i'r£. ■« : ’ * • -a ' ;;v ; : . r> ■ . - ■ = ■, .. . 1 V' ' - ' . ;< V . t&y ' r . • , ; ‘ i i mm .«■— . / ■>:?" -r , - ■ ;. ■ ■ ■ *r£;,l ' ' ' > ' - : ■■■'■■ ... - ■ •: ■ " ■. ft"-: >' - v ^ ' ■ ; ; k. : ■■•- _ M 'M'; ■ - v . ■: -' ■-.- ' .. ■ . , •' • '■ '■ ■■? t r -<: .■ ■ '- ".v . -.'A' .) ’. •' ' ■ .* ' V V V- r 1 V • \ -:•• ", v - • T l Wy.^rT--- - 'y-i ~ . '■> \ . 'J v-jr. - > • *.-?a THE HUMAN HARVEST ii A STUDY OF THE DECAY OF FACES THROUGH THE SURVIVAL OF THE UNFIT BY DAVID STARR JORDAN Chancellor of Leland Stanford Junior University '‘La guerre a produit de tout temps une selection a rebours." (novicow) BOSTON THE BEACON PRESS 25 BEACON STREET Copyright, ipo/ The Beacon Press, Inc. \^"C TO THE MEMORY OF MY BROTHER RUFUS BACON JORDAN (1838 - 1 862) OF THE “ HUMAN HARVEST” OF 1862 x b 4 0 s. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from Duke University Libraries https://archive.org/details/humanharvest01jord PREFATORY NOTE F | ^HIS little book contains the substance of two essays on the same subject , the one originally delivered in Stanford Univer- sity in l8gg, and reprinted by the Ameri- can Unitarian Association with the title of “The Blood of the Nation,” the other read at Philadelphia in igo6, at the two hund- redth anniversary of the birth of Benjamin Franklin, with the title, “The Human Harvest.” This was printed in the Pro- ceedings of the American Philosophical So- ciety. D. S. J. Stanford University, California T T OW long will the Republic endure ? So 1 long as the ideas of its founders remain dominant. How long will these ideas remain dominant ? Just so long as the blood of its foun- ders remains dominant in the blood of its people. Not the blood of Puritans and Virginians alone , the original creators of free states, but the blood of free-born men, be they Greek, Roman, Frank, Saxon , Norman, Dane, Celt , Scot, Goth or Sa- murai. It is a free stock that creates a free na- tion. Our Republic shall endure so long as the human harvest is good, so long as the movement of history , the progress of science and industry , leaves for the future the best and not the worst of each generation. TABLE OF CONTENTS The Human Harvest PAGE i3 A Dream of Fair Horses x 3 A Dream of Swift Horses 1 9 The Story of the Vires 21 Reversal of Selection in Rome 24 Rise of the Mob in Rome 2 5 Words of Franklin 27 W ords of Otto Seeck 28 The Fall of Rome 29 Vir and Homo 3 1 History Repeats Itself 35 The Field of Novara 3 6 A French Cartoon 38 Blood determines History 39 History determines Blood 41 Men and Beasts under the same Laws 42 Selective Breeding 44 Meaning of Progress 45 Illustrations from France 46 Heredity repeats what she finds 5° The Man of the Hoe 5 1 The Sifting of Men in France 53 The Nobles and the Peasantry 54 Effects of Primogeniture 56 [7] Contents Reversed Selection in the Reign of T error 58 The Chronicle of the Drum 59 Reversed Selection through Repression and Intolerance 60 Reversed Selection through Monasticism Reversed Selection through Abuse of 6 1 Charity 62 Saved from the Army 6 5 Alcoholism in Race-Selection Reversed Selection through the Rush to 66 Cities 69 Reversed Selection through War 70 Wiertz's Painting of Napoleon 7 i Napoleon s Campaigns 72 The Fall of Greece 7 6 The Case of Germany 77 Effects of Emigration What does he know of England , who only 78 England knows ? 80 The Case of Switzerland 80 The Case of Spain 82 The Greatness of Japan 83 What of England ? 85 “ There' s a Widow in Sleepy Chester ” 86 Testimony of Kipling 88 [8] “ The Widow at Windsor " 89 The Revelry of the Dying 90 Contents The Band in the Pine-Wood 9 1 The Song of the Dead 92 Ave Imperatrix 93 Tommy Atkins 99 The Survival of the Fittest in W ar ? 101 What of America ? 102 Significance of“ Sons of the Revolution ” 103 War sometimes inevitable 104 Brownell's Roll of Honor 106 The Phantom Army 1 12 How long will the Republic endure ? JI 5 Like the Seed is the Harvest 11 6 War as a Source of National Strength 117 War one Influence among Many 118 Advantages of Civil War 120 The best Political Economy 121 [ 9 ] T he HUMAN HARVEST WAS BAD ! ” Thus the historian sums up the conditions in Rome in the days of the good emperor Marcus Aurelius. By this he meant that while population and wealth were increasing, manhood had failed. There were men enough in the streets of Rome, men enough in the camps, men enough in the menial labor or in no labor at all, but of good soldiers there were too few. “Vir had given place to homo,” Roman men to mere human beings. For the business of the state, which in those days was mainly war, the men were inadequate. In the recognition of this condition we touch the overshadowing fact in the history of Europe, the effect of military selection on the breed of men. This lesson, in such fashion as I may, I shall try to set forth in these pages. In beginning this discussion I must bring forward certain fragments of history, stories told because they are true, and one parable not true, but told for the lesson it teaches. And this is the first : Once there was a man, strong, wealthy and patient, who dreamed The Human Harvest A Dream of fair Horses [n] The Human Harvest of a finer type of horse than had ever yet existed. This horse should be handsome, clean-limbed, intelligent, docile, strong and swift. These traits were to be not those of one horse alone, a member of a favored equine aristocracy, they were to be “ bred in the bone ” so that they would continue from generation to generation the attributes of a special common type of horse. And with this dream ever before his waking eves, he invoked for his aid the four twin genii of organic life, the four by which all the magic of transformism of species has been accom- plished either in nature or in art. And these forces once in his service, he left to their con- trol all the plans included in his great am- bition. These four genii or fates are not strangers to us, nor were they new to the human race. Being so great and so strong, they are invisible to all save those who seek them. Men who deal with them after the fashion of science give them commonplace names, — variation, heredity, segregation, selection. M Because not all horses are alike, because in fact no two were ever quite the same, the first appeal was made to the genius of Vari- ation. Looking over the world of horses, he