general benefit, he must voluntarily contribute time and money to the general good. The necessary machinery of society will, of course, exist—courts to settle disputes and police to keep order—but they will be maintained by voluntary co-operation.
A lady in the meeting said to me afterwards, "You are a socialist." "No, madam," I said, "I am at the other extreme of political philosophy. I am an anarchist." "Ah, yes," she said, "substantially the same." And I would doubt if she ought to vote, if it were not that the intelligent voters of this land, and the intelligent press are in the same state of ignorance. Possibly, she thinks I am engaged in the secret manufacture of bombs.
Baseball
Every sport, if kept clean, has a good effect, not only as recreation, but, like the play of puppies and kittens, it helps prepare for the contests of life. There is in every town, not excepting Portland, a tendency to support the home team. This is natural. But there seems to be a growing tendency to support it, fair or foul; to insult and mob the umpire who dares decide against the favorites. This is dirty ball and makes for dirty play and dirty morals. The umpire is the judge. He may be good, he may be very poor, but while he is umpire his decisions should be accepted. That is what he is there for. You cannot show he is a poor umpire by cursing him or jumping on him with spiked shoes. One of the dirtiest exhibitions of a clean sport made dirty, was when McCreedie, of the Portlands, spiked an umpire because he was enraged at his decision.
A man who cannot keep his temper on a public ball field isn't fit to be there, no matter how well he can play. What would be thought of the courts if the lawyers cursed, hooted and abused the judge who decided against them? Yet, I have seen a judge, one who expected his decisions to be quietly acquisieced in, hooting the umpire till the judge was purple in the face. Instead of the public opinion of the grandstand and the bleachers condemning this unfairness, it seems to encourage the man who will put up the biggest bluff and raise the loudest outcry against the umpire. It is not a very healthy sign of American fair play when a whole field of players and spectators start out to mob one small umpire.
I don't care what may be the ignorance or the mistakes of the umpire—and he is bound to make mistakes—such a temper is a cowardly one and makes for cowardice and injustice.
It is refreshing to see the Oregon Journal vindicating the small umpire, and manly enough to print in bold headlines that the Tacomas outplayed the Portlands and deserved their victory. The Tacomas have been kept together three years, I believe, and it is natural that they should be superior in team work. But superior or not, the truth remains that the umpire is part of the game. He is the judge. He does his best, and it is part of the square game to submit to his decisions after fair protests have been decently made. He cannot please every one, and the tendency toward a riot, first by one side, then by the other, when he is obliged to decide against one or the other, is not creditable to any sense of fair play.
It is a pity that in the colleges so few get the benefit of the sports. They have become semi-professional. Instead of the baseball and the football fields and the track and course being open to all for the exercise and for the fun of the thing, all but a few selected ones are barred out, and these few selected ones really become in a sense professionals for their colleges. Instead of the whole college getting the benefit of athletics as a general sport and a manly eexrcise, an athletic department is supported for the benefit and injury of a few, and for the commercial gain and glory of the college.
It seems to me, too, it would be a very original feat if some reporter of sports would learn to write English. I see little superiority either in style or clearness in "Muggsy of the Seals was handed a pass by Juggsy of the home talent, but died on the premier bag when Binks, wielding the stick, lifted the horsehide to center, where it fell into Jones' trap."
Anarchy
James Ford, an old hermit who desired to live alone in the woods and on vegetable diet, has been arrested by the police as a vagrant. He is admittedly harmless, and so far as disclosed is sane; but it shocked the police that a man should live so far from saloons and in such an uncomfortable way. Under the principles of anarchy, this man, so long as he did not steal nor hurt any one, would be allowed to live his own life as he pleased, whether it pleased the police or not. Come to think of it, he would have been allowed to do so in the middle ages.
Ford said in the police court:
I have lived here since Christmas, and have interfered with no one. I lived here because I wanted to get away from men, and live alone, where I could meditate and think of the things of which I wanted to think without molestation and interference. I believe that man should live alone, and that he should live as close to nature as possible. I think that your interference was caused by the church people, who do not like the way I live and the way I worship.
Thank God this is a free country! Poor Thoreau at Walden; if only the Portland police had found him!
