free-verse204 lines

Will Paget On Demos And Hogos

by Edgar Lee Masters

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: