Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife, Marietta Holley [best e reader for academics .txt] 📗

“Our Lord said: ‘Take no thought for the morrow what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink;’ and He must have meant 380 that the time wuz comin’ when juster laws should prevail, when Mammon should yield to Mercy and plunder changed to plenty for all and no burden of riches for any. The Bible sez that in those days when the pure influence of Jesus still rested on his disciples that they had everything in common.”

Sez Mr. Astofeller, “Start ten men out rich Monday morning, and nine of them would be poor Saturday night, and the tenth one would own the money of all the rest.”

And I sez: “I presoom so, if they had their own way, and that is a big argument to prove that there ought to be a wise head and a merciful hand at the hellum to look out for the hull on ’em. A good father and mother with a big family of children takes care of the hull on ’em. And if one is miserly and one a spendthrift and one a dissipator and one over-ambitious they watch over ’em and curb these different traits of theirn and adjust ’em to the good of all and the honor of their pa and ma. They spur on the indolent and improvident, hold back the greedy and ambitious, watch and see that the careless and good-natured don’t git trod on, nor the strong make slaves of the weaker. The feeble are protected, temptations are kept out of the way of the feeble wills; the honest, industrious ones hain’t allowed to perish for want of work they would gladly do, and the strong, keen-witted ones hain’t allowed to steal from the onfaculized ones. Why, how it would look for that pa to let some of his children heap up more money than they could use, whilst some of the children wuz starvin’? It would make talk and ort to.”

Mr. Astofeller said, “Millionaires are very charitable; look at their generous gifts on every side.”

And I sez, “Yes, that’s so; but Charity, though she’s a good creeter and well thought on, hain’t so good as Justice in lots of places.”

He sez, “We give big gifts to the churches.”

And I sez, “Yes, I know it; but do you think that the Lord is goin’ to think any better on you for raisin’ up costly temples sacred to the Lord who specially said in his first 381 sermon that he had come to preach the Gospel to the poor, give sight to the blind, set at liberty them that are bound? As it is you rare up magnificent temples and hire eloquent clergymen to preach the doctrine that condemns you if they preach the Bible, which a good many on ’em do. For you must remember what it sez:

“If you who have plenty give not to your brother in need, how dwelleth the love of God in you? And if you have two coats and your poorer brother has none, you ort to give him your second best one. And you kneel down on your soft hassocks and pray all your enormous, needless wealth away from you, for you pray, ‘Thy kingdom come,’ which you know is the kingdom of love and equality and justice, and ‘Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,’ when you know that God’s will is mercy, pity and love. And ‘Give us our daily bread,’ when you must know that you are takin’ it right out of the mouths of the poor when you are makin’ your big corners on wheat and meat, and freezin’ the widder and orphan when you make your corners on coal.”

Sez I, “Look at Robert Strong’s City of Justice. Love, peace and happiness rains there. Every workman is content, for he has his pay for his labor and a fair percentage on profits. If the factory is prosperous the workman knows that he gets just as much accordin’ for the work he puts in as if he owned the hull thing, and it is for his advantage to give good work and help it along all he can.

“Intemperance is not allowed to show its hoof and horns inside that city, for that would be injustice to the weak-willed and their families. Greed and plunder and the whiskey power has to stay outside, for the Bible sez without are dogs.

“Robert Strong might wring all the money he could from these workmen, wrop himself in a jewelled robe and set up in a gold chair and look down on the bent forms of the poor, sweating and groaning and striking and starving below him. But he don’t want to. He is down there right by the side of ’em. Capital and labor walking side by side 382 some like the lion and the lamb. He has enough for his wants, and they have enough for their wants, and there is mutual good-will there and peace and happiness. Hain’t that better than discontent and envy and despair, bloody riots and revolutions? Cold, selfish, greedy Capital clutching its money-bags, and cowering and hiding away from starvin’ infuriated strikers.”

Sez I, growin’ real eloquent, “Monopoly is the great American brigand hid in the black forest of politics. It has seized Labor in its clutches and wrings a ransom out of every toiler in the land.

“Monopoly steals out of Uncle Sam’s pocket with one hand and with the other clutches the bread-money out of the tremblin’ weak fingers of the poor. Is our law,” sez I, “a travesty, a vain sham, that a man that steals millions for greed goes unpunished, while a man who steals a loaf to keep his children from starvin’ is punished by our laws and scorfed at? Monopoly makes the poor pay tribute on every loaf of bread and bucket of coal, and the govermunt looks on and helps it. Shame! shame that it is so!”

