davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-08-07

The truth is that there is a mysterious
and subtle power in spoken words, and
1t is a power which no printing press
can WELD. Even now, when the world
is overlooking with books, and when
almost every Idea has It's "organ" In the
shape of a review, a magazine or
newspaper, the ab1est teachers very gem
orally depend upon lectures orally de-
livered, rather than upon textbooks for
matchmaking their pupils.
Harrfson's lectures on philology, de-
livered. or rather Familiarity talked. at
the University of Virginia, probably
gave a greater impulse to scientific
pathological study than did any book that
has ever been published in America A
man who graduated on moral philosophy
under McGuffy has been heard to say
that an intelligent student might have
graduated on that course by simply lis
tening to the professors lectures, and
without owning any one of the multitu-
dinous textbooks embracing perhaps
some 1900 pages.
To many people the tongue adds great
force to the printed page. The simple
fact that the words which they are
reading were once spoken by living
voice, and to eager listeners, adds very
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-08-07

democracy to eliminate privilege. Our
American destiny for the two-doIlar-a-
day man will run toward making him
pasha; not toward leveling the highly
paid pashas to the "proletariat," but to
lifting the "proletariat' to the dignity
of autos. horse-tails, and even high
schools, school books and other prepare
| lions for such del ex machina-
| There is no reason to doubt that in the
end we as a people will have standards
of living substituted for standards OF
gold or silver. AT present both parties
bear witness that We have a single stand
ard, and that, alas is gold. But that
high thing that exalts itself and is called
god by so many silly men, is being al
ready cast down, while wise persons of
every class, in city Stun and rural home,
are making children acquainted with tho
vision of the true, the beautiful and the
good.
l see no reason to complain at the
price of pashas indeed. if there is a
guarantee that every American citizen,
by sobriety and decency and thrift may
be certain of enrolment. AS 1t is now
all the earlier pashas bid fair to pick the
bones of the unattained long before they
have learned the ropes. Sultan Usage
and Great Caliph, Common Consent are
both VIGOROUSLY conservative and tena-
clons. Like Owls, they sit blinking,
while the pasha-as-is feeds them morsels
of the commonweal, pretending that
those wiggling, human things are micel
Alas, those morsels are bits of the anat-
omy of the pasha-as-was-to-be Pasha
Is as pasha does. And he has been doing
him for long while.
| What I desire to imply by all this Is
that modern America has turned from
the tradition of the rebellious colonies,
which put ban on titled nobility. In
stead of discouragng she is heartily en-
couragtng the privileged sons of wealth.
The issue of that change can only be to
make the privileges of a class the in
hertanoe of every American. We shall
all ride in autos presently, all sail. If we
wish it, in aeroplanes and dirigibles
Therefore it cannot be the auto or the
horses tails that will avail to indicate
American pashas. The only conceivable
symbol must be the Oldest conceivable
''omnibus'k re If any man has ar
rived he is But the prototype of en-
nobled nation If instead of aiding the
whole people towards economic independ-
ence and universal pashaik he preys
upon them and fastens shackles on them,
he is a Turk, not American, urgently
needing the attention of the Sultan and
the Great Caliph.
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-08-07

lish classics-Plato, Seneca and Sir
William Lawrence.
But, though the printing press has
made knowledge vastly more accessible
to the masses of the people, the work
of oral instruction is by no means SUI
perseded. The printer has not put the
preacher and the oral teacher out OF
date; and there is no reason to be-
lfeve that he ever Will. There will
always be a class of people who can
not or will not read. And there are
many Woodworking people, men and
women, in factories, mechanics, clerks,
men of business, whose daily bread de-
ponds upon their incessant labor, that
will need the precious gospel to help
them to do and to bear their WORK
To neglect that very large class OF
people would be an extremely danger
GUS experiment In any community that
l have ever known. Many-nay, near
ly all-these non-readers Will listen to
a sermon, or a talk from a thought
full man who knows how to put his
thoughts into pointed, pithy English
and to deliver them in good style by
word of mouth.
So far as we know Socrates, who
has been justly called 1.-THE creator or
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-08-07
POLITICS AND REBELLION - BY Savoyard

