Читать книгу The Story of my Life - Clarence Darrow - Страница 8

Table of Contents

In spite of my fond hopes, business did not come with a rush. Strange to say, the meeting did not bring clients, and these were what I needed most. A few weeks after Henry George and I had spoken at Central Music Hall, DeWitt C. Cregier was elected mayor of Chicago. Although I had taken part in his campaign I had never met him, and did not even try to make his acquaintance. I knew that almost every one who had voted for him would expect some favor in return, and I had no ambition to enter into that sort of contest.

It was perhaps two months after the election that I was wearily sitting in my office when a messenger brought me a letter. It was from DeWitt C. Cregier, asking me to come over and see him when I had time. The latter part of the sentence sounded like a joke. I had time right then. So I put the letter into my pocket and went to see the mayor. The hall and the offices were crowded with politicians looking for jobs. I sent in my name and was not kept waiting. After a little preliminary conversation Mr. Cregier asked me if I would take the position of special assessment attorney.

I had very little idea of the duties of a special assessment attorney. I was told that the salary was three thousand dollars for only a year's time, and this seemed to me a fabulous sum, so I told him that I would be glad to take it and do the best I could. He asked me when I could be ready to begin. I answered that I saw no reason why I should not begin right now. So I was placed on the pay roll before I left the office, and immediately and recklessly started in.

Very soon I grew familiar with the work. Of course many questions came up for immediate answers which I did not fully understand, but I used the best judgment I had and always answered promptly. Seldom did I find that I had guessed wrong. I thought, then, that it was my natural judgment and wisdom that led me to always answer right. Since that time I have modified my opinion. I was working for the city of Chicago. I had all the strength of a large city behind my decision; few were able to contest my opinion, and even if they did, the tendency of the courts was always to decide for the city. All my experience in life has strengthened this conclusion. Every advantage in the world goes with power. The city, the State, the county, the nation can scarcely be wrong. Behind them is organized society, and the individual who is obliged to contest for his rights against these forces in either civil or criminal courts is fighting against dreadful odds.

When I had been special assessment attorney for about three months some political complication compelled the resignation of the assistant corporation counsel and I was given his place. My salary then became five thousand dollars a year. My duties were more strenuous and I gave them all my time and attention. This position kept me in court a great deal in contested cases. At the same time every alderman and city official had the right to ask my advice, which I learned to give as promptly as possible, often simply making the best guess I could, and almost invariably finding that my advice settled the whole controversy. For about ten months I remained in this office, and then the corporation counsel was stricken with an illness that compelled him to go south to a warmer climate, whereupon I became acting corporation counsel, and was the head of the law department of the city of Chicago. When luck began to change everything seemed rapidly to come my way. As acting corporation counsel I was in daily conference with the Mayor, and we came to be good friends. In one of my interviews I asked him how he happened to send for me and ask me to be special assessment attorney, never having met me before. He replied, "Don't you know? Why, I heard you make that speech that night with Henry George."

How much had I to do with all this? I had nothing whatever to do with my birth, which was a rather important event in the whole scheme. It seemed that in the infinite chances that bring forth life I was to be I. Nor had I the slightest thing to do with the sort of being that was spawned out with all the rest; nor the environment in which I found myself. Every turn of the development came from a cause that was controlling to me. Had I been able to deliberate, I could only have considered the arguments for and against each step, and my answer would necessarily have been in the way that seemed best to me in view of all circumstances, including my structure. Passing by an endless number of influences of equal import that determined my destiny, I had nothing to do with the woman refusing to sign the deed that drove me to Chicago. Had she signed that deed I should not have left Ashtabula, Ohio. I had nothing to do with being invited to speak at the Henry George meeting. I had nothing to do with a man being in the audience who afterward became mayor. I had nothing to do with being invited to become special assessment attorney. I had nothing to do with political differences that made me assistant corporation counsel. I had nothing to do with illness coming upon the corporation counsel, which placed me at the head of the department for the time. But, while I did not make the corporation counsel ill, I am afraid that I fully approved it. His sickness seemed to be what is generally called "an act of Providence." If it was such an act, it is plain that Providence was thinking of me and not of him.

For the following two years I was very busy with the affairs of the city of Chicago. Every man was my client; that is, every one who had any business with the city of Chicago. I found most of the officials, like the average office-holders, anxious to shirk responsibility. Nothing could be done without the advice of the Corporation Counsel's office. It was my business to assume the responsibility. I always took my share of the burden, and made no attempt to dodge. In cases of doubt I resolved the doubt in favor of the city, as all officials do, but I never let this rule prevent me from deciding in favor of the property holder and the citizen when I was satisfied that he was right.

In this place I made the acquaintance of all the aldermen and most of the politicians of Chicago. I never admired politicians, though they are generally kindly and genial, and often very intelligent; but seldom is there one with real courage. Their constituency is that mysterious entity known as "the people"--with all its ignorance, its prejudices, its selfishness, and, worst of all, its insincerity as to either men or principles. This is the despair of ever accomplishing anything of real value in the affairs of state. While I liked political questions, I did not like politicians, as such, and never wanted political office.

