Will Paget On Demos And Hogos
By Edgar Lee Masters
To Coroner Merival, greetings, but a voice
Dissentient from much that goes the rounds,
Concerning Elenor Murray. Here's my word:
Give men and women freedom, save the land
From dull theocracy - the theo, what?
A blend of Demos and Jehovah! Say,
Bring back your despots, bring your Louis Fourteenths,
And give them thrones of gold and ivory
From where with leaded sceptres they may whack
King Demos driven forth. You know the face?
The temples are like sea shells, hollows out,
Which narrow close the space for cortex cells.
There would be little brow if hair remained;
But hair is gone, because the dandruff came.
The eyes are close together like a weasel's;
The jaws are heavy, that is character;
The mouth is thin and wide to gobble chicken;
The paunch is heavy for the chickens eaten.
Throned high upon a soap box Demos rules,
And mumbles decalogues: Thou shalt not read,
Save what I tell you, never books that tell
Of men and women as they live and are.
Thou shalt not see the dramas which portray
The evil passions and satiric moods
Which mock this Christian nation and its hope.
Thou shalt not drink, not even wine or beer.
Thou shalt not play at cards, or see the races.
Thou shalt not be divorced! Thou shalt not play.
Thou shalt not bow to graven images
Of beauty cut in marble, fused in bronze.
Behold my name is Demos, King of Kings,
My name is legion, I am many, come
Out of the sea where many hogs were drowned,
And now the ruler of hogocracy,
Where in the name of freedom hungry snouts
Root up the truffles in your great republic,
And crunch with heavy jaws the legs and arms
Of people who fall over in the pen.
Hierarchies in my name are planted under
Your states political to sprout and take
The new world's soil, - religious freedom this! -
Thought must be free - unless your thought objects
To such dominion, and to literal faith
In an old book that never had a place
Except beside the Koran, Zarathustra.
So here is your theocracy and here
The land of Boredom. Do you wonder now
That people cry for war? You see that God
Frowns on all games but war. You shall not play
Or kindle spirit with a rapture save
A moral end's in view. All joy is sin,
Where joy stands for itself alone, nor asks
Consent to be, save for itself. But war
Waged to put down the wrong, it's always that;
To vindicate God's truths, all wars are such,
Is game that lets the spirit play, is backed
By God and moral reasons, therefore war,
A game disguised as business, cosmic work
For great millenniums, no less relieves
The boredom of theocracies. But if
Your men and women had the chance to play,
Be free and spend superfluous energies,
In what I call the greatest game, that's Life,
Have life more freely, deeply, and you say
How would you like a war and lose a leg,
Or come from battle sick for all your years?
You would say no, unless you saw an issue,
Stripped clean of Christian twaddle, as we'll say
The Greeks beheld the Persians. Well, behold
All honest paganism in such things discarded
For God who comes in glory, trampling presses
Filled up with grapes of wrath.
Now hear me out:
I knew we'd have a war, it wasn't only
That your hogocracy was grunting war
We'd fight Japan, take Mexico - remember
How dancing flourished madly in the land;
Then think of savages who dance the Ghost Dance,
And cattle lowing, rushing in a panic,
There's psychic secrets here. But then at last
What can you do with life? You're well and strong,
Flushed with desire, mad with appetites,
You turn this way and find a sign forbidden,
You turn that way and find the door is closed.
Hogocracy, King Demos say, go back,
Find work, develop character, restrain,
Draw up your belt a little tighter, hunger
And thirst diminish with a tighter belt.
And none to say, take off the belt and eat,
Here's water for you.
Well, you have a war.
We used to say in foot ball kick their shins,
And gouge their eyes out - when our shins were kicked
We hollered foul and ouch. There was the south
Who called us mud-sills in this freer north,
And mouthed democracy; and as for that
Their churches made of God a battle leader,
An idea come from Palestine; oh, yes,
They soon would wipe us up, they were the people.
But when we slaughtered them they hollered ouch.
And why not? For a gun and uniform,
And bands that play are rapturous enough.
But when you get a bullet through the heart,
The game is not so funny as it was.
That's why I hated Germany and hate her,
And feel we could not let this German culture
Spread over earth. That culture was but this:
Life must have an expression and a game,
And war's the game, besides the prize is great
In land and treasure, commerce, let us play,
It lets the people's passions have a vent
When fires of life burn hot and hotter under
The kettle and the lid is clamped by work,
Dull duty, daily routine, inhibitions.
Before this Elenor Murray woke to life
LeRoy was stirring, but the stir was play.
It was a Gretna Green, and pleasure boats
Ran up and down the river - on the streets
You heard the cry of barkers, in the park
The band was playing, and you heard the ring
Of registers at fountains and buffets.
All this was shabby maybe, but observe
There are those souls who see the wrath of God
As blackest background to the light of soul:
And when the thunder rumbles and the storm
Comes up with lightning then they say to men
Who laugh in bar-rooms, "Have a care, blasphemers,
You may be struck by lightning" - here's the root
From which this mood ascetic comes to leaf
In all theocracies, and throws a shadow
Upon all freedom.
Look at us to-day.
They say to me, see what a town we have:
The men at work, smoke coming from the chimneys,
The banks full up of money, business good,
The workmen sober, going home at night,
No rowdy barkers and no bands a-playing,
No drinking and no gaming and no vice.
No marriages contracted to be broken.
Look how LeRoy is quiet, sane and clean!
And I reply, you like the stir of work,
But not the stir of play; your chimneys smoke,
Your banks have money. Let me look behind
The door that closes on your man at home,
The wife and children there, what shall I find?
A sick man looks to health as it were all,
But when the fever leaves him and he feels
The store of strength in muscles slumbering
And waiting to be used, then something else
Than health is needful, he must have a way
To voice the life within him, and he wonders
Why health seemed so desirable before,
And all sufficient to him.
Take this girl:
Why do you marvel that she rode at night
With any man who came along? Good God,
If I were born a woman and they put me
In a theocracy, hogocracy,
I'd do the first thing that came in my mind
To give my soul expression. Don't you think
You're something of a bully and a coward
To ask such model living from this girl
When you, my grunting hogos, run the land
And bring us scandals like the times of Grant,
And poisoned beef sold to the soldier boys,
When we were warring Spain, and all this stuff
Concerning loot and plunder, malversation,
That riots in your cities, printed daily?
I roll the panoramic story out
To Washington the great - what do I see?
It's tangle foot, the sticky smear is dry;
But I can find wings, legs and heads, remember
How little flies and big were buzzing once
Of God and duty, country, virtue, faith;
And beating wings, already gummed with sweet,
Until their little bellies touched the glue,
They sought to fill their bellies with - at last
Long silence, which is history, scroll rolled up
And spoken of in sacred whispers.
Well,
I'm glad that Elenor Murray had her fling,
If that be really true. I understand
What drove her to the war. I think she knew
Too much to marry, settle down and live
Under the rule of Demos or of Hogos.
I wish we had a dozen Elenor Murrays
In every village in this land of Demos
To down Theocracy, which is just as bad
As Prussianism, is no different
From Prussianism. And I fear but this
As fruitage of the war: that men and women
Will have burnt on their souls the words ceramic
That war's the thing, and this theocracy,
Where generous outlets for the soul are stopped
Will keep the words in mind. When boredom comes,
And grows intolerable, you'll see the land
Go forth to war to get a thrill and live -
Unless we work for freedom, for delight
And self-expression.
*****
Dwight Henry is another writer of letters,
Stirred by the Murray inquest; writes a screed
"The House that Jack Built," read by Merival
To entertain his jury, in these words: