The close of the last century found humanity under a different aspect than ever before. Westward and ever westward had swept the course of empire until the early years of this decade found the Mongolian again demonstrating his superiority over the Slavonic people of Eastern Europe. For centuries the battles for individual freedom of body and mind had been fought in torture chambers, at heresy trials, at the stake of every auto-da-fÉ, as well as in the legislative halls of insular and continental Europe, and finally this struggle has culminated in the greatest, fiercest and most devastating war of modern times, which was America’s tribute to the cause of democracy and freedom. The nations of Europe have looked with wonder upon the growth and sudden rise into importance of the American Confederacy of States, and crowned and titled tyrants, ruling by the “divine right,” have long dreaded the absorption of American ideas by their subjects or American interference with the course of governmental procedure. With the advancement and dissemination of learning, democratic government has got to come, and woe to those who oppose it when the time is ripe. Poor, bleeding, ignorant Russia is at this minute in the throes of internecine strife, and no one realizes better than those of the autocracy who by their selfishness and sloth have brought upon themselves the engulfing tide of revolution, what was meant by the dissolute associates of the French Court directly before the horrors of the Commune when they used to say “After us the deluge.” And little as they expected it, this deluge did not wait for them to leave, but in many instances helped to usher them from the field of human activity, upon the block, before the guillotine. It is not at this time even improbable that the great Siberian prisons may soon be filled with the bluest blood of royalty, and perhaps the Kara mines will yet be worked in by their owners, for the benefit of the revolutionists. But whether this comes to pass or not, we know that we have seen absolutism gradually give way to constitutional forms of government, and these in turn become metamorphosed into republics. And in these democracies we see a tendency to return to a centralized form of government, particularly when the chief executive is an individual whose judgment, although it is in error, has been actuated by motives which no one can impugn. What then is the meaning of this—is humanity traveling in cycles? Politically, we can answer emphatically, NO. The ease with which knowledge is communicated among people to-day and the unimpeachable integrity of the great middle classes are the surest guarantee that never will we return to the degrading darkness and servility of the past, while the trenchant manner in which our press uses the weapons of ridicule and cartoon insures for our posterity an even better and more active public conscience, which will demand duty performed commensurate with privileges granted. Municipalities and commonwealths may be full of political rottenness and corruption, senates may be filled by the paid agents of capital, representative halls may be packed by demagogues elected by the most radical element of organized labor, but regardless of temporary mistakes, just as long as we maintain an efficient public school system and make education compulsory and leave the press unshackled, we cannot under a democratic form of government, where tenure of office is for a short period only, ever permanently retrograde.

Students of contemporaneous American history who have followed closely the exposure of municipal officials guilty of the worst forms of malfeasance, will probably be led to believe that we are going from bad to worse politically in our larger cities. Owing to the publicity, however, which such matters get, and the fact that our citizen body in the aggregate respect honesty and integrity, we have nothing to fear. The reform wave which oftentimes sweeps with violence over our cities, to be checked only when persons of much influence have their liberty jeopardized, will inevitably bring about an understanding on the part of the majority of the citizens that politics must not be corrupted by people who make a business of seducing the electorate of our cities. The commission form of government has already done much to lead the way to a better state of affairs, and even if it had not, it would be only a question of but a short time until publicity itself would bring about a better, purer, and more economic administration of government.

As a nation, we are more seriously menaced by the accumulation of gigantic individual fortunes than from any other one and perhaps from all other sources combined, as in but very few cases does a competency mean the use of time for a leisure of culture and ennoblement, but rather for the development of selfishness, avarice, cruelty, and immorality. Christ certainly did not overrate the awful disadvantage of riches, particularly if considered in relation to the recent developments of our criminal trials in our great cities, when He said that “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter Heaven.” Wealth in the hands of the young is the worst condition with which they can be surrounded—it almost forces them into the company of irresponsible and immoral persons who lead them into vice, thus sapping their vitality, as well as engrossing them in habits of infamy, which their weakened mentality can usually never shake off. The direst poverty, on the other hand, pinches and confines both the body and mind through lack of proper nutrition and time for rest and recreation, so that it is of double importance to the State to see that enormous private accumulations of wealth do not exist, and more especially that they cannot be inherited. A reasonable sum should be fixed upon by our lawmakers as the maximum amount which could be inherited by any one individual, and any part of an estate which was not legally disposed of under this act, by will or otherwise, should pass into the undisputed possession of the State and should be spent, not for the ordinary administration of the law, but for the building of schools, hospitals, parks, museums, and the purchase of public utilities, such as water, lighting, power and transportation companies. Should the means above suggested prove too slow in operation or inadequate to meet present emergencies, an income-tax might, for a decade or two, be a necessity—the returns from which should be expended as suggested above. Unless something of this character is done within the next century, it would seem that our country cannot continue to advance in civilization, although she might in political prestige and commercial importance, but would follow in the steps of so many other great states, and sooner or later arrive at a time where her present would be but a meagre shadow of her majestic past.

