The "Goldfish" Part 13

So far as I am concerned, the division of goodness into seven or more specific virtues is purely arbitrary. Virtue is generic. A man is either generous or mean--unselfish or selfish. The unselfish man is the one who is willing to inconvenience or embarra.s.s himself, or to deprive himself of some pleasure or profit for the benefit of others, either now or hereafter.

By the same token, now that I have given thought to the matter, I confess that I am a selfish man--at bottom. Whatever generosity I possess is surface generosity. It would not stand the acid test of self-interest for a moment. I am generous where it is worth my while--that is all; but, like everybody else in my cla.s.s, I have no generosity so far as my social and business life is concerned. I am willing to inconvenience myself somewhat in my intimate relations with my family or friends, because they are really a part of _me_--and, anyway, not to do so would result, one way or another, in even greater inconvenience to me.

Once outside my own house, however, I am out for myself and n.o.body else, however much I may protest that I have all the civic virtues and deceive the public into thinking I have. What would become of me if I did not look out for my own interests in the same way my a.s.sociates look out for theirs? I should be lost in the shuffle. The Christian virtues may be proclaimed from every pulpit and the Banner of the Cross fly from every housetop; but in business it is the law of evolution and not the Sermon on the Mount that controls.

The rules of the big game are the same as those of the Roman amphitheater. There is not even a pretense that the same code of morals can obtain among corporations and nations as among private individuals.

Then why blame the individuals? It is just a question of dog eat dog. We are all after the bone.

No corporation would shorten the working day except by reason of self-interest or legal compulsion. No business man would attack an abuse that would take money out of his own pocket. And no one of us, except out of revenge or pique, would publicly criticize or condemn a man influential enough to do us harm. The political Saint George usually hopes to jump from the back of the dead dragon of munic.i.p.al corruption into the governor's chair.

We have two standards of conduct--the ostensible and the actual. The first is a convention--largely literary. It is essentially merely a matter of manners--to lubricate the wheels of life. The genuine sphere of its influence extends only to those with whom we have actual contact; so that a breach of it would be embarra.s.sing to us. Within this qualified circle we do business as "Christians & Company, Limited."

Outside this circle we make a bluff at idealistic standards, but are guided only by the dictates of self-interest, judged almost entirely by pecuniary tests.

I admit, however, that, though I usually act from selfish motives, I would prefer to act generously if I could do so without financial loss.

That is about the extent of my altruism, though I concede an omnipresent consciousness of what is abstractly right and what is wrong.

Occasionally, but very rarely, I even blindly follow this instinct irrespective of consequences.

There have been times when I have been genuinely self-sacrificing.

Indeed I should unhesitatingly die for my son, my daughters--and probably for my wife. I have frequently suffered financial loss rather than commit perjury or violate my sense of what is right. I have called this sense an instinct, but I do not pretend to know what it is. Neither can I explain its origin. If it is anything it is probably utilitarian; but it does not go very far. I have manners rather than morals.

Fundamentally I am honest, because to be honest is one of the rules of the game I play. If I were caught cheating I should not be allowed to partic.i.p.ate. Honesty from this point of view is so obviously the best policy that I have never yet met a big man in business who was crooked.

Mind you, they were most of them pirates--frankly flying the black flag and each trying to scuttle the other's ships; but their word was as good as their bond and they played the game squarely, according to the rules.

Men of my cla.s.s would no more stoop to petty dishonesties than they would wear soiled linen. The word lie is not in their mutual language.

They may lie to the outside public--I do not deny that they do--but they do not lie to each other.

There has got to be some basis on which they can do business with one another--some stability. The spoils must be divided evenly. Good morals, like good manners, are a necessity in our social relations. They are the uncodified rules of conduct among gentlemen. Being uncodified, they are exceedingly vague; and the court of Public Opinion that administers them is apt to be not altogether impartial. It is a "respecter of persons."

One man can get away with things that another man will hang for. A Jean Valjean will steal a banana and go to the Island, while some rich fellow will put a bank in his pocket and everybody will treat it as a joke. A popular man may get drunk and not be criticized for it; but the sour chap who does the same thing is flung out of the club. There is little justice in the arbitrary decisions of society at large.

In a word we exact a degree of morality from our fellowmen precisely in proportion to its apparent importance to ourselves. It is a purely practical and even a rather shortsighted matter with us. Our friend's private conduct, so far as it does not concern us, is an affair of small moment. He can be as much of a roue as he chooses, so long as he respects our wives and daughters. He can put through a gigantic commercial robbery and we will acclaim his nerve and audacity, provided he is on the level with ourselves. That is the reason why cheating one's club members at cards is regarded as worse than stealing the funds belonging to widows and orphans.

So long as a man conducts himself agreeably in his daily intercourse with his fellows they are not going to put themselves out very greatly to punish him for wrongdoing that does not touch their own bank accounts or which merely violates their private ethical standards. Society is crowded with people who have been guilty of one detestable act, have got thereby on Easy Street and are living happily ever after.

I meet constantly fifteen or twenty men who have deliberately married women for their money--of course without telling them so. According to our professed principles this is--to say the least--obtaining money under false pretenses--a crime under the statutes. These men are now millionaires. They are crooks and swindlers of the meanest sort. Had they not married in this fashion they could not have earned fifteen hundred dollars a year; but everybody goes to their houses and eats their dinners.

There are others, equally numerous, who acquired fortunes by blackmailing corporations or by some deal that at the time of its accomplishment was known to be crooked. To-day they are received on the same terms as men who have been honest all their lives. Society is not particular as to the origin of its food supply. Though we might refuse to steal money ourselves we are not unwilling to let the thief spend it on us. We are too busy and too selfish to bother about trying to punish those who deserve punishment.

On the contrary we are likely to discover surprising virtues in the most unpromising people. There are always extenuating circ.u.mstances. Indeed, in those rare instances where, in the case of a rich man, the social chickens come home to roost, the reason his fault is not overlooked is usually so arbitrary or fortuitous that it almost seems an injustice that he should suffer when so many others go scot-free for their misdeeds.

Society has no conscience, and whatever it has as a subst.i.tute is usually stimulated only by motives of personal vengeance. It is easier to gloss over an offense than to make ourselves disagreeable and perhaps unpopular.

We have not even the public spirit to have a thief arrested and appear against him in court if he has taken from us only a small amount of money. It is too much trouble. Only when our pride is hurt do we call loudly on justice and honor.

Even revenge is out of fashion. It requires too much effort. Few of us have enough principle to make ourselves uncomfortable in attempting to show disapproval toward wrongdoers. Were this not so, the wicked would not be still flourishing like green bay trees. So long as one steals enough he can easily buy our forgiveness. Honesty is not the best policy--except in trifles.

CHAPTER VI

MY FUTURE

When I began to pen these wandering confessions--or whatever they may properly be called--it was with the rather hazy purpose of endeavoring to ascertain why it was that I, universally conceded to be a successful man, was not happy. As I reread what I have written I realize that, instead of being a successful man in any way, I am an abject failure.

The preceding pages need no comment. The facts speak for themselves. I had everything in my favor at the start. I had youth, health, natural ability, a good wife, friends and opportunity; but I blindly accepted the standards of the men I saw about me and devoted my energies to the achievement of the single object that was theirs--the getting of money.

Thirty years have gone by. I have been a leader in the race and I have secured a prize. But at what cost? I am old--a bundle of undesirable habits; my health is impaired; my wife has become a frivolous and extravagant woman; I have no real friends: my children are strangers to me, and I have no home. I have no interest in my family, my social acquaintances, or in the affairs of the city or nation. I take no sincere pleasure in art or books or outdoor life. The only genuine satisfaction that is mine is in the first fifteen-minutes' flush after my afternoon c.o.c.ktail and the preliminary course or two of my dinner. I have nothing to look forward to. No matter how much money I make, there is no use to which I can put it that will increase my happiness.

From a material standpoint I have achieved everything I can possibly desire. No king or emperor ever approximated the actual luxury of my daily life. No one ever accomplished more apparent work with less actual personal effort. I am a master at the exploitation of intellectual labor.

I have motors, saddle-horses, and a beautiful summer cottage at a cool and fashionable resort. I travel abroad when the spirit moves me; I entertain lavishly and am entertained in return; I smoke the costliest cigars; I have a reputation at the bar, and I have an established income large enough to sustain at least sixty intelligent people and their families in moderate comfort. This must be true, for on the one hundred and twenty-five dollars a month I pay my chauffeur he supports a wife and two children, sends them to school and on a three-months' vacation into the country during the summer. And, instead of all these things giving me any satisfaction, I am miserable and discontented.

The fact that I now realize the selfishness of my life led me to-day to resolve to do something for others--and this resolve had an unexpected and surprising consequence.

Heretofore I had been engaged in an introspective study of my own att.i.tude toward my fellows. I had not sought the evidence of outside parties. What has just occurred has opened my eyes to the fact that others have not been nearly so blind as I have been myself.

James Hastings, my private secretary, is a man of about forty-five years of age. He has been in my employ fifteen years. He is a fine type of man and deserves the greatest credit for what he has accomplished. Beginning life as an office boy at three dollars a week, he educated himself by attending school at night, learned stenography and typewriting, and has become one of the most expert law stenographers in Wall Street. I believe that, without being a lawyer, he knows almost as much law as I do.

Gradually I have raised his wages until he is now getting fifty dollars a week. In addition to this he does night-work at the Bar a.s.sociation at double rates, acts as stenographer at legal references, and does, I understand, some trifling literary work besides. I suppose he earns from thirty-five hundred to five thousand dollars a year. About thirteen years ago he married one of the woman stenographers in the office--a nice girl she was too--and now they have a couple of children. He lives somewhere in the country and spends an unconscionable time on the train daily, yet he is always on hand at an early hour.

What happened to-day was this: A peculiarly careful piece of work had been done in the way of looking up a point of corporation law, and I inquired who was responsible for briefing it. Hastings smiled and said he had done so. As I looked at him it suddenly dawned on me that this man might make real money if he studied for the bar and started in practice for himself. He had brains and an enormous capacity for work. I should dislike losing so capable a secretary, but it would be doing him a good turn to let him know what I thought; and it was time that I did somebody a good turn from an unselfish motive.

"Hastings," I said, "you're too good to be merely a stenographer. Why don't you study law and make some money? I'll keep you here in my office, throw things in your way and push you along. What do you say?"

He flushed with gratification, but, after a moment's respectful hesitation, shook his head.

"Thank you very much, sir," he replied, "but I wouldn't care to do it. I really wouldn't!"

Though I am fond of the man, his obstinacy nettled me.

"Look here!" I cried. "I'm offering you an unusual chance. You had better think twice before you decline such an opportunity to make something of yourself. If you don't take it you'll probably remain what you are as long as you live. Seize it and you may do as well as I have."

Hastings smiled faintly.

"I'm very sorry, sir," he repeated. "I'm grateful to you for your interest; but--I hope you'll excuse me--I wouldn't change places with you for a million dollars! No--not for ten million!"

He blurted out the last two sentences like a schoolboy, standing and twisting his notebook between his fingers.

There was something in his tone that dashed my spirits like a bucket of cold water. He had not meant to be impertinent. He was the most truthful man alive. What did he mean? Not willing to change places with me! It was my turn to flush.

"Oh, very well!" I answered in as indifferent a manner as I could a.s.sume. "It's up to you. I merely meant to do you a good turn. We'll think no more about it."

I continued to think about it, however. Would not change places with me--a fifty-dollar-a-week clerk!

Hastings' pointblank refusal of my good offices, coming as it did hard on the heels of my own realization of failure, left me sick at heart.

What sort of an opinion could this honest fellow, my mere employee--dependent on my favor for his very bread--have of me, his master? Clearly not a very high one! I was stung to the quick--chagrined; ashamed.