By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, February 7, 1942.
“When this war is over,” enunciated Jimmie Frise, “this world is going to be a different place.”
“No, Jim,” I asserted, “you’ve just been reading the propaganda. What you’ve got to read is history. This world never changes.”
“Are you insinuating,” demanded Jim, “that our propaganda isn’t true?”
“Well, the German propaganda started all this stuff about a new and better world, a new order and so forth,” I pointed out. “Later, we took up the cry.”
“You had better be careful,” warned Jimmie, “what you say about propaganda.”
“Is it all right if I just think about it?” I inquired.
“It’s better not even to think about it,” advised Jim. “Then you can’t get into any trouble. In wartime, ours not to reason why. Ours but to do and die.”
“Very well,” I surrendered. “But all the same, I think we ought to read history. In times like these, it is good for the soul to read history. It gives you courage.”
“Does history suggest,” asked Jimmie, “that the world won’t be a better place after this war?”
“All history teaches,” I explained, “is that nothing ever changes. What happened to men in ancient Babylon is happening to men in modern Toronto and modern Birdseye Center. There is a wise old saying that history repeats itself. That is just a silly and high-sounding way of saying that men do the same things over and over again, forever and ever.”
“Then, you mean there will always be wars…?” questioned Jimmie darkly.
“I’ll tell you when there will be no more wars, Jim,” I declaimed. “There will be no more wars when no motorist tries to pass another motorist on the highway. When boys no longer fight in schoolyards, wars will end. When women no longer shove each other around at bargain counters, when hockey and baseball and golf are forbidden by law, wars will cease.”
“Puh,” said Jimmie. “No connection.”
“All the connection there is,” I declared. “I’ll tell you when war will end. When you turn the other cheek, war will end. If a motorist, trying to pass you on the street, cuts in ahead of you and bashes in your front left hand fender, and you get out of your car and go and shake hands with him and pat him on the back and plead with him to cease weeping – then wars will end. Read history, Jim. Read history.”
“If history is as cynical as all that…” uttered Jim.
Just the Form Chart
“History is just the form chart, Jim,” I explained. “You’re a racing man. You like horse-racing. How do you decide to bet on a horse?”
“I play hunches,” asserted Jimmie. “I stick a pin through my program and bet all the horses the pinhole punctures. Or else, if I see a guy run over by a truck on my way to the race-track and then find a horse named Smashem on the program, I bet Smashem for all I’m worth.”
“Do you win?” I asked.
“Sometimes,” confessed Jim. “But not often. It’s as good a way as any, though.”
“Better than the form chart?” I protested. “Why, Jim, that’s absurd. In the form chart, you see the full record of all the horses. You see who their sire and dam were, and what blood they’ve got in them. You see all the races they’ve run and how they did in them. You see all the conditions under which they ran: whether muddy track or track fast; whether they run best in the spring, summer, autumn or winter: whether they are due for another win any day now, or whether they’ve had too many wins lately to be likely to win again. That’s what they call form. That’s history. It’s the record.”
“I play hunches,” insisted Jim. “Form charts give me a headache.”
“So you’ve got a hunch,” I followed up, “regarding the war. You’ve got a hunch that the world is going to be a better place after this war?”
“Well, what do you think?” countered Jimmie.
“To tell you the truth, Jim.” I surrendered. “I think so too. But it is not going to be a better place for the rich and powerful. It is not going to be a better place for comfortable guys like you and me and our families. It is not going to be a better place for kings and dukes and barons. It is not going to be a better place for millionaires and smart guys and clever people. It is only going to be a better place for the mass of mankind.”
“And what’s the matter with that?” demanded Jimmie.
“Nothing,” I assured him. “But it does sound kind of funny to hear you, a comfortable cartoonist, making good money for just sitting at a drawing board twiddling your fingers lazily, talking about a better world that is coming. It won’t be better for you. The world that is to come won’t be able to afford to pay fancy wages to cartoonists any more than it will be able to pay a hundred thousand a year to some clever guy who can operate a factory so smartly that he puts all other factories out of business.”
“When I say a better world,” explained Jimmie, “I do not refer to dollars and cents.”
