I BELIEVE that education is the only lever capable of raising mankind. If we wish to make the future of the Republic glorious we must educate the children of the present. The greatest blessing conferred by our Government is the free school. In importance it rises above everything else that the Government does. In its influence it is far greater.
The schoolhouse is infinitely more important than the church, and if all the money wasted in the building of churches could be devoted to education we should become a civilized people. Of course, to the extent that churches disseminate thought they are good, and to the extent that they provoke discussion they are of value, but the real object should be to become acquainted with nature—with the conditions of happiness—to the end that man may take advantage of the forces of nature. I believe in the schools for manual training, and that every child should be taught not only to think, but to do, and that the hand should be educated with the brain. The money expended on schools is the best investment made by the Government.
The schoolhouses in New York are not sufficient. Many of them are small, dark, unventilated, and unhealthy. They should be the finest public buildings in the city. It would be far better for the Episcopalians to build a university than a cathedral. Attached to all these schoolhouses there should be grounds for the children—places for air and sunlight. They should be given the best. They are the hope of the Republic and, in my judgment, of the world.
We need far more schoolhouses than we have, and while money is being wasted in a thousand directions, thousands of children are left to be educated in the gutter. It is far cheaper to build schoolhouses than prisons, and it is much better to have scholars than convicts.
The Kindergarten system should be adopted, especially for the young; attending school is then a pleasure—the children do not run away from school, but to school. We should educate the children not simply in mind, but educate their eyes and hands, and they should be taught something that will be of use, that will help them to make a living, that will give them independence, confidence—that is to say, character.
The cost of the schools is very little, and the cost of land—giving the children, as I said before, air and light—would amount to nothing.
There is another thing: Teachers are poorly paid. Only the best should be employeed, and they should be well paid. Men and women of the highest character should have charge of the children, because there is a vast deal of education in association, and it is of the utmost importance that the children should associate with real gentlemen—that is to say, with real men; with real ladies—that is to say, with real women.
Every schoolhouse should be inviting, clean, well ventilated, attractive. The surroundings should be delightful. Children forced to school, learn but little. The schoolhouse should not be a prison or the teachers turnkeys.
I believe that the common school is the bread of life, and all should be commanded to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. It would have been far better to have expelled those who refused to eat.
The greatest danger to the Republic is ignorance. Intelligence is the foundation of free government.—The World, New York, September 7, 1800.
*A letter written to Philip G. Peabody. May 27, 1800.
VIVISECTION is the Inquisition—the Hell—of Science.
All the cruelty which the human—or rather the inhuman—heart is capable of inflicting, is in this one word. Below this there is no depth. This word lies like a coiled serpent at the bottom of the abyss.
We can excuse, in part, the crimes of passion. We take into consideration the fact that man is liable to be caught by the whirlwind, and that from a brain on fire the soul rushes to a crime. But what excuse can ingenuity form for a man who deliberately—with an unaccelerated pulse—with the calmness of John Calvin at the murder of Servetus—seeks, with curious and cunning knives, in the living, quivering flesh of a dog, for all the throbbing nerves of pain? The wretches who commit these infamous crimes pretend that they are working for the good of man; that they are actuated by philanthropy; and that their pity for the sufferings of the human race drives out all pity for the animals they slowly torture to death. But those who are incapable of pitying animals are, as a matter of fact, incapable of pitying men. A physician who would cut a living rabbit in pieces—laying bare the nerves, denuding them with knives, pulling them out with forceps—would not hesitate to try experiments with men and women for the gratification of his curiosity.
To settle some theory, he would trifle with the life of any patient in his power. By the same reasoning he will justify the vivisection of animals and patients. He will say that it is better that a few animals should suffer than that one human being should die; and that it is far better that one patient should die, if through the sacrifice of that one, several may be saved.
Brain without heart is far more dangerous than heart without brain.
Have these scientific assassins discovered anything of value? They may have settled some disputes as to the action of some organ, but have they added to the useful knowledge of the race?
It is not necessary for a man to be a specialist in order to have and express his opinion as to the right or wrong of vivisection. It is not necessary to be a scientist or a naturalist to detest cruelty and to love mercy. Above all the discoveries of the thinkers, above all the inventions of the ingenious, above all the victories won on fields of intellectual conflict, rise human sympathy and a sense of justice.
