Purpled Ease
No quarter! We want all that you possess. We will be content with nothing less than all that you possess. We want in our hands the reins of power and the destiny of mankind. Here are our hands. They are strong hands. We are going to take your governments, your palaces, and all your purpled ease away from you, and in that day you shall work for your bread even as the peasant in the field or the starved and runty clerk in your metropolises. Here are our hands. They are strong hands.—Jack London.
No quarter! We want all that you possess. We will be content with nothing less than all that you possess. We want in our hands the reins of power and the destiny of mankind. Here are our hands. They are strong hands. We are going to take your governments, your palaces, and all your purpled ease away from you, and in that day you shall work for your bread even as the peasant in the field or the starved and runty clerk in your metropolises. Here are our hands. They are strong hands.—Jack London.
The above is taken from a postal card sent out by the publishers of Jack London’s books. Jack is a Marxian Socialist all day long, and he is much more frank than most of his party. All the other Socialists I ever met, alternately admit and deny that what they want is a division of property ❦ Jack Londonstands by his guns and declares, “We want all you possess.” And when he says “you” he means the people who own property. He is talking to the owners and managers of the “tools,” by which he means the railroads, mills, shops, stores, factories, mines and steamships. That is to say, Jack is going to take things away from the present owners and give these things to “we.” Jack assumes that property in the hands of the Socialist would be much better managed than it is now in the hands of those who own it. ¶ This threat of Jack’s would be a tragic thing if Jack and his pals were really going to do all they say they are. But they are not going to do anything but talk. That is their “hold.” Folks who can, do; those who can’t, chin. Jack is a writing tramp who roams the world for thrills and copy. He is kindly, intelligent, amusing, indolent, and absolutely without the power to manage anything—even his own tongue. He is a good fellow; and he makes folks think.In fact, he is the sparker to this paragraph. Jack made me think, he made me mad, he made me laugh, and he made me write. Personally I like the rogue—he is most companionable, especially if you have no work to do. ¶ The tendency of property of every sort is towards depreciation and dissolution. Only eternal vigilance and tireless industry keep a manufacturing plant or a farm effective ❦ Jack does not know this. Jack thinks that to own property is to be immune from work. The truth is, ownership is a responsibility and a burden. Most of the Socialists I know do not work—they only talk about work. ¶ What they want is an orthodox heaven of ease, where the harps are always in tune and the robes are always laundered. If Jack could take away the property from those who have it and set them to work like peasants and “runty clerks,” then the Socialists would live in “purpled ease,” as Jack and many other childish, silly folksthink that rich people do now. ¶ There is an “idle rich” class, but it is a very small class, and it is not made up of the people who manage things. It is made up of remittance-men—and some of these are Socialists, who play at equality, badger the busy, and patronize the poor. Leave the idle rich to Nemesis. Disease and death are at their heels. ¶ The men who operate our great enterprises—mills, factories, elevators, banks and department-stores—know nothing of ease. Their working-hours are not limited by the whistle ❦ They sweat blood to meet payrolls and to keep the wheels of trade revolving. Modern business is a most exacting taskmaster. It says, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” It demands every ounce of energy its devotee has. The thought of a “good time” is not for the businessman. He works, and works eternally. He works because he can’t stop ❦ And this is the man the Socialists are going to send to the fields!Jack London’s view of railroading is only from the bumpers. His philosophy can not deceive the section-hands, nor the train-crews, nor the operators, nor the managers. They work, and they work with care, precision, energy and economy. Each one does the thing he can do best. That is what we all do. If Jack’s hands were the strong hands he pretends, they would be grabbing plow-handles or a shovel, instead of reaching for a hand-me-out ❦ If the hands of Jack and his friends were strong enough, they would own this property towards which they now look with lustful eyes. ¶ The world will be redeemed; it is being redeemed. It is being redeemed not by those who shake the red rag of wordy warfare, who threaten and demand, but by its entrepreneurs—its workers, its inventors, its toilers—the men and women who do the duty that lies nearest them. ¶ The fallacy of the Jack philosophy lies in the assumption that the industries of theworld would be much better managed by Jack and his kith than by the men who are now at the helm ❦ In other words, Jack’s claim is that Socialists are a peculiar, separate and distinct class of able, unselfish, competent persons with hands especially strong, who accidentally are out of the game, but who are soon to take possession of things and run everything in such a way that Society will be blessed and benefited as never before. ¶ The fact is, Socialists are not a separate and distinct class. We are all children of Adam and Eve, and the differences in us are more apparent than real ❦ We all