“Most people do,” I assured him. “When public men speak over the radio about the new world that is coming, 99 per cent. of the listeners automatically translate that, in their thoughts, to better wages, a nicer house, more clothes, a new car…”
“Look,” interrupted Jimmie, “if I am going to be paid truck driver’s wages for being a cartoonist, then I am going to be a truck driver. Because it’s a lot more fun to drive a truck than to have to sit here, week after week, year after year, thinking up a new idea every day.”
“Okay, you be a truck driver then,” I agreed, “and let somebody do the cartooning that really loves being a cartoonist, who gets more kick out of drawing a cartoon than out of drawing a fat pay envelope.”
“That would have been me, 30 years ago,” sighed Jimmie. “When you are young, you don’t worry about the wages. You work for the thrill, the adventure of it. Then, as you grow older, your fingers start to crook.”
“History teaches,” I stated, “that men never change, that men will go to war for one cause or another, every generation. The cause is always high and holy. But whether the cause is the natural one that makes boys fight in schoolyards, or whether it is the one that makes you want to knock the block off the guy who cuts in ahead of you on the highway, fight we must.”
“I don’t like that,” declared Jim.
“Fine,” I said. “Then go ahead sticking pins through programs. But history also teaches something else. There is only one central core, one backbone to all history, Greek, Roman, European, Asiatic, ancient, modern-one thing upon which all historians can agree. And that is, that with the passage of time, freedom, power, happiness and privilege is broadening out, ever and ever, from the few to the many. More and more of humanity is being set free from slavery and bondage with every century. Come conquerors, come tyrants, come Charlemagne and his Holy Roman hosts, come Philip of Spain with his world conquering Spaniards, come Elizabeth of England with her Drake and Raleigh and Hawkins and Frobisher… only one thing is eternally true through all the million pages of history: and that is, that the common man, the plain, happy, hungry, insignificant common man is freer, happier, more powerful, has a greater share in life than he had in the 50-year period preceding any page you like to delve into in history, all across the ages.”
“Weelllll,” cried Jimmie heartily, “what more do we want?”
“All right then,” I concluded, “but 10 years from now, don’t expect any sympathy from me when you start complaining about the fact that street car motormen earn nearly as much as cartoonists.”
“When I think of the better world to come,” said Jim, “I have in mind a world where people will be more secure not only as regards money, but as regards life itself. After this war, there is going to be a terrific reaction. There is going to be the most gosh- awful uprising of League of Nations sentiment and humanitarian enterprises. After all this insane slaughter not only of fighting men but of harmless bystanders, there is bound to be a terrific kick-back in human nature. Disarmament, world peace organizations, international brotherhoods…”
“There will also be a powerful group,” I pointed out, “who will insist on keeping big standing armies, and more battleships and war factories.”
“They will be snowed under, as usual,” stated Jim. “The mass of mankind will be thoroughly sick of war. As we all were after the last war. Our whole generation will be ashamed of itself, for having gone mad. We will settle back to cultivate the better human qualities within us. Maybe a golden age will dawn, a golden age of art and beauty and literature and music.”
“During which,” I interpolated, “somebody else will be secretly arming with shovels and wooden practise tanks against us.”
A Perfect Example
“You’re terribly cynical,” accused Jim.
“No, sir,” I protested. “I’m childishly simple. I read history. And believe it.”
“Aw,” groaned Jimmie, “how soft and how hard we humans can be! One minute, we are up with the angels, gentle, kindly, filled with humane and lofty ideals: destroying slums; passing mighty legislation to free another vast group of our fellow men from injustice and cruelty; dreaming splendid dreams; writing sublime books, plays, music. The next minute, we are down with the devils, destroying one another like wild men. I am weary of war. I am hungry for gentleness. I just want to go and stand in the streets and watch children at play. I want to take my old dog on my knees and fondle his ears. I… I …”
“Which reminds me,” I interrupted, “of the purpose of my visit, this fine Sunday afternoon.
“By the way, yes,” agreed Jim. “Take your coat off. What have you got in the bag?”
