Extending the Blessings of Civilization
to our Brother who Sits in Darkness has been a good trade and
has paid well, on the whole; and there is money in it yet, if
carefully worked -- but not enough, in my judgement, to make any
considerable risk advisable. The People that Sit in Darkness are
getting to be too scarce -- too scarce and too shy. And such darkness
as is now left is really of but an indifferent quality, and not
dark enough for the game. The most of those People that Sit in
Darkness have been furnished with more light than was good for
them or profitable for us. We have been injudicious.
The Blessings-of-Civilization Trust, wisely
and cautiously administered, is a Daisy. There is more money in
it, more territory, more sovereignty, and other kinds of emolument,
than there is in any other game that is played. But Christendom
has been playing it badly of late years, and must certainly suffer
by it, in my opinion. She has been so eager to get every stake
that appeared on the green cloth, that the People who Sit in Darkness
have noticed it -- they have noticed it, and have begun to show
alarm. They have become suspicious of the Blessings of Civilization.
More -- they have begun to examine them. This is not well. The
Blessings of Civilization are all right, and a good commercial
property; there could not be a better, in a dim light. In the
right kind of a light, and at a proper distance, with the goods
a little out of focus, they furnish this desirable exhibit to
the Gentlemen who Sit in Darkness:
LOVE, LAW AND ORDER,
JUSTICE, LIBERTY,
GENTLENESS, EQUALITY,
CHRISTIANITY, HONORABLE DEALING,
PROTECTION TO THE WEAK, MERCY,
TEMPERANCE, EDUCATION,
-- and so on.
There. Is it good? Sir, it is pie. It will bring into camp any
idiot that sits in darkness anywhere. But not if we adulterate
it. It is proper to be emphatic upon that point. This brand is
strictly for Export -- apparently. Apparently. Privately and confidentially,
it is nothing of the kind. Privately and confidentially, it is
merely an outside cover, gay and pretty and attractive, displaying
the special patterns of our Civilization which we reserve for
Home Consumption, while inside the bale is the Actual Thing that
the Customer Sitting in Darkness buys with his blood and tears
and land and liberty. That Actual Thing is, indeed, Civilization,
but it is only for Export. Is there a difference between the two
brands? In some of the details, yes.
We all know that the Business is being
ruined. The reason is not far to seek. It is because our Mr. McKinley,
and Mr. Chamberlain, and the Kaiser, and the Czar and the French
have been exporting the Actual Thing with the outside cover left
off. This is bad for the Game. It shows that these new players
of it are not sufficiently acquainted with it.
It is a distress to look on and note the
mismoves, they are so strange and so awkward. Mr. Chamberlain
manufactures a war out of materials so inadequate and so fanciful
that they make the boxes grieve and the gallery laugh, and he
tries hard to persuade himself that it isn't purely a private
raid for cash, but has a sort of dim, vague respectability about
it somewhere, if he could only find the spot; and that, by and
by, he can scour the flag clean again after he has finished dragging
it through the mud, and make it shine and flash in the vault of
heaven once more as it had shone and flashed there a thousand
years in the world's respect until he laid his unfaithful hand
upon it. It is bad play -- bad. For it exposes the Actual Thing
to Them that Sit in Darkness, and they say: "What! Christian
against Christian? And only for money? Is this a case of magnanimity,
forbearance, love, gentleness, mercy, protection of the weak --
this strange and over-showy onslaught of an elephant upon a nest
of field-mice, on the pretext that the mice had squeaked an insolence
at him -- conduct which 'no self-respecting government could allow
to pass unavenged?' as Mr. Chamberlain said. Was that a good pretext
in a small case, when it had not been a good pretext in a large
one? -- for only recently Russia had affronted the elephant three
times and survived alive and unsmitten. Is this Civilization and
Progress? Is it something better than we already possess? These
harryings and burnings and desert-makings in the Transvaal --
is this an improvement on our darkness? Is it, perhaps, possible
that there are two kinds of Civilization -- one for home consumption
and one for the heathen market?"
Then They that Sit in Darkness are troubled,
and shake their heads; and they read this extract from a letter
of a British private, recounting his exploits in one of Methuen's
victories, some days before the affair of Magersfontein, and they
are troubled again:
"We tore up the hill and into the intrenchments, and the
Boers saw we had them; so they dropped their guns and went down
on their knees and put up their hands clasped, and begged for
mercy. And we gave it them -- with the long spoon."
The long spoon is the bayonet. See Lloyd's
Weekly, London, of those days. The same number -- and the same
column -- contains some quite unconscious satire in the form of
shocked and bitter upbraidings of the Boers for their brutalities
and inhumanities!
Next, to our heavy damage, the Kaiser went to playing the game
without first mastering it. He lost a couple of missionaries in
a riot in Shantung, and in his account he made an overcharge for
them. China had to pay a hundred thousand dollars apiece for them,
in money; twelve miles of territory, containing several millions
of inhabitants and worth twenty million dollars; and to build
a monument, and also a Christian church; whereas the people of
China could have been depended upon to remember the missionaries
without the help of these expensive memorials. This was all bad
play. Bad, because it would not, and could not, and will not now
or ever, deceive the Person Sitting in Darkness. He knows that
it was an overcharge. He knows that a missionary is like any other
man: he is worth merely what you can supply his place for, and
no more. He is useful, but so is a doctor, so is a sheriff, so
is an editor; but a just Emperor does not charge war-prices for
such. A diligent, intelligent, but obscure missionary, and a diligent,
intelligent country editor are worth much, and we know it; but
they are not worth the earth. We esteem such an editor, and we
are sorry to see him go; but, when he goes, we should consider
twelve miles of territory, and a church, and a fortune, over-compensation
for his loss. I mean, if he was a Chinese editor, and we had to
settle for him. It is no proper figure for an editor or a missionary;
one can get shop-worn kings for less. It was bad play on the Kaiser's
part. It got this property, true; but it produced the Chinese
revolt, the indignant uprising of China's traduced patriots, the
Boxers. The results have been expensive to Germany, and to the
other Disseminators of Progress and the Blessings of Civilization.
The Kaiser's claim was paid, yet it was
bad play, for it could not fail to have an evil effect upon Persons
Sitting in Darkness in China. They would muse upon the event,
and be likely to say: "Civilization is gracious and beautiful,
for such is its reputation; but can we afford it? There are rich
Chinamen, perhaps they could afford it; but this tax is not laid
upon them, it is laid upon the peasants of Shantung; it is they
that must pay this mighty sum, and their wages are but four cents
a day. Is this a better civilization than ours, and holier and
higher and nobler? Is not this rapacity? Is not this extortion?
Would Germany charge America two hundred thousand dollars for
two missionaries, and shake the mailed fist in her face, and send
warships, and send soldiers, and say: 'Seize twelve miles of territory,
worth twenty millions of dollars, as additional pay for the missionaries;
and make those peasants build a monument to the missionaries,
and a costly Christian church to remember them by?' And later
would Germany say to her soldiers: 'March through America and
slay, giving no quarter; make the German face there, as has been
our Hun-face here, a terror for a thousand years; march through
the Great Republic and slay, slay, slay, carving a road for our
offended religion through its heart and bowels?' Would Germany
do like this to America, to England, to France, to Russia? Or
only to China the helpless -- imitating the elephant's assault
upon the field-mice? Had we better invest in this Civilization
-- this Civilization which called Napoleon a buccaneer for carrying
off Venice's bronze horses, but which steals our ancient astronomical
instruments from our walls, and goes looting like common bandits
-- that is, all the alien soldiers except America's; and (Americans
again excepted) storms frightened villages and cables the result
to glad journals at home every day: 'Chinese losses, 450 killed;
ours, one officer and two men wounded. Shall proceed against neighboring
village to-morrow, where a massacre is reported.' Can we afford
Civilization?"
And, next, Russia must go and play the
game injudiciously. She affronts England once or twice -- with
the Person Sitting in Darkness observing and noting; by moral
assistance of France and Germany, she robs Japan of her hard-earned
spoil, all swimming in Chinese blood -- Port Arthur -- with the
Person again observing and noting; then she seizes Manchuria,
raids its villages, and chokes its great river with the swollen
corpses of countless massacred peasants -- that astonished Person
still observing and noting. And perhaps he is saying to himself:
"It is yet another Civilized Power, with its banner of the
Prince of Peace in one hand and its loot-basket and its butcher-knife
in the other. Is there no salvation for us but to adopt Civilization
and lift ourselves down to its level?"
And by and by comes America, and our Master
of the Game plays it badly -- plays it as Mr. Chamberlain was
playing it in South Africa. It was a mistake to do that; also,
it was one which was quite unlooked for in a Master who was playing
it so well in Cuba. In Cuba, he was playing the usual and regular
American game, and it was winning, for there is no way to beat
it. The Master, contemplating Cuba, said: "Here is an oppressed
and friendless little nation which is willing to fight to be free;
we go partners, and put up the strength of seventy million sympathizers
and the resources of the United States: play!" Nothing but
Europe combined could call that hand: and Europe cannot combine
on anything. There, in Cuba, he was following our great traditions
in a way which made us very proud of him, and proud of the deep
dissatisfaction which his play was provoking in Continental Europe.
Moved by a high inspiration, he threw out those stirring words
which proclaimed that forcible annexation would be "criminal
aggression;" and in that utterance fired another "shot
heard round the world." The memory of that fine saying will
be outlived by the remembrance of no act of his but one -- that
he forgot it within the twelvemonth, and its honorable gospel
along with it.
For, presently, came the Philippine temptation.
It was strong; it was too strong, and he made that bad mistake:
he played the European game, the Chamberlain game. It was a pity;
it was a great pity, that error; that one grievous error, that
irrevocable error. For it was the very place and time to play
the American game again. And at no cost. Rich winnings to be gathered
in, too; rich and permanent; indestructible; a fortune transmissible
forever to the children of the flag. Not land, not money, not
dominion -- no, something worth many times more than that dross:
our share, the spectacle of a nation of long harassed and persecuted
slaves set free through our influence; our posterity's share,
the golden memory of that fair deed. The game was in our hands.
If it had been played according to the American rules, Dewey would
have sailed away from Manila as soon as he had destroyed the Spanish
fleet -- after putting up a sign on shore guaranteeing foreign
property and life against damage by the Filipinos, and warning
the Powers that interference with the emancipated patriots would
be regarded as an act unfriendly to the United States. The Powers
cannot combine, in even a bad cause, and the sign would not have
been molested.
Dewey could have gone about his affairs
elsewhere, and left the competent Filipino army to starve out
the little Spanish garrison and send it home, and the Filipino
citizens to set up the form of government they might prefer, and
deal with the friars and their doubtful acquisitions according
to Filipino ideas of fairness and justice -- ideas which have
since been tested and found to be of as high an order as any that
prevail in Europe or America.
But we played the Chamberlain game, and
lost the chance to add another Cuba and another honorable deed
to our good record.
The more we examine the mistake, the more
clearly we perceive that it is going to be bad for the Business.
The Person Sitting in Darkness is almost sure to say: "There
is something curious about this -- curious and unaccountable.
There must be two Americas: one that sets the captive free, and
one that takes a once-captive's new freedom away from him, and
picks a quarrel with him with nothing to found it on; then kills
him to get his land."
The truth is, the Person Sitting in Darkness
is saying things like that; and for the sake of the Business we
must persuade him to look at the Philippine matter in another
and healthier way. We must arrange his opinions for him. I believe
it can be done; for Mr. Chamberlain has arranged England's opinion
of the South African matter, and done it most cleverly and successfully.
He presented the facts -- some of the facts -- and showed those
confiding people what the facts meant. He did it statistically,
which is a good way. He used the formula: "Twice 2 are 14,
and 2 from 9 leaves 35." Figures are effective; figures will
convince the elect.
Now, my plan is a still bolder one than
Mr. Chamberlain's, though apparently a copy of it. Let us be franker
than Mr. Chamberlain; let us audaciously present the whole of
the facts, shirking none, then explain them according to Mr. Chamberlain's
formula. This daring truthfulness will astonish and dazzle the
Person Sitting in Darkness, and he will take the Explanation down
before his mental vision has had time to get back into focus.
Let us say to him:
"Our case is simple. On the 1st of
May, Dewey destroyed the Spanish fleet. This left the Archipelago
in the hands of its proper and rightful owners, the Filipino nation.
Their army numbered 30,000 men, and they were competent to whip
out or starve out the little Spanish garrison; then the people
could set up a government of their own devising. Our traditions
required that Dewey should now set up his warning sign, and go
away. But the Master of the Game happened to think of another
plan -- the European plan. He acted upon it. This was, to send
out an army -- ostensibly to help the native patriots put the
finishing touch upon their long and plucky struggle for independence,
but really to take their land away from them and keep it. That
is, in the interest of Progress and Civilization. The plan developed,
stage by stage, and quite satisfactorily. We entered into a military
alliance with the trusting Filipinos, and they hemmed in Manila
on the land side, and by their valuable help the place, with its
garrison of 8,000 or 10,000 Spaniards, was captured -- a thing
which we could not have accomplished unaided at that time. We
got their help by -- by ingenuity. We knew they were fighting
for their independence, and that they had been at it for two years.
We knew they supposed that we also were fighting in their worthy
cause -- just as we had helped the Cubans fight for Cuban independence
-- and we allowed them to go on thinking so. Until Manila was
ours and we could get along without them. Then we showed our hand.
Of course, they were surprised -- that was natural; surprised
and disappointed; disappointed and grieved. To them it looked
un-American; uncharacteristic; foreign to our established traditions.