I know that good for the human race can never be accomplished by torture. I also know that all that has been ascertained by vivisection could have been done by the dissection of the dead. I know that all the torture has been useless. All the agony inflicted has simply hardened the hearts of the criminals, without enlightening their minds.
It may be that the human race might be physically improved if all the sickly and deformed babes were killed, and if all the paupers, liars, drunkards, thieves, villains, and vivisectionists were murdered. All this might, in a few ages, result in the production of a generation of physically perfect men and women; but what would such beings be worth,—men and women healthy and heartless, muscular and cruel—that is to say, intelligent wild beasts?
Never can I be the friend of one who vivisects his fellow-creatures. I do not wish to touch his hand.
When the angel of pity is driven from the heart; when the fountain of tears is dry,—the soul becomes a serpent crawling in the dust of a desert.
I SUPPOSE the Government has a right to ask all of these questions, and any more it pleases, but undoubtedly the citizen would have the right to refuse to answer them. Originally the census was taken simply for the purpose of ascertaining the number of people—first, as a basis of representation; second, as a basis of capitation tax; third, as a basis to arrive at the number of troops that might be called from each State; and it may be for some other purposes, but I imagine that all are embraced in the foregoing.
The Government has no right to invade the privacy of the citizen; no right to inquire into his financial condition, as thereby his credit might be injured; no right to pry into his affairs, into his diseases, or his deformities; and, while the Government may have the right to ask these questions, I think it was foolish to instruct the enumerators to ask them, and that the citizens have a perfect right to refuse to answer them. Personally, I have no objection to answering any of these questions, for the reason that nothing is the matter with me that money will not cure.
I know that it is thought advisable by many to find out the amount of mortgages in the United States, the rate of interest that is being paid, the general indebtedness of individuals, counties, cities and States, and I see no impropriety in finding this out in any reasonable way. But I think it improper to insist on the debtor exposing his financial condition. My opinion is that Mr. Porter only wants what is perfectly reasonable, and if left to himself, would ask only those questions that all people would willingly answer.
I presume we can depend on medical statistics—on the reports of hospitals, etc., in regard to diseases and deformities, without interfering with the patients. As to the financial standing of people, there are already enough of spies in this country attending to that business. I don't think there is any danger of the courts compelling a man to answer these questions. Suppose a man refuses to tell whether he has a chronic disease or not, and he is brought up before a United States Court for contempt. In my opinion the judge would decide that the man could not be compelled to answer. It is bad enough to have a chronic disease without publishing it to the world. All intelligent people, of course, will be desirous of giving all useful information of a character that cannot be used to their injury, but can be used for the benefit of society at large.
If, however, the courts shall decide that the enumerators have the right to ask these questions, and that everybody must answer them, I doubt if the census will be finished for many years. There are hundreds and thousands of people who delight in telling all about their diseases, when they were attacked, what they have taken, how many doctors have given them up to die, etc., and if the enumerators will stop to listen, the census of 1890 will not be published until the next century.—The World, New York, June 8, 1890.
AGAIN we celebrate the victory of Light over Darkness, of the God of day over the hosts of night. Again Samson is victorious over Delilah, and Hercules triumphs once more over Omphale. In the embrace of Isis, Osiris rises from the dead, and the scowling Typhon is defeated once more. Again Apollo, with unerring aim, with his arrow from the quiver of light, destroys the serpent of shadow. This is the festival of Thor, of Baldur and of Prometheus. Again Buddha by a miracle escapes from the tyrant of Madura, Zoroaster foils the King, Bacchus laughs at the rage of Cadmus, and Chrishna eludes the tyrant.
This is the festival of the sun-god, and as such let its observance be universal.
This is the great day of the first religion, the mother of all religions—the worship of the sun.
Sun worship is not only the first, but the most natural and most reasonable of all. And not only the most natural and the most reasonable, but by far the most poetic, the most beautiful.
The sun is the god of benefits, of growth, of life, of warmth, of happiness, of joy. The sun is the all-seeing, the all-pitying, the all-loving.
This bright God knew no hatred, no malice, never sought for revenge.
All evil qualities were in the breast of the God of darkness, of shadow, of night. And so I say again, this is the festival of Light. This is the anniversary of the triumph of the Sun over the hosts of Darkness.
Let us all hope for the triumph of Light—of Right and Reason—for the victory of Fact over Falsehood, of Science over Superstition.
And so hoping, let us celebrate the venerable festival of the Sun.—The Journal, New York, December 25,1892.
IF there is an abused word in our language, it is "spirituality."
It has been repeated over and over for several hundred years by pious pretenders and snivelers as though it belonged exclusively to them.
In the early days of Christianity, the "spiritual" renounced the world with all its duties and obligations. They deserted their wives and children. They became hermits and dwelt in caves. They spent their useless years in praying for their shriveled and worthless souls. They were too "spiritual" to love women, to build homes and to labor for children. They were too "spiritual" to earn their bread, so they became beggars and stood by the highways of Life and held out their hands and asked alms of Industry and Courage. They were too "spiritual" to be merciful. They preached the dogma of eternal pain and gloried in "the wrath to come." They were too "spiritual" to be civilized, so they persecuted their fellow-men for expressing their honest thoughts. They were so "spiritual" that they invented instruments of torture, founded the Inquisition, appealed to the whip, the rack, the sword and the fagot. They tore the flesh of their fellow-men with hooks of iron, buried their neighbors alive, cut off their eyelids, dashed out the brains of babes and cut off the breasts of mothers. These "spiritual" wretches spent day and night on their knees, praying for their own salvation and asking God to curse the best and noblest of the world.
John Calvin was intensely "spiritual" when he warmed his fleshless hands at the flames that consumed Servetus.
John Knox was constrained by his "spirituality" to utter low and loathsome calumnies against all women. All the witch-burners and Quaker-maimers and mutilators were so "spiritual" that they constantly looked heavenward and longed for the skies.
These lovers of God—these haters of men—looked upon the Greek marbles as unclean, and denounced the glories of Art as the snares and pitfalls of perdition.
These "spiritual" mendicants hated laughter and smiles and dimples, and exhausted their diseased and polluted imaginations in the effort to make love loathsome.
From almost every pulpit was heard the denunciation of all that adds to the wealth, the joy and glory of life. It became the fashion for the "spiritual" to malign every hope and passion that tends to humanize and refine the heart. Man was denounced as totally depraved. Woman was declared to be a perpetual temptation—her beauty a snare and her touch pollution.
Even in our own time and country some of the ministers, no matter how radical they claim to be, retain the aroma, the odor, or the smell of the "spiritual."
They denounce some of the best and greatest—some of the benefactors of the race—for having lived on the low plane of usefulness—and for having had the pitiful ambition to make their fellows happy in this world.
Thomas Paine was a groveling wretch because he devoted his life to the preservation of the rights of man, and Voltaire lacked the "spiritual" because he abolished torture in France and attacked, with the enthusiasm of a divine madness, the monster that was endeavoring to drive the hope of liberty from the heart of man.
Humboldt was not "spiritual" enough to repeat with closed eyes the absurdities of superstition, but was so lost to all the "skyey influences" that he was satisfied to add to the intellectual wealth of the world.
Darwin lacked "spirituality," and in its place had nothing but sincerity, patience, intelligence, the spirit of investigation and the courage to give his honest conclusions to the world. He contented himself with giving to his fellow-men the greatest and the sublimest truths that man has spoken since lips have uttered speech.
But we are now told that these soldiers of science, these heroes of liberty, these sculptors and painters, these singers of songs, these composers of music, lack "spirituality" and after all were only common clay.
This word "spirituality" is the fortress, the breastwork, the rifle-pit of the Pharisee. It sustains the same relation to sincerity that Dutch metal does to pure gold.
There seems to be something about a pulpit that poisons the occupant—that changes his nature—that causes him to denounce what he really loves and to laud with the fervor of insanity a joy that he never felt—a rapture that never thrilled his soul. Hypnotized by his surroundings, he unconsciously brings to market that which he supposes the purchasers desire.
In every church, whether orthodox or radical, there are two parties—one conservative, looking backward, one radical, looking forward, and generally a minister "spiritual" enough to look both ways.
A minister who seems to be a philosopher on the street, or in the home of a sensible man, cannot withstand the atmosphere of the pulpit. The moment he stands behind the Bible cushion, like Bottom, he is "translated" and the Titania of superstition "kisses his large, fair ears."
