Cæsar's Column: A Story of the Twentieth Century

"Our masters have educated us tounderstand that we have no interest in civilization or society. Weare its victims, not its members. They depend on repression, on forcealone; on cruelty, starvation, to hold us down until we work ourlives away. Our lives are all we have;--it may be all we will everhave! They are as dear to us as existence is to the millionaire.

  "What is civilization worth which means happiness for a few thousandmen and inexpressible misery for hundreds of millions? No, down withit!" [Immense cheering. Men rising and waving their hats.] "If theyhave set love and justice adrift and depend only on force, why shouldwe not have recourse to force also?" [Cheers and applause, mingledwith cries of "Take care!" "Look out!" "Spies!" etc.] "Yes,"continued the speaker, "I mean, of course, the force of argument andreason." [Great laughter and applause.] "Of course none of us wouldadvocate a violation of the law--that blessed law which it has costour masters so much hard-earned money to purchase;" [renewed laughterand applause,] "and which restrains us and not them; for under it noinjustice is forbidden to them, and no justice is permitted to us,Our labor creates everything; we possess nothing. Yes, we have thescant supply of food necessary to enable us to create more."[Applause.] "We have ceased to be men--we are machines. Did God diefor a machine? Certainly not.

  "We are crushed under the world which we maintain, and our groans aredrowned in the sounds of music and laughter." [Great applause.] "Wehave a hell that is more desperate and devilish than any dreamed ofby the parsons--for we have to suffer to maintain the pleasures ofheaven, while we have no share in what we ourselves create."[Laughter and applause.] "Do you suppose that if heaven were blown topieces hell would be any worse off? At least, the work would stop."[Great applause, long-continued, with cries of "That's so!"]

  Here a great uproar broke out near the end of the hall. A man hadbeen caught secretly taking notes of the speaker's remarks. He wasevidently a detective. On the instant a hundred men sprang upon him,and he was beaten and trampled under foot, until not only life, butall semblance of humanity, had been crushed out of him; and thewretched remains were dragged out and thrown upon the pavement. It isimpossible to describe the uproar and confusion which ensued. In themidst of it a large platoon of police, several hundred strong, withtheir belts strung with magazine pistols, and great clubs in theirhands, broke into the room, and began to deal blows and make arrestsright and left, while the crowd fled through all the doors.Maximilian seized me and the poor clergyman, who had been sitting ina dazed and distraught state for some time, and dragged us both up aback stairway and through a rear exit into the street. There we tooka carriage, and, after we had left the bewildered clergyman at hisresidence, Maximilian said to me as we rode home:

  "You see, my dear Gabriel, I was right and you were wrong. Thatworkman told the truth. You have arrived on the scene too late. Ahundred years ago you might have formed your Brotherhood of Justiceand saved society. Now there is but one cure--the Brotherhood of_Destruction_."

  "Oh, my dear friend," I replied, "do not say so. _Destruction!_ Whatis it? The wiping out of the slow accumulations made by man'sintelligence during thousands of years. A world cataclysm. A day ofjudgment. A day of fire and ashes. A world burned and swept bare oflife. All the flowers of art; the beautiful, gossamer-like works ofglorious literature; the sweet and lovely creations of the souls ofmen long since perished, and now the inestimable heritage ofhumanity; all, all crushed, torn, leveled in the dust. And all thatis savage, brutal, cruel, demoniac in man's nature let loose toravage the face of the world. Oh! horrible--most horrible! The merethought works in me like a convulsion; what must the inexpressiblereality be? To these poor, suffering, hopeless, degraded toilers;these children of oppression and the dust; these chained slaves,anything that would break open the gates of their prison-house wouldbe welcome, even though it were an earthquake that destroyed theplanet. But you and I, my dear friend, are educated to higherthoughts. We know the value of the precious boon of civilization. Weknow how bare and barren, and wretched and torpid, and utterlydebased is soulless barbarism. I see enough to convince me that theramifications of your society are like a net-work of wires, all overthe earth, penetrating everywhere, and at every point touching themost deadly explosives of human passions and hates; and that it needsbut the pressure of your finger upon the pedal to blow up the world.The folly of centuries has culminated in the most terribleorganization that ever grew out of the wretchedness of mankind. Butoh, my friend--you have a broad mind and a benevolent soul--tell me,is there no remedy? Cannot the day of wrath be averted?"

