Poor Man, Beggar Man

...You see, many of us had become home-owners...

...like Francis I would walk barefoot and hymn the sun...

...Babies began to appear...

...One is not afraid of being poor himself, but not many men can blithely involve a child in poverty...

...We had all become entangled with the old Laocoon of property, and were grimly fighting for a foothold on the higher plane of living to which the monster had dragged us...

...Obviously it was a bit incongruous, also, to eat thick stews off of thin porcelain...

...But while it is true that a nice baby is not a great expense, it is a fairly heavy liability--a kind of domestic kedge that prevents care-free wind-jamming and ad lib Eskimo-jigging...

...Though we whittle and prune diligently in our efforts to cut down excessive chattel foliage we find ourselves overrun with briery possessions and parasitic belongings...

...Adieu, poesy and poverty...

...Cornmeal mush...

...Charley Garrison had to go down to New York every week to get a few illustrating jobs...

...for $IOO a year I hired a comfortable farmhouse of five rooms, well furnished with heavy furniture, plenty of iron cooking utensils and a barrelful of chipped crockery...

...Now an upstate baby only costs $60, hospital bill and all, and for the first two or three years a baby's food costs no more than a puppy's...

...For a while the community reveled in the possession of Charley's car...

...I was weary of chattering undergraduates and their $5o,ooo-a-year ambitions...

...To celebrate my departure from the university I got married, and brought my bride of two days to this bucolic retreat, dedicated to the germane pursuits of poverty and minor verse...

...If I can write a 2,5oo-word article on Paul Claudel," I reasoned, "I could get $5o at a single smack...

...In desperation we sweep and garnish our hearts, driving out the seven devils of taxable worries...

...But in order to pay for it I had to sit down and write a detective novelette, which took a good two weeks and left me in no condition for the delicate sandpapering of my sonnets...

...books, alcohol and frequent trips to Europe are the irreducible minimum of existence...

...Furthermore, we were all so property-less and tax-free that we could leap to the tabor's sound at the mildest note of provocation...

...A barrel of windfall apples, preserved, baked, and made into a hundred pies, lasted six months...

...A writer in a popular magazine, according to the twelfth United States census, said: "Cottonseed was a garbage in I86o, a fertilizer in I87o, a cattle feed in I88o, and a table food in I89o...

...Firewood, which I split but did not fell, was $Io more...

...I figured that I could make $5o a month writing reviews, which would provide amply for our needs, yet leave no embarrassing surplus...

...I should have known better, because in the late Mercedes fracas I had utterly neglected the twin voices of philosophic poverty and minor verse, but we really needed a dining-room table and laid aside $I 5 to purchase one...

...impossible to deny the claims of the highly competitive society in which we live...

...The ticker was an hour behind when the market closed, leaving me the owner of a IIo-horsepower Mercedes (sixth hand) which traveled exactly nine miles on a gallon of gasoline and ruined a fifty-dollar bill every time I bought a tire for it...

...and a few small deer that I killed with a borrowed shotgun, kept us fatly dieted...

...For with the loftiest intentions in the world, it is impossible for Americans of active habit to avoid the property-holding implications of our national life...

...As I remember it, my idea was to be poor, and in my salad verdancy I fancied I had picked an easy billet for myself...

...Their fine clothes and silvered automobiles made our rickety houses and shabby clothing seem pretty tatterdemalion...

...Quite without humor I decided to go in for plain living, high thinking and the articulation of such lyric poesies as I should find within me...

...The temptation to acquire a home in the country has to be fought down by everyone--but we were already living on familiar terms with the temptation, and needless to say, it triumphed...

...These shows were elaborately costumed, the costumes being improvised from a trunkload of old shawls, vests, scarves and boots that was an essential part of every householder's equipment...

...Meanwhile our style of living had undergone an unconscionable change...

...The potter was turning out more pieces than he really cared to make, thus reducing the value of any single piece...

...Fortunately, we lived in a colony of congenial spirits, chiefly young artists, who, like ourselves, were cutting down on the luxuries of life in order to secure greater leisure for the practice of their art...

...For a time I was the acknowledged skipper of the fleet, but one bright day I learned that our local potter had sold a terra-cotta rhinoceros, the first big piece he had ever sold, and had received a check for $45 o. We all went around to look at the check, and when we found it was drawn on a good bank by a responsible gallery, we scarcely knew whether to offer condolences or congratulations...

...The tradespeople were no longer interested in handling the comparatively cheap food and clothing that we had to have...

...A friend who was moving to Europe had a set of real Sfivres which she offered to us at a third of its value...

...Then the antique fever set in...

...The oil is used for miner's lamp oil, in the production of soap and soap powders, glycerin, nitroglycerin and pitch, which is employed, in turn, in the manufacture of roofing paint and composition roofing...

...During the past year we have found ourselves working harder than ever to provide the bare necessities of life...

...It would have been foolish to have entered into competition with them on a property-holding basis, and we were sensible enough not to attempt it...

...but they soon repossess us, and our last state is infinitely worse than our first...

...My emulative fires were up and roaring...

...From a hand-me-down truck garden we got a whole summer's worth of fresh vegetables, onions to peas, peas to beans, beans to corn and corn to pumpkins...

...My voice probably betrayed my eagerness, or else the farmer had baited his hook too cleverly for me I That table cost us $z 5, and the four chairs that went with it, came to $IO more...

...in this country it is difficult not to acquire it...

...we traveled everywhere in it...

...No philosophic preacher of poverty ever had a family at his elbow...

...The war caused a demand for this material for the manufacture of explosives and at its close linters were...

...I resolved like Thoreau to have only one coat...

...We succumbed to the temptation--and then had to find a suitable china closet in which to house our treasure...

...The books that I reviewed supplied us with double reading matter: first, the volume itself...

...Rent and kerosene amounted to $Io or $II a month, and we allowed ourselves $5 for such luxuries as candy, tobacco and newspapers...

...They were chiefly sculptors and painters, preparing for their first exhibitions and living on faith and credit while they served their long apprenticeship...

...It was a beautiful piece of furniture no doubt, but as I sat down to concoct another pot-boiler I began to grow apprehensive...

...Actually rents were low...

...The idea of parting with two month's rent instead of terrifying me, only made me bold, crafty and material...

...But just try to stay blessed in this country...

...At one of Garrison's parties I remember jigging for two hours and a half (without stopping) in an Eskimo costume, while a now famous potter played a single tune on a broken-down flute...

...Within a year we should have more property than we threw away, and mountains of new responsibilities to take the places of the old ant hills...

...As investments, the houses were perfect...

...Wild grapes gave us wine for the pressing, and cider cost $.o 4 a gallon...

...After hunting all over the countryside, we came across a rare dropleaf specimen in cherry, being used as an ironing board in a farmhouse...

...For us, Oakum was ruined...

...the farmers found that they could double their prices on butter, eggs and milk...

...Briefly, I broke the crankshaft and had to buy a new one--which cost $I8...

...It had no starter and at least one good tire, and Charley had paid $2o for it at an auction...

...In the heavy chain of property worries no link is stronger than a baby...

...If this was the beginning of evil, how humble a beginning it was...

...second, the free copy of the periodical in which the review appeared...

...During that first fall and winter, our bill for food was never more than $I5 a month...

...But since that time the industrial use of cottonseed has increased to a marvelous degree...

...Anyway, the potter cashed the check and bought a smartqooking coupfi (second-hand of course) and we were all plunged into a whirling vortex of competitive car-buying...

...clear soups began to appear on the menu along with salads that our own garden could not possibly supply...

...Property values shot up overnight, and with them our taxes, insurance, overhead and upkeep went soaring...

...It was a mountain September 4, I929 THE COMMONWEAL 443 of money, but an avalanche of automobile shopping wiped it away, and when the roar of the gold slide quieted down I found myself the owner of a selfstarting, well-rubbered "Chevvy"--a better, brawnier car than Garrison's Ford had ever been...

...Into our little village of Oakum, our rustic hamlet nestling in an obscure pinfold of the Catskills, poured a swelling flood of monied strangers, vacationists and commercial exploiters of the arts...

...Saint Francis himself would have a hard time keeping his vow of poverty in Oakum today...

...A young painter named Charley Garrison had the most marvelous slop trunk I ever saw, and when we played at his house our costumes were indeed weird and wonderful...

...Perhaps the solution of the farm problem lies with the industrial chemist rather than with the politician or even with the farmer himself...

...442 T H E C O M M O N W E A L September 4, I929 POOR MAN, BEGGAR MAN By HENRY MORTON ROBINSON N JUNE, I926, I arose from my instructor's desk in a large eastern university and announced that I was through...

...For a surprisingly small amount of cash we acquired title to a few broad acres, a few 444 THE COMMONWEAL September 4, I929 splendid trees and a house that badly needed fixing...

...I had heard of Oakum as a hamlet in central New York where rents were grass cheap and the conditions of life absolutely primitive...

...We were living in the midst of a rural community where maple low-boys, black walnut chests and mahogany tables had lain under coats of white enamel for three generations...

...I do not know exactly how the d6b~cle began, but I think we all started to worship the golden calf of property when Charley Garrison drove home from the county-seat in a clattering Ford...

...Rousseau deserted his, Thoreau never married and Tolstoy's royalties luckily met his domestic debts...

...Charley Garrison was painting no landscapes...

...Not at all...

...Meanwhile I was producing no poetry...

...The china closet that we selected was of maple, and had leaded glass doors...

...Not because we are afraid to--but because we know it would not solve anything...

...A long farewell to Eskimo-jigging and grape-hunting...

...In one year we played nearly a thousand hours with that chess set, a pleasure which cost us somewhere in the neighborhood of a quarter of a cent an hour...

...You may well believe that I did some overtime article writing to keep that Mercedes in good humor...

