The Northman., May 13, 1920, Page 6, Image 6

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THE NORTHMAN
T he P ursuit of H appiness
Old legends tell us of a golden age,
When earth was guiltless—gods the guests
of men,
Ere sin had dimmed the heart’s illumined page—
And prophet-voices say ’twill come again.—
THE DISCIPLE OF TRUTH long had
1 pondered deeply upon the innumera-
able phases presented by his fellows. His
soul had been sustained by beautiful
visions of justice, peace, tolerance and
love among the children of men. He had
pleaded with the heedless and had reasoned
with the scholarly for a higher philosophy,
by which Happiness might walk with men
all through life instead of being pursued
to the end.
His was Democracy’s own teaching—the
greatest good to the greatest number—that
no man had the right to pursue a course
which might seem to him to be leading
toward what he thought was happiness,
without considering whether or not it
would make an hundred of his fellowmen
miserable. He did not believe that happi­
ness was like the statue of Isis, whose veil
no man had lifted, but that Heaven and
Happiness were one and the same on earth,
in the heavens, and through all the vast
stretch we term eternity.
Exceeding grace, gained through long
years of reflection and reasoning, and
communing with Nature in her various
forms, had brought to him—not the power
to pierce the veil of death and converse
with the spirits of men who have passed
the bourne of Mortality, through only a
board or a table-tipping, but to him' had
come the power to behold Truth in that
mirror of the soul, the human countenance
—Truth stripped of all the drapery of de­
ception and all vestige of camouflage—
Truth as she had engraved upon soul and
mind the record of the Past, and the re­
flection of hopes of the Future.
Coming to the city from a long sojourn
on the mountain, he found the people more
agitated than, they had been even during
the period of war. He paused to mark
the surging throng at the intersection of
crowded thoroughfares, and was much
moved at what he saw. To the ordinary
vision there was no great change from yes­
terday or yesteryear, but Truth’s disciple
beheld an agitation such as he had never
seen before. It was the old pursuit of
Happiness, but with a new tenseness.
There was a sweep of recklessness in the
minds of many that held little considera­
tion for their fellows, and in the minds of
others there was utter ruthlessness.
Here passed a man with his wife and
little daughter. Their attire marked them
as very scantily prosperous. They paused
before the place of amusement, brilliantly
lighted, but passed on. No word had been
spoken, but the decision had been telepa­
thically made. They could illy spare the
slight sum involving admission from the
funds required to maintain the household.
The man occupied a position of the great­
est responsibility. He was a teacher, and
his work was shaping the welfare of the
nation’s tomorrow, when the children
should succeed to the directorate.
Across the man’s soul was a scar show­
ing that he had passed through the hell of
conflict far astray from the path of Hap­
piness. Fond parents had given him what
they conceived to be a good education, but
when he emerged from the temple of learn­
ing he found himself equipped to play the
part of a gentleman of the century before,
without the weapons in the way of knowl­
edge to make his way on his own resources.
His pursuit of Happiness had led through
the ditches and camps of manual labor,
hard to him because his early vision had
been fixed on the seeming ease of other
places, but it had brought him under­
standing. In his struggle upward he had
reached the place he now held,but his work
was handicapped by the seeming indiffer­
ence of the public to the needs of the hour,
and the tendency to cling to ancient cus­
toms and ideas of the musty past. In the
daily press that morning he had read that
one hundred and seventy-seven thousand
100-pound bags of Sugar was being held
by a single concern in a western city while
a so-called “sugar shortage” prevailed, and
he wondered why others wondered that the
spirit of Radicalism and Bolshevism
stalked through the land.
* * *
ANOTHER MAN, pausing under the
glare of light, attracted the attention of
the disciple of Truth. He was elderly and
of somewhat haughty mien. His apparel
stamped him as possessing means—a ship
chandler puffed with the pride of great
profits reaped through all the devious ways
of his trade through forty years of grasp­
ing. Times of stress to the nation had to
him been periods of rich harvest. He
looked upon himself as a link of importance
in the chain of business, representing a
number of presumably reputable firms in
various lines of industry. That morning
he had vaingloriously proclaimed himself
one hundred percent American in a letter
over his own signature. That was his
own assay attested by himself. The re­
flection from the mirror of Truth showed
only a faint trace. There was not a true
American hair in his head, and his soul
was too small to entertain a genuine
American thought. But he did not hesi­
tate to place himself on a pedestal with
Washington and Lincoln.
