The first American King

“You ancient coxcomb!” exclaimed Kearns next morning, as he watched the Professor struggling with the intricacies of a new-fangled necktie, “to think of a man more than one hundred years old giving himself up to the vanities of life!”

“You, too, O venerable centenarian, seem to have given some attention in the same direction,” retorted the Professor. “I must confess, though, that those knee-breeches and hose are very becoming to you, considering your advanced age!”

“You think so?” replied Kearns. “I must say that the clothes of this period are certainly more picturesque and quite as comfortable as those of our day.”

As he spoke, he turned his eyes in the direction of an assortment of clothing which their host had sent up for their use. The styles had assuredly undergone a change from the long trousers and somber-hued clothes to which Kearns and the Professor had been accustomed. Knee-breeches and hose replaced the long trousers and the waistcoats were in lively patterns.

They had been conducted the night before to two comfortable adjoining rooms and after being carefully examined by Dr. O’Hanlenne, had partaken of a second light repast, succeeded by a sound night’s rest. This morning the Doctor had again visited them before they were up and, after careful examination, had pronounced their condition sound, leaving them with assurances that they could safely resume the ordinary occupations of life. Then came a servant with an invitation from their host to join him at breakfast.

An hour later, at his guests’ urgent request, the Colonel conducted them to the library there to impart to them information regarding the changed order of things. Having seated them in comfortable armchairs, the Colonel produced a box of cigars.

“You smoke?” he inquired.

Both assented.

“Well,” laughed the Colonel, as he passed the box, “that’s at least one custom which you will find has not changed.”

The Colonel lighted his cigar and settled back in his chair, preparatory to opening his narrative.

“As you have already learned,” he began, “this land in which we live is no longer the Republic of the United States of America. All that is changed. We live to-day in the Empire of the United States under the beneficent rule of His Majesty, Imperial and Royal, William the First, Emperor of the United States, King of the Empire State of New York, Grand Duke of Mexico and Costa Rica, Sovereign Lord of Cuba and the Philippines, Mikado of the Province of Ling-Toa, Nihor of Benaria. The states composing the old Republic of the United States have been consolidated into thirty states, each of which is governed by a Viceroy, excepting the Empire State of New York, of which the Emperor is King. Thus in national matters we refer to the Emperor, but in state matters to the King.”

“An Empire and an Emperor!” gasped the Professor. “The Republic gone!”

“Who would ever have believed it!” cried Kearns.

“To our modern thinkers and writers,” said the Colonel calmly, “the one great, inexplicable thing is that the people of the beginning of this century—the people of your time—did not plainly foresee just what has happened. As our leading historian, Goldstream, points out, all the history of the past, all the indications of the times, pointed clearly to this culmination. And I agree with Goldstream that it would really seem that it did not require a prophet, or the son of a prophet, to foreshadow what actually happened.”

“I am deeply interested,” said the Professor, “yet I do not quite follow your line of reasoning. Will you particularize a little more fully, please?”

“With pleasure,” answered the Colonel. “As I have just remarked, Goldstream draws attention to the fact that the history of the past all pointed to the Empire. By this he refers to the history of all the old-time republics. What has that history been? First, a republic, and honest, sturdy simplicity; next, a growth of wealth, followed by a constantly increasing luxury. And what was the outcome of these conditions in all these republics? Class distinction, founded upon a plutocratic basis; and official and industrial corruption born of the wild scramble after wealth and its ostentatious fooleries. These conditions have ever proved the soil from which a ruling class has sprung, followed by a monarchy and an aristocracy. Read the ancient histories, and there you find it recorded again and again.”

“That is quite true in many respects,” said the Professor; “but what signs do you discover in our times which foreshadowed the passing of the Republic and the installing of the monarchical institution?”

“The very first signs,” answered the Colonel, “are to be traced to the close of the nineteenth century. As can be gleaned from the literature of that period, sons of the rich men were beginning to ape the dress, the manners and the modes of speech of the gilded youth of England. A wave of what was then called Anglomania swept over the country. If a foreign nobleman, even a poverty-stricken German baron, or a beggarly Italian count, came into the country, he was fêted, entertained and run after by your Society and toadied to in a manner of which the smallest London shopkeeper, or the humblest bourgeois of the Paris faubourgs would have been ashamed. If an adventurer of that period called himself my Lord This or Sir Henry That, people straightway lost their heads and their money. I ask you if this has, or has not, been correctly reported?”

