Pigs In Clover

In Which an Historian Discusses What May Prove a Depressing Chapter in Some Future History

HENDRIK WILLEM VAN LOON

AT Cathedral Street we left the bus and crossed Mount Vernon Place. My friend moved slowly. He has been lame ever since he came back from France. I stayed by his side. From the west, a fast little touring car came rapidly up the hill. The man at the wheel looked fat. The woman by his side looked prosperous. The road was clear and the little car had all the room in the world. But the driver bore down upon us at great speed. Just before he touched us, he swerved slightly to the right. Then he leaned forward and hollered something insulting about damn fools "who didn't watch their step."

My friend stopped.

"Those are the people we made the world safe for," he said.

And a little later, "Whittlesey was right."

NOW, lest it be thought that the following observations are the result of a mis-spent life and of congenital disappointment, allow us to make a few very personal remarks. We have everything that usually is supposed to make life worth living. With reasonable care, we are good for another twenty years. We have money enough to pay our modest bills. We can spend the rest of our days writing the sort of books and drawing the sort of pictures we like to write and to draw. A good Rotarian just now would probably classify us as a "Successful Man." He would express astonishment at the "line" we have preferred, but since that "line" produces a certain amount of cash, he would slap us on the back and tell us that we were a fine fellow, and ought to come around next Thursday.

What we have to say, therefore, is not a sample of our own particular sour-grapes home-brew. And if we were the only person in the world who felt and thought the way we did, we would not rush into print. Unfortunately, our sentiments seem to be shared by so many of the men and the women who have passed through the seven years of war and reconstruction, that we think it our duty to draw public attention to a state of mind which promises little good for the future of both the individual and of the country.

And now, having sketched in the background, let us state our case. This, in the main, is our honest belief and our equally honest conviction. First of all: that the more intelligent part of the world is too sick of soul and too tired of body to take an intelligent interest in the affairs of the day. Secondly: that as a result of this lethargy, public affairs are more and more falling into the hands of the utterly incompetent and the absolutely unscrupulous. Thirdly: that this is the most dangerous thing that has happened to civilization since the decline of the Roman Empire.

Perhaps we had better take these charges up one by one.

We do not wish to repeat the arguments of the former gobs and doughboys who stand on street corners and make speeches for the bonus bill. That the average soldier was miserably disappointed when he came home and found himself a nuisance instead of a hero is a well known fact. But that has happened after every war. It is part of the game. Besides, we are not talking of the fellows who were drawers of fire and hewers of mud. We mean to discuss the mental state of those who directed the fire, and who showed how heavy guns could be transported through the oozy slime of the Champagne front. The ordinary man, who did his duty in the trenches, is a fairly simple person. He will eventually find himself a job and a house and a girl and a flivver, and he will be contented, puttering around in the garage and in the nursery.

No, we are thinking of that class of our society which will do the thinking and the directing and the planning and the executing for the next fifty years. Even then, we must except those who having ears to hear and eyes to see, yet will never either see nor understand, nor even suspect; who will continue to accept this world of ours as the best of all little worlds, and who will be contented to live and die like the common or garden cabbage, making room for a large offspring of Brussels sprouts.

It is true, this reduces the number of people under discussion to a fairly small proportion. But as those citizens happen to represent the actual brains of the Republic, they deserve our serious attention. God help us, if in the hour of need, they should fail our jazzing community, and should leave us to the mercy of the graduates of our commercial colleges.

What is the matter with these men and women, and how can we help them? Were their nerves overwrought? Were they too frail physically to stand the shock of such a ghastly reality? We doubt it. Dissecting rooms and wars became an easy habit. After a short while, one can enjoy a pleasant ham sandwich while cleaning out the remnants of a disabled tank.

NO, the thing is not physical. It is entirely mental. But the complaint is so subtle in its diverse manifestations, that it seems to have escaped the attention of the learned doctors who specialize in the suffering of human souls.

The average man of fine sensibilities who went into the war left home and job, and risked life and limb because he honestly believed that his sacrifice was going to make the world the least little bit more intelligent and tolerant and agreeable for those who were to come after him. This is a deep-seated instinct. It has made our western (and our eastern and southern and northern) civilization what it is. It plays a role in the life of those animals who do not walk on their hind legs. In short, it is universal. Our honest enthusiast, therefore, went across the sea, and he fought and worked and went through many hardships.

Then he came back.

And what did he find?

That the very thing against which his soul had revolted before he left had been strengthened by the victory of his own Holy Cause.

The folk at home had celebrated the occasion by one grand orgy of oratory. They were rapidly sobering up. They treated the returned hero to a few left-over bottles of stale fourminute brew, told him that the war no doubt had done him a world of good, and asked whether there was a chance for their motor cars or pickles in France or in Bulgaria.

The returned soldier asked to be enlightened. Where was the new world for which he had been fighting? He was told to take off his coat and make America busier and better and more prosperous and richer than it had ever been before. He repeated his question, and was told to quit talking like a Bolshevik. If he happened to be of foreign origin, he was curtly informed that he had better get out or get under. Then the factory whistle blew, and the discussion came to an abrupt end.

Strange to say, after so many years of disappointment and rebuff, the class of which I am talking is still a million miles away from anything either radical or revolutionary. These men wish to Heaven that they had a cause for which they could fight and in which they could believe. They have examined Bolshevism and Socialism and all the Isms, that they might give their energy and their courage to something that was deserving of unselfish devotion. They have found the different Isms lacking in everything that would make them attractive to decent and intelligent people. They have gone all over the world, looking for some one who would invent a new system that would offer a chance of a more humane world.

AGAIN they failed. And so they stick to the old routine. They get up and dress, and eat breakfast and say, "Oh Lord! Another day!"

But don't make the mistake of thinking that they like what they silently accept, because they don't know yet where to turn for something better.

If the truth were to be told, I think that we could make the following concrete statement: that these men and women, of whom I have been talking, dislike our modern society because it bores them to extinction and because it seems so utterly silly and vapid. They pray that some one may lead them out of this intellectual and spiritual desert. But no one comes to the front. They have learned that life, played at dangerous but noble stakes, is the highest joy. They are asked to be "safe" and "regular" and, above all, "conservative" in thought and ii deed. They had formed the habit of giving, and they were asked to acquire a faculty for getting, or be trampled under foot.

They wanted to have a little time for leisure and for the enjoyment of things that are beautiful and useless. At once they were exposed to the ill-mannered attacks of every reformer and evangelist who had revaluated his own petty inhibitions into the laws of the land.

In short, five years ago, the most brilliant among our men and women went forth deliberately to create a more humane world. During their absence, the inevitable pig got into the deserted pastures, took possession of the grounds and installed himself and his family in the houses that were meant for decent people to live in. When the rightful heirs returned, they found the hogs firmly established. Feebly they tried to shoo them out.

But it was too late.

The hogs had come to stay.

Somewhere in this story there is a lesson and a moral. We dedicate both to the fat man in his speedy car who asked the lame soldier why in thunder he did not get out of the way.