The Society for the P. of N. O. of T.

BACK in the literal Dark Ages of the early nineties, before sputtering arc lights and ghastly Hewitt tubes had ‘made Darkness itself appear a thing of comfort,’ I was driving through a mountain valley on a golden day in June. All the fences were blazing with flame-colored posters, vociferating an announcement of a cheap-rate excursion to the neighboring city, the chief attraction of which was ’a grand nightcelebration, with thousands of the new electric lights burning in reckless profusion’; and the catch-word ran: — ‘Come! Come! See Night turned to Day!’

I pulled my hat over my eyes to shade them from the prodigal rays of the sun,and fell into a reverie over the trait of human nature appealed to by those unsightly posters. I thought it a very harmless and somnolent little meditation. I had not learned then how fatally any form of thought disturbs one’s peace of mind, but it sowed a seed which has grown mightily in the involuntarily fertile soil of my New England temperament.

I remarked conversationally to myself: ‘What a saving of energy for better purposes would ensue if people did not want night turned to day, and consequently (for the most energetic of us must sleep) day turned to night, but would accept the natural order of things.’

The hugely outspreading nature of the growth which sprang from this seed is now direly apparent. It overshadows the most unexpected parts of life for me. I cannot sit down to the well-furnished table of a friend without lamenting over the waste involved in eating strawberries in January and watermelons in June. ‘Why?' I asked myself with passion, ‘why not eat strawberries in June and watermelons in August when both are at their best, and use all the money, brains, efforts, and persistence now employed in turning nature topsy-turvy, to produce more cheaply some part of the world’s necessary food? Talk about the waste of water-power!!'

Once I burst out with my question to a shrewd business-friend.

He answered, ‘Why, there are millions of dollars invested in greenhouses! ’

‘ That’s exactly what I complain of!'

He was transfixed by the business man’s horror of a possible depreciation of vested interests. ‘Think of the loss to the investors if the custom should stop.’

I made answer, reasonably I thought, ‘There was a flourishing trade once in chain-armor, and later in hoop-skirts, and later in ping-pong balls. i never heard that the people who gave up those industries starved to —'

But my friend was already moving towards the door.

‘Oh, if you’re going to talk metaphors —! ’ he said, and went away, leaving me to contemplate in solitary anguish the tragically extravagant waste of energy in a world where every minim is needed to solve real problems.

It was the fashion that winter to decorate ladies’ evening dresses with bands of fur. My obsession was already so overmastering that I scarcely restrained myself from accosting the fair savages with: ‘Why do you put on your décolleté chiffon gowns, material needed only by a missionary to the Esquimaux? Don’t you realize that you are squandering the time and effort of thousands of men to procure you this unsuitable ornamentation?’

I never did so far forget myself as thus simple-mindedly to appeal to the reason of a woman of fashion, but if I had, I know what she would have answered: ‘Sir! I pay for my furs!’

And then, so mercilessly has this conception transformed me into a stark moralizer, I should have hurled at her a bigoted, ‘If you have money to spare, pay it out for something either useful or really beautiful — not merely expensive — and don’t spend it for nose-rings!'

How could I have guessed that the effect of that little half-hour of meditation under the cheerful June sun could be so baleful!

On two other occasions I have broken my silence. Once to a lawyer, who heard me with a disillusioned, tolerant smile and said, ‘That’s inherent in men!’ He spoke as though to bring to my notice an overlooked and conclusive argument: ‘They have always desired what is difficult to procure, irrespective of its real value.’

‘They’ve always desired to cut each other’s throats! ’ I said, ‘ but some effort is made to keep them from doing it.’

‘Oh, you can’t make over human nature,’ he said comfortably.

I cast an outraged mental glance back over the progress of the race. ‘You can’t, can’t you!’ I cried with more vigor than elegance. ‘At what else is every effort of civilization aimed! There are things hard to get that are worthy. Why not concentrate on those and forbid by law carving the Lord’s prayer on a cherry-stone?’

‘ Well, you can try if you want to,’ he said. ‘I’m busy trying to keep them from stealing each other’s money.’

I directed my next remarks to a political economist. He swelled Delphically with the afflatus of his answer and evidently expected me to fall prostrate before the dread word. ‘That is Progress,’ he pronounced, ‘the subjugation of nature by man.’

But he reckoned without my years of thought on the subject. ‘ Poppy-cock! ’

I said; ‘keeping one’s house warm in winter is subjugation of nature by man if you will, and so is the telephone and the telegraph and antitoxin; but can you maintain that it is not a miserable waste of blood and brains and effort to obtain those sickly cut roses, perishing in the December air — the costume of that woman yonder — this white stone in your ring which, if it were common, would be recognized as ugly and colorless?’

He admitted lightly: ‘Those are not quite wise manifestations of the spirit I spoke of.’

I raged. ‘Not quite wise! A trifling folly that — which costs millions of money, oceans of blood, and more brainpower than can be hinted at in units of power. You admit it! Let us therefore ride forth upon a crusade against this inordinate and shameful abuse.’

He shrank from before my eloquence, — alas, he shrank out of the room in full retreat, murmuring, ‘But—my great monograph on the Influence of the Physiocratic School upon the Policies of the Constituent Assembly.’

I turned from him. I turn from all his Pharisaical class. I address myself to the Sound Heart of the People. Here I sit me down on the streetcomer calling upon all who pass to join a new reformatory society.

Yes, I do not even shrink from that name. Upon a world already hagridden by Sunshine Clubs, by Village Improvement Societies, by S.-P.-C.-A.ites, by Associations for the Relief of the Color-Blind and the Knock-Kneed, I propose to launch another reform. Why not? To wait until all the others are settled would be to wait at a Broadway crossing for the traffic to finish passing. Besides, there is this fundamental, vital difference between my society and all the others. Mine is really important, is really needed!

If you smile at the familiar ring of this, let me entreat you to pull your hat over your eyes and give the matter a half-hour’s thought, going over, item by item, the different expenditures of effort in your life. You will emerge — any sane human being will emerge — from such a meditation, an enthusiastic Charter member of the Society for the Preservation of the Natural Order of Things.