Will Paget On Demos And Hogos

    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: