I LIKE to know the thoughts, theories and conclusions of an honest, intelligent man; candor is always charming, and it is a delight to feel that you have become acquainted with a sincere soul.
I have read this book with great pleasure, not only because I know, and greatly esteem the author, not only because he is my unwavering friend, but because it is full of good sense, of accurate statement, of sound logic, of exalted thoughts happily expressed, and for the further reason that it is against tyranny, superstition, bigotry, and every form of injustice, and in favor of every virtue.
Henry M. Taber, the author, has for many years taken great interest in religious questions. He was raised in an orthodox atmosphere, was acquainted with many eminent clergymen from whom he endeavored to find out what Christianity is—and the facts and evidence relied on to establish the truth of the creeds. He found that the clergy of even the same denomination did not agree—that some of them preached one way and talked another, and that many of them seemed to regard the creed as something to be accepted whether it was believed or not. He found that each one gave his own construction to the dogmas that seemed heartless or unreasonable. While some insisted that the Bible was absolutely true and the creed without error, others admitted that there were mistakes in the sacred volume and that the creed ought to be revised. Finding these differences among the ministers, the shepherds, and also finding that no one pretended to have any evidence except faith, or any facts but assertions, he concluded to investigate the claims of Christianity for himself.
For half a century he has watched the ebb and flow of public opinion, the growth of science, the crumbling of creeds—the decay of the theological spirit, the waning influence of the orthodox pulpit, the loss of confidence in special providence and the efficacy of prayer.
He has lived to see the church on the defensive—to hear faith asking for facts—and to see the shot and shell of science batter into shapelessness the fortresses of superstition. He has lived to see Infidels, blasphemers and Agnostics the leaders of the intellectual world. In his time the supernaturalists have lost the sceptre and have taken their places in the abject rear.
Fifty years ago the orthodox Christians believed their creeds. To them the Bible was an actual revelation from God. Every word was true. Moses and Joshua were regarded as philosophers and scientists. All the miracles and impossibilities recorded in the Bible were accepted as facts. Credulity was the greatest of virtues. Everything, except the reasonable, was believed, and it was considered wickedly presumptuous to doubt anything except facts. The reasonable things in the Bible could safely be doubted, but to deny the miracles was like the sin against the Holy Ghost. In those days the preachers were at the helm. They spoke with authority. They knew the origin and destiny of the soul. They were on familiar terms with the Trinity—the three-headed God. They knew the narrow path that led to heaven and the great highway along which the multitude were traveling to the Prison of Pain.
While these reverend gentlemen were busy trying to prevent the development of the brain and to convince the people that the good in this life were miserable, that virtue wore a crown of thorns and carried a cross, while the wicked and ungodly walked in the sunshine of joy, yet that after death the wicked would be eternally tortured and the good eternally rewarded. According to the pious philosophy the good God punished virtue, and rewarded vice, in this world—and in the next, rewarded virtue and punished vice. These divine truths filled their hearts with holy peace—with pious resignation. It would be difficult to determine which gave them the greater joy—the hope of heaven for themselves, or the certainty of hell for their enemies. For the grace of God they were fairly thankful, but for his "justice" their gratitude was boundless. From the heights of heaven they expected to witness the eternal tragedy in hell.
While these good divines, these doctors of divinity, were busy misinterpreting the Scriptures, denying facts and describing the glories and agonies of eternity, a good many other people were trying to find out something about this world. They were busy with retort and crucible, searching the heavens with the telescope, examining rocks and craters, reefs and islands, studying plant and animal life, inventing ways to use the forces of nature for the benefit of man, and in every direction searching for the truth. They were not trying to destroy religion or to injure the clergy. Many of them were members of churches and believed the creeds. The facts they found were honestly given to the world. Of course all facts are the enemies of superstition. The clergy, acting according to the instinct of self-preservation, denounced these "facts" as dangerous and the persons who found and published them, as Infidels and scoffers.
Theology was arrogant and bold. Science was timid. For some time the churches seemed to have the best of the controversy. Many of the scientists surrendered and did their best to belittle the facts and patch up a cowardly compromise between Nature and Revelation—that is, between the true and the false.
Day by day more facts were found that could not be reconciled with the Scriptures, or the creeds. Neither was it possible to annihilate facts by denial. The man who believed the Bible could not accept the facts, and the man who believed the facts could not accept the Bible. At first, the Bible was the standard, and all facts inconsistent with that standard were denied. But in a little while science became the standard, and the passages in the Bible contrary to the standard had to be explained or given up. Great efforts were made to harmonize the mistakes in the Bible with the demonstrations of science. It was difficult to be ingenious enough to defend them both. The pious professors twisted and turned but found it hard to reconcile the creation of Adam with the slow development of man from lower forms. They were greatly troubled about the age of the universe. It seemed incredible that until about six thousand years ago there was nothing in existence but God—and nothing. And yet they tried to save the Bible by giving new meanings to the inspired texts, and casting a little suspicion on the facts.
This course has mostly been abandoned, although a few survivals, like Mr. Gladstone, still insist there is no conflict between Revelation and Science. But these champions of Holy Writ succeed only in causing the laughter of the intelligent and the amazement of the honest. The more intelligent theologians confessed that the inspired writers could not be implicitly believed. As they personally know nothing of astronomy or geology and were forced to rely entirely on inspiration, it is wonderful that more mistakes were not made. So it was claimed that Jehovah cared nothing about science, and allowed the blunders and mistakes of the ignorant people concerning everything except religion, to appear in his supernatural book as inspired truths.
The Bible, they said, was written to teach religion in its highest and purest form—to make mankind fit to associate with God and his angels. True, polygamy was tolerated and slavery established, yet Jehovah believed in neither, but on account of the wickedness of the Jews was in favor of both.
At the same time quite a number of real scholars were investigating other religions, and in a little while they were enabled to show that these religions had been manufactured by men—that their Christs and apostles were myths and that all their sacred books were false and foolish. This pleased the Christians. They knew that theirs was the only true religion and that their Bible was the only inspired book.
The fact that there is nothing original in Christianity, that all the dogmas, ceremonies and festivals had been borrowed, together with some mouldy miracles used as witnesses, weakened the faith of some and sowed the seeds of doubt in many minds. But the pious petrifactions, the fossils of faith, still clung to their book and creed. While they were quick to see the absurdities in other sacred books, they were either unconsciously blind or maliciously shut their eyes to the same absurdities in the Bible. They knew that Mohammed was an impostor, because the citizens of Mecca, who knew him, said he was, and they knew that Christ was not an impostor, because the people of Jerusalem who knew him, said he was. The same fact was made to do double duty. When they attacked other religions it was a sword and when their religion was attacked it became a shield.
The men who had investigated other religions turned their attention to Christianity. They read our Bible as they had read other sacred books. They were not blinded by faith or paralyzed by fear, and they found that the same arguments they had used against other religions destroyed our own.
But the real old-fashioned orthodox ministers denounced the investigators as Infidels and denied every fact that was inconsistent with the creed. They wanted to protect the young and feeble minded. They were anxious about the souls of the "thoughtless."
Some ministers changed their views just a little, not enough to be driven from their pulpits—but just enough to keep sensible people from thinking them idiotic. These preachers talked about the "higher criticism" and contended that it was not necessary to believe every word in the Bible, that some of the miracles might be given up and some of the books discarded. But the stupid doctors of divinity had the Bible and the creeds on their side and the machinery of the churches was in their control. They brought some of the offending clergymen to the bar, and had them tried for heresy, made some recant and closed the mouths of others. Still, it was not easy to put the heretics down. The congregations of ministers found guilty, often followed the shepherds. Heresy grew popular, the liberal preachers had good audiences, while the orthodox addressed a few bonnets, bibs and benches.
For many years the pulpit has been losing influence and the sacred calling no longer offers a career to young men of talent and ambition.
When people believed in "special providence," they also believed that preachers had great influence with God. They were regarded as celestial lobbyists and they were respected and feared because of their supposed power.