found to his hand Kentucky race-horses, clean-limbed, handsome and fleet, some more so and others less. So those which had the most of the virtues of the horse which was to be were chosen to be blended in new creation. Then again, he found English thoroughbred horses, selected stock of Ara- bian ancestry, hardy and strong and intel- ligent. These virtues were needed in the production of the perfect horse. And here came the need of the second genius, who is called Heredity. With the crossing of the racer with the thoroughbred, all qualities of both were blended in the progeny. The next generation partook of all desirable traits and again of undesirable ones as well, some the one, and some the other, for sire and dam alike had given the stamp of its own kind and for the most part in equal degree. But again never in a degree quite equal, and in some measure these matters varied with each sire and each dam, and with each colt of all their progeny. It was found that the pro- geny of the mare called Beautiful Bells ex- The Human Harvest [* 5 ] The Human Harvest celled all others in retaining all that was good in fine horses, and in rejecting all that a no- ble horse should not have. And like virtues were attached to the sires called Palo Alto, Electricity and Electioneer. But there were horses and horses; horses not of the chosen breed, and should these enter the fold with their common blood it would endanger all that had been already accomplished. For the ideal horse mating with the common horse controls at the best but half the traits of the progeny. If the strain were to be established, the vulgar horseflesh must be kept away, and only the best remain in association with the best. Thus Segregation, the third of the genii, was called into service lest the successes of this herd be lost in the failure of some other. [ 1 6 ] Under the spell of Heredity all the horses partook of the charm of Beautiful Bells and of Electricity and of Palo Alto, for firmly and persistently all others were banished from their presence. There were some who were not strong, some who were not sleek, some who were not fleet, some who were not clean-limbed, nor docile, nor intelligent. At least they were not so to the degree which the dream of fair horses demanded. By the force of Selection, all such were sent away. Variation was always at work making one colt unlike another; Heredity made each colt a blend or mosaic of traits of sire and of grandsires and granddams ; Selection left only good traits to form this mosaic, and the grandsire and granddam, sire and dam, and the rest of the ancestry lived their lives again in the expanding circle of descent. Thus, in the final result, the horses who were left were the horses of their owner’s dream. The future of the breed was fixed, and fixed at the beginning by the very fram- ing of the conditions under which it lived. It is variation which gives better as well as worse. It is heredity which saves all that has been attained — for better or for worse. It is selection by which better triumphs over worse, anditis segregation which protects the final result from falling again into the grasp of the general average. In all this, selection is the vital, moving, changing force. It throws the shaping of the future on the in- dividual chosen by the present. The horse The Human Harvest [ 17 ] The Human Harvest [18] who is left marks the future of his kind. The history of the steed is an elongation of the history of those who are chosen for parent- age. And with the best of the best chosen for parentage, the best of the best appears in the progeny. The horse-harvest is good in each generation. As the seed we sow, so shall we reap. And this story is true, known to thousands of men. And it will be true again just as often as men may try to carry it into experi- ment. Anditwill betrue not of horses alone, for the four fates which guide and guard life have no partiality for horses, but work just as persistently for cattle or sheep, or plums or roses, or calla or cactus, as they do for horses or for men. From the very begin- ning of life they have wrought untiringly — and in your life and in mine — in the grass of the field, the trees of the forest — in bird and beast, everywhere we find the traces of their energy. And this brings me to my second story, which is not true as history, but only in its way as parable, forever trying to become true. There was once a man — strenuous no doubt, but not wise, for he did not give heed to the real nature of things, and so he set himself to do by his own unaided hand the work which only the genii can accomplish. And thisman possessed alsoastudof horses. They were docile, clean-limbed, fleet, and strong, and he would make them still more strong and fleet. So he rode them swiftly with all his might, day and night, always on the course, always pushed to the utmost, leaving only the dull and sluggish to remain in the stalls. For it was his dream to fill these horses with the spirit of action, with the glory of swift motion, that this glory might be carried on and on to the last gen- eration of horses. There were some who could not keep the pace, and to these and these alone he assigned the burden of bear- ing colts. And the feeble and the broken, the dull of wit, the coarse of limb, became each year the mothers of the colts. The horses who were chosen for the race-course he trained with every care, and every stroke of discipline showed itself in the flashing eyes and straining muscles, — such were the best The Human Harvest A Dream of swift horses C J 9] The Human Harvest horses. But the other horses were the horses who were left. From their loins came the next generation, and with these there was less fire and less speed than the first horses pos- sessed in such large measure. But still the rush went on — whip and spur made good the lack of native movement. The racers still pushed on the course, while in the stalls and paddocks at home the dull and com- mon horses bore their dull and common colts. Variation was still at work with these as patiently as ever. Heredity followed, re- peating faithfully whatever was left to her. Segregation, always conservative, guarded her own, but could not make good the de- ficiencies. Selection, forced to act perversely, chose for the future the worst and not the best, as was her usual