Democracy. Benedict's school is usually written about in religious books only, and, of course, from the ecclesiastical view, whereas his social experiment shows him to be an early and very important Democrat. St. Benedict was a thousand years ahead of his time, preaching as well as teaching the dignity of honest labor-a phase of Democracy since shown to be fundamental. * * Also, it is 2,500 years and more since Moses wrote strange and puzzling words whose idealism has never been surpassed: Stand in awe and obedience of father and mother; all stealing, false dealing and lying toward one another is forbidden; do not swear falsely; when you reap the harvest of your land, leave some in the corners of the fields; do not gather the gleanings of the harvest but remember the poor and the stranger; the laborer is worthy of hire; pay without delay the wages agreed upon to those you engage; do not ill-treat the deaf, nor put stumbling blocks before the blind-and much more of similar purport that need not be repeated here. The world has long praised the medieval French hero-king, Louis IX (St. Louis), for wiping the feet of lepers; also for sitting under the royal oak at Vincennes and dispensing justice to peasants. This picture of royal humility and social equality is a pleasant French historical tradition, and unquestionably ennobles the race of kings; but we should not forget that the unseen movement of social evolution toward Democracy, while indebted to St. Louis and other philanthropic types, is also under obligation to atrocious characters, for example Attila, the Hun. Why do we say this? The present writer regards history to be the record of human nature in action. Therefore, of a certainty we must make the circle large enough to reckon with the contributions of Every Man: Criminal and judge, invalid and athlete, sinner and saint. We must examine vice that may have stimulated the original situation. In the end, was the basis of fraternalism enlarged? In the great experiment of Democracy, now painfully in the making, mark this: Whatever sufferings contributed to fraternalism hastening the coming of Democracy; whatever advanced knowledge made for Democracy; and finally, whatever furthered man's unfolding sense of Natural justice, helped along the larger life. Progress by Duress; Case of the Black Death on. We shall be called on under varying conditions as we trace the rise of the masses, to point out examples of what we term Progress by Duress; that is, in the struggle for supremacy one social group takes advantage of the misfortunes of another group and forces a division of privileges heretofore sought in vain. We refer to all manner of disasters, such as shipwreck, famine, war, or what you will. Let us cite one illustration. In the 1300's Europe was visited by the scourge known as the Black Death; 25,000,000 victims died within a year; the plague was named Black Death because the body turned black and death ensued within three days. We know today that the plague was brought by germs in bales of merchandise from the Orient, and later was spread by rats, but such were the superstitions of the time that Jews were persecuted, burned and maimed in the belief that Jews sent the plague by poisoning the wells. In France, England and elsewhere agricultural laborers (villeins) died off in such numbers that there remained scarcely enough men to till the land-and vast areas supported no human being. When in the year of the Black Death Edward III (d. 1377) started roaming about France on one of his numerous buccaneering expeditions (100 Years' War), his army marched through a seemingly uninhabited country; French villages were deserted; in the fields carcasses of sheep, swine and cattle rotted side by side with the unburied bodies of farmlaborers the living were afraid to bury the dead. This appalling situation existed throughout Europe. The Black Death raged only a short time, but when it subsided an abrupt change followed in land-tenure. Title by feudal origin received a stunning blow and never recovered. Now enters a new era. Laborers demanded privileges of various kinds or they refused to till the soil, and the owners, in the face of obvious ruin, proceeded to make a new basis of industrial and social cooperation. Laborers thus obtained a modified reorganization of tenure. In effect, it now became rent as between owner and tenant, or wages as between farmer and laborer. Thus the Black Death assisted many a villein to escape from thralldom; a destructive element causing unparalleled human misery and social ruin became transformed into a vast constructive force for a downtrodden element in society. In the 1000's A. D. the despotic dynasty of Abbadides was for a time represented by the cruel El Motaddid, the successful general, poet and poisoner. From his palace, the Alcazar, El Motaddid dictated marauding expeditions, for