Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy

Gerald Stanley Lee

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• Publié par: ordue
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 56
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Crowds, by Gerald Stanley Lee This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: Crowds A Moving-Picture of Democracy Author: Gerald Stanley Lee Release Date: May 3, 2005 [EBook #15759] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CROWDS *** Produced by Rick Niles, Cori Samuel and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. CROWDS A MOVING-PICTURE OF DEMOCRACY BY GERALD STANLEY LEE Editor of "Mount Tom" IN FIVE BOOKS CROWDS AND MACHINES LETTING THE CROWD BE GOOD LETTING THE CROWD BE BEAUTIFUL CROWDS AND HEROES GOOD NEWS AND HARD WORK GARDEN CITY NEW YORK DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY Copyright, 1913, by DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY THE RIDGWAY COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY MITCHELL KENNERLEY COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY CO. COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY THE OUTLOOK COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY THE INDEPENDENT WEEKLY, INCORPORATED BOOKS By GERALD STANLEY LEE THE LOST ART OF READING A Sketch of Civilization THE CHILD AND THE BOOK A Constructive Criticism of Education THE SHADOW CHRIST A Study of the Hebrew Men of Genius THE VOICE OF THE MACHINES An Introduction to the Twentieth Century INSPIRED MILLIONAIRES A Study of the Man of Genius in Business CROWDS A Moving Picture of Democracy Gratefully inscribed to a little Mountain, a great Meadow, and a Woman. To the Mountain for the sense of time, to the Meadow for the sense of space, and to the Woman for the sense of everything. TABLE OF CONTENTS BOOK ONE CROWDS AND MACHINES I. WHERE ARE WE GOING? II. THE CROWD SCARE III. THE MACHINE SCARE IV. THE STRIKE—AN INVENTION FOR MAKING CROWDS THINK V. THE CROWD-MAN—AN INVENTION FOR MAKING CROWDS SEE VI. THE IMAGINATION OF CROWDS VII. IMAGINATION ABOUT THE UNSEEN VIII. THE CROWD'S IMAGINATION ABOUT THE FUTURE IX. THE CROWD'S IMAGINATION ABOUT PEOPLE X. A DEMOCRATIC THEORY OF HUMAN NATURE XI. DOING AS ONE WOULD WISH ONE HAD DONE IN TWENTY YEARS XII. NEW KINDS AND NEW SIZES OF MEN BOOK TWO LETTING THE CROWDS BE GOOD I. SPEAKING AS ONE OF THE CROWD II. IS IT WRONG FOR GOOD PEOPLE TO BE EFFICIENT? III. IS IT WRONG FOR GOOD PEOPLE TO BE INTERESTING? IV. PROSPECTS OF THE LIAR V. PROSPECTS OF THE BULLY VI. GOODNESS AS A CROWD-PROCESS VII. THOUGHTS ON BEING IMPROVED BY OTHER PEOPLE VIII. MAKING GOODNESS HURRY IX. TOUCHING THE IMAGINATION OF CROWDS X. THE STUPENDOUS, THE UNUSUAL, THE MONOTONOUS AND THE SUCCESSFUL XI. THE SUCCESSFUL XII. THE NECKS OF THE WICKED XIII. IS IT WRONG FOR GOOD PEOPLE TO BE SUCCESSFUL? XIV. IS IT SECOND RATE FOR GOOD PEOPLE TO BE SUCCESSFUL? XV. THE SUCCESSFUL TEMPERAMENT XVI. THE MEN AHEAD PULL XVII. THE CROWDS PUSH XVIII. THE MAN WHO SAYS HOW, SAYS HOW XIX. AND THE MACHINE STARTS! BOOK THREE LETTING THE CROWD BE BEAUTIFUL PART I. WISTFUL MILLIONAIRES I. MR. CARNEGIE SPEAKS UP II. MR. CARNEGIE TRIES TO MAKE PEOPLE READ III. MR. NOBEL TRIES TO MAKE PEOPLE WRITE IV. PAPER BOOKS, MARBLE PILLARS, AND WOODEN BOYS V. THE HUMDRUM FACTORY AND THE TUMPTY-TUM THEATRE PART II. IRON MACHINES I. STEEPLES AND CHIMNEYS II. BELLS AND WHEELS III. DEW AND ENGINES IV. DEAD AS A DOOR NAIL! V. AN OXFORD MAN AND AN INCH OF IRON VI. THE MACHINES' MACHINES VII. THE MEN'S MACHINES VIII. THE BASEMENT OF THE WORLD IX. THE GROUND FLOOR FOLKS X. THE MACHINE-TRAINERS XI. MACHINES, CROWDS, AND ARTISTS PART III. PEOPLE-MACHINES I. NOW! II. COMMITTEES AND COMMITTEES III. THE INCONVENIENCE OF BEING HUMAN IV. LETTING THE CROWD HAVE PEOPLE IN IT BOOK FOUR CROWDS AND HEROES I. THE SOCIALIST AND THE HERO II. THE CROWD AND THE HERO III. THE CROWD AND THE AVERAGE PERSON IV. THE CROWD AND PIERPONT MORGAN V. THE CROWD AND TOM MANN VI. AN OPENING FOR THE NEXT PIERPONT MORGAN VII. AN OPENING FOR THE NEXT TOM MANN VIII. THE MEN WHO LOOK IX. WHO IS AFRAID? X. RULES FOR TELLING A HERO—WHEN ONE SEES ONE XI. THE TECHNIQUE OF COURAGE XII. THE MEN WHO WANT THINGS XIII. MEN WHO GET THINGS XIII. MEN WHO GET THINGS XIV. SOURCES OF COURAGE FOR OTHERS—TOLERATION XV. CONVERSION XVI. EXCEPTION XVII. INVENTION XVIII. THE MAN WHO PULLS THE WORLD TOGETHER XIX. THE MAN WHO STANDS BY XX. THE STRIKE OF THE SAVIOURS XXI. THE LEAGUE OF THE MEN WHO ARE NOT AFRAID BOOK FIVE GOOD NEWS AND HARD WORK PART I. NEWS AND LABOUR PART II. NEWS AND MONEY PART III. NEWS AND GOVERNMENT I. OXFORD STREET AND THE HOUSE OF COMMONS II. OXFORD STREET HUMS, THE HOUSE HEMS III. PRESIDENT WILSON AND MOSES IV. THE PRESIDENT SAYS YES AND NO V. THE PRESIDENT SAYS "LOOK!" VI. THE PEOPLE SAY "WHO ARE YOU?" VII. THE PEOPLE SAY "WHO ARE WE?" VIII. NEWS ABOUT US TO THE PRESIDENT IX. NEWS-MEN X. AMERICAN TEMPERAMENT AND GOVERNMENT XI-XII. NEWS-BOOKS XIII. NEWS-PAPERS XIV. NEWS-MACHINES XV. NEWS-CROWDS XVI. CROWD-MEN EPILOGUE BOOK ONE CROWDS AND MACHINES TO CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS "A battered, wrecked old man Thrown on this savage shore far, far from home, Pent by the sea and dark rebellious brows twelve dreary months ... The end I know not, it is all in Thee, Or small or great I know not—haply what broad fields, what lands!... And these things I see suddenly, what mean they As if some miracle, some hand divine unsealed my eyes, Shadowy vast shapes smile through the air and sky, And on the distant waves sail countless ships, And anthems in new tongues I hear saluting me." CHAPTER I WHERE ARE WE GOING? The best picture I know of my religion is Ludgate Hill as one sees it going down the foot of Fleet Street. It would seem to many perhaps like a rather strange half-heathen altar, but it has in it the three things with which I worship most my Maker in this present world—the three things which it would be the breath of religion to me to offer to a God together—Cathedrals, Crowds, and Machines. With the railway bridge reaching over, all the little still locomotives in the din whispering across the street; with the wide black crowd streaming up and streaming down, and the big, faraway, other-worldly church above, I am strangely glad. It is like having a picture of one's whole world taken up deftly, and done in miniature and hung up for one against the sky—the white steam which is the breath of modern life, the vast hurrying of our feet, and that Great Finger pointing toward heaven day and night for us all.... I never tire of walking out a moment from my nook in Clifford's Inn and stealing a glimpse and coming back to my fireplace. I sit still a moment before going to work and look in the flames and think. The great roar outside the Court gathers it all up—that huge, boundless, tiny, summed-up world out there; flings it faintly against my quiet windows while I sit and think. And when one thinks of it a minute, it sends one half-fearfully, half-triumphantly back to one's work—the very thought of it. The Crowd hurrying, the Crowd's flurrying Machines, and the Crowd's God, send one back to one's work! In the afternoon I go out again, slip my way through the crowds along the Strand, toward Charing Cross. I never tire of watching the drays, the horses, the streaming taxis, all these little, fearful, gliding crowds of men and women, when a little space of street is left, flowing swiftly, flowing like globules, like mercury, between the cabs. But most of all I like looking up at that vast second story of the street, coming in over one like waves, like seas—all these happy, curious tops of 'buses; these dear, funny, way-up people on benches; these world-worshippers, sightworshippers, and Americans—all these little scurrying congregations, hundreds of them, rolling past. I sit on the front seat of a horse 'bus elbow to elbow with the driver, staring down over the brink of the abyss upon ears and necks—that low, distant space where the horses look so tiny and so ineffectual and so gone-by below. The street is the true path of the spirit. To walk through it, or roll or swing on top of a 'bus through it—the miles of faces, all these tottering, toddling, swinging miles of legs and stomachs; and on all sides of you, and in the windows and along the walks, the things they wear, and the things they eat, and the things they pour down their little throats, and the things they pray to and curse and worship and swindle in! It is like being out in the middle of a great ocean of living, or like climbing up some great mountain-height of people, their abysses and their clouds about them, their precipices and jungles and heavens, the great high roads of their souls reaching off.... I can never say why, but so strange is it, so full of awe is it, and of splendour and pity, that there are times when, rolling and swinging along on top of a 'bus, with all this strange, fearful joy of life about me, within me ... it is as if on top of my 'bus I had been far away in some infinite place, and had felt Heaven and Hell sweep past. One of the first things that strikes an American when he slips over from New York, and finds himself, almost before he had thought of it—walking down the Strand, suddenly, instead of Broadway, is the way things—thousands of things at once; begin happening to him. Of course, with all the things that are happening to him—the 'buses, the taxis, the Wren steeples, the great streams of new sights in the streets, the things that happen to his eyes and to his ears, to his feet and his hands, and to his body lunging through the ground and swimming up in space on top of a 'bus through this huge, glorious, yellow mist of people ... there are all the things besides that begin happening to his mind. In New York, of course, he rushes along through the city, in a kind of tunnel of his own thoughts, of his own affairs, and drives on to his point, and New York does not—at least it does not very often—make things happen