The Crown of Individuality: XII. The Crimes of Respectability

The Crown of Individuality.* BY WILLIAM GEORGE JORDAN. XII. — The Crimes of Respectability. Respectability wears white robes of superiority and is vain of her virtues. Respectability keeps within the pale of human and social law though breaking the laws of — the finer code of the soul. With Pharisaic self-complacency she withdraws her dainty skirts from contact with crime. She sits serene and self-appointed in the seat of judgment and deals out hard condemnation on the offenders of human law — the criminals, the outcasts of society. Let Respectability listen for a moment to the charges to be brought against her and then quietly, squarely and honestly face the issue and see its justice. We must realize as an absolute fact that all the crimes of criminals in any city or state, massed together and awful as they may be, cause but a very small part of the suffering of life, and affect but a small fraction of the people compared with — the crimes of respectability. Let us realize that it is from the regular army of respectability that life's greatest sorrow comes — not from the scattered skirmishers of crime. If we honestly accept and believe truth, we have a new illumination, a high impulse, and a noble inspiration towards higher, simpler living. Were we to question a thousand or a million men we would find that but a small percentage have ever had their lives dark- ened by deeds of crime, in fact, by any acts punishable by human

• From The Crown of Individuality. Copyright, 1909, by Fleming H. Eevell Company.

THE CROWN OF INDIVIDUALITY. 47 aw. But from the cruel, unnecessary, unpunishable weakness and injustice of every-day life— none is ever long immune. The crimes of respectability are gossip, jealousy, envy, bitter words, hypocrisy, scandal, malice, persistent meannesses and injustice, lying, temper, hard, uncharitable judgment, selfishness, spite, ingratitude, treach- ery, and — a host of others. Gossip is one of the popular crimes that has caused infinitely more sorrow in life than— murder. It is drunkenness of the tongue; it 1.=^ assassination of reputations. It runs the cowardly gamut from mere ignorant, impertinent intrusion into the lives of others to malicious slander. If facts do not exist it creates them. If the facts be innocent it somehow juggles them into evidence of black guilt. In interpretation it always chooses the worse of two possible motives. It constitutes itself a secret court of inquisition that decides on the fate of the victiiu in his absence — when he has no chance to speak in his own behalf. It is a conspiracy of wrong. He who listens to this crime of respectability without protest is as evil as he who speaks. One strong, manly voice of protest, of appeal to justice, of calling a halt in the name of charity — could fumigate a room from gossip as a clear, sharp winter wind kills a pestilence. Sometimes gossip does not deal altogether in words; there are simple yet subtle tricks of silence and gesture — and in a moment the deed is accomplished. It seems like a whiff from one of those diabolically poisoned roses of the Borgias that kill and leave no sign. Then a reputation lies dead in the roadway. Some- one's mighty faith in someone has its pulse stilled forever. Some- one is walking his weary way alone in the silence with the sun of love blotted from his sky. There is a Satanic ingenuity in quoting part of a sentence and without telling how or why it was spoken. It puts a man of honor in a position where he cannot explain because he knows not the treason. This seems the master-stroke of gossip. It may kill a great love in an instant and leave no chance for explanation that might drive out the poison of a lack of faith— unjustified were the truth known. The happiness of two may be killed by — this lying silence. Jealousy has a hundred masquerades in which to do its deadly work. In countless business enterprises alone it transforms the