loot. This peculiar fellow was wont to use the skulls of ordinary prisoners for flower pots, but the skulls of nobles, he kept in ornamental chests. Now and then, on the tyrant's request, servants brought out and placed the ghastly souvenirs before the king. And on these relics of his great glory, El Motaddid feasted his stupid gaze. The inevitable reaction against this Tyrant of Seville helped along the cause of Christian kings of Leon and Castile, and ultimately had to do with hastening Democracy, in centuries to come. In the 1300's Abba Mari, a man of importance in his day, ordered the works of Aristotle burnt, had a law passed making it a crime to read the Greek philosopher's books. In turn, this led to a schism among the Jews, and a new impulse was given to the study of philosophy. The vile record of books on art, law, science, politics, religion, burnt by the public hangman, including many of the greatest thoughts of the world's noblest minds, should inspire us today. It shows how far the cause of Democracy though checked at every turn, has spread. But when in one of our subsequent chapters we present details of banned books, in England, France, Italy, and elsewhere, that were destroyed by the hangman on the order of a prince, college, or by a pope, you must reflect not on how wise we are today, for we are still burning books, even to this hour. The hour is long past when an American will have his house burned down because he may write that a king's political power is not divine, but nevertheless the final victory for constructive criticism is still closed in many departments of human thought. Whatever our race may have suffered in the past, the victory of ultimate Democracy for body, soul and spirit is still remote. This means, in turn, that every man on this Earth today has personal responsibilities for the future. When James VI. of Scotland (d. 1625) was on his journey to London to assume the throne as James I, a cut-purse was taken in the act of stealing from one of the royal retinue. James immediately ordered, “Take him away and hang him without trial." James was thinking of the divine right of kings, and from his point of view was undoubtedly correct. We should not be troubled about the final outcome of hateful episodes, like this vile selfishness of James. Or, as Lear remarks to Gloucester: "Thou hast seen a farmer's dog bark at a beggar?" "Ay, sir." "And the creature ran from the cur? There thou mightest behold the great image of authority: A dog obeyed in office." Englishmen of James' retinue looked at one another out of the corners of their eyes. It was clear that James did not understand the sense of fair play, for which the mass of Englishmen had been fighting for centuries past, against the exactions of their own turbulent monarchs. Magna Charta (1215) guaranteed an impartial trial by a jury of one's peers; and while this was often set aside, the English never felt quite right about breaking the old law. On the king's despotic order, the pickpocket was taken away and hanged. But mark you this: Within 45 years the English brought to the block James' son, Charles I, who lost his life much as the pickpocket had died years before. When enough pickpockets had perished without trial, the time eventually came when not even pickpockets could longer be dealt with outside the law, even on the wish of a tyrannical monarch. And a few decades later, in a time of great National crisis, we hear Pitt use these strong words, yet no judge in England dared send him to his doom: "The poorest man in England, sirs, may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail, its roof may shake, the wind may blow through it, the storms may enter, the rain may beat in, but the king of England cannot enter and all his forces dare not cross that threshold of the ruined tenement." That is what we call liberty under law; and so Pitt's prophecy, as well as the story of the cut-purse, belongs in this book. A renowned authority (Gardiner, Hist. England, p. 150) tells us apropos of James and divine right, “Though his reign did not witness a revolution, it witnessed that loosening of the bonds of sympathy between ruler and the ruled which is often the precursor of revolution." The soul behind the machine; State, no The old-time historian said it was all very "simple." This matter of Democratic origins he dismissed with a grand air, making gestures toward battle-chiefs and their warriors, under the the Teutonic Teutonic oaks. The gifted Montesquieu borrowing from Tacitus imposes a very large obligation on the theory. Here are Montesquieu's words, in one of his notable chapters on the conception of the State: “The germs of parliamentary constitutions are to be found in the forests of Germany." And to this the Heidelberg doctor (Bluntschli) adds: "In the primitive forms described by Tacitus, in which the Teutonic |