During these early years in Chicago I was very much interested in what passes under the name of "radicalism" and at one time was a pronounced disciple of Henry George. But as I read and pondered about the history of man, as I learned more about the motives that move individuals and communities, I became doubtful of his philosophy. I never believed that land should be reduced to private ownership, and I never felt that any important social readjustment could come while any one could claim the unconditional right to any part of the earth and "the fulness thereof." The error I found in the philosophy of Henry George was its cocksureness, its simplicity, and the small value that it placed upon the selfish motives of men. I grew weary of its everlasting talk of "natural rights." The doctrine was a hang-over from the seventeenth century in France, when the philosophers had given up the idea of God, but still thought that there must be some immovable basis for man's conduct and ideas. In this dilemma they evolved the theory of natural rights. If "natural rights" means anything it means that the individual rights are to be determined by the conduct of Nature. But Nature knows nothing about rights in the sense of human conception. Nothing is so cruel, so wanton, so unfeeling as Nature; she moves with the weight of a glacier carrying everything before her. In the eyes of Nature, neither man nor any of the other animals mean anything whatever. The rock-ribbed mountains, the tempestuous sea, the scorching desert, the myriad weeds and insects and wild beasts that infest the earth, and the noblest man, are all one. Each and all are helpless against the cruelty and immutability of the resistless processes of Nature.

Socialism seemed to me much more logical and profound; Socialism at least recognized that if man was to make a better world it must be through the mutual effort of human units; that it must be by some sort of co-operation that would include all the units of the state. Still, while I was in sympathy with its purposes, I could never find myself agreeing with its methods. I had too little faith in men to want to place myself entirely in the hands of the mass. And I never could convince myself that any theory of Socialism so far elaborated was consistent with individual liberty. To me liberty meant only power to do what one wished to do. Free will had nothing to do with the wanting. Man did not create the wishes; he simply struggled to carry them out. I never could imagine life being worth while without the opportunity to carry out individual desires. I always have had sympathy for the Socialistic view of life, and still have sympathy with it, but could never find myself working for the party.

Anarchism, as taught by Kropotkin, Recluse and Tolstoy, impressed me more, but it impressed me only as the vision of heaven held by the elect, a far-off dream that had no relation to life. So, without having any specific radical faith, I always was friendly toward its ideals and aims, and could feel and see the injustice of the present system, and generally found myself in conflict with it.

This is still my attitude on social and political questions. I believed in keeping society flexible and mobile, and embracing what seemed like opportunity to bring about a fairer distribution of this world's goods. Living in the North, and holding these views, I have always been driven to the support of the Democratic party, with few illusions as to what it meant.

Neither government nor political economy is an exact science. They concern the arrangement of human units. If it were possible to demonstrate what sort of an arrangement would be best for the individuals of the state, it would be of no avail. Humans cannot be controlled like inanimate objects, or even like the lower animals. Each human unit is in some regard an independent entity with his own ideas, his hopes and fears, loves and hates. These attitudes are constantly changing from day to day, and year to year. They are played upon by shrewd men, by influential newspapers, by all sorts of schemes and devices which make human government only trial and success, and trial and failure. Human organizations are simply collections of individuals always in motion and always seeking for easier and more harmonious adjustment, and never static.

I could see but one way toward any general betterment of social organization, and that was by teaching sympathy and tolerance. This in itself is so hopeless a task that every one despairs of any result worth the effort. Sympathy or its lack is so entirely due to the character of the physical organism that teaching is of little help. Sympathy is the child of imagination, and possibly this can be cultivated if the effort is begun in childhood. Imagination gives one power to put oneself in another's place. It does more; it compels him to rejoice and suffer with the joys and sorrows of those about him. Like almost everything else, it brings both pain and pleasure, and whether it adds to the happiness of the individual or increases his misery, cannot be told; of course it does both, but I know no way of finding out the net result.

In politics, political economy, and human institutions, men make the great mistake of thinking that any special adjustment of individual units is perfect or sacred. Probably no organization or any part of one is wholly either good or bad. Even if at some time it seemed to conduce to man's highest good it would not follow that it would have the same effect at all times or places. I could never be convinced that any institution was wholly good or wholly evil. This feeling has prevented me from obeying orders or being a bitter partisan on any question. Instinctively I lean toward the integrity of the individual unit, and am impatient with any interference with personal freedom. However, I know that society can not exist without recognizing the necessity of some control of the individual. If men could be taught to understand that the object sought should be to produce happiness, satisfaction, and general well-being for all, I believe the conditions of life could be made much easier and human beings made happier than they now are. This is a changing world, and still it must maintain a certain amount of consistency and stability or the individual units would separate, and chaos would make any co-operation impossible.

Naturally my connection with the city administration broadened my acquaintance and called me often to the discussion of social problems in all sorts of clubs and organizations. Every large city has many different cliques, societies and groups, and these are constantly on the lookout for new attractions to keep alive the interests of their members. Generally this becomes a burden to those who are more or less widely known; which is one reason why so few of the addresses are worth while. The speaker who talks at all sorts of meetings is apt to form hasty opinions, grow careless about what he says, and place too great an estimate upon his ideas and those picked up from others and passed along without proper consideration. One thing, however, is almost certain: clubs and societies are always looking for some one new, and just as surely they readily cast the old one out. This process gives the student a chance to test all opinions and explore fresh fields of thought. No writer or speaker should ever be satisfied that his view of things is sound. Only by constant trials and tests can one arrive at the truth, and there is no certainty that even these efforts will determine it.