fashion. So the cur- rent of life ran steadily downward. The herd was degenerating because it was each year an inferior herd which bred. Each gen- eration yielded weaker colts, rougher, duller, clumsier colts, and no amount of training or lash or whip or spur made any perma- nent difference for the better. The horse- [20] harvest was had. Thoroughbred and race- horse gave place to common beasts, for in the removal of the noble the ignoble always finds its opportunity. It is always the horse that remains which determines the future of the stud. In like fashion from the man who is left flows the current of human history. This tale then is a parable, a story of what never was, but which is always trying to be- come true. Once there was a great king — and the na- tion overwhich he bore rule lay on the flanks of a mountain range, spreading across fair hills and valleys green and fertile across to the Mediterranean Sea. And the men of his race, fair and strong, self-reliant and self- confident, men of courage and men of ac- tion, were men “who knew no want they could not fill for themselves.” They knew none on whom they looked down, and none to whom they regarded themselves inferior. And for all things which men could accom- plish these plowmen of the Tiber and the Apennines felt themselves fully competent and adequate. Vir, they called themselves in their own tongue, and virile , virilis , men The Human Harvest The Story of the Vires [ 21 ] The Human Harvest like them are called to this day. It was the weakling and the slave who was crowded to the wall ; the man of courage begat descend- ants. In each generation and from genera- tion to generation the human harvest was good. And the great wise king who ruled them ; but here my story halts — for there was no king. There could be none. For it was written, men fit to be called men, men who are vires , “ are too self-willed, too inde- pendent, and too self-centred to be ruled by anybody but themselves.” Kings are for weaklings, not for men. Men free-born con- trol their own destinies. “ The fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings.” For it was later said of these same days : “There was a Brutus once, who would have brooked the Eternal Devil to take his seat in Rome, as easily as a king.” And so there was no king to cherish and con- trol these men his subjects. The spirit of freedom was the only ruler they knew, and this spirit being herself metaphoric, called to her aid the four great genii which create and recreate nations. Variation was ever at [22] work, while heredity held fast all that she developed. Segregation in her mountain The fastnesses held the world away, and selec- Human tionchose the best andfor thebestpurposes, Harvest casting aside the weakling and the slave, holding the man for the man’s work; and ever the man’s work was at home, building the cities, subduing the forests, draining the marshes, adjusting the customs and statutes, preparing for the new generations. So the men begat sons of men after their own fash- ion, and the men of strength and courage were ever dominant. The Spirit of Freedom was a wise master, cares wisely for all that he controls. So in the early days, when Romans were men, when Rome was small, without glory, without riches, without colonies and with- out slaves, these were the days of Roman greatness. Then the Spirit of Freedom little by little gave way to the Spirit of Domination. Con- scious of power, men sought to exercise it, not on themselves but on one another. Lit- tie by little this meant banding together, aggression, suppression, plunder, struggle, glory, and all that goes with the pomp and [ 2 3] The Human Harvest circumstance of war. The individuality of men was lost in the aggrandizement of the few. Independence was swallowed up in ambition, patriotism came to have a new meaning. It was transferred from the hearth and home to the trail of the army. Reversal of selec- tion in Rome It does not matter to us now what were the details of the subsequent history of Rome. W e have now to consider only a sin- gle factor. In science this factor is known as “reversal of selection.” “ Send forth the best ye breed ! ” That was the word of the Roman war-call. And the spirit of Domi- nation took these words literally, and the best were sent forth. In the conquests of Rome, Vir , the real man, went forth to battle and to the work of foreign invasion; Homo , the human being, remained in the farm and the workshop and begat the new genera- tions. Thus “Vir gave place to Homo.” The sons of real men gave place to the sons of scullions, stable-boys, slaves, camp-fol- lowers, and the riff-raff of those the great, victorious army cannot use but does not exclude. C^4] The fall of Rome was not due to luxury, effeminacy, corruption, the wickedness of Nero and Caligula, the weakness of the train of Constantine’s worthless descend- ants. It was fixed at Philippi, when the spirit of domination was victorious over the spirit of freedom. It was fixed still earlier, in the rise of consuls and triumvirates and the fall of the simple, sturdy, self-sufficient race who would brook no arbitrary ruler. When the real men fell in war, or were left in far-away colonies, the life of Rome still went on. But it was a different type of Roman which con- tinued it, and this new type repeated in Ro- man history its weakling parentage. Thus we read in Roman history the rise of the mob and of the emperor who is the mob’s exponent. It is not the presence of the emperor which makes imperialism. It is the absence of the people, the want of men. Babies in their day have been emperors. A wooden image would serve the same pur- pose. More than once it has served it. The decline of a people can have but one cause, — the decline in the type from which it draws its sires. A herd of cattle can degenerate in no other way than this, and a race of men The Human Harvest Rise of the mob in Rome [ 25 ] The Human Harvest is under the same laws. By the rise in abso- lute power, as a sort of historical barometer, we may mark the decline in the breed of the people. We see this in the history of Rome. The conditional power of Julius Caesar, resting on his own tremendous per- sonality, showed that the days were past of Cincinnatus and of Junius Brutus. The power of Augustus showed the same. But the decline went on. It is