Sez Mr. Astofeller, “Where would the world be to-day if it wuzn’t for rich people building railroads, stringing telegraph and telephone wires, binding the cities and continents together?”

“Yes,” sez I, “I set store by what they’ve done, just as I do on them good old creeters who used to carry the mails in their saddle-bags for so much a year. Folks felt tickled to death, I spoze, when they could send a letter by somebody for 10 cents a letter. And it wuz a great improvement on havin’ to write and send it by hum labor, a boy and a ox team. But when I see Uncle Sam can carry ’em for two cents and one cent a-piece, why I can’t help favorin’ the idee of givin’ Uncle Sam the job. And if he can carry letters so much cheaper why can’t he carry packages at just the same reduced rate, and talk over the wires, etc., etc.?

“Not that I look down on them saddle-bags––fur from 383 it––I honor ’em and I honor the rich men that have cut iron roads through continents, mountain and abyss, honor them that have made talkin’ under the ocean possible and through the pathless air. Yes, indeed, I honor ’em from nearly the bottom of my heart. But I would honor ’em still more if they should now all on ’em stand up in a row before Uncle Sam, and say, We have done all we could to help the people (and ourselves at the same time), and now as we see that you can help ’em still more than we can, we turn our improvements all over into your hands to use for the people, for you can make travel jest as much cheaper as letter carryin’, and do it just as peaceable. Why, what a stir it would make on earth and in heaven, and Uncle Sam would see that they didn’t lose anything by it. He’d see jest what a grand thing they wuz doin’, and pay ’em well for it. And these rich men, instead of leavin’ their wealth in bags of greenbacks for moth and rust and lawyers to corrupt, and fightin’ heirs to break through their wills and steal, would leave it in grateful memories and a niche in history where their benine faces would stand up with all the great benefactors of the race. Hain’t that better, Mr. Astofeller, than to leave jest money for a fashionable wife and golf-playin’ sons to run through?”

Mr. Astofeller said he believed it wuz better; he looked real convinced. And seein’ him in this softened frame of mind I went on and brung up a number of incidents provin’ that the great folks of the past had held a good many of my idees in regard to wealth. I reminded him of Mr. Cincinnatus who did so much to make Rome glorious, when the public sought him out for honors (he not a-prancin’ through the country with torch-light processions and a brass band, talkin’ himself hoarse, and lavishin’ money to git it), no indeed, when they sought him for a candidate for public honors they found him a not fixin’ up the primarys and buyin’ bosses, but ploughin’ away, just as peaceable as his oxen, workin’ on his own little farm of four acres. He wuz satisfied 384 with makin’ enough to live on. Live and let live was his motto.

“And Mr. Regulus, the leader of the great Roman forces, wuz satisfied with his little farm of seven acres, creepin’ up a little in amount from four to seven. But it wuzn’t till long, long afterwards that the rich grew enormously rich and the poor poorer, and what a man had wuz honored instead of what he wuz. Over and over the drama has been played out, moderation and contentment, luxury and discontent, revolution and ruin, but I did hope that our republic, havin’ more warnin’s and nigher the millenium, wouldn’t go the same old jog trot up, up––up, and down, down, down. I wuz some in hopes they would hear to me, but I d’no.”

I could see that Mr. Astofeller wuz greatly impressed by what I said. I see he took out his watch a number of times, wantin’ to see, I mistrusted, the exact minute that I said different things. He wuz jest like the rest of them millionaires, a first-rate lookin’ and actin’ creeter when you git down to the real man, but run away with by Ambition and Greed, a span that will take the bits in their mouth and dash off and carry any one further than they mean to be carried. He didn’t say so right out but he kinder gin me to understand that I’d convinced him more’n a little. And I am lookin’ every day to see him make a dicker with Uncle Sam (a good-hearted creeter too as ever lived Uncle Sam is, only led away sometimes by bad councillors), yes, I expect he will make a dicker with Uncle Sam for the good of the public and hasten on the day of love and justice. I am lookin’ for it and prayin’ for it; in fact the hull world is prayin’ for it every day whether they know it or not when they pray “Thy kingdom come.”

But to resoom: Robert Strong and Josiah come back almost simeltaneously, and I don’t know what Mr. Astofeller’s bizness wuz with Robert, sunthin’ about California affairs, I guess, mebby politics or sunthin’. But ’tennyrate, if it wuz anything out of the way I know he would never get Robert to jine in with him.