A Traveler from Altruria | Page 8

him, altogether."
"No," the Altrurian assented, somewhat to my surprise, I confess.
I resumed: "There was no one else to look after his interests, and it was
not only his right but his duty to get the most he could for himself and
his own, according to his best light. That is what I tell people when
they fall foul of him for his want of public spirit."
"The trouble seems to be, then, in the system that obliges each man to
be the guardian of his own interests. Is that what you blame?"
"No, I consider it a very perfect system. It is based upon individuality,
and we believe that individuality is the principle that differences
civilized men from savages, from the lower animals, and makes us a
nation instead of a tribe or a herd. There isn't one of us, no matter how
much he censured this man's want of public spirit, but would resent the
slightest interference with his property rights. The woods were his; he
had the right to do what he pleased with his own."

"Do I understand you that, in America, a man may do what is wrong
with his own?"
"He may do anything with his own."
"To the injury of others?"
"Well, not in person or property. But he may hurt them in taste and
sentiment as much as he likes. Can't a man do what he pleases with his
own in Altruria?"
"No, he can only do right with his own."
"And if he tries to do wrong, or what the community thinks is wrong?"
"Then the community takes his own from him." Before I could think of
anything to say to this he went on: "But I wish you would explain to me
why it was left to this man's neighbors to try and get him to sell his
portion of the landscape?"
"Why, bless my soul!" I exclaimed, "who else was there? You wouldn't
have expected to take up a collection among the summer-boarders?"
"That wouldn't have been so unreasonable; but I didn't mean that. Was
there no provision for such an exigency in your laws? Wasn't the state
empowered to buy him off at the full value of his timber and his land?"
"Certainly not," I replied. "That would be rank paternalism."
It began to get dark, and I suggested that we had better be going back to
the hotel. The talk seemed already to have taken us away from all
pleasure in the prospect; I said, as we found our way through the rich,
balsam-scented twilight of the woods, where one joy-haunted thrush
was still singing: "You know that in America the law is careful not to
meddle with a man's private affairs, and we don't attempt to legislate
personal virtue."
"But marriage," he said--"surely you have the institution of marriage?"

I was really annoyed at this. I returned, sarcastically; "Yes, I am glad to
say that there we can meet your expectation; we have marriage, not
only consecrated by the church, but established and defended by the
state. What has that to do with the question?"
"And you consider marriage," he pursued, "the citadel of morality, the
fountain of all that is pure and good in your private life, the source of
home and the image of heaven?"
"There are some marriages," I said, with a touch of our national humor,
"that do not quite fill the bill, but that is certainly our ideal of
marriage."
"Then why do you say that you have not legislated personal virtue in
America?" he asked. "You have laws, I believe, against theft and
murder, and slander and incest, and perjury and drunkenness?"
"Why, certainly."
"Then it appears to me that you have legislated honesty, regard for
human life, regard for character, abhorrence of unnatural vice, good
faith, and sobriety. I was told on the train coming up, by a gentleman
who was shocked at the sight of a man beating his horse, that you even
had laws against cruelty to animals."
"Yes, and I am happy to say that they are enforced to such a degree that
a man cannot kill a cat cruelly without being punished for it." The
Altrurian did not follow up his advantage, and I resolved not to be
outdone in magnanimity. "Come, I will own that you have the best of
me on those points. I must say you've trapped me very neatly, too; I can
enjoy a thing of that kind when it's well done, and I frankly knock
under. But I had in mind something altogether different when I spoke. I
was thinking of those idealists who want to bind us hand and foot and
render us the slaves of a state where the most intimate relations of life
shall be penetrated by legislation