Yet we are silent.  Menial service is not a “social problem.”  It is not really discussed.  There is no scientific program for its “reform.”  There is but one panacea:  Escape!  Get yourselves and your sons and daughters out of the shadow of this awful thing!  Hire servants, but never be one.  Indeed, subtly but surely the ability to hire at least “a maid” is still civilization’s patent to respectability, while “a man” is the first word of aristocracy.

All this is because we still consciously and unconsciously hold to the “manure” theory of social organization.  We believe that at the bottom of organized human life there are necessary duties and services which no real human being ought to be compelled to do.  We push below this mudsill the derelicts and half-men, whom we hate and despise, and seek to build above it—­Democracy!  On such foundations is reared a Theory of Exclusiveness, a feeling that the world progresses by a process of excluding from the benefits of culture the majority of men, so that a gifted minority may blossom.  Through this door the modern democrat arrives to the place where he is willing to allot two able-bodied men and two fine horses to the task of helping one wizened beldam to take the morning air.

Here the absurdity ends.  Here all honest minds turn back and ask:  Is menial service permanent or necessary?  Can we not transfer cooking from the home to the scientific laboratory, along with the laundry?  Cannot machinery, in the hands of self-respecting and well-paid artisans, do our cleaning, sewing, moving, and decorating?  Cannot the training of children become an even greater profession than the attending of the sick?  And cannot personal service and companionship be coupled with friendship and love where it belongs and whence it can never be divorced without degradation and pain?

In fine, can we not, black and white, rich and poor, look forward to a world of Service without Servants?

A miracle! you say?  True.  And only to be performed by the Immortal Child.

Jesus Christ in Texas

It was in Waco, Texas.

The convict guard laughed.  “I don’t know,” he said, “I hadn’t thought of that.”  He hesitated and looked at the stranger curiously.  In the solemn twilight he got an impression of unusual height and soft, dark eyes.  “Curious sort of acquaintance for the colonel,” he thought; then he continued aloud:  “But that nigger there is bad, a born thief, and ought to be sent up for life; got ten years last time—­”

Here the voice of the promoter, talking within, broke in; he was bending over his figures, sitting by the colonel.  He was slight, with a sharp nose.

“The convicts,” he said, “would cost us $96 a year and board.  Well, we can squeeze this so that it won’t be over $125 apiece.  Now if these fellows are driven, they can build this line within twelve months.  It will be running by next April.  Freights will fall fifty per cent.  Why, man, you’ll be a millionaire in less than ten years.”