1t was the more bitter because It was a
family quarrel. Fortunately the 'old
Roman" the ablest man then in public
life Allen G. Thurman. was leading the
democrats. He directed that the quarrel
side, though, when the thing began to
get cool, he and Casserly OF California,
would throw into the furnace some con-
bustibles that kept the fires of faction
at fever heat.
that met in national convention in Gin
cnnati tn May, 1872. 1t was a patriotic
squad. David Davis, the man who had
done much to nominate Abraham Lin
coin for the presidency In 1860, and who
was now on the supreme bench, had
been named for President by the labor
party. Henry Watterson knew that it
was impossible, and but for him the
liberal republicans would have nominated
Davis.
The plan was to nominate Charles
Francis Adams or Lyman Trumbull. The
great editors. Watterson, Bowes. Hal
stead, Whiteaw Reid, Horace White and
Hyde of st. Louis. prepared the country
for a glorious reform, all being there
overseeing the thing. 1t would have
worked wonders Dut TOT tne ldct THAT
Frank Blair and Gratz Brown were
practical politicians. and they thew the
fat In the fire by the nomination of
the best man then living, grand old
Horace Greeley.
General Grant was greater man than
he was a general: he was greater
general than he was a statesman, and he
was a greater statesman than he was
politician His chief attribute was
simplicity of character that was grand.
Where he trusted he trusted fully; he
was incapable of suspicion, and 1t Is
that vice of suspicion that chains many
a big soul to earth But Grant could
hate, and once he found that one he
trusted proved faithless, he was forever
done with that man. AS well try to raise
the dead as to restore that one to his
confidence.
Had the election been held in July,
make no doubt that Greeley would have
been elected. Enthusiasm would have
done the thing; but by September the
tide began to recede, and by October
1t was a hopeless case. 1t broke Gree
ley's heart, and in hell they are roast
ing Tom Mast like a herring for the
part he PLAYED in that tragedy that took
from American journalism its greatest
figure, and removed from American cit
izenship its biggest heart. y, the cruelty
of politics! it is almost as insane as
the fanaticism of religion.
The next serious rebellion in the re-
publican party was in 1884, when the
mugwumps resented the nomination OF
James G. Blain. author of the ''Mulligau
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-08-07

letters" But the hand of fate was in It,
The seed sown in Congress in 1866, when
Conkling charged Blaine with dishonesty.
and Blaine retorted that Conkling was a
turkeycock. now brought crop of tares
in the republican wheat crop. THAI.
tens of thousands of Tammany men
voted for Blaine because they hated
Cleveland and believed Blaine a Catholic
there is no doubt but George William
Curtis, Henry Ward Beecher. the New
York Times and the New York Evening
Post gave to Cleveland two mugwump
voters for every Irish Catholic John
Kelly pledged to Blaine.
And yet the G. o. P. would have stolen
the election but for two circumstances
They had stolen it eight years before,
and Grover Cleveland was governor of
New York They pretended that Tam
many stole 5000 votes from Ben Butler
If Tammany stole any votes on that oc-
casion, it bestowed them on Blaine, Be-
sides, there Is an alibi. Had that COM
munity contained 5000 voters who were
willing to see old Beast Butler President,
Just and indignant God Almighty would
have rained on that town the fire and
birthstone that made Sodom and Gomor-
rah, cities of the plain. the Dead sea-
They thought they had stolen enough
votes to elect Blaine, or they would have
stolen more.
The greatest calamity of our politics
since the Civil war was the work of
Dave Hill. Had he reelected Cleveland
in 1883, the silver question would have
been composed and the tariff made hon.
est. constitutional and democratic. All he
had to do was to say to the whiskey
crowd: II will not win at the expense
of the national ticket" That would have
fixed it. and had it been necessary, he
could have clinched 1t with threat: "If
you elect me and defeat Cleveland, as
governor l will sign any measure the
temperance folk send me-"
That would have made the democratic
party triumphant. 1t would have been
the death warrant of the republican
party The panic of 1898 would have
been avoided. The silver craze would
not have vexed the country and ruptured
the democratic party, and David B. Hill
would have been inaugurated President
of the United States in 1898. Above all.
Teddy Roosevelt would not have come
to keep the country in hot water.
= And in 1910 there is another rebellion
in the G. o. P. Dolliver made grand
speech the other day. If not too lazy.
am going to write a letter with 1t
for a text. If the democratic party
shall discover sense enough to put up a
panel OF drawbars, or herd a flock of
geese, they Will now begin to howl tariff
and nothing but tariff, and keep 1t up
till November 1912.
All the other issues are fakes out of the
Roosevelt mold.
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-08-07