...Blessed are the poor, indeed...

...Not possessing them--well, but why not possess them, since they are so easy to be had...

...On such a table we could not possibly spread our barrel of crockery, so a china foray ensued...

...At first, we certainly did live plainly...

...Farewell to irresponsible flute-playing and costume-mongering...

...At the end of two years we were all family heads, and in order to ride the rising wave of responsibility every one of us was obliged to spend a constantly increasing part of our time in commercializing...

...The community in which we lived, being fairly accessible to New York city, and a region of natural scenic beauty, began to experience that strange upheaval known as a boom...

...The local carpenters formed a union and sent their rate up from $3 to $6 a day...

...Something of a belated revolutionary impulse (probably the aftermath of a too pious youth) was boiling within me, and I was of a mind to let it boil...

...Possessing these things, one can be said to live and take a humble place in the community...

...Still, we saw ourselves being crowded out of the picture we had framed for ourselves, the pleasant picture of comfortable indigence and economic security...

...The wildest sum of money we spent was $4 on a set of chessmen...

...This waste product of the farm, which often occasioned restrictive legislation regarding its disposal, is now the raw material from which over $Soo,ooo,ooo worth of useful products is made, two-fifths of which is returned to the cotton producer to help increase his profits...

...So I wrote a tidy little paper on Claudel's poetry (which I certainly enjoyed) and in due course of time received a check for $5o...

...Garrison again touched off a fuse when he bought a cherry-wood cabinet for $Io...

...In most countries it is difficult to acquire property...

...I was bored by my academic colleagues and their $3,ooo-ayear realities...

...But what have these "bare necessities" turned out to be...

...We were getting along quite decently, however, when suddenly our problem became even more complicated...

...We got through that first winter very pleasantly without a radio, phonograph or automobile...

...Yet we were drinking nothing but home-made 3 percent beer, which at an average cost of a cent a glass was as rich a beverage as we could afford...

...Because our houses were antiquated, without plumbing and out of repair, we were able to buy them--and the three or four acres of land surrounding them--for a little more than $2,ooo...

...We were all poor together, and being not at all inclined to worry about it we entertained each other almost every evening with conversation, charades, arguments and impromptu shows...

...In the pressing of the oil from the cottonseed a difficulty was encountered in the fact that the fuzz or lint on the cottonseed absorbed a large quantity of the oil...

...like Tolstoy I would work in the fields...

...As life runs in Oakum today, good cars, sports clothing and equipment, radios, pictures...

...Of cash I had almost none, but by selling a rather cluttery collection of books and furniture I obtained a sum large enough to take me to Oakum...

...Food and shelter...

...Naturally they reciprocated in kind, and the provision bills began to mount throughout the community...

...Blessed are the poor, indeed I But try and stay poor, and you will find that every deck you call for is stacked against you, and that it is easier for a camel to enter a very small needle's eye than for a poor man to stay poor in America today...

...and the other painters and sculptors in the community were obliged to compromise with their various ideals in order to obtain a larger monthly income...

...The possibilities of the situation are well illustrated in the case of cotton...

...Food was cheap...

...When we had guests in, which was at least twice a week, we felt the necessity (heaven knows how we fought against the sin of ostentation) of giving them a roast to work on...

...Naturally, all of my ideas were not accepted, and I found myself writing a great quantity of stuff in order to assure a 5 ~ percent sale...

...Cottonseed is used for the production of oil and cottonseed cake...

...picnics, fishing and sketching trips were made en famille, with never less than ten passengers in the old Model T. It certainly earned its keep, that car--until one ill-fated day when I borrowed it to haul a sack of coal...

...And though it would be a blessed relief for most of us to fling our possessions into a convenient pond, we simply cannot do it...

...Three or four of our neighbors were in exactly the same circumstances, and together we set our faces (and earning powers) to the grim task of retinning roofs, painting, plastering and generally improving our property...

...We lugged them home, scraped, waxed and polished for a couple of weeks, and found that we really had the nucleus of a stunning dinner set...

...FARM RELIEF BY AID OF CHEMISTRY By ROBERT STEWART T MAY be that the secret of the successful handling of our surplus farm commodities lies in their use in other ways than as food products...

...property was on the rise, and the scenery and environment were incomparably fine...

...The seed was delinted by machinery and the linters found a limited use as mattress stuffing and as cotton batting that was worth only $.oi a pound...

...It was heavily disguised by four coats of paint, but when he scraped it down, waxed and polished it, the piece immediately took on a dazzling beauty and a tenfold value...

...milk, eggs and butter from a nearby farmer...

...With applejack at $5 a quart there was no danger of our parties becoming bacchic routs...

...It is impossible for us to strip down to essentials, and stay stripped...

...I had to trek down to the editorial offices to speed the flow of review copies and suggest ideas for tentative articles...

...I had never really liked hamburger, and found myself very glad to eat unchopped steak whenever possible...

...They had a lot of money, while we did not have quite enough...