If we would have the most that is to be got out of life, we should see to it that more time and attention is paid to the development of the Æsthetic side of our natures. Our public buildings are to-day usually designed upon grand and majestic lines; some of our public parks are laid out with the idea of showing the beauty of simplicity and harmony; a few of our private mansions are architecturally works of art; we have in our large cities a few museums which are kept open a few hours to the public upon days when it has leisure, but, further than this, how little are we taught, or do we see, the beautiful aside from its arrangement in nature in the ordinary routine of life? With all but the wealthier class, the getting of a livelihood and the attention to other material things, consumes all the time and energy available under the present rÉgime so that no leisure is left to cultivate an appreciation or desire for the beautiful. It is the amount of development of the Æsthetic nature of the masses which is the surest and most certain index of any civilization. Schlegel has most justly observed that “when men are left to the sole guidance of artificial law, they become reduced to mere empty shadows and soulless forms; while the undivided sway of nature leaves them savage and loveless.” It is therefore in this middle ground that we should provide stimuli for the growth of this cult of the beautiful, and to do this we must begin with the children. It should be the care of the state to see that our streets are kept clean, that grass plots and flower beds are harmoniously and tastily arranged at the intersection of the highways, wherever possible, and that all houses intended for tenement purposes be so built that plenty of light and air can be always available. Powerful and elevating music should be performed in public parks at frequent intervals, whenever the weather will permit of general gatherings in the open air. The best talent should be secured to address the people upon subjects of a general nature, such as topics of the day, political economy, popular science, etc. Our school rooms should not only be clean and well ventilated, but their walls should be hung with interesting and beautiful pictures, and our school libraries, as well as our public libraries, should be numerous, and filled with the best literature that money can buy. In our homes, we should see that every refining influence possible is thrown around the children, and, above all, they should be taught the beauty of self-sacrifice and heroism. Particularly should they be taught the value and beauty of affection, and they should be both told and shown that the pleasure derived therefrom, and its value to the human species, depends almost wholly upon the self-restraint and self-sacrifice which is exercised in connection with the intimate relations arising from it. Schlegel again speaks right to the point, “Every inordinate indulgence involves a corresponding amount of suffering.... Others, on the contrary, who devote themselves to glorious deeds and seek enjoyment only in the intervals of more serious exertion, will have their best reward in the pure, unchanging happiness purchased by such self-denial. Pleasure, indeed, has a higher zest when spontaneous and self-created; and it rises in value in proportion to its affinity with that perfection of beauty in which moral excellence is allied to external charms.”

Our attention as a nation to the acquisition of material wealth to the utter disregard of our Æsthetic natures may very largely account for the fact that America has produced but few of those literary and artistic stars which are almost always coincident with commercial prosperity. We seem to have neither passed the Elizabethan nor the Victorian age in literature upon this side of the water—not because we have not produced talent along these lines, but because the quantity has been so small and seems to be growing less every year. Since the opening of the present century, there has practically been nothing produced which will demand recognition among literary and artistic people after our own generation.

There seems to be only one other great problem before humanity to-day. Next to the distribution of wealth, it, however, is undoubtedly the most perplexing question with which every democratic country will sooner or later have to deal. In its two forms—as prostitution and the restriction of birth—it constitutes what for a better name is commonly called “the social evil.” Under our civilization and in our system of social caste we have no class of serfs; but as low, if not lower, than these we have those women who sell their favors for money to anyone who will pay the price. Unfortunately, we have not yet reached the place where the majority of our male population decry moral looseness on the part of women with whom they are not connected by blood or matrimony; although this may or may not have been done for profit, as the case may be. It is still largely a matter as to how general the knowledge is, as to how great is the crime. Nevertheless, with those unfortunates whose character is generally known, our modern society has no place—they are outcasts in the true sense of the word. Worse than all, is the fact that society refuses to proscribe immorality of this nature in man as it does in woman—consequently, she alone before the world is made to suffer for what he is as much to blame for as she is, and very frequently more so. The incongruity of this, under a democratic form of government, is readily apparent to anyone and that such a condition of affairs may not exist permanently under our civilization cannot be doubted. It would therefore seem that either one of two things will have to come to pass in the future; either we shall have to regard our prostitutes as a class, as they were probably esteemed in ancient Greece, or we shall have to attach an equal calumny to man as we now attach to woman in these relations. In the first instance, we tacitly admit that the nature of man differs from that of woman, in that continence and monogamy are not fitted for him but are for her, which every fair-minded person knows to be a falsehood; or else in the other alternative we have the entire sentiment of this country upon this whole matter to make over and that against those who are in power. Mrs. Parsons, in her carefully prepared and comprehensive study, entitled “The Family,” does not, it would seem, speak other than satirically when she proposes that the same license be allowed woman before she bears children as society now allows man. This would seem to be a step backward, inasmuch as there is to-day, with no small percentage of the people in this country, a decided stigma attached to promiscuity on the part of man, and this should be fostered and encouraged, at any expense. Her recommendation of early trial marriage also smacks of the satirical, while her propositions “to make the transmission of venereal diseases in marriage a penal offense, to render identical the age of consent with the legal age of marriage, and to abolish all laws requiring parental consent to marriage, to consider parental duties the same in the case of an illegitimate as in that of a legitimate child, and to abolish legal separation and divorce law provisions prohibiting the defendant to remarry,” must appeal to all fair-minded persons as exactly what is needed. With sentiment once well started in this direction, we can hope that the next two or three decades will accomplish much—more particularly if we lose our money madness and return from “the flesh-pots” to things that are of real value. The happiness and virtue of our children will never be secure until society is founded upon a basis of real monogamy, and male as well as female continence before marriage, and the sooner this fact is admitted and enforced the better will it be for the human race. In this molding of sentiment, woman can be and is an important factor, and her position becomes the more commanding as she becomes more independent financially. If she demands purity on the part of her male friends—sooner or later it will be accorded to her—if she insists upon it in her lover, her Prince Charming will come forth with the quality.