!" THOUGHTFUL writer's now and
then tell us that as books null
l tiply tongues become still; that
as we become more and more a reading
people we become less and less a talk
Ing people. OF course there are rea
sons for this; and some of these rea-
sons are easily discovered.
One is likely to be bored by a long
conversation on subject when he
knows that he can go to his library
take down a favorite author and find
the subject much better treated on the
immortal page Again. When one has
much to say that is really worth say
Ing he may know of a magazine or
review or a newspaper which Will
give him an audience of thousands and
pay him for saying it to them instead
of to- one Hstless and perhaps yawning
hearer.
George Eliot says very acutely that
the circle represented by the word
public Is ever widening and ambition,
poisoning itself, In order to hit a more
distant mark, neglects the successes OF
the salon. She even goes so far as
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-08-07

XORE than once, In my imperfect
MI way. I have attempted to Illus
L trate the discipline and the valor
the Spanish veteran infantry in Tho
Netherlands under Don John, Alva and
Alexander Farnese. Their ancestors
had been trained to war In the four CEN
turtles of strife in the peninsular be-
tween the Cross and the Crescent, wars
that had developed as brave chivalry
as history tells us Of.
The great Captain" Gonzalo de Cor
dova, had done for the Spanish infantry
what Cromwell, later, did for the Iron
sides'-fashioned them SO that they
would stand in rank and fight with des-
perate and serene courage, from dawn
to dark, however bloody the field.
And when the Netherlands rebelled,
Phillip IL. sent the flower of the Spanish
soldiery, commanded by the most con-
sumate captain of even that heroic age.
and the war was long, desperate, ruth
less. In the pitched battle nothing could
Withstand the Impetuous and desperate
valor of the Spanish; but as soon as the
victory was won, the veterans mutinied,
and carried horrible rapine throughout
the provinces, and thus they "insurged'
till the next call to arms; and then they
were shoulder to shoulder till another
victory was won.
And so with the republican party. 1t
is full of insurgents" till election day.
Last winter republican stock was quoted
at less than 20 cents to the dollar; to-
day it is fetching more than 80 cents.
And if it does not go above par by
November the democrats will have to
act wiser than they ever have done
since 1890.
There is no doubt that the country is
Disguised with the G. o. P. Unfortunate
ly it does not trust the democratic party.
and for that matter. I know of nothing
our party has done since 1t reelected
Grover Cleveland in 1892 to command the
confidence of the country We need a
man. Perhaps we get him in Harmon or
Marshall, or Gaynor. AS to that, we
shall see.
There have been three rebellions in
the republican party. In 1872 the liberal
republican movement was set on foot
in the United States senate. 1t was led
by Carl Schurz. Lyman Trumbull, Charles
Sumner and Senator Upton of Nebraska
The debate was one of the most brilliant
In parliamentary history and when
Schurz grappled with Conkling, the SEN
ate was Illuminated by the Rolands and
divers these two Titans hurled against
each other. Tt surpassed the rencounters
between Douglas and Seward, Is years
earlier, and was not surpassed by the
tremendous struggle between Ben Hill
and Matt Carpenter seven years later,
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-08-07