written that “the little finger of Constantine was thicker than the loins of Augustus.” The emperor in the time of Claudius and Caligula was not the strong man who held in check all lesser men and organizations. He was the creature of the mob; and the mob, intoxicated with its own work, worshipped him as divine. Doubtless the last emperor, Augustulus Romulus, before he was thrown into the scrap-heap of history, was regarded in the mob’s eyes and his own as the most super- human of them all. [ 26 ] What have the historians to say of these matters ? Very few have grasped the full sig- nificance of their own words, for very few have looked on men as organisms, and on nations as dependent on the specific char- acter of the organisms destined for their re- production. So far as the writer knows, the first one to think of man thus as “an inhabitant,” a species in nature among other species and dependent on nature’s forces as other ani- mals and other inhabitants must be, was Benjamin Franklin. “All war is bad,” said he, “some wars worse than others.” Then, once again, in more explicit terms, referring to the dark shadow of war cast over scenes of peace, the evil of the standing army, Franklin said to Baynes : “ If one power singly were to reduce its standing army it would be instantly over- run by other nations. Yet I think there is one effect of a standing army which must in time be felt so as to bring about the ab- olition of the system. A standing army not only diminishes the population of a coun- try, but even the size and breed of the hu- man species. For an army is the flower of the nation. All the most vigorous, stout, and well-made men in a kingdom are to be The Human Harvest Words of Franklin 07 ] The Human Harvest found in the army, and these men in gen- eral cannot marry.” 1 What is true of standing armies is far more true of armies that fight and fall ; for, as Franklin said again, “Wars are not paid for in war times : the bill comes later.” For “in all times,” as Novicow observes, “war must reverse the process of selection.” 2 Similar observations as to the effects of Views of Otto Seeck military selection are recorded by Herbert Spencer. In his great history of “The Downfall of the Ancient World” (Der Untergang der antiken Welt), Professor Otto Seeck, of the University of Greifeswald, finds this down- fall due solely to the rooting out of the best (“die Ausrottung der Besten”). The his- torian of the “ Decline and Fall of the Ro- man Empire,” or any other empire, is en- gaged solely with the details of the process by which the best men are exterminated. Speaking of Greece, Dr. Seeck says, “A wealth of force of spirit went down in the [28] 1 Parton’s “ Life of Franklin,” II, p. 572. 2 La guerre a produit de tout temps une selection a rebours” (Novicow). suicidal wars.” “In Rome, Marius and Cinna slew the aristocrats by hundreds and thousands. Sulla destroyed the democrats, and not less thoroughly. Whatever of strong blood survived, fell as an offering to the proscription of the Triumvirate.” “The Romans had less of spontaneous force to lose than the Greeks. Thus desolation came to them sooner. Whoever was bold enough to rise politically in Rome was almost with- out exception thrown to the ground. Only cowards remained , and from their brood came forward the new generations. Cowardice showed itself in lack of originality and in slavish following of masters and traditions.” The Romans of the Republic could not have made the history of the Roman Em- pire. In their hands it would have been still a republic. Could they have held aloof from world-conquering schemes, Rome might have remained a republic, enduring even to ourown day. The seeds of destruction lie not in the race nor in the form of government, nor in ambition, nor in wealth, nor in luxury, but in the influences by which the best men are cut off from the work of parenthood. The Human Harvest The fall of Rome [ 2 9 ] The Human Harvest “The Roman Empire,” says Seeley, “per- ished for want of men.” Even Julius Caesar notes the dire scarcity of men (Beivrjv oXi- 'yavdpoTriav). And at the same time it is noted that there are men enough. Rome was filling up like an overflowing marsh. Men of a certain type were plenty, “ people with guano in their composition,” to use Emerson’s striking phrase, but the self- reliant farmers, “ the hardy dwellers on the flanks of the Apennines,” the Roman men of the early Roman days, these were fast going, and with the change in the breed came the change in Roman history. “ The mainspring of the Roman army for centuries had been the patient strength and courage, capacity for enduring hardships, in- stinctive submission to military discipline of the population that lined the Apennines.” With the Antonines came “a period of sterility and barrenness in human beings.” “ The human harvest was bad." Bounties [30] were offered for marriage. Penalties were devised against race-suicide. “ Marriage,” says Metellus, “is a duty which, however painful, every citizen ought manfully to dis- charge.” Wars were conducted in the face of a declining birth-rate, and this decline in quality and quantity of the human harvest engaged very early the attention of the wise men of Rome. “ The effect of the wars was that the ranks of the small farmers were decimated, while the number of slaves who did not serve in the army multiplied ” (Bury). Thus “Vir gave place to Homo” real men to mere human beings. There were always men enough such as they were. “A hen- coop will be filled, whatever the (original) number of hens,” said Benjamin Franklin. And thus the mob filled Rome. No won- der the mob-leader, the mob-hero rose in relative importance. No wonder that “/£> eyes. This too we may admit, that war is not the only destructive agency in modern so- ciety, and that in the struggle for existence the England of to-day has had many advan- tages which must hide or neutralize the waste of war. In default of facts unquestioned, we may appeal to the poets, letting their testimony as to the reversal of selection stand for what it is worth. Testimony of Kipling Rudyard Kipling is the poet of imperial- ism ; and as to the cost of it all, we may well heed his testimony. This he says of the rule of the sea : — [88] We have fed our sea for a thousand years, And she calls us, still unfed; Though there’s never a