Concerning that part of this question which deals with the restriction of birth, it has always seemed that outside of voluntary childless marriages the importance of “race suicide” was over-estimated. Where there is no pathological reason why children should not be born, there can be no question but that voluntary childless marriage is what has been well termed “a progressive substitute for prostitution.” But where not used to consummate this end, but to keep within the limits of the proper education and the bringing up of the progeny of a human pair, such practice as does not involve infanticide cannot be against the best interests of the race. Consequently, it would seem that, before marriage, young men and women should become acquainted with the fundamental phenomena of conception, with the purpose in view of regulating the number of children which they bring into the world to such a number as they can properly educate and equip for the struggle of existence. Such biological knowledge as is necessary to attain this should become the common property of humanity, and the state should not restrict the sale of such articles as would further this end. On the other hand, young men and women should be taught that it is their duty to have what children they can care for, and at such times and under such conditions during wedlock as will insure their descendants the best physical and mental equipment. Infanticide in any form and at any time, except when performed under the jurisdiction of a reputable physician, should be made a crime and proper punishment provided therefor. In this phase of the question, there is also a place for the fostering of proper sentiment. Parents should show their children that they constitute a very large proportion of their happiness, and that child-bearing, within the limits above set forth, is a privilege and not a burden. Under these conditions, voluntary childless marriage will become less frequent and the family will occupy the position of primary importance in the state to which it is entitled.

It is impossible to estimate the far-reaching influence of the Woman’s Rights movement. The agitation to-day extends completely around the world, and even such Oriental countries as Turkey, Japan, and China are being forced to realize that they have it to face in the near future. Politically, there can be no question but that the movement will tend more towards the purity of the administration of justice and the elimination of corruption in politics than any movement which has been started within the history of man; and, as examples of this, we have only to look for ample proof in countries where women have been given full rights of citizenship, such as New Zealand, and in Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming, and Nevada States in this country. Socially, we have already noticed the effect which this movement will have as tending towards the purity of masculine morals. Economically, however, it presents a far different aspect, since every woman who enters commercial life, whether in the office or factory, diminishes the child-bearing population of the earth, and with the greater sense of justice and equity which comes from the higher education, the demands of woman will not only become more and more exacting, but she will be becoming constantly more potent in their enforcement. The economic phase of this problem is so great that it is impossible to state at this time what the outcome will be, but a still further tremendous decrease in the birth rate is absolutely sure to come about; and it would seem that possibly those evils which will, in the long run, be most largely rectified by this movement will be augmented in the immediate future, as a result of this agitation, until such a time as the majority of our citizens may be given such education as will enable them to reason more logically about the fundamental propositions of life.

We have looked at a few of the phases of human existence; what shall be said of the value of life? Modern science has forever taken from us the comforting delusions of a personal Deity, an immortality for the soul in a personal sense, and the idea of our possessing a will, free to force our direction whithersoever we elect. It has left, in place of these, the idea of duty—individual and personal responsibility—which cannot be shirked. George Eliot, in the epilogue of Romola, preaches as strong a sermon as she ever could to Mr. Meyers, when she talked to him upon that now famous evening in May at Cambridge. Carlyle, no less than his countrywoman, realized, not only the importance of living up to individual responsibility, but also understood how hard it often was to know just what should be done. His rule, which is most worthy of emulation, was: “Do the nearest duty that lies to your hand, and already the next duty will have become plainer.” In order that we may be the better prepared to fulfill our responsibilities, we should obtain all the knowledge possible, even although it may cause us lack of insight temporarily, and much mental agony. Faith is not comparable to knowledge, any more than wishing is equal to the obtaining of results. We should therefore be aggressive in the discharge of our duty—liberal and tolerant, pure and upright, loving and unselfish, virtuous and truly religious, so that it may be said of us, when we have finished, that the world is a little better, and life has been, for as many as possible, a little happier for our having lived.

THE END