son call Aeschylus and Euripides, and
Sophocles to attest that he was greater
than all, that 'insolent Greece or naughty
Rome sent forth7 Or why did he say
that he was not of an age, but for all
time? why did he compare him to APP
ollo-why to Mercury? Why did he say
that 'sinoe his advent, Aristophanes and
Terence and Plautus have ceased to
please?" Why?
Speaking of the "wit-oombats'' at the
Mermaid, Fuller says '1n Jonson I be-
held a Spanish galleon, In Shakespeare
an English man-of-war. Master JON
son, like the former was built far higher
in learning, solid, but slow in perform
ance. Shakespeare was lesser in bulk,
but lighter In sailing, could turn with all
tides, tack about and take advantage of
all winds by the quickness of his wit and
invention"
Some folks profess to believe that Ba-
con wrote Shakespeares plays. Nobody
does. Philosophers do not write plays.
They cannot. AS soon expect halter to
make shoes, or a shoemaker to make
hats. Plays are scenes clothed in poetic
language, but philosophers are educated
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-08-07

name of the one. Sultan Usage, and of
the other, Grand Caliph, Common Con-
sent. These were our hidden lords in
the days of our boastfulness. and they,
in league with the great prophet Demas,
have annointed and sprung upon our
astonished gaze this host of subtle
pashas, the sons of privilege, who silent
ly advise how we, a free people, shall
be governed"
We have heard Of atavism, the tenden-
cy of creation to revert to old and in
ferior types of structure. We in Amer
lea have found how to identify this
movement and tendency with progress
and / venture to submit the name pas
aism" as most usefuls In the circum-
stances. Pashaism is our strong point.
While France, Germany, England are tir-
ing of their medieval heirs of privilege
taxing them and sternly reducing their
authority. at one time even swinging them
up to lamp-posts, the American variety is
building a gilded chamber at Washing
ton none the less mighty because invis-
ible without an Aladdin lamp. Ours are
the richest pashas of the world, dis
couraging Europe with their prodigal
display of horse-tails. '"These be thy
gods, Israel, who bought thee up from
the land of Egypt, out of the house Of
bondage" In Newport, London, Paris,
behold the mride. followed by the great
American press in yellow aprons! Be-
hold them buying seats in the Senate,
whence they may regulate their own
incomes upward! Should a modern Cas-
sius demand
Upon what meat do these our pashas
feed
That they are grown so great?''
A well instructed Brutus, fresh from
reading his Age-Herald must reply:
The P of Pasha, my dear Cassius,
Stands for Protection. Pashas live on
peas"
And because England has long dis
carded protection she cannot vie with
us in the pasha industry. She thinks
that we are putting on our necks a yoke
OF Ataistic pashaism which neither she
nor her fathers were able to bear. She
still loves decorations and specializes In
pageants, but peers and princes and
pashas with her are simply ornaments.
What shall we do with ours?
The Saturday Evening Post and the
cheaper magazines have been giving at
tention to the pasha manufacture of
America. But g. bundle of price lists
recently sent me by an old friend in the
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-08-07

Their methods are wholly different. The
philosopher has to do with analysis, the
poet with synthesis. The philosopher
employs facts, the poet symbols. The
philosopher must be profound, the poet
breads profundity as an abyss. The
philosopher breaks the husk. the inte-
gument and unfolds his thought; the
poet envelopes his thought In images and
wraps his words In fire. The philoso-
pher digs and delves, the poet seizes
wings and spurns the earth. He rises
on the toes of ATLANTA, he flies on the
heels of Mercury.
The Baconians say-speaking through
their mouth-piece, DR. Evans-'that it is
no unusual thing for a writer to conceal
his name under pseudonym" 1t is not,
but 1t Is a base and damnable thing for
man to steal the name of another, and
to conceal the theft by hyphen. He
says that Bacon trusted his friends. Free
man and Davis, with hints of his au-
thorship of the plays. In other words.
Bacon insinuated a lie by innuendo. He
wrote to Davies that he was con
cealed poet" He was-he is a concealed
poet to this day.
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-08-07