Nothing is more amusing than to hear a clergyman denounce worldliness—ask his hearers what it will profit them to build railways and palaces and lose their own souls—inquire of the common folks before him why they waste their precious years in following trades and professions, in gathering treasures that moths corrupt and rust devours, giving their days to the vulgar business of making money,—and then see him take up a collection, knowing perfectly well that only the worldly, the very people he has denounced, can by any possibility give a dollar.
"Spirituality" for the most part is a mask worn by idleness, arrogance and greed.
Some people imagine that they are "spiritual" when they are sickly.
It may be well enough to ask: What is it to be really spiritual?
The spiritual man lives to his ideal. He endeavors to make others happy. He does not despise the passions that have filled the world with art and glory. He loves his wife and children—home and fireside. He cultivates the amenities and refinements of life. He is the friend and champion of the oppressed. His sympathies are with the poor and the suffering. He attacks what he believes to be wrong, though defended by the many, and he is willing to stand for the right against the world. He enjoys the beautiful. In the presence of the highest creations of Art his eyes are suffused with tears. When he listens to the great melodies, the divine harmonies, he feels the sorrows and the raptures of death and love. He is intensely human. He carries in his heart the burdens of the world. He searches for the deeper meanings. He appreciates the harmonies of conduct, the melody of a perfect life.
He loves his wife and children better than any god. He cares more for the world he lives in than for any other. He tries to discharge the duties of this life, to help those that he can reach. He believes in being useful—in making money to feed and clothe and educate the ones he loves—to assist the deserving and to support himself. He does not wish to be a burden on others. He is just, generous and sincere.
Spirituality is all of this world. It is a child of this earth, born and cradled here. It comes from no heaven, but it makes a heaven where it is.
There is no possible connection between superstition and the spiritual, or between theology and the spiritual.
The spiritually-minded man is a poet. If he does not write poetry, he lives it. He is an artist. If he does not paint pictures or chisel statues, he feels them, and their beauty softens his heart. He fills the temple of his soul with all that is beautiful, and he worships at the shrine of the Ideal.
In all the relations of life he is faithful and true. He asks for nothing that he does not earn. He does not wish to be happy in heaven if he must receive happiness as alms He does not rely on the goodness of another. He is not ambitious to become a winged pauper.
Spirituality is the perfect health of the soul. It is noble, manly, generous, brave, free-spoken, natural, superb.
Nothing is more sickening than the "spiritual" whine—the pretence that crawls at first and talks about humility and then suddenly becomes arrogant and says: "I am 'spiritual.' I hold in contempt the vulgar joys of this life. You work and toil and build homes and sing songs and weave your delicate robes. You love women and children and adorn yourselves. You subdue the earth and dig for gold. You have your theatres, your operas and all the luxuries of life; but I, beggar that I am, Pharisee that I am, am your superior because I am 'spiritual.'"
Above all things, let us be sincere.—The Conservator, Philadelphia, 1891.
1861—April 12th—1891
FOR about three-quarters of a century the statesmen, that is to say, the politicians, of the North and South', had been busy making compromises, adopting constitutions and enacting laws; busy making speeches, framing platforms and political pretences, to the end that liberty and slavery might dwell in peace and friendship under the same flag.
Arrogance on one side, hypocrisy on the other.
Right apologized to Wrong for the sake of the Union.
The sources of justice were poisoned, and patriotism became the defender of piracy. In the name of humanity mothers were robbed of their babes.
Thirty years ago to-day a shot was fired, and in a moment all the promises, all the laws, all the constitutional amendments, and all the idiotic and heartless decisions of courts, and all the speeches of orators inspired by the hope of place and power, were blown into rags and ravelings, pieces and patches.
The North and South had been masquerading as friends, and in a moment, while the sound of that shot was ringing in their ears, they faced each other as enemies.
The roar of that cannon announced the birth of a new epoch. The echoes of that shot went out, not only over the bay of Charleston, but over the hills, the prairies and forests of the continent.
These echoes said marvelous things and uttered prophecies that none were wise enough to understand.
Who at that time had the slightest conception of the immediate future? Who then was great enough to see the end? Who then was wise enough to know that the echoes would be kept alive and repeated for years by thousands and thousands of cannon, by millions of muskets, on the fields of ruthless war?
At that time Abraham Lincoln, an Illinois lawyer, was barely a month in the President's chair, and that shot made him the most commanding and majestic figure of the nineteenth century—a figure that stands alone.