48 IMPROVEMENT ERA. joy of honest, faithful, service into a grim inferno of hopeless struggle. Inferiority, incompetency, or selfish, impotent ambition is seeking to undermine the best efforts of others. By tale-bearing, petty intrigue, trickery, imposition and all those other small imple- ments of warfare that make up the armory of small minds they seek to harm others. The venom of jealousy, s^lf-distilled, pois- ons not only others but their own whole natures. They envy but do not emulate. If the constant energy expended in injuring others were concentrated in heroic efforts to better themselves the results 'would be vastly different for— themselves and the world. There are men who wear the white badge of respectability as jauntily as though it were a fresh white pink in their buttonhole. They like the favor of the community as expressed to them by smiles, cheery words and pleasant greetings on the morning walk to the station. They may show a different side to their families. They may have irritability, impatience and a waspish, mean temper that upsets a household day after day. They have a long trail of bitter memories and of rankling injustice, that runs from the breakfast table to eventide. They vent their temper on their family and on inferior employees who cannot resent it— never on a business customer or associate. Prudence, policy and politeness forbid. They are thoroughly conscious of the limit— they rarely play it. When the master returns the members of the family look up questioningly to size up his mood as a farmer surveys the clouds to determine what the weather will be. The sorrow caused by professionals who steal tangible things is microscopic in compari- son with the misery caused by respectable amateurs who rob their homes and offices of happinesses— by temper, alone. There are women in some communities with reputations that are spotless— as the world's standard goes. Their uniform of respectability seems always fresh from the laundry. Those who know them best know they are narrow and bigoted, hard and uncharitable in their judgments, unforgiving, selfish and bitter. Their very influence is blighting; they are daily transforming some- one's Eden into a desert. They shrivel generous impulses of those around them. They pass through life self-mesmerized by their selfishness, in sublime unconsciousness that they are doing

THE CROWN OF INDIVIDUALITY. 49 more real harm in the world than some whose acts they regard with profound horror. Real human love seems as dead in their hearts, as destitute of the slightest light or warmth or glow, as the cen- turies-old ashes of Pompeii. These women are not necessarily hypocritic. They are only taking a Rip Van Winkle sleep of selfish self-satisfaction. No one seems to have the courage to awaken them— with a strong dose of straight talk. The daily evils that make life hard are not the great sorrows from which under the healing touch of time we may rise sweet- ened, softened, strengthened, facing life bravely anew. They are the infinity of irritating trifles, the cruelly unnecessary injust- ices, the absolutely man-made wrongs of life. It is irreverent to refer to them as any part of the divine plan. These wrongs are as much man-made as — a pair of shoes or a watch or an automobile. There is selfishness that overrides the rights of others like a car of Juggernaut. There is a bitterness of unforgiving condem- nation that listens to no reasons, explanations or motives, that believes because it has seen, that credits the senses and accepts circumstantial evidence as final. There is avarice that starves what it should feed. There is ingratitude that, turning traitor to the kindness it has received, dries for years some generous foun- tain of giving. There is hypocrisy that, masquerading like the devil in a surplice, poisons love and friendship and leaves scars in memory, and sears and warps character. These are a few of the crimes of respectability. A large part of the" evils in life is preventable; some by the individual alone. Why do we not prevent them? Man longs to learn the secrets of the Infinite in this universe of His, as though it would change man's whole life. If man be not true to what he knows, he is not ready to know more. With many people it is like a child who, not yet having mastered his primer, is hungry for Shakespeare. Man is said to have been made in the image of his — Creator. Some men seem to be trying — to remove the labels and other identifying brands. If we are men, with the dignity of our powers and privileges and possibilities, let us just — live like men. Life is not something to be lived through, it is to be lived up to— in aU its highest meanings and messages. There was in the army

50 IMPROVEMENT ERA. of Alexander the Great a soldier, who, although he bore the very- name of the great conqueror, was in his heart a great coward. Cowardice in any soldier of that mighty army was the worst of all crimes; yet for this man to be a coward was shame unspeakable. And Alexander in great anger commanded the craven: "Either give up my name or follow my example." Living up to our privileges means living up to our name — anything less means failure. If for a single week in any city each individual were to say each morning: "Today no one in the world shall have even one second darkened by any act of mine," and live it— that city, would be transformed and glorified. It would, after all, mean only negative goodness. It would mean only the avoidance of evil, not real, aggressive, positive, high-keyed living at our best, but the burden of life would be lifted, the heavens would almost open and be visible. Then in an atmosphere warm with the radiant glow of love and brotherhood we could almost hear the faint rustle of the angels' wings — the angels of peace ushering in the millennium on this world of ours. (The next chapter in this series, "The Optimism that Really Counts," will appear in the December number of the Era.) Looking up the River, in Bear River Canyon, Wasatch Mountains.