  The tears flowed down my face as I spoke, and Maximilian placed hishand gently upon my arm, and said in the kindliest manner:

  "My dear Gabriel, I have thought such thoughts as these many times;not with the fervor and vehemence of your more imaginative nature,but because I shrank, at first, from what you call 'aworld-cataclysm.' But facts are stronger than the opinions of man.There is in every conflagration a time when a few pails of waterwould extinguish it; then there comes a time when the wholefire-department, with tons of water, can alone save what is left ofthe property; but sometimes a point is reached where even the boldestfiremen are forced to recoil and give up the building to thedevouring element. Two hundred years ago a little wise statesmanshipmight have averted the evils from which the world now suffers. Onehundred years ago a gigantic effort, of all the good men of theworld, might have saved society. Now the fire pours through everydoor, and window and crevice; the roof crackles; the walls totter;the heat of hell rages within the edifice; it is doomed; there is nopower on earth that can save it; it must go down into ashes. What canyou or I do? What will it avail the world if we rush into the flamesand perish? No; we witness the working-out of great causes which wedid not create. When man permits the establishment of self-generatingevil he must submit to the effect. Our ancestors were blind,indifferent, heartless. We live in the culmination of their misdeeds.They have crawled into their graves and drawn the earth over them,and the flowers bloom on their last resting-places, and we are theinheritors of the hurricane which they invoked. Moreover," hecontinued, "how can reformation come? You have seen that audienceto-night. Do you think they are capable of the delicate task ofreadjusting the disarranged conditions of the world? That workman wasright. In the aggregate they are honest--most honest and honorable;but is there one of them whose cramped mind and starved stomach couldresist the temptation of a ten-dollar bill? Think what a ten-dollarbill is to them! It represents all they crave: food, clothes,comfort, joy. It opens the gate of heaven to them; it is paradise,for a few hours at least. Why, they would mortgage their souls, theywould trade their Maker, for a hundred dollars! The crime is nottheirs, but the shallow creatures who once ruled the world, andpermitted them to be brought to this state. And where else can youturn? Is it to the newspapers? They are a thousand times moredishonest than the workingmen. Is it to the halls of legislation?There corruption riots and rots until the stench fills the earth. Theonly ones who could reform the world are the rich and powerful: butthey see nothing to reform. Life is all sunshine for them;civilization is a success for them; they need no better heaven thanthey enjoy. They have so long held mankind in subjection that theylaugh at the idea of the great, dark, writhing masses, rising up tooverthrow them. Government is, to them, an exquisitely adjusted pieceof mechanism whose object is to keep the few happy and the manymiserable."

  "But," said I, "if an appeal were made to them; if they were assuredof the dangers that really threatened them; if their better andkindlier natures were appealed to, do you not think they mightundertake the task of remedying the evils endured by the multitude?They cannot all be as abandoned and utterly vicious as Prince Cabanoand his Council."

  "No," he replied; "have you not already made the test? The best ofthem would probably hang you for your pains. Do you think they wouldbe willing to relinquish one-tenth of their pleasures, or theirpossessions, to relieve the distresses of their fellows? If you do,you have but a slight conception of the callousness of their hearts.You were right i
n what you said was the vital principle ofChristianity--brotherly love, not alone of the rich for the rich, butof the poor and rich for each other. But that spirit has passed awayfrom the breasts of the upper classes. Science has increased theirknowledge one hundred per cent. and their vanity one thousand percent. The more they know of the material world the less they canperceive the spiritual world around and within it. The acquisition ofa few facts about nature has closed their eyes to the existence of aGod."

  "Ah," said I, "that is a dreadful thought! It seems to me that theman who possesses his eyesight must behold a thousand evidences of aCreator denied to a blind man; and in the same way the man who knowsmost of the material world should see the most