Who could have guessed the names of the heroes to be repeated by countless lips before the echoes of that shot should have died away?
There was at that time a young man at Galena, silent, unobtrusive, unknown; and yet, the moment that shot was fired he was destined to lead the greatest host ever marshaled on a field of war, destined to receive the final sword of the Rebellion.
There was another, in the Southwest, who heard one of the echoes of that shot, and who afterward marched from Atlanta to the sea; and another, far away by the Pacific, who also heard one of the echoes, and who became one of the immortal three.
But, above all, the echoes were heard by millions of men and women in the fields of unpaid toil, and they knew not the meaning, but felt that they had heard a prophecy of freedom. And the echoes told of death and glory for many thousands—of the agonies of women—the sobs of orphans—the sighs of the imprisoned, and the glad shouts of the delivered, the enfranchised, the redeemed.
They who fired that gun did not dream that they were giving liberty to millions of people, including themselves, white as well as black, North as well as South, and that before the echoes should die away, all the shackles would be broken, all the constitutions and statutes of slavery repealed, and all the compromises merged and lost in a great compact made to preserve the liberties of all.
ONE HUNDRED years after Christ had died suppose some one had asked a Christian, What hospitals have you built? What asylums have you founded? They would have said "None." Suppose three hundred years after the death of Christ the same questions had been asked the Christian, he would have said "None, not one." Two hundred years more and the answer would have been the same. And at that time the Christian could have told the questioner that the Mohammedans had built asylums before the Christians. He could also have told him that there had been orphan asylums in China for hundreds and hundreds of years, hospitals in India, and hospitals for the sick at Athens.
Here it may be well enough to say that all hospitals and asylums are not built for charity. They are built because people do not want to be annoyed by the sick and the insane. If a sick man should come down the street and sit upon your doorstep, what would you do with him? You would have to take him into your house or leave him to suffer. Private families do not wish to take the burden of the sick. Consequently, in self-defence, hospitals are built so that any wanderer coming to a house, dying, or suffering from any disease, may immediately be packed off to a hospital and not become a burden upon private charity. The fact that many diseases are contagious rendered hospitals necessary for the preservation of the lives of the citizens. The same thing is true of the asylums. People do not, as a rule, want to take into their families, all the children who happen to have no fathers and mothers. So they endow and build an asylum where those children can be sent—and where they can be whipped according to law. Nobody wants an insane stranger in his house. The consequence is, that the community, to get rid of these people, to get rid of the trouble, build public institutions and send them there.
Now, then, to come to the point, to answer the interrogatory often flung at us from the pulpit, What institutions have Infidels built? In the first place, there have not been many Infidels for many years and, as a rule, a known Infidel cannot get very rich, for the reason that the Christians are so forgiving and loving they boycott him. If the average Infidel, freely stating his opinion, could get through the world himself, for the last several hundred years, he has been in good luck. But as a matter of fact there have been some Infidels who have done some good, even from a Christian standpoint. The greatest charity ever established in the United States by a man—not by a community to get rid of a nuisance, but by a man who wished to do good and wished that good to last after his death—is the Girard College in the city of Philadelphia. Girard was an Infidel. He gained his first publicity by going like a common person into the hospitals and taking care of those suffering from contagious diseases—from cholera and smallpox. So there is a man by the name of James Lick, an Infidel, who has given the finest observatory ever given to the world. And it is a good thing for an Infidel to increase the sight of men. The reason people are theologians is because they cannot see. Mr. Lick has increased human vision, and I can say right here that nothing has been seen through the telescope, calculated to prove the astronomy of Joshua. Neither can you see with that telescope a star that bears a Christian name. The reason is that Christianity was opposed to astronomy. So astronomers took their revenge, and now there is not one star that glitters in all the vast firmament of the boundless heavens that has a Christian name. Mr. Carnegie has been what they call a public-spirited man. He has given millions of dollars for libraries and other institutions, and he certainly is not an orthodox Christian.
Infidels, however, have done much better even than that. They have increased the sum of human knowledge. John W. Draper, in his work on "The Intellectual Development of Europe," has done more good to the American people and to the civilized world than all the priests in it. He was an Infidel. Buckle is another who has added to the sum of human knowledge. Thomas Paine, an Infidel, did more for this country than any other man who ever lived in it.
Most of the colleges in this country have, I admit, been founded by Christians, and the money for their support has been donated by Christians, but most of the colleges of this country have simply classified ignorance, and I think the United States would be more learned than it is to-day if there never had been a Christian college in it. But whether Christians gave or Infidels gave has nothing to do with the probability of the Jonah story or with the probability that the mark on the dial went back ten degrees to prove that a little Jewish king was not going to die of a boil. And if the Infidels are all stingy and the Christians are all generous it does not even tend to prove that three men were in a fiery furnace heated seven times hotter than was its wont without even scorching their clothes.
The best college in this country—or, at least, for a long time the best—was the institution founded by Ezra Cornell. That is a school where people try to teach what they know instead of what they guess. Yet Cornell University was attacked by every orthodox college in the United States at the time it was founded, because they said it was without religion.
Everybody knows that Christianity does not tend to generosity. Christianity says: "Save your own soul, whether anybody else saves his or not." Christianity says: "Let the great ship go down. You get into the little life-boat of the gospel and paddle ashore, no matter what becomes of the rest." Christianity says you must love God, or something in the sky, better than you love your wife and children. And the Christian, even when giving, expects to get a very large compound interest in another world. The Infidel who gives, asks no return except the joy that comes from relieving the wants of another.
Again the Christians, although they have built colleges, have built them for the purpose of spreading their superstitions, and have poisoned the minds of the world, while the Infidel teachers have filled the world with light. Darwin did more for mankind than if he had built a thousand hospitals. Voltaire did more than if he had built a thousand asylums for the insane. He will prevent thousands from going insane that otherwise might be driven into insanity by the "glad tidings of great joy." Haeckel is filling the world with light.
I am perfectly willing that the results of the labors of Christians and the labors of Infidels should be compared. Then let it be understood that Infidels have been in this world but a very short time. A few years ago there were hardly any. I can remember when I was the only Infidel in the town where I lived. Give us time and we will build colleges in which something will be taught that is of use. We hope to build temples that will be dedicated to reason and common sense, and where every effort will be made to reform mankind and make them better and better in this world.
I am saying nothing against the charity of Christians; nothing against any kindness or goodness. But I say the Christians, in my judgment, have done more harm than they have done good. They may talk of the asylums they have built, but they have not built asylums enough to hold the people who have been driven insane by their teachings. Orthodox religion has opposed liberty. It has opposed investigation and free thought. If all the churches in Europe had been observatories, if the cathedrals had been universities where facts were taught and where nature was studied, if all the priests had been real teachers, this world would have been far, far beyond what it is to-day.
There is an idea that Christianity is positive, and Infidelity is negative. If this be so, then falsehood is positive and truth is negative. What I contend is that Infidelity is a positive religion; that Christianity is a negative religion. Christianity denies and Infidelity admits. Infidelity stands by facts; it demonstrates by the conclusions of the reason. Infidelity does all it can to develop the brain and the heart of man. That is positive. Religion asks man to give up this world for one he knows nothing about. That is negative. I stand by the religion of reason. I stand by the dogmas of demonstration.
IN my judgment, no human being was ever made better, nobler, by being whipped or clubbed.
Mr. Brockway, according to his own testimony, is simply a savage. He belongs to the Dark Ages—to the Inquisition, to the torture-chamber, and he needs reforming more than any prisoner under his control. To put any man within his power is in itself a crime. Mr. Brockway is a believer in cruelty—an apostle of brutality. He beats and bruises flesh to satisfy his conscience—his sense of duty. He wields the club himself because he enjoys the agony he inflicts.
When a poor wretch, having reached the limit of endurance, submits or becomes unconscious, he is regarded as reformed. During the remainder of his term he trembles and obeys. But he is not reformed. In his heart is the flame of hatred, the desire for revenge; and he returns to society far worse than when he entered the prison.
Mr. Brockway should either be removed or locked up, and the Elmira Reformatory should be superintended by some civilized man—some man with brain enough to know, and heart enough to feel.
I do not believe that one brute, by whipping, beating and lacerating the flesh of another, can reform him. The lash will neither develop the brain nor cultivate the heart. There should be no bruising, no scarring of the body in families, in schools, in reformatories, or prisons. A civilized man does not believe in the methods of savagery. Brutality has been tried for thousands of years and through all these years it has been a failure.