Kearns laughed. “What memories your words bring to me!” he said. “I could tell you of some extraordinary cases. But don’t let me interrupt.”

“The beginning of this century,” continued the Colonel, “found your Republic of the United States growing rapidly in wealth, in luxury, and in class distinctions. The literature of the times points clearly to the existence of a class which considered itself superior to the ordinary citizen. Some of the writers of the period seem to have placed the numbers of this class at four hundred, but this originally limited number must certainly have largely increased later on, as new fortunes were made and new millionaires sprang into existence.”

“The Four Hundred!” exclaimed Kearns. “Why, that was originally regarded as a species of joke sprung by one Ward McAllister.”

“It evidently turned out a pretty grim joke for the Republic!” retorted the Professor dryly.

“All these things were straws clearly indicating the direction to which the wind was veering,” resumed the Colonel. “A large percentage of the members of this class, denominated even in the days of the Republic as ‘High Society,’ lived in Europe, where they could bask in the sunshine of aristocracy and at times even creep within the shadow of a throne. The one dream of the members possessed of marriageable daughters in this ‘High Society’ was to marry off such daughters to European aristocrats. The multi-millionaires of the period aspired to a match with an English Duke or Earl; those of lesser millions were compelled to put up with a French Count, or a German Baron. No woman was too beautiful, no dot too great, provided a title were involved. No personality was too repulsive, no reputation or character too vile, provided they were gilded over by a patent of nobility. Do the chronicles that tell of these things lie, or do they record the truth?”

“The frozen truth!” answered Kearns curtly.

“Then how can you say,” cried the Colonel triumphantly, “that the coming events did not cast their shadows before? What meant these things if not an aching and a longing for aristocracy? And you can’t very well have an aristocracy without a monarchy! It is the most natural sequence of events in the world,” continued the Colonel argumentatively; “first wealth, next luxury, then a desire to be distinguished above the common herd. After all the physical appetites are satisfied comes the craving for honors and distinction, for decorations and titles!”

“But,” interposed the Professor with a bewildered air, “how came the People—the masses of the People—to ever submit to these changes?”

“Tut! Tut! The People!” exclaimed the Colonel contemptuously. “How much had they to say in the matter! The power of the People is one of those cant phrases, founded on a popular delusion, which have always existed. In theory, the power of the People is supreme; in reality, a myth. Take it during the past two thousand years. In all these centuries the great masses of the people have been poor, hardworking; their lives replete with stint and suffering. The Few have been rich, pampered, over-indulged and contented. Do you think the masses of the People were really satisfied with this order of things? Do you not believe that they, both as individuals and as a mass, would infinitely have preferred a more even distribution of the good things of this world? At any time and in any country, these masses, had they been organized and united in purpose, could in a day have changed the conditions and brought about this coveted distribution. But they never have been so organized and united, and the special class has ever governed the masses. True, there were your labor unions and your great strikes. Contractors and employers, great and small, were bullied and at times even beaten in the various struggles which ensued, but this really amounted to nothing. Whenever the People really began to grow dangerous and to threaten the existing order of things, the soldiers came forth—soldiers, mark you, drawn from the masses—and the trouble was promptly put an end to.”

“But how about the popular vote?” inquired the Professor.

“The popular vote,” echoed the Colonel with a sneer. “Another delusion! One set of professional politicians set up a platform against another platform devised by another set of professional politicians and both invite the popular vote. The good people would vote for the one, or for the other; but how much was the popular interest, or the popular will, really represented by either? It is true that from time to time reformers sprang up and sought to create new parties and new issues more closely representative of the popular weal and the popular will. How much headway did they make? Defeat by the trained political organizations, commanding ample means and patronage, was invariably the ultimate fate of any such efforts. The really able man preferred to accept the existing conditions and make the best of them. He realized the futility of such undertakings and understood that the rôle of Reformer and the rôle of Martyr were only too closely allied.”

“But in a supreme question,” objected the Professor, “such as the overthrow of the Republic, I should have thought that a naturally free, assertive people, such as the people of the United States, would have made their power felt.”

“Another popular fallacy!” laughed the Colonel. “The people of the United States are a brave people—valorous in war; pushing, clever, enterprising in times of peace. They exalt national heroes to the skies one day, only to pull them down the next. They are super-sensitive to adverse criticism and delight in being told they are the greatest and best of the earth. These are among their many little peculiarities, but to describe them as a people strongly assertive of their rights is to describe wrongly.”

“I can’t agree with you,” said the Professor bluntly.

“Look back fairly and impartially,” answered the Colonel gently, “and I think you will find my words borne out. Take New York—your own city and in your own times. Was ever in any land, or at any period, such arbitrary disregard of the People’s rights submitted to with practically not a murmur of dissent? Do you question this?”

“I will leave it to you to make out your own case,” retorted the Professor.

“Make out my case,” returned the Colonel with warmth; “very well, then! Is it or is it not true that valuable franchises belonging to the People were acquired by trick and device far below their actual value? Is it or is it not true that official corruption was openly and notoriously rampant on every side; that judges sat upon the bench because they were the political creatures of a political boss; nominated and elected, not because of their integrity, or knowledge of the Law, but at the behest of a party leader? The same conditions prevailed amongst the prosecuting officers, so that Justice itself was sullied at her very fountain head. Your police force was nothing more nor less than an organized banditti, clothed with the uniform of law and order and paid by the People; but dispensing oppression and levying blackmail right and left. Am I citing individual cases, or acts done occasionally and in secrecy? Indeed not! The chronicles of your time recite that all this was a matter of daily occurrence and common notoriety—that the very children making mud pies in your gutters knew of it. Then, too, the pages of municipal history are seared with the shameful record of an executive officer who, with others, manipulated a corner in a certain product necessary to the rich and poor. The chronicles record how the conspirators controlling the corner forced up the price at a time when the product was most needed to relieve suffering. The price was prohibitive to the poor. And the women and the little children in your teeming tenements laid down their lives—hundreds upon hundreds of them. But the corner was piling up money for your officer and his associates, and they heeded not the cries of death and despair. The papers of the time were replete with itemized accounts of the suffering, but none raised a hand to stop the iniquity. Is this true, or does history lie?”

“But the People,” exclaimed the Professor, “were not responsible—they did not approve——”

“Approve!” cried the Colonel explosively; “much credit to them for that! Do you think the People of England, or of France, would have thus tamely submitted? Even in darkest Russia, do you not think there would have been a few signs of lack of approval in the shape of bombs? Was there a violent ebullition of popular wrath? Was there an outbreak such as might have recalled the French Revolution of 1789? No; your free and assertive citizens tamely submitted. The corporations kept their franchises; the men of the soiled ermine retained their positions on the bench; the police force, despite investigations and exposures, continued, haughty and arrogant, to ply its nefarious traffic; and it is recorded that the officer to whom I have referred was allowed to quietly and profitably serve out his term. Do I state facts, or fiction?”

“You are stating only the truth,” said Kearns sturdily.

“And the franchises which were robbed from the People!” cried the colonel. “What was done with them? Not content with securing these valuable franchises infinitely below their actual worth, the holders proceeded to form corporations whose stock was watered to an absurd extent. Upon this watered stock dividends had to be earned. And how were these dividends earned—by the transportation companies of the great cities, for instance? By treating the people—to whom these companies owed their corporate existence—like dogs, and transporting them as they would not have dared to transport cattle. Men, women and children were herded in the street cars of your day as animals were never herded. Thus year in and year out were the great and supposedly all-powerful People treated. And for what? All for the benefit of a comparatively tiny coterie of men, who derived the profit. And the People submitted tamely as any band of sheep, did they not? The power of the people, indeed!”

“Come, Colonel!” exclaimed the Professor; “it seems to me that you are somewhat intolerant of the shortcomings of the people of our day.”

“Pardon me,” replied the Colonel hastily, “if I have said anything to offend, though I have only recited a few facts as taken from the chroniclers of your own times. Of course, we have our faults and our evils; but not such as these. Thank God, such things could not be under the Empire! Thank God, such would not be tolerated under the beneficent rule of His Majesty, the King! Long live the Empire! God save the King!”