Now no one who has the capacity to think, believes in special providence. Of course there are some pious imbeciles who think that pestilence and famine, cyclone and earthquake, flood and fire are the weapons of God, the tools of his trade, and that with these weapons, these tools, he kills and starves, rends and devours, drowns and burns countless thousands of the human race.
If God governs this world, if he builds and destroys, if back of every event is his will, then he is neither good nor wise, He is ignorant and malicious.
A few days ago, in Paris, men and women had gathered together in the name of Charity. The building in which they, were assembled took fire and many of these men and women perished in the flames.
A French priest called this horror an act of God.
Is it not strange that Christians speak of their God as an assassin?
How can they love and worship this monster who murders, his children?
Intelligence seems to be leaving the orthodox church. The great divines are growing smaller, weaker, day by day. Since the death of Henry Ward Beecher no man of genius has stood in the orthodox pulpit. The ministers of intelligence are found in the liberal churches where they are allowed to express their thoughts and preserve their manhood. Some of these preachers keep their faces toward the East and sincerely welcome the light, while their orthodox brethren stand with their backs to the sunrise and worship the sunset of the day before.
During these years of change, of decay and growth, the author of this book looked and listened, became familiar with the questions raised, the arguments offered and the results obtained. For his work a better man could not have been found. He has no prejudice, no hatred. He is by nature candid, conservative, kind and just. He does not attack persons. He knows the difference between exchanging epithets and thoughts. He gives the facts as they appear to him and draws the logical conclusions. He charges and proves that Christianity has not always been the friend of morality, of civil liberty, of wives and mothers, of free though and honest speech. He shows that intolerance is its nature, that it always has, and always will persecute to the extent of its power, and that Christianity will always despise the doubter.
Yet we know that doubt must inhabit every finite mind. We know that doubt is as natural as hope, and that man is no more responsible for his doubts than for the beating of his heart. Every human being who knows the nature of evidence, the limitations of the mind, must have "doubts" about gods and devils, about heavens and hells, and must know that there is not the slightest evidence tending to show that gods and devils ever existed.
God is a guess.
An undesigned designer, an uncaused cause, is as incomprehensible to the human mind as a circle without a diameter.
The dogma of the Trinity multiplies the difficulty by three.
Theologians do not, and cannot believe that the authority to govern comes from the consent of the governed. They regard God as the monarch, and themselves as his agents. They always have been the enemies of liberty.
They claim to have a revelation from their God, a revelation that is the rightful master of reason. As long as they believe this, they must be the enemies of mental freedom. They do not ask man to think, but command him to obey.
If the claims of the theologians are admitted, the church becomes the ruler of the world, and to support and obey priests will be the business of mankind. All these theologians claim to have a revelation from their God, and yet they cannot agree as to what the revelation reveals. The other day, looking from my window at the bay of New York, I saw many vessels going in many directions, and yet all were moved by the same wind. The direction in which they were going did not depend on the direction of the breeze, but on the set of the sails. In this way the same Bible furnishes creeds for all the Christian sects. But what would we say if the captains of the boats I saw, should each swear that his boat was the only one that moved in the same direction the wind was blowing?
I agree with Mr. Taber that all religions are founded on mistakes, misconceptions and falsehoods, and that superstition is the warp and woof of every creed.
This book will do great good. It will furnish arguments and facts against the supernatural and absurd. It will drive phantoms from the brain, fear from the heart, and many who read these pages will be emancipated, enlightened and ennobled.
Christianity, with its ignorant and jealous God—its loving and revengeful Christ—its childish legends—its grotesque miracles—its "fall of man"—its atonement—its salvation by faith—its heaven for stupidity and its hell for genius, does not and cannot satisfy the free brain and the good heart.
TWELFTH TOAST.
The Volunteer Soldiers of the Union Army, whose Valor and Patriotism saved to the world "a Government of the People, by the People, and for the People."
WHEN the savagery of the lash, the barbarism of the chain, and the insanity of secession confronted the civilization of our country, the question "Will the great Republic defend itself?" trembled on the lips of every lover of mankind.
