Part 12 (2/2)
”The great vision of the glory that shall be, not in one sudden millennium, but slowly advancing toward joys of life which we can no more prevision than the aboriginal medicine-man could imagine the X-ray! I wish that this were the time and the place to rhapsodize about that vision, as William Morris has done, in _News from Nowhere_.
You tell me that the various brands of socialists differ so much in their beliefs about this future that the bewildered layman can make nothing at all of their theories. Very well. They differ so much because there are so many different things we _can_ do with this human race.... The defeat of death; the life period advancing to ten-score years all crowded with happy activity. The solution of labor's problem; increasing safety and decreasing hours of toil, and a way out for the unhappy consumer who is ground between labor and capital. A real democracy and the love of work that shall come when work is not relegated to wage-slaves, but joyously shared in a community inclusive of the living beings of all nations. France and Germany uniting precisely as Saxony and Prussia and Bavaria have united. And, most of all, a general realization that the fact that we cannot accomplish all these things at once does not indicate that they are hopeless; an understanding that one of the wonders of the future is the fact that we shall _always_, in all ages, have improvements to look forward to.
”Fellow-students, object as strongly as you wish to the petty narrowness and vituperation of certain street-corner ranters, but do not be petty and narrow and vituperative in doing it!
”Now, to relate all this to the plays of Bernard Shaw. When he says----”
Professor Frazer's utterances seem tamely conservative nowadays; but this was in 1905, in a small, intensely religious college among the furrows. Imagine a devout pastor when his son kicks the family Bible and you have the mental state of half the students of Plato upon hearing a defense of socialism. Carl, catching echoes of his own talks with Bone Stillman in the lecture, exultantly glanced about, and found the cla.s.s staring at one another with frightened anxiety. He saw the grim Plain Smith, not so much angry as ill. He saw two cla.s.s clowns snickering at the ecstasy in the eyes of Genie Linderbeck.
In the corner drug-store, popularly known as ”The Club,” where all the college bloods gather to drink lemon phosphate, an excited old man, whose tieless collar was almost concealed by his tobacco-stained beard, pushed back his black slouch-hat with the G. A. R. cord, and banged his fist on the prescription-counter, shouting, half at the clerk and half at the students matching pennies on the soda-counter, ”I've lived in Plato, man and boy, for forty-seven years--ever since it wa'n't nothing but a frontier trading-post. I packed logs on my back and I tramped fifty-three miles to get me a yoke of oxen. I remember when the Indians went raiding during the war and the cavalry rode here from St. Paul. And this town has always stood for decency and law and order. But when things come to such a pa.s.s that this fellow Frazer or any of the rest of these infidels from one of these here Eastern colleges is allowed to stand up on his hind legs in a college building and bray about anarchism and tell us to trample on the old flag that we fought for, and none of these professors that call themselves 'reverends' step in and stop him, then let me tell you I'm about ready to pull up stakes and go out West, where there's patriotism and decency still, and where they'd hang one of these foreign anarchists to the nearest lamp-post, yes, sir, and this fellow Frazer, too, if he encouraged them in their crank notions. Got no right in the country, anyway. Better deport 'em if they ain't satisfied with the way we run things. I won't stand for preaching anarchism, and never knew any decent place that would, never since I was a baby in Canada. Yes, sir, I mean it; I'm an old man, but I'd pull up stakes and go plugging down the Santa Fe trail first, and I mean it.”
”Here's your Bog Bitters, Mr. Goff,” said the clerk, hastily, as a pa.s.ser-by was drawn into the store by the old man's tirade.
Mr. Goff stalked out, muttering, and the college sports at the soda-counter grinned at one another. But Gus...o...b..rg, of the junior cla.s.s, remarked to Carl Ericson: ”At that, though, there's a good deal to what old Goff says. Bet a hat Prexy won't stand for Prof Frazer's talking anarchy. Fellow in the cla.s.s told me it was fierce stuff he was talking. Reg'lar anarchy.”
”Rats! It wasn't anything of the kind,” protested Carl. ”I was there and I heard the whole thing. He just explained what this Bernard Shaw that writes plays meant by socialism.”
”Well, even so, don't you think it's kind of unnecessary to talk publicly, right out in a college lecture-room, about socialism?”
inquired a senior who was high up in the debating society.
”Well, thunder----!” was all Carl said, as the whole group stared at him. He felt ridiculous; he was afraid of seeming to be a ”crank.” He escaped from the drug-store.
When he arrived at Mrs. Henkel's boarding-house for supper the next evening he found the students pa.s.sing from hand to hand a copy of the town paper, the _Plato Weekly Times_, which bore on the front page what the town regarded as a red-hot news story:
PLATO PROFESSOR
TALKS SEDITIOUSLY
As we go to press we learn that rumors are flying about the campus that the ”powers that be” are highly incensed by the remarks of a well-known member of the local faculty praising Socialism and other form of anarchy. It is said that one of the older members of the faculty will demand from the erring teacher an explanation of his remarks which are alleged to have taken the form of a defense of the English anarchist Bernhard Shaw. Those on the que vive are expecting sensational developments and campus talk is so extensively occupied with discussions of the affair that the important coming game with St. John's college is almost forgotten.
While the TIMES has always supported Plato College as one of the chief glories in the proud crown of Minnesota learning, we can but illy stomach such news. It goes without saying that we cannot too strongly disapprove express our disapproval of such incendiary utterances and we shall fearlessly report the whole of this fair let the chips fall where they may.
”There, Mr. Ericson,” said Mrs. Henkel, a plump, decent, disapproving person, who had known too many generations of great Platonians to be impressed by anything, ”you see what the public thinks of your Professor Frazer. I told you people wouldn't stomach such news, and I wouldn't wonder if they strongly disapproved.”
”This ain't anything but gossip,” said Carl, feebly; but as he read the account in the _Weekly Times_ he was sick and frightened, such was his youthful awe of print. He wanted to beat the mossy-whiskered editor of the _Times_, who always had white food-stains on his lapels.
When he raised his eyes the coquette Mae Thurston tried to cheer him: ”It 'll all come out in the wash, Eric; don't worry. These editors have to have something to write about or they couldn't fill up the paper.”
He pressed her foot under the table. He was chatty, and helped to keep the general conversation away from the Frazer affair; but he was growing more and more angry, with a desire for effective action which expressed itself within him only by, ”I'll show 'em! Makes me so _sore_!”
Everywhere they discussed and rediscussed Professor Frazer: in the dressing-room of the gymnasium, where the football squad dressed in the sweat-reeking air and shouted at one another, balancing each on one leg before small lockers, and rubbing themselves with brown, unclean Turkish towels; in the neat rooms of girl co-eds with their banners and cus.h.i.+ons and pink comforters and chafing-dishes of nut fudge and photographic postal-cards showing the folks at home; in the close, horse-smelling, lap-robe and whip scattered office of the town livery-stable, where Mr. Goff droned with the editor of the _Times_.
Everywhere Carl heard the echoes, and resolved, ”I've got to _do_ something!”
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