Criminals have been flogged, mutilated and maimed, tortured in a thousand ways, and the only effect was to demoralize, harden and degrade society and increase the number of crimes. In the army and navy, soldiers and sailors were flogged to death, and everywhere by church and state the torture of the helpless was practiced and upheld.
Only a few years ago there were two hundred and twenty-three offences punished with death in England. Those who wished to reform this savage code were denounced as the enemies of morality and law. They were regarded as weak and sentimental.
At last the English code was reformed through the efforts of men who had brain and heart. But it is a significant fact that no bishop of the Episcopal Church, sitting in the House of Lords, ever voted for the repeal of one of those savage laws. Possibly this fact throws light on the recent poetic and Christian declaration by Bishop Potter to the effect that "there are certain criminals who can only be made to realize through their hides the fact that the State has laws to which the individual must be obedient."
This orthodox remark has the true apostolic ring, and is in perfect accord with the history of the church. But it does not accord with the intelligence and philanthropy of our time. Let us develop the brain by education, the heart by kindness. Let us remember that criminals are produced by conditions, and let us do what we can to change the conditions and to reform the criminals.
THE object of a trial is not to convict—neither is it to acquit. The object is to ascertain the truth by legal testimony and in accordance with law.
In this country we give the accused the benefit of all reasonable doubts. We insist that his guilt shall be really established by competent testimony.
We also allow the accused to take exceptions to the rulings of the judge before whom he is tried, and to the verdict of the jury, and to have these exceptions passed upon by a higher court.
We also insist that he shall be tried by an impartial jury, and that before he can be found guilty all the jurors must unite in the verdict.
Some people, not on trial for any crime, object to our methods. They say that time is wasted in getting an impartial jury; that more time is wasted because appeals are allowed, and that by reason of insisting on a strict compliance with law in all respects, trials sometimes linger for years, and that in many instances the guilty escape.
No one, so far as I know, asks that men shall be tried by partial and prejudiced jurors, or that judges shall be allowed to disregard the law for the sake of securing convictions, or that verdicts shall be allowed to stand unsupported by sufficient legal evidence. Yet they talk as if they asked for these very things. We must remember that revenge is always in haste, and that justice can always afford to wait until the evidence is actually heard.
There should be no delay except that which is caused by taking the time to find the truth. Without such delay courts become mobs, before which, trials in a legal sense are impossible. It might be better, in a city like New York, to have the grand jury in almost perpetual session, so that a man charged with crime could be immediately indicted and immediately tried. So, the highest court to which appeals are taken should be in almost constant session, in order that all appeals might be quickly decided.
But we do not wish to take away the right of appeal. That right tends to civilize the trial judge, reduces to a minimum his arbitrary power, puts his hatreds and passions in the keeping and control of his intelligence. That right of appeal has an excellent effect on the jury, because they know that their verdict may not be the last word. The appeal, where the accused is guilty, does not take the sword from the State, but it is a shield for the innocent.
In England there is no appeal. The trials are shorter, the judges more arbitrary, the juries subservient, and the verdict often depends on the prejudice of the judge. The judge knows that he has the last guess—that he cannot be reviewed—and in the passion often engendered by the conflict of trial he acts much like a wild beast.
The case of Mrs. Maybrick is exactly in point, and shows how dangerous it is to clothe the trial judge with supreme power.
Without doubt there is in this country too much delay, and this, it seems to me, can be avoided without putting the life or liberty of innocent persons in peril. Take only such time as may be necessary to give the accused a fair trial, before an impartial jury, under and in accordance with the established forms of law, and to allow an appeal to the highest court.
The State in which a criminal cannot have an impartial trial is not civilized. People who demand the conviction of the accused without regard to the forms of law are savages.
But there is another side to this question. Many people are losing confidence in the idea that punishment reforms the convict, or that capital punishment materially decreases capital crimes.
My own opinion is that ordinary criminals should, if possible, be reformed, and that murderers and desperate wretches should be imprisoned for life. I am inclined to believe that our prisons make more criminals than they reform; that places like the Reformatory at Elmira plant and cultivate the seeds of crime.
The State should never seek revenge; neither should it put in peril the life or liberty of the accused for the sake of a hasty trial, or by the denial of appeal.
In my judgment, defective as our criminal courts and methods are, they are far better than the English.
Our judges are kinder, more humane; our juries nearer independent, and our methods better calculated to ascertain the truth.