not to mention personal responsibility,and is more and more disposed to look to the law and its administrators as the regulators and mentors of conduct.