wave of all her waves But marks our English dead. We’ve strawed our best to the waves’ unrest, To the shark and the sheering gull. If blood be the price of Admiralty, Lord God, we ha’ paid it in full! There’s never a flood goes shoreward now But lifts some keel we have manned; There’s never an ebb* goes seaward now But drops our dead on the sand, But slinks our dead on the sands forlore, From the Ducies to the Swin, If blood be the price of Admiralty, Lord God, we ha’ paid it in! We must feed our sea for a thousand years, For that is our doom and pride, As it was when they sailed with the Golden Hind Or the wreck that struck last tide; Or the wreck that lies on the spouting reef When the ghastly blue-lights flare: If blood be the price of Admiralty, Lord God, we ha’ bought it fair! Again, referring to dominion on land, Kip- ling warns the British soldier: — Walk wide o’ the widow at Windsor, For ’alf o’ creation she owns: We ’ave bought ’er the same with the sword an’ the flame, An’ we’ve salted it down with our bones. (Poor beggars! — it’s blue with our bones!) The Human Harvest The Widow at Windsor [ 89 ] The Human Harvest Older and more intense is “The Revelry of the Dying ” of Bartholomew Dowling, — a bit of burning verse which was sung at the banquet of death in which Dowling himself was one of the first that died : — The Revelry of the Dying We have met ’neath the sounding rafter, But the walls around are bare: They ring to our peals of laughter, But we know that the dead are there. So stand to your glasses steady, We drink to our comrades’ eyes: Here’s a cup to the dead already, And huzza for the next that dies! There’s a mist in the glass congealing, — ’Tis the hurricane’s fiery breath; And ’tis thus that the warmth of feeling Turns cold in the grasp of death. [90] Cut off from the land that bore us, Betrayed by the land we find, When the brightest are gone before us, And the dullest are left behind. So stand to your glasses steady, Tho’ a moment the color flies; Here’s a cup to the dead already, And huzza for the next that dies! In the same vein is the dirge sung in Lee’s Army in Virginia when General Pelham died: — The Human Harvest Oh, band in the pine-wood, cease! Cease with your splendid call! The living were brave and noble, The dead were bravest of all! They throng to the martial summons, To the loud triumphant strain, And the dear bright eyes of long-dead friends Come to the heart again. They come with the ringing bugle And the deep drum’s mellow roar, Till the soul is faint with longing For the hands we clasp no more! Oh, band in the pine-woods, cease! Or the heart will melt in tears, For the gallant eyes and the smiling lips And the voices of old years! Through all this we have the same refrain, the minor chord of victory, the hidden lesson of war. The Band in the Pine- Wood 1 By John Esten Cooke. [91] The Human Harvest The brightest are gone before us , The dullest are left behind. The living are brave and noble , The dead were bravest of all ! The kindly seasons love us, They smile over trench and clod; Where we left the bravest of us There’s a deeper green of the sod. The Song of the Dead Once more Kipling: — Hear now the Song of the Dead in the North by the torn berg-edges: They that look still to the pole asleep by their hide-stripped sledges. Song of the Dead in the South, in the sun by their skeleton horses, When the warrigal whimpers and bays through the dust of the sere river-courses. [92] Song of the Dead in the East, in the heat- rotted jungle hollows, When the dog-ape barks in the kloof, in the brake of the buffalo-wallows. Song of the Dead in the West, in the barrens, The the waste that betrayed them, Human When the wolverene tumbles their packs from Harvest the camp and the grave-mound they made them. And these lines of Mrs. Browning : — Dead, one of them dead by the sea in the East, And one of them dead in the West by the sea ; Dead both of my boys, and ye sit at your feast, And you want a new song for your Italy free, — Let none look at me ! In the stately “Ave Imperatrix” of Oscar Ave Wilde there are very noble lines which ought Impera- trix not to be forgotten, whatever our feeling to- ward the wretched life of their author : — Set in this stormy northern sea, Queen of these restless fields of tide, England! what shall men say of thee , Before whose feet the worlds divide? The earth, a brittle globe of glass, Lies in the hollow of thy hand, And through its heart of crystal pass, Like shadows through a twilight land, [93] The Human Harvest The spears of crimson-suited war, The long white-crested waves of light, And all the deadly fires which are The torches of the lords of Night. The yellow leopards, strained and lean, The treacherous Russian knows so well, With gaping, blackened jaws are seen Leap through the hail of screaming shell. The strong sea-lion of England’s wars Hath left his sapphire cave of sea, To battle with the storm that mars The star of England’s chivalry. The brazen-throated clarion blows Across the Pathan’s reedy fen, And the high steeps of Indian snows Shake to the tread of armed men. And many an Afghan chief, who lies Beneath his cool pomegranate-trees, Clutches his sword in fierce surmise When on the mountain-side he sees [94] The fleet-footed Marri scout, who comes To tell how he hath heard afar The measured roll of English drums Beat at the gates of Kandahar. For southern wind and east wind meet Where, girt and crowned by sword and fire, England with bare and bloody feet Climbs the steep road of wide empire. O lonely Himalayan height, Gray pillar of the Indian sky, Where sawest thou in clanging fight Our winged dogs of Victory? The almond groves of Samarcand, Bokhara, where red lilies blow, And Oxus, by whose yellow sand The grave white-turbaned merchants go: And on from thence to Ispahan, The gilded garden of the sun, Whence the long dusty caravan Brings cedar and vermilion; And that dread city of Cabool, Set at the mountain’s scarped feet, Whose marble tanks are ever full With water for the noonday heat; The Human Harvest Where through the narrow straight Bazaar A little maid Circassian Is led, a present from the Czar Unto some old and bearded khan — [95] The Human Harvest Here have our wild war-eagles flown, And flapped wide wings in fiery fight; But the sad dove, that sits alone In England — she hath no delight. In vain the laughing girl will lean To greet her love with love-lit eyes; Down in some treacherous black ravine, Clutching his flag, the dead boy lies. And many a moon and sun will see The lingering wistful children wait To climb upon their father’s knee; And in each house made desolate, Pale women who have lost their lord Will kiss the relics of the slain — Some tarnished epaulet — some sword — Poor toys to soothe such anguished pain. For not in quiet English fields Are these, our brothers, lain to rest, Where we might deck their broken shields With all the flowers the dead love best. [96] For some are by the Delhi walls, And many in the Afghan land, And many where the Ganges falls Through seven mouths of shifting sand. And some in Russian waters lie, And others in the seas which are The portals to the East, or by The wind-swept heights of Trafalgar. O wandering graves! O restless sleep! O silence of the sunless day! O still ravine! O stormy deep! Give up your prey! Give up your prey! And t-hou whose wounds are never healed, Whose weary race is never won, O Cromwell’s England! must thou yield For every inch of ground a son? The Human Harvest Go! crownwith thorns thy gold-crownedhead, Change thy glad song to song of pain; Wind and wild wave have got thy dead, And will not yield them back again. Wave and wild wind and foreign shore Possess the flower of English land — Lips that thy lips shall kiss no more, Hands that shall never clasp thy hand. What profit now that we have bound The whole round world with nets of gold, If hidden in our heart is found The care that groweth never old? [ 97 ] The Human Harvest What profit that our galleys ride, Pine-forest-like, on every main? Ruin and wreck are at our side , Grim warders of the House of Pain. Where are the brave , the strong , the fleet? Where is our English chivalry? Wild grasses are their burial-sheet, And sobbing waves their threnody. O loved ones lying far away, What word of love can dead lips send! O wasted dust! O senseless clay! Is this the end! is this the end! Peace, peace! we wrong the noble dead To vex their solemn slumber so: Though childless , and with thorn-crowned head , Up the steep road must England go. Yet when this fiery web is spun, Her watchmen shall decry from far The young Republic like a sun Rise from these crimson seas of war. [98] We have here the same motive, the same lesson, which Byron applies to Rome : — The Niobe of Nations — there she stands, Crownless and childless in her voiceless woe, An empty urn within her withered hands, Whose sacred dust was scattered long ago! The Human Harvest It suggests the inevitable end of all em- pire, of all dominion of man over man by force of arms. More than all who fall in bat- tle or are wasted in the camps, the nation misses the “fair women and brave men” who should have been the descendants of the strong and the manly. If we may per- sonify the spirit of the nation, it grieves most not over its “unreturning brave,” but over those who might have been, but never were, and who, so long as history lasts, can never be. Against this view is urged the statement that the soldier is not the best, but the 'Tommy Atkins worst, product of the blood of the English nation. Tommy Atkins comes from the streets, the wharves, the graduate of the London slums, and if the empire is “blue with his bones,” it is, after all, to the gain of England that her better blood is saved for home consumption, and that, as matters are, the wars of England make no real drain of English blood. [99] The Human Harvest In so far as this is true, of course the pres- ent argument fails. If war in England is a means of race improvement, the lesson I would read does not apply to her. If Eng- land’s best do not fall on the field of battle, then we may not accuse war of their de- struction. The fact could be shown by statistics. If the men who have fallen in England’s wars, officers and soldiers, rank and file, are not on the whole fairly repre- sentative of “the flower of England’s chiv- alry,” then fame has been singularly given to deception. We have been told that the glories of Blenheim, Trafalgar, Waterloo, Majuba Elill, werewon by real Englishmen. And this, in fact, is the truth. In every na- tion of Europe the men chosen for the army are above the average of their fellows. The absolute best doubtless they are not, but still less are they the worst. Doubtless, too, physical excellence is more considered than moral or mental strength; and certainly, again, the more noble the cause, the more worthy the class of men who will risk their lives for it. [100] Not to confuse the point by modern in- stances, it is doubtless true that better men fell on both sides when “Kentish Sir Byng stood for the King” than when the British arms forced the opium trade on China. No doubt, in our own country better men fell at Bunker Hill or Gettysburg than atCerro Gordo or Chapultepec. The lofty cause de- mands the lofty sacrifice. It is the shame of England that most of her many wars in our day have cost her very little. They havebeenscrambles of the mob or with the mob, not triumphs of democ- The Human Harvest racy. There was once a time when the struggles of armies resulted in a survival of the fit- test, when the race was indeed to the swift and the battle the strong. The invention of “villainous gunpowder” has changed all this. Except the kind of warfare called guerilla, the quality of the individual has ceased to be much of a factor. The clown can shoot down the hero, and, in the words of Charles F. Lummis,he “doesn’t have to look the hero in the face while he shoots.” The Sur- vival of the fittest in vuar The shell destroys the clown and hero alike, and the machine-gun mows down [ ioi ] The Human Harvest What of America ? [ 102 ] whole ranks impartially. There is little play for selection in modern war save what is shown in the process of enlistment. America has grown strong with the strength of peace, the spirit of democracy. Her wars have been few. Were it not for the mob spirit, they would have been still fewer; but in most of them she could not choose but fight. Volunteer soldiers have swelled her armies, men who went forth of their own free will, knowing whither they were going, believing their acts to be right, and taking patiently whatever the fates might hold in