Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures Part 10

We should never have hard times in this country. We live in the best land beneath the sky. It has been well said: "This is G.o.d's last best effort for man." We have soil rich enough to gra.s.s and grain the world. Our vast domain is inlaid with gold, silver, iron and lead of boundless worth. Deep in the bosom of Columbia are fountains of gas and oil, sufficient to light and heat our homes for a century to come.

Within these healthful lines of lat.i.tude is room enough not only to house all the peoples of the earth, but to sty all the pigs, stable all the horses, and corral all the cattle of the world.

To have all these gifts crowned with suns.h.i.+ne and shower, free from pestilence and famine, we are the most prosperous and should be the best contented people on the earth. In such a land there should be perpetual peace and plentiful prosperity. Yet we have hard times after hard times, and panic after panic. Why is this? If I could tell you why, it would repay for the time and money spent to hear this lecture.

During the great panic in the nineties Mr. W.C. Whitney of New York, wrote a letter to a leading New York daily in which he said: "There are just two causes for this panic; too much silver and too much tariff." I do not disparage these two problems, but I do say Mr.

Whitney had a very narrow view of a panic. Like many another man, he had a thorough knowledge of certain things and was totally ignorant of others.

A Chief Justice of the United States was riding in a carriage with his family when a shaft broke. It was not broken short off, but s.h.i.+vered by contact with a post. The Chief Justice had no strings and was in a dilemma. A negro boy pa.s.sed by, dressed in rags, whistling a merry tune. The great jurist hailed the boy, saying, "Boy, have you a string?"

"No, boss, what's de matter?"

"I have broken the shaft of my carriage," said the Justice.

"Yas, sir, I guess you is, boss. Is you got a knife? If you is, I think I can fix it for you."

Taking the knife, he jumped the fence and cut withes from a sapling, with which he lashed a lath to the shaft.

"I guess da'll git you home, boss."

"That's a good job," said the Judge; "why didn't I think of that?"

The boy replied: "I don't know, sir, 'cept some folks know more than others."

That boy did know more than the Chief Justice of the United States about mending a broken shaft. I think I know a thing or two about panics which Mr. Whitney did not seem to have learned. Let me give you two causes for panics. They are not all but they rank with Mr.

Whitney's.

First, the extravagance of the people. When times are good and money plentiful, people are extravagant. They buy everything and pay enormous prices. A horse, Axtell, brings his owner one hundred and five thousand dollars; a two-year-old colt, Arion, one hundred and twenty-five thousand. A town site is located in a barren waste and lots sell at ten to one hundred dollars a front foot. All kinds of wildcat schemes are promoted, and the people bite at the bait. An era of extravagance is on and "sight unseen" investments are made. Several years ago my brother said to me: "Are you going West soon, as far as Kansas City?" When I replied that I was he said: "I have never been in that city but I have two lots there I wish you would look at and ascertain their value." He advised me to call on a certain real estate agent, who would show me the lots. When I called on the agent a little while later, he informed me the lots could not be seen until a dry spell took off the water. Two lots my brother never saw and never sold; decidedly "watered stock."

A man with a thousand dollars buys a five thousand dollar lot. He knows he can't pay for it, but there's a boom and he expects to sell for six thousand before the second payment is due. He doesn't sell.

When he can't sell he goes to the bank to borrow money to make the payment; he finds there many more in the same condition as himself.

The banks see the trouble coming and will not loan. When the banks refuse to loan the depositors get scared and take their money out of the bank. During that great panic in the nineties three hundred millions of dollars were taken out of circulation within four months by depositors who were scared. Then the country gets flat on its back with a panic. A friend said to me, during the great depression: "Don't you think it will be over soon?" I replied: "Let a man have typhoid fever until reduced to a skeleton; let the doctor call some morning toward the close of the long siege and say, 'The fever is broken, get up and go to work.' Can the man obey the doctor? No; he must have chicken-broth and gruel, and slowly regain his strength." So when a panic comes we must creep out, and we were so deep in the nineties it took a long time to recover.

When a panic comes however, the extravagance ceases; everybody gets stingy. A man with five thousand dollars doesn't buy a five thousand dollar lot. He doesn't buy anything; his wife must wear the old bonnet, and his church a.s.sessment is reduced. Then the tide turns and the country recovers from its extravagance. But when times get good, crops are fine and money plentiful, the people begin again; women spending their money for dry goods, men for wet goods; another era of extravagance is on and another panic coming.

Mr. Whitney said: "Too much silver and too much tariff." All the gold and all the silver money in this country would not pay the old man's drink and tobacco bill for five years. We drink, smoke and chew up all the money in this country, gold, silver, and paper, every seven years.

Last year we spent about six millions for missions; one hundred and fifty millions for churches; two hundred and seventy-five millions for schools; and eighteen hundred millions for intoxicating liquors and tobacco. Awake, O Conscience! and pour out thy saving influence for the healing of the nation.

We live in a marvelous country. What this republic has accomplished in one hundred and thirty-eight years, is the wonder of the world. At the close of the Revolutionary War those who survived were poor, wounded, bleeding people, occupying only the eastern rim of a wilderness waste, while wild beast and wilder Indians roamed the mighty expanse to the western ocean. From the penniless poverty of then, has come the wonderful wealth of now. Where the tangled wilderness choked the earth, now fields of golden grain dot the plains, carpets of clover cover the hillsides, cities hum with the music of commerce, while rivers and railroads carry rich harvests to the harbors of every land.

Emerson wrote better than he knew when he wrote:

"So I uncover the land, which of old time I hid in the west, As the sculptor uncovers his statue, when he has wrought his best."

Yet grand as this country has grown to be, "the eagle of liberty can never reach the pinion heights its wings were made to measure," while the sh.e.l.l of wasted resources to which I have referred bows low its head. Money won't save us. Babylon had her gold standard; her images were made of gold. Media, Persia, had her free silver standard; her images were made of silver. Rome had her gold, her silver, bra.s.s and iron; yet they were all dashed to pieces on the world's highway. "In the hollow of the hand of G.o.d is the destiny of this republic," and we cannot buy Him with money. The wealth that satisfies the ruler of nations is character.

Some one said a few years ago, and it went the rounds of the press: "The question during the Civil War was, shall we have two governments or one; now the question is, shall we have any?" I quote to you with as much confidence as any mortal ever proclaimed a truth: "This republic will never fail or fall until G.o.d deserts it, and G.o.d will not desert it until we desert Him."

"Come the world in arms, We'll defeat, and then pursue; Nothing can our flag destroy, While to G.o.d and self we're true."

I am not one of those who believe our war with Spain was an accident.

For Dewey to cross that dead line at midnight; when morning dawned to find mines of death behind him, an enemy's fleet of eleven s.h.i.+ps before him, these supported by sh.o.r.es belted with batteries; and yet within six hours sink or disable every s.h.i.+p in the fleet, silence the forts, lift the star spangled banner in triumph to wave, and not have a wars.h.i.+p sunk, nor a sailor killed, means more than the mere skill of a Commodore. Some one may say we had a better navy. Spain didn't think so. Before the war the Spanish papers said: "The United States is bluffing. She can't go to war with us. She has only twenty-five thousand soldiers, and they are kept out west to control cowboys and Indians. Then the South is waiting for an opportunity to break out in rebellion." Columbus discovered America in 1492; Spain didn't discover the United States until 1898.

Do you ask what we are to do with the Philippine Islands? I cannot tell you what is best, but I do know we didn't want them. The day Dewey sailed from Hong Kong to Manila Bay, if Spain had said to the United States: "Here are the Philippine Islands, we would like to make you a present of them," the United States would have replied, "We thank you, but decline the offer." Not one man in ten in this country would have voted to take them. But the next day we had them, had fought to get them; and I believe the same superhuman power that took from Spain, the Netherlands, Flanders, Malacca, Ceylon, Java, Portugal, Holland, San Domingo, Louisiana, Florida, Trinidad, Mexico, Venezuela, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chili, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Patagonia, Guatemala, Honduras, San Salvador, Nicaragua, Porto Rico, Cuba, and "then some," took away from Spain the Philippine Islands and gave them to us, that the home, the church and the school might be established in the Islands.

Perhaps some of you think I am getting off my subject. I am not; I am talking now about the _old man_, Uncle Sam, and his mission in the world.

It is the opinion of many that we are under no obligation to the islands of the sea, but these conservative souls should not forget that we are not only citizens of the United States, but of the globe on which we dwell and of the universe of G.o.d. The world in which we live, lives because of the light and heat it receives from other worlds. If the rolling sun in the heavens is under obligation to furnish light for our pathway, heat for our soil and warmth for our blood, are we not under obligation to carry the light of civilization to the people whose sh.o.r.es and ours are washed by the same waters? If the full orbed moon is under obligation to pour its silver into our nights, and lift the tides until our rivers are full, are not we under obligation to lift the tide of hope in the heart of oppressed humanity, and pour the light of intelligence into the night of ignorance? Did G.o.d give us this grand country, with its boundless resources, for us to draw our ocean skirts about our greatness and pa.s.s by our bruised and bleeding neighbor, lying half dead on life's Jericho road? If so, then call back our proud eagle of liberty from its pinion flight through the skies of national achievement, and make our national emblem the barnyard fowl that crows in the day dawn as if creating light instead of noise, and then runs for his roost when the shadows fall.

The Bible says we are fellow workers with G.o.d. What does this fellows.h.i.+p imply? It means there are some things we can't do, which G.o.d must do for us, and some things we can do He won't do for us. He puts the coal in the earth; we must dig and blast it out. He puts oil beneath the soil; we must bore into its wells and pump it out. He gives us the earth and "the fullness thereof;" we must do the sowing and reaping. He puts electricity in the air; we must bridle, saddle and harness it. He empties the clouds into the basins of the earth and gives us oceans, gulfs and lakes; but we must build boats to ride them. He puts humanity on the earth and bids us love our neighbor as ourselves.

Who is my neighbor? Some seem to think only those who live in our immediate community. I read of a minister of a city church who called upon one of his country members for a contribution for foreign missionary work. The country brother said: "I don't believe in foreign missions, and I must say, 'No'."

"Brother," the pastor said, "the Bible says you should love your neighbor as yourself."

"I do love my neighbors."

"Who are your neighbors?"

"Those whose farms adjoin mine, and perhaps, those whose farms adjoin theirs."

"How far do you own eastward?"

"To the third fence yonder."

"How far do you own toward the west?"

"About a half mile?"

"How deep do you own into the earth?"

"Well, I never thought of that, but about half-way, I guess."

"Well, my brother, I am asking you to help your neighbor China, who joins your line below."

I have a friend with plenty of this world's goods, and not a child.

When approached by the ladies of the Foreign Mission Society he said: "I do not give to foreign missions; when you want anything for home missions I'll help you." Perhaps he would; but many of that cla.s.s are represented by a colored man of whom I heard a Methodist bishop tell.

He said to a friend: "Dat wife of mine is got money on de brain; it's money, money all the time. I can't go whar she is, but she's axing me for money. She's jest sho'ly gwine to run me to the lunatic 'sylum ef she don't quit her beggin' me for money."

The friend asked: "What does she do with so much money?"

The colored brother hesitated a minute, and said: "She don't do nuffin wid it, caze I ain't never _give_ her none yet."

My friend who opposes foreign missions said: "So much you give never gets there." Yes; and so many seed the farmer puts into the ground never grow, and so the farmer says,

"Put five grains in every hill: One for the cut-worm, one for the crow, One to blight, and two to grow."

And you cannot tell which will grow. A weed grew by the wayside in the old world. All it did was to furnish seed for the wind, and worry for the farmer. But one bl.u.s.tering day, the wind carried a seed from the wayside weed into a florist's garden; it sprouted, rooted and bloomed.