The North, filled with intelligence and wealth—children of liberty—marshaled her hosts and asked only for a leader. From civil life a man, silent, thoughtful, poised and calm, stepped forth, and with the lips of victory voiced the Nation's first and last demand: "Unconditional and immediate surrender." From that 'moment' the end was known. That utterance was the first real declaration of real war, and, in accordance with the dramatic unities of mighty events, the great soldier who made it, received the final sword of the Rebellion.
The soldiers of the Republic were not seekers after vulgar glory. They were not animated by the hope of plunder or the love of conquest. They fought to preserve the homestead of liberty and that their children might have peace. They were the defenders of humanity, the destroyers of prejudice, the breakers of chains, and in the name of the future they slew the monster of their time. They finished what the soldiers of the Revolution commenced. They re-lighted the torch that fell from their august hands and filled the world again with light. They blotted from the statute-book laws that had been passed by hypocrites at the instigation of robbers, and tore with indignant hands from the Constitution that infamous clause that made men the catchers of their fellow-men. They made it possible for judges to be just, for statesmen to be humane, and for politicians to be honest. They broke the shackles from the limbs of slaves, from the souls of masters, and from the Northern brain. They kept our country on the map of the world, and our flag in heaven. They rolled the stone from the sepulchre of progress, and found therein two angels clad in shining garments—Nationality and Liberty.
The soldiers were the saviors of the Nation; they were the liberators of men. In writing the Proclamation of Emancipation, Lincoln, greatest of our mighty dead, whose memory is as gentle as the summer air when reapers, sing amid the gathered sheaves, copied with the pen what Grant and his brave comrades wrote with swords.
Grander than the Greek, nobler than the Roman, the soldiers of the Republic, with patriotism as shoreless as the air, battled for the rights of others, for the nobility of labor; fought that mothers might own their babes, that arrogant idleness should not scar the back of patient toil, and that our country should not be a many-headed monster made of warring States, but a Nation, sovereign, great, and free.
Blood was water, money was leaves, and life, was only common air until one flag floated over a Republic without a master and without a slave.
And then was asked the question: "Will a free, people tax themselves to pay a Nation's debt?"
The soldiers went home to their waiting wives, to their glad children, and to the girls they loved—they went back-to the fields, the shops, and mines. They had not been demoralized. They had been ennobled. They were as honest in peace as they had been brave in war. Mocking at poverty, laughing at reverses, they made a friend of toil. They said: "We saved the Nation's life, and what is life without honor?" They worked and wrought with all of labor's royal sons that every pledge the Nation gave might be redeemed. And their great leader, having put a shining band of friendship—a girdle of clasped and happy hands—around the globe, comes home and finds that every promise made in war has now the ring and gleam of gold.
There is another question still:—Will all the wounds of war be healed? I answer, Yes. The Southern people must submit,—not to the dictation of the North, but to the Nation's will and to the verdict of mankind. They were wrong, and the time will come when they will say that they are victors who have been vanquished by the right. Freedom conquered them, and freedom will cultivate their fields, educate their children, weave for them the robes of wealth, execute their laws, and fill their land with happy homes.
The soldiers of the Union saved the South as well as the North. They made us a Nation. Their victory made us free and rendered tyranny in every other land as insecure as snow upon volcanoes' lips.
And now let us drink to the volunteers—to those who sleep in unknown, sunken graves, whose names are only in the hearts of those they loved and left—of those who only hear in happy dreams the footsteps of return. Let us drink to those who died where lipless famine mocked at want; to all the maimed whose scars give modesty a tongue; to all who dared and gave to chance the care and keeping of their lives; to all the living and to all the dead,—to Sherman, to Sheridan, and to Grant, the laureled soldier of the world, and last, to Lincoln, whose loving life, like a bow of peace, spans and arches all the clouds of war.
New York, December 13, 1886,
THE SUPERSTITIONS OF PUBLIC MEN,
MR. CHIEF RULER-AND GENTLEMEN: I suppose that the superstition most prevalent with public men, is the idea that they are of great importance to the public. As a matter of fact, public men,—that is to say, men in office,—reflect the average intelligence of the people, and no more. A public man, to be successful, must not assert anything unless it is exceedingly popular. And he need not deny anything unless everybody is against it. Usually he has to be like the center of the earth,—draw all things his way, without weighing anything himself.
One of the difficulties, or rather, one of the objections, to a government republican in form, is this: Everybody imagines that he is everybody's: master. And the result has been to make most of our public men exceedingly conservative in the expression of their real opinions. A man, wishing to be elected to an office, generally agrees with 'most everybody he meets. If he meets a Prohibitionist, he says: "Of course I am a temperance man. I am opposed to all excesses; my dear friend, and no one knows better than myself the evils that have been caused by intemperance." The next man happens to keep a saloon, and happens to be quite influential in that part of the district, and the candidate immediately says to him:—"The idea that these Prohibitionists can take away the personal liberty of the citizen is simply monstrous!" In a moment after, he is greeted by a Methodist, and he hastens to say, that while he does not belong to that church himself, his wife does; that he would gladly be a member, but does not feel that he is good enough. He tells a Presbyterian that his grandfather was of that faith, and that he was a most excellent man, and laments from the bottom of his heart that he himself is not within that fold. A few moments after, on meeting a skeptic, he declares, with the greatest fervor, that reason is the only guide, and that he looks forward to the time when superstition will be dethroned. In other words, the greatest superstition now entertained by public men is, that hypocrisy is the royal road to success.
Of course, there are many other superstitions, and one is, that the Democratic party has not outlived its usefulness. Another is, that the Republican party should have power for what it has done, instead of what it proposes to do.
In my judgment, these statesmen are mistaken. The people of the United States, after all, admire intellectual honesty and have respect for moral courage. The time has come for the old ideas and superstitions in politics to be thrown away—not in phrase, not in pretence, but in fact; and the time has come when a man can safely rely on the intelligence and courage of the American people.
The most significant fact in this world to-day, is, that in nearly every village under the American flag the school-house is larger than the church. People are beginning to have a little confidence in intelligence and in facts. Every public man and every private man, who is actuated in his life by a belief in something that no one can prove,—that no one can demonstrate,—is, to that extent, a superstitious man.
It may be that I go further than most of you, because if I have any superstition, it is a superstition against superstition. It seems to me that the first things for every man, whether in or out of office, to believe in,—the first things to rely on, are demonstrated facts. These are the corner stones,—these are the columns that nothing can move,—these are the stars that no darkness can hide,—these are the true and only foundations of belief.
Beyond the truths that have been demonstrated is the horizon of the Probable, and in the world of the Probable every man has the right to guess for himself. Beyond the region of the Probable is the Possible, and beyond the Possible is the Impossible, and beyond the Impossible are the religions of this world. My idea is this: Any man who acts in view of the Improbable or of the Impossible—that is to say of the Supernatural—is a superstitious man. Any man who believes that he can add to the happiness of the Infinite, by depriving himself of innocent pleasure, is superstitious. Any man who imagines that he can make some God happy, by making himself miserable, is superstitious. Any one who thinks he can gain happiness in another world, by raising hell with his fellow-men in this, is simply superstitious. Any man who believes in a Being of infinite wisdom and goodness, and yet belives that that Being has peopled a world with failures, is superstitious. Any man who believes that an infinitely wise and good God would take pains to make a man, intending at the time that the man should be eternally damned, is absurdly superstitious. In other words, he who believes that there is, or that there can be, any other religious duty than to increase the happiness of mankind, in this world, now and here, is superstitious.
I have known a great many private men who were not men of genius. I have known some men of genius about whom it was kept private, and I have known many public men, and my wonder increased the better I knew them, that they occupied positions of trust and honor.
But, after all, it is the people's fault. They who demand hypocrisy must be satisfied with mediocrity... Our public men will be better and greater, and less superstitious, when the people become greater and better and less superstitious. There is an old story, that we have all heard, about Senator Nesmith. He was elected a Senator from Oregon. When he had been in Washington a little while, one of the other Senators said to him: "How did you feel when you found yourself sitting here in the United States Senate?" He replied: "For the first two months, I just sat and wondered how a damned fool like me ever, broke into the Senate. Since that, I have done nothing but wonder how the other fools got here."
To-day the need of our civilization is public men who have the courage to speak as they think. We need a man for President who will not publicly thank God for earthquakes. We need somebody with the courage to say that all that happens in nature happens without design, and without reference to man; somebody who will say that the men and women killed are not murdered by supernatural beings, and that everything that happens in nature, happens without malice and without mercy. We want somebody who will have courage enough not to charge, an infinitely good and wise Being with all the cruelties and agonies and sufferings of this world. We want such men in public places,—men who will appeal to the reason of their fellows, to the highest intelligence of the people; men who will have courage enough, in this the nineteenth century, to agree with the conclusions of science. We want some man who will not pretend to believe, and who does not in fact believe, the stories that Superstition has told to Credulity.
The most important thing in this world is the destruction of superstition. Superstition interferes with the happiness of mankind. Superstition is a terrible serpent, reaching in frightful coils from heaven to earth and thrusting its poisoned fangs into the hearts of men. While I live, I am going to do what little I can for the destruction of this monster. Whatever may happen in another world—and I will take my chances there,—I am opposed to superstition in this. And if, when I reach that other world, it needs reforming, I shall do what little I can there for the destruction of the false.
Let me tell you one thing more, and I am done. The only way to have brave, honest, intelligent, conscientious public men, men without superstition, is to do what we can to make the average citizen brave, conscientious and intelligent. If you wish to see courage in the presidential chair, conscience upon the bench, intelligence of the highest order in Congress; if you expect public men to be great enough to reflect honor upon the Republic, private citizens must have the courage and the intelligence to elect, and to sustain, such men. I have said, and I say it again, that never while I live will I vote for any man to be President of the United States, no matter if he does belong to my party, who has not won his spurs on some field of intellectual conflict. We have had enough mediocrity, enough policy, enough superstition, enough prejudice, enough provincialism, and the time has come for the American citizen to say: "Hereafter I will be represented by men who are worthy, not only of the great Republic, but of the Nineteenth Century."
TOAST: COMEDY AND TRAGEDY.
I BELIEVE in the medicine of mirth, and in what I might call the longevity of laughter. Every man who has caused real, true, honest mirth, has been a benefactor of the human race. In a world like this, where there is so much trouble—a world gotten up on such a poor plan—where sometimes one is almost inclined to think that the Deity, if there be one, played a practical joke—to find, I say, in such a world, something that for the moment allows laughter to triumph over sorrow, is a great piece of good fortune. I like the stage, not only because General Sherman likes it—and I do not think I was ever at the theatre in my life but I saw him—I not only like it because General Washington liked it, but because the greatest man that ever touched this grain of sand and tear we call the world, wrote for the stage, and poured out a very Mississippi of philosophy and pathos and humor, and everything calculated to raise and ennoble mankind.
I like to see the stage honored, because actors are the ministers, the apostles, of the greatest man who ever lived, and because they put flesh upon and blood and passion within the greatest characters that the greatest man drew. This is the reason I like the stage. It makes us human. A rascal never gained applause on the stage. A hypocrite never commanded admiration, not even when he was acting a clergyman—except for the naturalness of the acting. No one has ever yet seen any play in which, in his heart, he did not applaud honesty, heroism, sincerity, fidelity, courage, and self-denial. Never. No man ever heard a great play who did not get up a better, wiser, and more humane man; and no man ever went to the theatre and heard Robson and Crane, who did not go home better-natured, and treat his family that night a little better than on a night when he had not heard these actors.
I enjoy the stage; I always did enjoy it. I love the humanity of it. I hate solemnity; it is the brother of stupidity—always. You never knew a solemn man who was not stupid, and you never will. There never was a man of true genius who had not the simplicity of a child, and over whose lips had not rippled the river of laughter—never, and there never will be. I like, I say, the stage for its wit and for its humor. I do not like sarcasm; I do not like mean humor. There is as much difference between humor and malicious wit as there is between a bee's honey and a bee's sting, and the reason I like Robson and Crane is that they have the honey without the sting.