Two score years before the ship chandler
who looked upon himself as a model of
American citizenship, had come from a
foreign shore to the city and founded his
establishment. In his line he was perhaps a
fair average—some better than the worst,
and somewhat worse than the best.
Plucking profits from both ends of the
trade with indefatigable industry he
mounted a few rounds on the ladder of
prosperity. He had lived, reared a family,
and was now descending the western slope
with the gray chill of a mean disposition
to comfort him.
In all the years of his residence what
had he done for his country that made
him feel that he assayed one hundred per
cent. He had become a citizen and sworn
allegiance, but never for a moment had the
welfare of his country weighed a grain in
the balance against self-interest. True,
he had paid what taxes he could not evade,
but with the grudging spirit the victim of
a highwayman hands over his purse. As
a citizen he had done absolutely nothing
for the betterment of the community in
which he lived or the country at-large. He
had contributed no thought that might
light the way to better things in any
direction. He had made use of the courts,
but only as they might aid his material
interests. He did not hesitate to sacrifice
trusting friends; he could not, in strict
judgment, number himself even with the
May 13, 1920
law-abiding; he had been guilty of things
which men who lay no claim to more than
ordinarily decent citizenship would not do,
and yet, with the egregious audacity of
ignorance he proclaimed himself one
hundred percent American.
If this man represents the standard of
American citizenship, and in the pursuit
of Happiness has traversed the way that
should be pointed out to the children of
Today as the way to the glorious To­
morrow, let the multitudes turn their faces
to the East to see the stone statue of the
Goddess of Liberty Enlightening the
World, shriek in despair and sink beneath
the circling waves.
(To be continued.)
AMERICA, MY AMERICA
America, thou are more blest
Than this old continent of ours!
No castle ruins load thy breast,
Thou dreadest no volcanic powers.
By old tradition undisturbed
Or useless strife,
Thy ardent life
Flows on uncurbed.
Enjoy thy present happiness!
And when thou canst of poets boast,
All tales may kindly fate suppress
Of knight or robber or of ghost!
—Goethe.
OLE O. OLSON SAYS
“There are a whole lot of people born
in this country who need Americanizing
just as bad, or worse, than the furriners.”
THE CRY OF THE DISPOSSESSED
(Henry Victor Morgan.)
“There comes to my ears,” the Lord God. said,
“From the earth a sound of woe;
Now, Gabriel, fly to the earth away
On the wings of the morning, go!”
And the strong-winged angel earthward sped
And traveled the whole world o’er.
Then swift to the heavens again he rose
And stood God’s throne before.
“Now, tell me the cause,” the Lord said,
“Of the woe that I hear expressed.”
And the angel covered his face and said,
“ ’Tis the cry of the dispossessed.
“As I neared the earth, on your errand sent,
I saw the world blood-red,
In awful heaps your children lay
On the sad earth, cold and dead.
“And I asked the wise of the earth, my Lord,
“What means this thing I see?”
And they blindly answered my quest and said,
“They died for democracy.”
But where is the thing for which they died?
And what has their shed blood brought?
Then the rulers of men, O Lord, were dumb,
And their cold lips answered naught.
t
Then I asked the workers of earth the same,
And they scarce would speak for pain,
But the answer came, “For what we fought
Is lost in the strife for gain.
(
We gave our all, and our loved ones died
For the vision of the earth made free
Till the tyrant fell, then back we came
To the same old misery.
No spot on earth can we call our own,
No hope our hearts to cheer,
Our backs are bent and our spirits rent
To fatten the profiteer.
But deep in our hearts there burns a fire
That never can be suppressed,
For we b’lieve that God is a righteous God
And the hope of the dispossessed!”
And the Lord God said, “My Spirit still
Lives deep in men’s hearts, I see;
And they who would crush the weak will find
They are fighting even Me.”