The Baconlans say that Bacon wrote
Shakespeares plays because they de-
scribe kings and queens, and that Shake
speare had no audience at court. Audi
ence indeedl Had Bacon audience at the
Mermaid? Did he know Dame Quickly
and Doll Tearsheet? Was he cheek-by-
jowl with fools and madmen? Did he
write the Merry wives of Windsor?'
If he did, he stole deer from Sir Thomas
Lucys park, for in that play the writer
ridicules Sir Thomas, under the name of
prosecution.
Resemblance, coincidence cannot prove
plagiarism. 1t may suggest it; it cannot
establish it. To attempt so to establish
it is not only absurd. it is vicious. We
are told that Bacon in his last published
prayer used the word weed" meaning
garment Unfortunately Shakespeare
did the same thing In the sonnets. and
now they, In addition to the plays, are
carted off to st. Adams.
Bacon made out botanical list OF
flowers for every month in the year
Shakespeare constantly used flowers for
poetical purposes. He etheralized, IDEAL
the exquisite creations of beauty, that
fell from Dis's wagon" Seeing them in
the winters Tale" the Baconians
cried, stop, thiefr Dear Perdita, love-
ly Perdita, little did she think, while she
prattled so sweetly of carnations and
streaked gillifowers," that her incau-
tious babbling would be seized upon to
convict her great creator of poaching.
Why could not Ophelia have died without
prating about rosemaries and pansies and
fennel and columbine? Then, Shakespeare
might have claimed and enjoyed Ham
let" with impunity
II a man runs his career, If he wins his
crown. If the whole world accepts the
verdict of history in regard to his char
acter, II incense be sprinkled and flowers
strewn, why should his grave be moest-
ed or his remains be profaned? Nature
enjons us to be conservative She will
preserve identity; she will protect values.
An iconoclast has no place in her econo-
my You may build, but you shall not
wantonly destroy. Fame is not a feather
to be snatched from the brow of the
canonized to be placed in the cap of
every litigious claimant.
Read Bacons wisdom of the An
GENTS" and you will find it full of far
fetched illusions and remote analogies.
In detecting these analogfes there is al
ways a ponderous ingenuity-;Bacon
would call 1t inveption-but while his
conceptions are weghty even to oppres-
siveness, he invariably secures assent with
reserved protest, sluggish scruple.
Solid to heaviness, inventive to fanclful-
ness, asserfive to dogmatism-he is ever
grave, sedate, sombre and solemn. No flash
of humor ever enlivens his thought, no
CLEAN of levity ever irradiates his ex-
nression Things frivolous and things
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-08-07

We must conclude that the difference
between wages and welfare, whatever it
Is, Is the price we are paying for the
pasha industry. Promoters of real estate
enterprises. boosting their confident
prophecies with expensive advertising,
must in the long run be paid by the
man whose toll results to him in a few
dollars a day. The Age-Herald has
shown recently in yet another direction
how the pashas in Alabama get the
cream of her educational resources while
the unconsidered farmer boy, at the cost
of about 81, gets less than five months
ineffective "slSim-millx'' teaching. in a
tumble-down shack. It will plainly take
us all our time to discourage the crea-
ton of privileges, pashas and protected
profits. We are a very bright and brainy
nation, yet It must be doubted whether
up to the present the definition of wages
is scientific. What, after all, is wealth?
Is 1t not manhood womanhood and
home? What is wages therefore? Surely
the means of ministering to manhood,
womanhood and home See whether you
can measure this In dollars. II In 20
years the cost of maintaining life at
decent level for these three factors has
risen nearly 40 per cent, what comfort
is It to us of the common people to have
our salaries and wages stand still or
even rise per cent and to learn that
our pashas now ride in automobiles?
Beautiful as their homes and their SYM
bolic horse-tails are, these decorations
and convenienoes are not convertible into
manhood, womanhood or homes for the
rest of US. Are they the insignia of self
ish arrogance or are they Christianlzed?
Does the cross master the crescent in
American To which the pashas will re-
ply:
Go back to England! This is the
speech of the demagogue!' But the re-
tort is inevitable. that England is hon
estly striving to bridge the gulf between
them that have and them that have not,
between the pashas with symbolic wealth
and authority. horse-tails. generally
locked, to precede them to Ascot and
elsewhere, autos and castles and bank
accounts, between these, I say. and the
man who has little beyond one pair of
brawny arms and four or five stomachs.
little and big. They are bridging that
gulf with some success. 1t is idle to say
that In America there is no such gulf.
It Is the gulf between the successful
pasha and the one who has not yet sue
ceeded othe title. OF these. working for
81 a day for the privilege of living, there
are very many. Are they going to be
pashas In the end? 1t is the glory of