store. The feeling for the righteousness of the cause, “with the flavor of religion in it,” says Charles Ferguson, “has made the vol- unteer the mighty soldier he has always been since the days of Naseby and Marston Moor.” Only with volunteer soldiers can democracy go into war. When America fights with professional troops, she will be no longer America. We shall then be, with the rest of the militant world, under mob rule. “It is the mission of democracy,” says Ferguson again, “to put down the rule of the mob. In monarchies and aristocracies it is the mob that rules. It is puerile to sup- pose that kingdoms are made by kings. The king could do nothing if the mob did not throw up its cap when the king rides by. The king is consented to by the mob be- cause of that which in him is mob-like. The mob loves glory and prizes. So does the king. If he loved beauty and justice, the mob would shout for him while the fine words were sounding in the air; but he could never celebrate a jubilee or establish a dynasty. When the crowd gets ready to demand justice and beauty, it becomes a democracy, and has done with kings.” It was at Lexington that “the embattled farmers” “fired the shot heard round the world.” To them life was of less value than a principle, the principle written by Crom- well on the statute-book of Parliament: “All just powers under God are derived from the consent of the people.” Since the war of the Revolution many patriotic soci- eties have arisen in the United States. These may be typified by the association of the “Sons of the Revolution,” and of the The Human Harvest Signifi- cance of “ Sons of the Revo- lution ’ ’ [ 1 ° 3 ] The Human Harvest “Sons of American Wars,” societies which find their inspiration in the personal descent of their members from those who fought for American independence. The assumption, well justified by facts, is that revolutionary fathers were a superior type of men, and that to have had such names in our person- al ancestry is of itself a cause for thinking more highly of ourselves. In our little pri- vate round of peaceful duties we feel that we might have wrought the deeds of Put- nam and Allen, of Marion and Greene, of our Revolutionary ancestors, whoever they may have been. But if those who survived were nobler than the mass, so also were those who fell. If we go over the record of brave men and wise women whose fathers War sometimes inevitable [ 1 ° 4 ] fought at Lexington, we must think also of the men and women who shall never be, whose right to exist was cut short at this same battle. It is a costly thing to kill off men, for in men alone and the sons of men can national greatness consist. Butsometimes there is no other alternative. War is sometimes inevitable. It is some- times necessary, sometimes even righteous. It happened once in our history that for “every drop of blood drawn by the lash an- other must be drawn by the sword.” It cost us six hundred and fifty thousand lives to get rid of slavery. And this number, almost a million, North and South, was the “best that the nation could bring.” North and South, the nation was impoverished by the loss. The gaps they left are filled to all appearance. There are relatively few of us left to-day in whose hearts the scars of forty years ago are still unhealing. But a new generation has grown up of men and women born since thewar. They have taken the nation’s prob- lems into their hands, but theirs are hands not so strong or so clean as though the men that are stood shoulder to shoulder with the men that might have been. The men that died in “the weary time” had better stuff in them than the father of the average man of to-day. Those stateswhich lostmostof theirstrong young blood, as Virginia and South Caro- lina, will not recover forcenturies — perhaps never! Read again Brownell’s rhymed roll of hon- The Human Harvest [105] The Human Harvest or, and we shall see its deeper meaning: — Of little the storm has reft us Bronxi- neW s “Roll of Honor ’ But the brave and kindly clay, (’Tis but dust where Lander left us, And but turf where Lyon lay). There’s Winthrop, true to the end, And Ellsworth of long ago, (First fair young head laid low!) There’s Baker, the firm, staunch friend, And Douglas, the friendly foe: (Baker, that still stood up When ’twas death on either hand: “ ’Tis a soldier’s part to stoop, But the Senator must stand.”) The heroes gather and form: There’s Cameron, with his scars, Sedgwick, of siege and storm, And Mitchell, that joined his stars. Winthrop, of sword and pen, Wadsworth, with silver hair, Mansfield, ruler of men, And brave McPherson are there. [106] Birney, who led so long, Abbott, born to command, Elliott the bold, and Strong, Who fell on the hard-fought strand. The Human Harvest Lytle, soldier and bard, And the Ellets, sire and son, Ransom, all grandly scarred. And Redfield, no more on guard, (But Alatoona is won!) Reno, of pure desert, Kearney, with heart of flame, And Russell, that hid his hurt Till the final death-bolt came. Terrill, dead where he fought, Wallace, that would not yield, And Sumner, who vainly sought A grave on the foughten field, (But died ere the end he saw, With years and battles outworn). There’s Harmon of Kenesaw, And Ulric Dahlgren, and Shaw, 1 That slept with his Hope Forlorn. 1 Compare John Hay’s reference to Colonel Shaw : — With an eye like a Boston girl’s ; And I saw the light of heaven that shone In Ulrich Dahlgren’s curls ! [t°7] The Human Harvest Bayard, that knew not fear (True as the knight of yore), And Putnam, and Paul Revere, Worthy the names they bore. Allen, who died for others, Bryan, of gentle fame, And the brave New-England brothers That have left us Lowell’s name. Home, at last, from the wars, — Stedman, the staunch and mild, And Janeway, our hero-child, Home, with his fifteen scars! There’s Porter, ever in front, True son of a sea-king sire, And Christian Foote, and Dupont (Dupont, who led his ships Rounding the first Ellipse Of thunder and of fire). There’s Ward, with his brave death-wounds, And Cummings, of spotless name, And Smith, who hurtled his rounds When deck and hatch were aflame; C Io8 l Wain wright, steadfast and true, Rodgers, of brave sea-blood, And Craven, with ship and crew Sunk in the salt sea-flood. And, a little later to part, Our Captain, loved and dear — (Did we deem thee, then, austere ? Drayton! — O pure and kindly heart! Thine is the seaman’s tear). All such, — and many another (Ah, list how long to name!) That stood like brother by brother, And died on the field of fame. (But, a little from the rest, With sad eyes looking down, And brows of softened frown, With stern arms on the chest, Are two, standing abreast, — Stonewall and Old John Brown). But the stainless and the true, These by their President stand, To look on his last review, Or march with the old command. And lo, from a thousand fields, From all the old battle-haunts, A greater Army than Sherman wields, A grander Review than Grant’s ! The Human Harvest [x°9] The Human Harvest Gathered home from the grave, Risen from sun and rain, — Rescued from wind and wave, Out of the stormy main, — The Legions of our Brave Are all in their lines again! Many a stout corps that went Full-ranked from camp and tent, And brought back a brigade; Many a brave regiment, That mustered only a squad. The lost battalions That, when the fight went wrong, Stood and died at their guns, — The stormers steady and strong. With their best blood that bought Scarp and ravelin and wall — The companies that fought Till a corporal’s guard was all. [no] Many a valiant crew That passed in battle wreck, Ah, so faithful and true ! They died on the bloody deck, They sank in the soundless blue. The shattered wreck we hurried, In death-fight, from deck and port, — The blacks that Wagner buried, That died in the Bloody Fort! Comrades of camp and mess, Left, as they lay, to die, In the battle’s sorest stress, When the storm of fight swept by: They lay in the Wilderness — Ah, where did they not lie ? In the tangled swamp they lay, They lay so still on the sward ! — They rolled in the sick-bay, Moaning their lives away; — They flushed in the fevered ward. But the old wounds are all healed, And the dungeoned limbs are free, — The Blue Frocks rise from the field, The Blue Jackets out of the sea. O tenderer green than May The Eternal Season wears, — The blue of our summer’s day Is dim and pallid to theirs, — The Horror faded away, And ’twas heaven all unawares ! 1 The Human Harvest '“Abraham Lincoln,” by Henry Howard Brownell. [in] 1 The Human Harvest In the same vein Bret Harte tells us of the phantom “ Last Review of the Grand Army of the Republic”: — The Phantom Army I saw a phantom army come With never a sound of fife or drum, But keeping time to a throbbing hum Of wailing and lamentation. The martyred heroes of Malvern Hill, Of Gettysburg and of Chancellorsville, The men whose wasted figures fill The patriot graves of the nation. And then came the nameless dead, the men Who perished in fever-swamp and fen, The slowly starved of the prison-pen ; And, marching beside the others, Came the dusky martyrs of Pillow’s fight, With limbs enfranchised and beaming bright ; I thought — but perhaps ’twas the pale moon- light — They looked as white as their brothers ! [II2] And so all night marched the nation’s dead, With never a banner above them spread, Nor a badge nor a motto brandished : No mark save the bare uncovered head Of the silent bronze Reviewer. With never an arch save the vaulted sky, With never a flower save those that lie On the distant graves — for love could buy No gift that was purer or truer. “ The remnant just eleven ; The bayonets one thousand were And the swords were thirty-seven.” All the names that history has saved from the Civil War, as from any other war, are in the list of the officers. But no less worthy were the men in the ranks. It is the para- dox of democracy that its greatness is less in the ranks. “Are all the common ones so grand, and all the titled ones so mean ?” 1 North or South, it was the same. “Send forth the best ye breed” was the call on both sides alike, and to this call both sides alike responded. As it will take “centuries of peace and prosperity to make good the tall statures mowed down in the Napoleonic 1 Is there never one in all the land. One on whose might the cause may lean? Are all the common ones so grand And all the titled ones so mean?” — Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1862. The Human Harvest [ 1 1 3 ] The Human Harvest wars,” so like centuries of wisdom and vir- tue are needed to restore to our nation its lost inheritance of patriotism, — not the ca- pacity for patriotic talk, for of that there has been no abatement, but of that faith and truth which “ on war’s red touchstone rang true metal.” We can never know what might have been. We can never know how great is our actual loss, nor can we know how far the men that are fall short of the men that ought to have been. The gap in our picked and chosen, The long years may not fill. [”4] An English University professor on a late visit to America told me that his most vivid impression came from a casual reference to the one hundred and fifteenth (or some sim- ilarly numbered) regiment of Massachu- setts volunteers — that a little district like Massachusetts should contribute 115,000 men to the Civil War gave an impression of the mightiness and the cost of that strug- gle he had gained in no other way. It may be that the vexing problems of to- day, the problems of greed and lawlessness, would be easier if we had the men who ought to havebeen to help us in their settle- ment. “ The hencoop is always full, what- ever thenumber of hens.” Our country fills up like an overflowing marsh ; but the men that are are not all of the same lineage with the men who might have been. To some extent, at least, Vir has given place to Homo in our American cities and in our public life. Among us, perchance, there might have been many a Brutus who would have brooked the Eternal Devil to take his seat in the Republic as easily as some of the tyrants to which we adjust ourselves in hope- less uncomplaint. It is related that Guizot once asked this question of James Russell Lowell: “How longwill the Republic endure?” “So long as the ideas of its founders remain dominant,” was the answer. But again we have this ques- tion: “How longwill the ideas of its found- ers remain dominant ?” Just so long as the blood of the founders remains dominant in the blood of its people. Not necessarily the blood of the Puritans and the Virginians alone, the original creators of the land of The Human Harvest Ho-uu long 4* K: '35 r ^nv2i : , • - higizm^ Ui