Cæsar's Column: A Story of the Twentieth Century

by Ignatius Donnelly

istrue of light. At one time each family had to educate its ownchildren; now the state educates them. Once every man went armed toprotect himself. Now the city protects him by its armed police. Thesehints must be followed out. The city of the future must furnishdoctors for all; lawyers for all; entertainments for all; businessguidance for all. It will see to it that no man is plundered, and noman starved, who is willing to work."

  "But," said Max, "if you do away with interest on money and thusscatter coagulated capital into innumerable small enterprises, howare you going to get along without the keen-brained masters ofbusiness, who labor gigantically for gigantic personal profits; butwho, by their toll and their capital, bring the great body ofproducers into relation with the great body of consumers? Are thesemen not necessary to society? Do they not create occasion andopportunity for labor? Are not their active and powerful brains atthe back of all progress? There may be a thousand men idling, andpoorly fed and clothed, in a neighborhood: along comes one of theseshrewd adventurers; he sees an opportunity to utilize the bark of thetrees and the ox-hides of the farmers' cattle, and he starts atannery. He may accumulate more money than the thousand men he setsto work; but has he not done more? Is not his intellect immeasurablymore valuable than all those unthinking muscles?"

  "There is much force in your argument," I replied, "and I do notthink that society should discourage such adventurers. But themuscles of the many are as necessary to the man you describe as hisintellect is to the muscles; and as they are all men together thereshould be some equity in the distribution of the profits. Andremember, we have gotten into a way of thinking as if numbers andwealth were everything. It is better for a nation to contain thirtymillion people, prosperous, happy and patriotic, than one hundredmillions, ignorant, wretched and longing for an opportunity tooverthrow all government. The over-population of the globe will comesoon enough. We have no interest in hurrying it. The silly ancestorsof the Americans called it 'national development' when they importedmillions of foreigners to take up the public lands, and left nothingfor their own children.

  "And here is another point: Men work at first for a competence--forenough to lift them above the reach of want in those days which theyknow to be rapidly approaching, when they can no longer toil. But,having reached that point, they go on laboring for vanity--one of theshallowest of the human passions. The man who is worth $ 100,000 saysto himself, 'There is Jones; he is worth $500,000; he lives with adisplay and extravagance I cannot equal. I must increase my fortuneto half a million.' Jones, on the other hand, is measuring himselfagainst Brown, who has a million. He knows that men cringe lower toBrown than they do to him. He must have a million--half a million isnothing. And Brown feels that he is overshadowed by Smith, with histen millions; and so the childish emulation continues. Men arevalued, not for themselves, but for their bank account. In themeantime these vast concentrations of capital are made at the expenseof mankind. If, in a community of a thousand persons, there are onehundred millions of wealth, and it is equally divided between them,all are comfortable and happy. If, now, ten men, by cunning devices,grasp three-fourths of all this wealth, and put it in their pockets,there is but one-fourth left to divide among the nine hundred andninety, and they are therefore poor and miserable. Within certainlimits accumulation in one place represents denudation elsewhere.

  "And thus, under the stimulus of shallow vanity," I continued, "arivalry of barouches and bonnets--an emulation of waste andextravagance--all the powers of the minds of men are turned--not tolift up the world, but to degrade it. A crowd of littlecreatures--men and women--are displayed upon a high platform, in theface of mankind, parading and strutting about, with their noses inthe air, as tickled as a monkey with a string of beads, and coveredwith a glory which is not their own, but which they have been able topurchase; crying aloud: 'Behold what I _have got!_' not, 'Behold whatI _am!_'

  "And then the inexpressible servility of those below them! The foolswould not recognize Socrates if they fell over him in the street; butthey can perceive Crœsus a mile off; they can smell him a blockaway; and they will dislocate their vertebrae abasing themselvesbefore him. It reminds one of the time of Louis XIV. in France, whenmillions of people were in the extremest misery--even untostarvation; while great grandees thought it the acme of earthly blissand honor to help put the king to bed, or take off his dirty socks.And if a common man, by any chance, caught a glimpse of royaltychanging its shirt, he felt as if he had looked into heaven andbeheld Divinity creating worlds. Oh, it is enough to make a manloathe his species."

