Etc. [pp. 282-286]

Overland Monthly
This, we apprehend, is because he realizes
that the appeal to the love of beauty and to
an appreciation of Nature's virgin works has
comparatively little force in a time and a
civilization so distinctly materialistic as our
own. Therefore, he skillfully pits against
the industries and economic interests that
are exploiting the forests for their own gain
other industrial interests that are thereby
suffering great losses. That is right; indeed,
it is the necessary way. The only motive
that can stop a sawmill is the same motive
that sets the sawmill running, with a
counter application. It is a certain passion
of human nature that threatens the forests
and tree-monarchs of California. Salvation
for them will turn on the possibility of enlisting that same passion, under a stronger
inducement, or as it works in a larger body
of people, to resist the exploitation of the
forests.
The time will come, doubtless, somewhere
in the future ages of development, when the
language and lesson of nature to the spirit
of man will weigh in the balances at least
evenly with economic gains. But the hour
is not yet.
"Things are in the saddle
And ride mankind."
WHATEVER can have become of the plan
advanced by President Hadley, of Yale, for
the discipline of trust pro To moters by social ostracism?
Down It was one of the most ex the Trusts traordinary propositions ever
advanced in America as to
method in social economy. It came from a
high source and had the tone of sober sincerity. But not having noticed any subsequent discussion of it by the press, we judge
that it is "marked for the grave," to join the
host of deceased suggestions for the relief of
the suffering public from between the millstones of our economic system. Before we
Latinize our grief, however, with the customary and approved hic jacet, we desire to
hint at the reasons why the proposition
really had to die even before it had achieved,
or attempted to achieve, the least service in
behalf of hard-pressed mankind.
No reformer is chargeable with a more
simple and innocent Utopianism than that
of the President of Yale College, if indeed
he is in earnest about this scheme. The suc cessful working of it would call for very
different social conditions from those that
exist to-day. Probably the Yale scholar had
been too busy with his professorial or official
duties to forecast carefully the difficulties in volved in his plan. Take a concrete example
for an assumed application of the Hadley
penalty: It is alleged that Mr. Rockefeller
has recently taken further advantage of the
trust principle to push upward the price of
coal-oil, so that half the households in the
land are now paying an increased tribute
into his treasury. But the Rockefeller
treasury has a generous hole in it somewhere
and is constantly leaking large sums of
money into the treasuries of Brown and
Chicago universities. Now, suppose Mr.
Rockefeller to have a home in Providence
or in Chicago, or homes in both places, or a
home in any other university town in the
country. How, in the name of common
sense,-that is, a non-Utopian sense,-can
this trust promoter be kept out of the social
circle of the university set"? Is there
such a phenomenon as a college president,
even in Connecticut, who will say to him,
"I will not exchange dinner invitations with
you, sir; nor can I welcome your footsteps
on my threshold "? Why, man, this would
do more to hurt the cause of college endowments than would the appointment of Professor Harron to lectureships in half a dozen
leading American universities!
But possibly President Hadley had in mind
the "four hundred" groups, the elect and
numerically limited social sovereigns whose
authority and prerogative are recognized in
every great city, and would look to them to
execute social vengeance against all the
rascally nourishers of the trust evil. These
reprobate offenders, after a certain agreed
date, shall be left wretchedly invitationless
whenever the swell set is rolled in carriages
to parties and receptions. But, alack and
alas! the trust architect when he reads in
the morning paper, at the breakfast-table,
that the Reform League or the Good Government Club of his city has approved this
terrible punitory and chastening device and
has named him as a fit subject, will only
smile a wide smile. And then he will turn
to his wife and say, "Well, well, well! here
is a lot of fools who are going to shut me
out of the four hundred as a trust-promoter,
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