The Washington times., 1917-02-20
Don Marquis
Column
Preface To A Check Book.

We never kept it properly balanced.
Pleasing confusion, we say. The
hazy uncertainty pleased us because
we were that kind of an ass; we af
fected an attitude with regard to
money. Many young men who are
trying to be artists of one sort or
another do affect an attitude. They
find something fine and dashing In
spending a weeks salary in a few
hours: they will be half starved for
days; they consider that rather inter-
esting also. 1t sets them apart (they
think from their more colorless breth-
rem. They lend and borrow easily;
in their own conceit they are exhib-
itlng a generous scorn of material
things, rebuking the gross earth. es-
tablishing kinship with the more
But money is life. Not material
life only. 1t touches the soul. Who
steals our purse steals not trash, but
our blood, time, muscle, nervous
force, our power to help others, our
future possibility of turning out cred
liable work. He may even steal our
good name: there are not wanting in
stances where innocent men might
nave CledTeu themselves, II lHey Hdu
had the money or the credit to COM
mand events. Men are dying in bit
terness and in the shadow OF disgrace
for want of little gold. If a thief
robs us we may be able to under
stand why he does IL, but smite him
we will not .forbear to do for all of
that. He has aimed a dagger at our
heart and swung a bludgeon at our
head; he strikes ut our life who
grasps at our dollars: II Is our blood
or his.
But we don't think we would i'm
prison the thief. Even crooked bank
ers and all others who pick the pock-
cts of the poor. turning the bodies
and souls, the blood and hopes of
their thousands OF struggling victims
| into gold-even them we would not
have imprisoned. They should be be-
headed or shot. Not hanged, nor
killed by electricity. Hanging Is too
often done by bungling strangers.
And when a man is killed by electric
ity-what doctor surely knows that
| there are not some moments of in
tense agony between the initial
shock and death, during which the
being is submerged in a bath of
this flame? None of the doctors who
deny this has ever been killed by
| electricity. But beheading is instant
death. The French have preserved
the truly civilized feeling about this
matter. II II is determined that a
man should die. that man Is already
dead; he has acquired a certain dig
nifty through his death: IT is a ghast-
Iy improperly to risk letting him
suffer any more than Is necessary: he
has a right to depart quickly and
painlessly-to depart tragically, with
none OF the writings of mere melo-
drama.
It is possible that 1t is not right to
kill people at all: that view has been
held sincerely for a long time, by
many people. But IL any deserves
death It is certainly the thief on
large scale who ruins so many lives.
When he loots a bank men who have
saved and struggled for years give up
hope: growing children lose the
chance for education: this, that or
the other girl may be forced into the
streets; youths who have been striv-
ing and suffering and overworking
| against the time when they might
learn a profession or an art or a busi.
ness are flung back into the slums :
| talent is crushed; maybe. now and
then, even genius is blasted. The
hand Of the thief reaches into the in
wards of society and filches the stuff
OF life. The future is impoverished
OF the soul that would have come to
bloom.
The essential sin OF the thief is
that he cannot rob humanity without
robbing God: these worlds, these stars
on which we dwell, need more life cf
a better quality; great men help God
create; a thief Is a rat in the granary
which holds the seeds of heaven:
money, properly come by and pIop-
perly used, is a sacred thing. An hon
est banker, who really serves tho
world, may be something OF a priest
Cthough the business must be damn.
ably dull for all thap.
The serious artist, II he Is to com
mune with heaven, must above all
men, have leisure here on earth. And
leisure, that Is money. The priest,
the prophet, must have leisure. He
must have freedom. He must have
time for reflection. Christ told a
certain rich young man: Sell all thou
hast and follow me-" He meant fol
low me into freedom, into leisure, into
Immortality, away from your worldly
preoccupation. from the worries that
clutter up your life. Christ and His
disciples FOUND tFeeOOHl. leisure, time
for reflection, by avoiding manual
labor and depending on their friends
for physical support. But some one
did the work on which they lived;
those friends were in financial po-
sition to help along a little; Christ
did not scorn- money honestly come
by: He used it: He lived for months
on the thrift of those friends; t"eir
thrift, their money, helped that rare
soul to show heaven to earth; with
divine assurance He marched forward,
confident that whatever OF the ma
terial world He needed would be
forthcoming; that the stuff OF life
which He required lay in store for
Him. But we have no such assurance
we have no miracle of lOaveS and
fishes to fall back upon; we are not
divine vagabonds: We have nothing
but our human thrift. We cannot get
leisure to think or write or paint or
worship by turning actual vaGran;s;
the real vagrant today is extremely
unromantic and excessively haTGsseJ
We have no regal presence to com
mand food, shelter and time.
Coin must be ours.
Money is spiritual thing. Ass
that we were-who used to pride our
self secretly on a certain loose atti-
tude toward our check book! What