Another thing that makes me glad is, that I live in an age and generation and day that has sense enough to appreciate the stage; sense enough to appreciate music; sense enough to appreciate everything that lightens the burdens of this life. Only a few years ago our dear ancestors looked upon the theatre as the vestibule of hell; and every actor was going "the primrose way to the everlasting bonfire." In those good old days, our fathers, for the sake of relaxation, talked about death and graves and epitaphs and worms and shrouds and dust and hell. In those days, too, they despised music, cared nothing for art; and yet I have lived long enough to hear the world—that is, the civilized world—say that Shakespeare wrote the greatest book that man has ever read. I have lived long enough to see men like Beethoven and Wagner put side by side with the world's greatest men—great in imagination—and we must remember that imagination makes the great difference between men. I have lived long enough to see actors placed with the grandest and noblest, side by side with the greatest benefactors of the human race.
There is one thing in which I cannot quite agree with what has been said. I like tragedy, because tragedy is only the other side of the shield and I like both sides. I love to spend an evening on the twilight boundary line between tears and smiles. There is nothing that pleases me better than some scene, some act, where the smile catches the tears in the eyes; where the eyes are almost surprised by the smile, and the smile touched and softened by the tears. I like that. And the greatest comedians and the greatest tragedians have that power; and, in conclusion, let me say, that it gives me more than pleasure to acknowledge the debt of gratitude I owe, not only to the stage, but to the actors whose health we drink to-night.
TOAST: DUTIES AND PRIVILEGES OF THE PRESS.
ONLY a little while ago, the nations of the world were ignorant and provincial. Between these nations there were the walls and barriers of language, of prejudice, of custom, of race and of religion. Each little nation had the only perfect form of government—the only genuine religion—all others being adulterations or counterfeits.
These nations met only as enemies. They had nothing to exchange but blows—nothing to give and take but wounds.
Movable type was invented, and "civilization was thrust into the brain of Europe on the point of a Moorish lance." The Moors gave to our ancestors paper, and nearly all valuable inventions that were made for a thousand years.
In a little while, books began to be printed—the nations began to exchange thoughts instead of blows. The classics were translated. These were read, and those who read them began to imitate them—began to write themselves; and in this way there was produced in each nation a local literature. There came to be an exchange of facts, of theories, of ideas.
For many years this was accomplished by books, but after a time the newspaper was invented, and the exchange increased.
Before this, every peasant thought his king the greatest being in the world. He compared this king—his splendor, his palace—with the peasant neighbor, with his rags and with his hut. All his thoughts were provincial, all his knowledge confined to his own neighborhood—the great world was to him an unknown land.
Long after papers were published, the circulation was small, the means of intercommunication slow, painful, few and costly.
The same was true in our own country, and here, too, was in a great degree, the provincialism of the Old World.
Finally, the means of intercommunication increased, and they became plentiful and cheap.
Then the peasant found that he must compare his king with the kings of other nations—the statesmen of his country with the statesmen of others—and these comparisons were not always favorable to the men of his own country.
This enlarged his knowledge and his vision, and the tendency of this was to make him a citizen of the world.
Here in our own country, a little while ago, the citizen of each State regarded his State as the best of all. To love that State more than all others, was considered the highest evidence of patriotism.
The Press finally informed him of the condition of other States. He found that other States were superior to his in many ways—in climate, in production, in men, in invention, in commerce and in influence. Slowly he transferred the love of State, the prejudice of locality—what I call mud patriotism—to the Nation, and he became an American in the best and highest sense.
This, then, is one of the greatest things to be accomplished by the Press in America—namely, the unification of the country—the destruction of provincialism, and the creation of a patriotism broad as the territory covered by our flag.
The same ideas, the same events, the same news, are carried to millions of homes every day. The result of this is to fix the attention of all upon the same things, the same thoughts and theories, the same facts—and the result is to get the best judgment of a nation.
This is a great and splendid object, but not the greatest.