have our limitations—read Carlyle! The weaknesses of humanity are inherent in Socialists—only perhaps in greater degree. Their doctrine of reaching Utopia through firing the men who now manage things is the doctrine of despair. Fabian Socialism is something else—it is opportunism ❦ It does what it can, now. It does not wait for a revolution—ratherit believes in evolution ❦ We climb step by step. Fabian Socialism does not preach class hatred. In fact, it does not recognize that either the “class” or the “mass” exists. People who belong to one so-called class today are in another tomorrow. Most of our so-called predatory rich wiggled up out of the mass—and they may be poor again ❦ Many of the poor will be rich. Watch the immigrants landing at Ellis Island. Can you prophesy to what “class” these boys and girls—curious, quaint, half-frightened—will belong twenty years from now? Many of them will be contractors, lawyers, bankers, scientists, doctors, teachers—it is all a matter of individual energy, intelligence and desire, modified by the antics of the gods of Chance. There is no conspiracy in America to hold people down and under. Class hatred, represented by Marxian Socialism, says there is. There is nothing so savage, cruel and blindly unjust as class hatred. ¶ I’ve been accused ofclass hatred because I make statements from time to time that seem to reveal a lack of appreciation for the three learned professions. Granted that I do, it is not the man I criticize—it is the office. Doctors, lawyers and preachers are men, caught in a certain environment, trying to win the world’s plaudits and plunder in a certain way ❦ I may consider the way a mistaken one, but I surely do not hate the man. And the fact that I have hundreds of close friends among the professions proves that I am not entirely misunderstood in this matter ❦ Doctors are men. Lawyers are men. Preachers are men. So, also, are judges. Marxian Socialists are men, and all these are very much like the people with whom they mix and associate ❦ Rogue clients evolve rogue lawyers to do their work; fool patients evolve fool doctors; and superstitious, silly people in the pew secrete a pretentious, punk party in the pulpit. For the man, himself, I have only admiration,respect and love—and sometimes pity. I may despise his business and some of his acts, but how can I hate the man, when I realize that his life is a part of the Great One from which mine is derived? This man may quit his business and take up something else. ¶ The criminal is not wholly a criminal—he is only a criminal at times. Some of his impulses are good, and most of them may be excellent; but one mistaken act will brand him forever as a criminal in the world’s assize. ¶ Under the same conditions, if I were of the same quality and temper, I would have done the same ❦ If I criticize lawyers, doctors and preachers, it is simply because there courses through my veins a quality and kind of corpuscle which fits me eminently for success either as a lawyer, doctor or preacher. “A hair, perhaps, divides the false and true,” says old Omar. ¶ Yes, and I missed becoming a practising physician by a hair. Had I gone into Medicine I would have had a team ofbays, a coon driver, and a whisker that would have put all the other doctors in my town to the bad. I have the fingers of a diagnostician, a voice that soothes, a presence that heals. If you didn’t have it, I could convince both myself and you that you had. Then I would have cut into your cosmos to find out who was right—and I would have charged you five hundred dollars for the operation. If I were wrong in my diagnosis, you would never have known the difference, for on occasion I can be discreet. ¶ The law is a game that lures: it isn’t a matter of securing justice—not that. Truth has a secondary place in the practise of law, and only very ignorant folks imagine otherwise. The law is a game, and you play to win. The whole thing is fascinating. It is a clash of wits—mind matching mind. As a lawyer, I would have quibbled you six nights and days together; and I would have been a legal lallapaloosa. ¶ Bill Reedy writes, “We are all touched with the essence ofthe thing against which we strive.” And Bill is sometimes right. That is all we can expect, even from the wisest and best of men, and Bill is both ❦ Yes, I would take kindly to the law, for guff, bluff and stuff come easily within my grasp. I can cross-buttock a fact; side-step an equity; befuddle a judge—some judges; kerflumix a jury; juggle with justice; put reason astride of a barb-wire fence; and prevent a witness from keeping his oath to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And a fat fee would always reanimate any flagging zeal I might have as to the justice of my client’s cause. ¶ As for the pulpit, I would take it now, were it not so securely fastened down—hypocrisy, gush, glibness, Chicago Tongue,—yes, let Billy Sunday look to his laurels! I, too, could tear a passion to tatters and make the judicious grieve. I could hypnotize myself into a belief that souls were “lost,” like collar-buttons under a bureau, and I was theone man to rescue them ❦ Sure! Especially am I qualified for making Pastoral Calls—or I was once. Also, I have great capacity for chicken-pie, pretense, cheap social honors, and the applause of the unthinking. As a Churchman, reversed haberdashery would have done me proud; breeks would become me, for my shanks have individuality; and a dinky hat would set off my sky-piece in a way not only to arouse curiosity but mirth. Let Dean Hart beware—his job is not so secure as he thinks! ¶ Doctor Samuel Johnson was for a time a member of Parliament in the capacity of cub reporter. One certain speech he reported, and when the gentleman who had made the speech read the report he didn’t exactly recognize it. So he went to Johnson and said, “Look ’ere, young feller, I didn’t say that.” “Certainly not,” said Johnson, “certainly not; but that is what you should have said!” ❦ In recounting his reportorial experiences, Johnson was once askedthis question: “What kind of men are there in the House of Commons?” And Johnson replied, “Take the first fifty men you find walking up Fleet Street.” Johnson knew that all men, regardless of their condition in life, are, at heart, very much alike. ¶ And when Fate has flung a man into a certain situation, the man will, if it is a place of some honor, give himself all the credit for having attained it. If it is a position that perhaps carries no honor, the party will always blame some one else for putting him there. We credit ourselves for our successes; we blame others for our faults. Also, we justify ourselves in everything we do ❦ And wise men see plainly that this self-justification is a part of Nature’s great law of self-preservation. The exaggerated Ego is a primal necessity. Good men all and everywhere multiply the value of their work by ten. ¶ Success in life consists in convincing yourself that you are the whole cheese, and then getting the world to acceptyour view. Rostand’s rooster was fully assured in his own mind that the sun would not come up if he did not crow. The hens being told this by the rooster cackled it back to him, and it became a crystallized part of the orthodox Zeitgeist ❦ And it would have so remained for all time, but for an accident—an accident of love, when a guinea-hen became enamored of the boss of the barnyard. So Life is a paradox—and love is not only illusion, but it is also the great enlightener. ¶ Now, I know Jack London; I know the proletariat; I know the “predatory rich.” And this I know, that so far as happiness is concerned each and all of them have an equal portion ❦ The struggle in getting out of the mass has given Jack’s predatory party a certain power, but he has paid for it with his peace of mind, and has to struggle to hold it. “Purpled ease” is a thing that exists only in Jack’s mental vacuum ❦ That is where the tramp has the start of the millionaire.The tramp can dream it; the other fellow has no time even to think it. ¶ When John Wesley saw the condemned criminal being taken to Tyburn Tree, he turned to his friend and exclaimed, “But for the grace of God, there goes John Wesley!” When Walt Whitman looked upon the wounded and dying soldier, he said, “I am that man!” Emerson wrote in hisEssay on Justice, “I have in me the capacity for every crime.” ¶ And here is what I say to Jack London: If you and your pals were in possession of the tools of trade, you would commit all the so-called crimes of which you accuse the industrial leaders, and more. The fact that your heart is full of hate proves your unfitness to govern. ¶ These men now in power have climbed step by step to their present position, and at every step had to prove their worth, before they were allowed to go on. These tools of which you speak are sharp, and men like you, unskilled in their use, wouldcut others with them, and they in turn would take the tools and cut your head off. ¶ Your hands are not as strong as you imagine. The strength of the hands of men is not proven by assertion—it is proven by use. How far can you put the shot? Power unrestrained is always tragic. The world is held in place by the opposition of forces. The men in power are ballasted by responsibility, as never before in history. You have your use as an agitator; so go it, Jack, and say your say. ¶ That fly on the wheel of the chariot of Achilles said, “Oh, just see what a dust we do kick up!” ¶ And this remark of the fly has added to the gaiety of nations. But get enough flies on the chariot of Achilles and not a wheel revolves. The Egyptians in Moses’ time battled with swarms of flies, when the flies scored home-runs and base-hits. Self-interest and the tug of inertia have hypnotized you, Jack, until you, being down in the gutter—through choice—see only your side.Yet, your barbaric yawp is being heard, and I am your antipodal organ, passing it along. ¶ Meanwhile you ride on the bumpers provided by the Trusts, and these bumpers carry you forward to your destination. The pie you eat is made by the Pie Trust, yet you find it palatable and ask for more. If the Pie Trust didn’t make good pies and sell them at a fair valuation, housewives would make their own pies. Or they might find pie-timber too expensive, and then you would go pieless ❦ The great consolidated industries serve society, and their very existence turns on their ability to minister and to help. That which does not serve, dies. If the Trusts overcharge they invite competition and dissolution. ¶ Success lies in co-operation and reciprocity, and the hope of the future is in the fact that the world knows it. We can’t go back to chaos, and start over. We must go on. Light lies ahead, not behind. We are not going to take off the train-crews,and put the tramps in possession. There are accidents occasionally now, but there would be more then. Safety lies in getting rid of the tramps. One wide-awake, vigilant man at the switch is worth more to society than all the tramps who ride the brakebeams. Get to work, Jack, and if you can’t find the job you want, then take the one you can get! To prove yourself able to rastle a big job, get busy and take care of a little one. Power does not reveal itself in scolding. And with all your getting, get busy! ¶ Yours for the Evolution!