  "Come, come," said Maximilian, "you grow bitter. Let us go to dinnerbefore you abolish all the evils of the world, or I shall be disposedto quit New York and buy a corner lot in Utopia."

  CHAPTER XIII.

  THE COUNCIL OF THE OLIGARCHY

  Precisely as Rudolph had forecast, things came to pass. I arrived atthe palace of the Prince at half past six; at half past seven, myordinary suit was covered with a braided livery, and I accompaniedRudolph to the council-chamber. We placed the table, chairs, pens,ink, paper, etc., in order. Watching our opportunity, we drew aside aheavy box in which grew a noble specimen of the _cactus grandiflorus_in full bloom, the gorgeous flowers just opening with the sunset, andfilling the chamber with their delicious perfume. I crawled throughthe opening; took off my liveried suit; handed it back to Rudolph; hepushed the box into its place again; I inserted the hooks in theirstaples, and the barricade was complete. With many whisperedinjunctions and directions he left me. I heard him go out and lockthe door--not the door by which we had entered--and all was silence.

  There was room, by doubling up my limbs, Turk-fashion, to sit down inthe inclosure. I waited. I thought of Estella. Rudolph had assured methat she had not been disturbed. They were waiting for hunger tocompel her to eat the drugged food. Then I wondered whether we wouldescape in safety. Then my thoughts dwelt on the words she had spokenof me, and I remembered the pleased look upon her face when we met inRudolph's room, and my visions became very pleasant. Even the deadsilence and oppressive solitude of the two great rooms could notstill the rapid beatings of my heart. I forgot my mission and thoughtonly of Estella and the future.

  I was recalled to earth and its duties by the unlocking of thefarther door. I heard Rudolph say, as if in answer to a question:

  "Yes, my lord, I have personally examined the rooms and made surethat there are no spies concealed anywhere."

  "Let me see," said the Prince; "lift up the tapestry."

  I could hear them moving about the council-chamber, apparently goingaround the walls. Then I heard them advancing into the conservatory.I shrank down still lower; they moved here and there among theflowers, and even paused for a few moments before the mass offlowering cacti.

  "That _flagelliformis_," said the Prince, "looks sickly. The soil isperhaps too rich. Tell the gardener to change the earth about it."

  "I shall do so, my lord," said Rudolph; and to my great relief theymoved off. In a few minutes I heard them in the council-chamber. Withgreat caution I rose slowly. A screen of flowers had been cunninglyplaced by Rudolph between the cacti and that apartment. At last,half-stooping, I found an aperture in the rich mass of blossoms. ThePrince was talking to Rudolph. I had a good view of his person. Hewas dressed in an evening suit. He was a large man, somewhatcorpulent; or, as Rudolph had said, bloated. He had a Hebraic cast ofcountenance; his face seemed to be all angles. The brow was squareand prominent, projecting at the corners; the nose was quite high andaquiline; the hair had the look of being dyed; a long, thick blackmustache covered his upper lip, but it could not quite conceal thehard, cynical and sneering expression of his mouth; great bags offlesh hung beneath the small, furtive eyes. Altogether the facereminded me of the portraits of Napoleon the Third, who was thoughtby many to have had little of Napoleon in him except the name.

  There was about Prince Cabano that air of confidence and commandwhich usually accompanies great wealth or success of any kind.Extr
aordinary power produces always the same type of countenance. Yousee it in the high-nosed mummied kings of ancient Egypt. There isabout them an aristocratic _hauteur_ which even the shrinking of thedry skin for four thousand years has not been able to quite subdue.We feel like taking off our hats even to their parched hides. You seeit in the cross-legged monuments of the old crusaders, in thevenerable churches of Europe; a splendid breed of ferociousbarbarians they were, who struck ten blows for conquest and plunderwhere they struck one for Christ. And you can see the same type ofcountenance in the present rulers of the world--the great bankers,the railroad presidents, the gigantic speculators, the uncrownedmonarchs of commerce, whose golden chariots drive recklessly over theprostrate bodies of the people.

  And then there is another class who are everywhere the aides