“This is bread, Jim,” I said, opening the bag. “I’m on my way down to Sunnyside Beach to feed the wild ducks. I called to see if you’ll come for the walk.”
Jim was already up on his feet.
“And I’ll get some bread crusts, too,” he said.
So from Jim’s bread box we filched all the crusts and odds and ends of bread and filled the paper bag full to the top. And then we went forth into the fine winter afternoon and walked down to Sunnyside, only five blocks south. Old Rusty, Jim’s feeble-minded Irish water spaniel, joined us.
“Get that dope on a leash,” I warned, “or he’ll chase all the ducks out to sea.”
“He wouldn’t harm a duck,” scoffed Jim. “He’d love to see them.”
“He can see them, all right,” I said. “But get a leash.”
Which unfortunately Jim did, and when we neared the lake, Jim put Rusty on the leash and we walked over the trodden snow beach to the icy water’s edge, where numbers of people, with children, were tossing bread and corn to the mallards, black duck, and a few species of other wild duck which find a winter haven in the open water off Toronto’s pleasure beach.
At first, the ducks were scared of Rusty, even though he was on a leash, and they swam to visit other people who were tossing bread. But with friendly and wheedling calls, Jimmie and I both tossed bread far out and coaxed the ducks toward us. Rusty whined softly.
“The old fool,” said Jim, “He goes to sleep in the duck blind when the hunting season’s on. But now he is all of a tremble.”
“Isn’t it strange,” I mused. “Less than 15 weeks ago, when the duck season was open, we were risking our lives out in harsh blizzards, crouched down in wet, sodden swamps, trying to shoot these beautiful creatures. And here we are, tenderly feeding them.”
“It is a perfect example,” agreed Jim, tossing bread to the ducks now only five feet out from the edge of the ice, “of what I was saying about human nature. One minute, we are full of tenderness. The next, we are shooting guns.”
“I Didn’t Laugh Once”
“Quaaack, quack, quack,” I soothed, tossing broken particles of the bread to the lustrous mallards and the handsome proud black ducks. “You never see ducks like this in the shooting season. When you are hunting, a duck is a wild, racing creature out in the wind going 50 miles an hour. Just a dark swift pattern against the gray sky. Tempting the sporting instinct. But here, on the water, they are queer, comic, greedy little beautiful creatures…”
“It’s quite possible,” said Jim queerly, “that we might actually have shot at these very ducks, up north. And here we are, feeding them like pets.”
“Aw, they’re cute, Jim,” I cried. “Look at that mallard. Look at the expression. Why, he’s smiling!”
“Your attitude towards ducks,” said Jim, “and towards men, depends largely on where and how you see them.”
“I’m almost ready to say,” I said, “that I have nothing against ducks.”
“Hyah,” yelled Jimmie suddenly.
For Rusty, who had been lurking us while we tossed the crusts, whining faintly, gave a violent leap, leash or no leash, in an attempt to break Jim’s hold and make a grab at the nearest duck, a handsome mallard busy with a large hunk of bread.
The leash caught me around the knees, and before Jim could get a proper jerk, Rusty had rounded me and hauled my feet from under me.
The ice, bathed not only by the lake but by the fine sun, was wet and horribly smooth. I felt myself sliding even as my feet went up.
“Whoa, don’t go in there,” warned Jimmie.
But what good are warnings? In a sitting posture, I went in. It was not deep. In fact, it was quite shallow. I raised my feet in the air and was able to hold my upper portions fairly upright, with the result that only my least dignified portions were immersed in the bitter and icy waters of Lake Ontario.
Rusty splashed me a little and the ducks made a great outcry which caused many of my fellow citizens, who might otherwise not have seen me, to witness what they thought was an attempt on my part to snatch a duck.
“I’ve a good mind,” yelled one gentleman who, with his wife and baby, were standing nearby, “to call the cops.”
Jim assisted me out. I was wet only amidships, though it trickled icily down my legs and into my boots. But a brisk walk up street for home soon removed the chills.
“You’ve got to give me credit,” said Jimmie, when he left me at my sidewalk, “I didn’t laugh once.”
“Damn all ducks,” was all I replied.
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