In Europe the same thing is taking place. The nations are becoming acquainted with each other. The old prejudices are dying out. The people cf each nation are beginning to find that they are not the enemies of any other. They are also beginning to suspect that where they have no cause of quarrel, they should neither be called upon to fight, nor to pay the expenses of war.
Another thing: The kings and statesmen no longer act as they formerly did. Once they were responsible only to their poor and wretched-subjects, whose obedience they compelled at the point of the bayonet. Now a king knows, and his minister knows, that they must give account for what they do to the civilized world. They know that kings and rulers must be tried before the great bar of public opinion—a public opinion that has been formed by the facts given to them in the Press of the world. They do not wish to be condemned at that great bar. They seek not only not to be condemned—not only to be acquitted—but they seek to be crowned. They seek the applause, not simply of their own nation, but of the civilized world.
There was for uncounted centuries a conflict between civilization and barbarism. Barbarism was almost universal, civilization local. The torch of progress was then held by feeble hands, and barbarism extinguished it in the blood of its founders. But civilizations arose, and kept rising, one after another, until now the great Republic holds and is able to hold that torch against a hostile world.
By its invention, by its weapons of war, by its intelligence, civilization became capable of protecting itself, and there came a time when in the struggle between civilization and barbarism the world passed midnight.
Then came another struggle,—the struggle between the people and their rulers.
Most peoples sacrificed their liberty through gratitude to some great soldier who rescued them from the arms of the barbarian. But there came a time when the people said: "We have a right to govern ourselves." And that conflict has been waged for centuries.
And I say, protected and corroborated by the flag of the greatest of all Republics, that in that conflict the world has passed midnight.
Despotisms were softened by parliaments, by congresses—but at last the world is beginning to say: "The right to govern rests upon the consent of the governed. The power comes from the people—not from kings. It belongs to man, and should be exercised by man."
In this conflict we have passed midnight. The world is destined to be republican. Those who obey the laws will make the laws.
Our country—the United States—the great Republic—owns the fairest portion of half the world. We have now sixty millions of free people. Look upon the map of our country. Look upon the great valley of the Mississippi—stretching from the Alleghenies to the Rockies. See the great basin drained by that mighty river. There you will see a territory large enough to feed and clothe and educate five hundred millions of human beings.
This country is destined to remain as one. The Mississippi River is Nature's protest against secession and against division.
We call that nation civilized when its subjects submit their differences of opinion, in accordance with the forms of law, to fellow-citizens who are disinterested and who accept the decision as final.
The nations, however, sustain no such relation to each other. Each nation concludes for itself. Each nation defines its rights and its obligations; and nations will not be civilized in respect of their relations to each other, until there shall have been established a National Court to decide differences between nations, to the judgment of which all shall bow.
It is for the Press—the Press that photographs the human activities of every day—the Press that gives the news of the world to each individual—to bend its mighty energies to the unification and the civilization of mankind; to the destruction of provincialism, of prejudice—to the extirpation of ignorance and to the creation of a great and splendid patriotism that embraces the human race.
The Press presents the daily thoughts of men. It marks the progress of each hour, and renders a relapse into ignorance and barbarism impossible. No catastrophe can be great enough, no ruin wide-spread enough, to engulf or blot out the wisdom of the world.
Feeling that it is called to this high destiny, the Press should appeal only to the highest and to the noblest in the human heart.
It should not be the bat of suspicion, a raven, hoarse with croaking disaster, a chattering jay of gossip, or a vampire fattening on the reputations of men.
It should remain the eagle, rising and soaring high in the cloudless blue, above all mean and sordid things, and grasping only the bolts and arrows of justice.
Let the Press have the courage always to defend the right, always to defend the people—and let it always have the power to clutch and strangle any combination of men, however intellectual or cunning or rich, that feeds and fattens on the flesh and blood of honest men.
In a little while, under our flag there will be five hundred millions of people. The great Republic will then dictate to the world—that is to say, it will succor the oppressed—it will see that justice is done—it will say to the great nations that wish to trample upon the weak: "You must not—you shall not—strike." It will be obeyed.
All I ask is—all I hope is—that the Press will always be worthy of the great Republic.