And this was natural, too; for we were only playing the American
Game in public -- in private it was the European. It was neatly
done, very neatly, and it bewildered them. They could not understand
it; for we had been so friendly -- so affectionate, even -- with
those simple-minded patriots! We, our own selves, had brought
back out of exile their leader, their hero, their hope, their
Washington -- Aguinaldo; brought him in a warship, in high honor,
under the sacred shelter and hospitality of the flag; brought
him back and restored him to his people, and got their moving
and eloquent gratitude for it. Yes, we had been so friendly to
them, and had heartened them up in so many ways! We had lent them
guns and ammunition; advised with them; exchanged pleasant courtesies
with them; placed our sick and wounded in their kindly care; entrusted
our Spanish prisoners to their humane and honest hands; fought
shoulder to shoulder with them against "the common enemy"
(our own phrase); praised their courage, praised their gallantry,
praised their mercifulness, praised their fine and honorable conduct;
borrowed their trenches, borrowed strong positions which they
had previously captured from the Spaniard; petted them, lied to
them -- officially proclaiming that our land and naval forces
came to give them their freedom and displace the bad Spanish Government
-- fooled them, used them until we needed them no longer; then
derided the sucked orange and threw it away. We kept the positions
which we had beguiled them of; by and by, we moved a force forward
and overlapped patriot ground -- a clever thought, for we needed
trouble, and this would produce it. A Filipino soldier, crossing
the ground, where no one had a right to forbid him, was shot by
our sentry. The badgered patriots resented this with arms, without
waiting to know whether Aguinaldo, who was absent, would approve
or not. Aguinaldo did not approve; but that availed nothing. What
we wanted, in the interest of Progress and Civilization, was the
Archipelago, unencumbered by patriots struggling for independence;
and the War was what we needed. We clinched our opportunity. It
is Mr. Chamberlain's case over again -- at least in its motive
and intention; and we played the game as adroitly as he played
it himself."
At this point in our frank statement of
fact to the Person Sitting in Darkness, we should throw in a little
trade-taffy about the Blessings of Civilization -- for a change,
and for the refreshment of his spirit -- then go on with our tale:
"We and the patriots having captured
Manila, Spain's ownership of the Archipelago and her sovereignty
over it were at an end -- obliterated -- annihilated -- not a
rag or shred of either remaining behind. It was then that we conceived
the divinely humorous idea of buying both of these spectres from
Spain! [It is quite safe to confess this to the Person Sitting
in Darkness, since neither he nor any other sane person will believe
it.] In buying those ghosts for twenty millions, we also contracted
to take care of the friars and their accumulations. I think we
also agreed to propagate leprosy and smallpox, but as to this
there is doubt. But it is not important; persons afflicted with
the friars do not mind the other diseases.
"With our Treaty ratified, Manila
subdued, and our Ghosts secured, we had no further use for Aguinaldo
and the owners of the Archipelago. We forced a war, and we have
been hunting America's guest and ally through the woods and swamps
ever since."
At this point in the tale, it will be well
to boast a little of our war-work and our heroisms in the field,
so as to make our performance look as fine as England's in South
Africa; but I believe it will not be best to emphasize this too
much. We must be cautious. Of course, we must read the war-telegrams
to the Person, in order to keep up our frankness; but we can throw
an air of humorousness over them, and that will modify their grim
eloquence a little, and their rather indiscreet exhibitions of
gory exultation. Before reading to him the following display heads
of the dispatches of November 18, 1900, it will be well to practice
on them in private first, so as to get the right tang of lightness
and gaiety into them:
"ADMINISTRATION WEARY OF PROTRACTED HOSTILITIES!"
"REAL WAR AHEAD FOR FILIPINO REBELS!"*
"WILL SHOW NO MERCY!"
"KITCHENER'S PLAN ADOPTED!"
Kitchener knows how to handle disagreeable
people who are fighting for their homes and their liberties, and
we must let on that we are merely imitating Kitchener, and have
no national interest in the matter, further than to get ourselves
admired by the Great Family of Nations, in which august company
our Master of the Game has bought a place for us in the back row.
Of course, we must not venture to ignore our General MacArthur's
reports -- oh, why do they keep on printing those embarrassing
things? -- we must drop them trippingly from the tongue and take
the chances:
"During the last ten months our losses have been 268 killed
and 750 wounded; Filipino loss, three thousand two hundred and
twenty-seven killed, and 694 wounded."
We must stand ready to grab the Person
Sitting in Darkness, for he will swoon away at this confession,
saying: "Good God, those 'niggers' spare their wounded, and
the Americans massacre theirs!"
We must bring him to, and coax him and coddle him, and assure
him that the ways of Providence are best, and that it would not
become us to find fault with them; and then, to show him that
we are only imitators, not originators, we must read the following
passage from the letter of an American soldier-lad in the Philippines
to his mother, published in Public Opinion, of Decorah, Iowa,
describing the finish of a victorious battle:
"WE NEVER LEFT ONE ALIVE. IF ONE WAS
WOUNDED, WE WOULD RUN OUR BAYONETS THROUGH HIM."
Having now laid all the historical facts
before the Person Sitting in Darkness, we should bring him to
again, and explain them to him. We should say to him:
"They look doubtful, but in reality
they are not. There have been lies; yes, but they were told in
a good cause. We have been treacherous; but that was only in order
that real good might come out of apparent evil. True, we have
crushed a deceived and confiding people; we have turned against
the weak and the friendless who trusted us; we have stamped out
a just and intelligent and well-ordered republic; we have stabbed
an ally in the back and slapped the face of a guest; we have bought
a Shadow from an enemy that hadn't it to sell; we have robbed
a trusting friend of his land and his liberty; we have invited
our clean young men to shoulder a discredited musket and do bandit's
work under a flag which bandits have been accustomed to fear,
not to follow; we have debauched America's honor and blackened
her face before the world; but each detail was for the best. We
know this. The Head of every State and Sovereignty in Christendom
and ninety per cent. of every legislative body in Christendom,
including our Congress and our fifty State Legislatures, are members
not only of the church, but also of the Blessings-of-Civilization
Trust. This world-girdling accumulation of trained morals, high
principles, and justice, cannot do an unright thing, an unfair
thing, an ungenerous thing, an unclean thing. It knows what it
is about. Give yourself no uneasiness; it is all right."
Now then, that will convince the Person.
You will see. It will restore the Business. Also, it will elect
the Master of the Game to the vacant place in the Trinity of our
national gods; and there on their high thrones the Three will
sit, age after age, in the people's sight, each bearing the Emblem
of his service: Washington, the Sword of the Liberator; Lincoln,
the Slave's Broken Chains; the Master, the Chains Repaired.
It will give the Business a splendid new
start. You will see.
Everything is prosperous, now; everything
is just as we should wish it. We have got the Archipelago, and
we shall never give it up. Also, we have every reason to hope
that we shall have an opportunity before very long to slip out
of our Congressional contract with Cuba and give her something
better in the place of it. It is a rich country, and many of us
are already beginning to see that the contract was a sentimental
mistake. But now -- right now -- is the best time to do some profitable
rehabilitating work -- work that will set us up and make us comfortable,
and discourage gossip. We cannot conceal from ourselves that,
privately, we are a little troubled about our uniform. It is one
of our prides; it is acquainted with honor; it is familiar with
great deeds and noble; we love it, we revere it; and so this errand
it is on makes us uneasy. And our flag -- another pride of ours,
our chiefest! We have worshipped it so; and when we have seen
it in far lands -- glimpsing it unexpectedly in that strange sky,
waving its welcome and benediction to us -- we have caught our
breath, and uncovered our heads, and couldn't speak, for a moment,
for the thought of what it was to us and the great ideals it stood
for. Indeed, we must do something about these things; we must
not have the flag out there, and the uniform. They are not needed
there; we can manage in some other way. England manages, as regards
the uniform, and so can we. We have to send soldiers -- we can't
get out of that -- but we can disguise them. It is the way England
does in South Africa. Even Mr. Chamberlain himself takes pride
in England's honorable uniform, and makes the army down there
wear an ugly and odious and appropriate disguise, of yellow stuff
such as quarantine flags are made of, and which are hoisted to
warn the healthy away from unclean disease and repulsive death.
This cloth is called khaki. We could adopt it. It is light, comfortable,
grotesque, and deceives the enemy, for he cannot conceive of a
soldier being concealed in it.
And as for a flag for the Philippine Province,
it is easily managed. We can have a special one -- our States
do it: we can have just our usual flag, with the white stripes
painted black and the stars replaced by the skull and cross-bones.
And we do not need that Civil Commission
out there. Having no powers, it has to invent them, and that kind
of work cannot be effectively done by just anybody; an expert
is required. Mr. Croker can be spared. We do not want the United
States represented there, but only the Game.
By help of these suggested amendments,
Progress and Civilization in that country can have a boom, and
it will take in the Persons who are Sitting in Darkness, and we
can resume Business at the old stand.
Mark Twain.
* "Rebels!" Mumble that funny word -- Don't let the
Person catch it distinctly.
