CHAPTER XXIII.
“Happy peace and goodly government.”
“Shut that door!” thundered the baron from over the washbowl in a Pullman car, as he stood half-dressed in a small apartment, taking his morning bath.
“Who are you addressin’?” answered a pale-faced young man—who was passing—from under a broad, stiff-brimmed hat, the crown of which was encircled with the skin of a huge rattlesnake. “I reckon you want your nose set back about an inch anyhow, and I’m the man that can perform that little blacksmithin’ job right here.”
The baron glanced at the gray-clad figure, with its gleaming silk ’kerchief knotted carelessly, and arms akimbo, then down at the high boots with their fair-leather tops, behind which gleamed the ebony and silver handle of a bowie knife, and then, meeting the steady, mild blue eyes of the Arizona cowboy, said apologetically:—
“Beg pardon. I thought it was the madam. She just left the compartment.”
“You did, did you?” said the youth. “That’s what I allowed, en that’s why I tuk an interest in ye. Look a yer. That woman ain’t no slouch, and Gila monsters like you ain’t popular nohow, yearabouts, so you jest keep a civil tongue in your mutton head, an’ it’ll be all right.” And with the movement of a leopard, he glided quietly away, while the baron, after softly closing the door, sank into the nearest sofa, and awaited the return of his wife.
“Benson,” shouted the keen-eyed brakeman. “Change cars for Tombstone, Nogales, Hermosillo, Guaymas, and all points on the Gulf of California. Passengers for Tucson, Phoenix, Yuma, San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco remain in the car.”
The baron’s party consisted of the baroness and her maid, Professor and Mrs. Thornton, Doctor Eustace, who had accompanied the Von Eulaws from Europe, and Miss Winters, an old friend of the baroness and a graduate of a woman’s law school, who had left a thriving practice in Denver rather than sacrifice her life in the pursuit of a profession for which no woman is really fitted either mentally or physically. The party was en route to Coronado Beach—the baron as one of a score of representatives selected by the emperor of Germany to attend the “dynamic exposition,” as it was generally designated.
Six weeks or less before the Prime Minister of every recognized civilized power had received a letter couched in the following phrase.
OFFICES OF DAVID MORNING, }
39 Broadway, N.Y., January 1, 1896. }
To ................
I respectfully invite your government to appoint so many representatives, not exceeding twenty in number, as it may desire, to be present in San Diego, California, during the first week of April proximo, to observe and report upon experiments which will then be made in aerial and submarine navigation, and use of the new explosive “potentite.” It is my hope to demonstrate that hereafter international differences should be submitted for adjustment to a Congress or Court of Nations, and that land and naval warfare—as at present conducted—must come to an end.
The gentlemen who may be credentialed by you will be my guests upon their arrival in San Diego—if they will so honor me—and I beg to be informed at your early convenience, by cable, of the names of those who may be expected.
I take the liberty of inclosing exchange on London for twenty thousand pounds, to defray such expenses as your government may incur in complying with my request.
I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
DAVID MORNING.
The fame of Morning, as the greatest wealth owner in the world, was now coextensive with civilization, and his invitation had been promptly and generally accepted. The Emperor Wilhelm II. chose for the German delegation, five of his most distinguished field marshals, five high officials of the German navy, five great civil engineers, and five members of the diplomatic corps. Among the latter was the Baron Von Eulaw, who was indebted for his appointment—although he did not know it-to an urgent unofficial representation made by the American envoy to the German Chancellor, to the effect that, for certain personal reasons, Mr. David Morning greatly desired the attendance of the Baron and Baroness Von Eulaw. Such a request from such a source was favorably considered, and the baron—greatly to his astonishment, for he had not been in favor at court since the affair at the Chateau d’Or—received the appointment.
Professor Thornton and Doctor Eustace had received invitations to attend, and the baron, finding it convenient to leave Berlin in advance of the other members of the German delegation, sailed from Hamburg late in January, and, after a brief visit with his wife’s parents at Roxbury, the party journeyed to the Pacific Coast, to enjoy its climate and scenery for a month or more in advance of the “dynamic exposition.”
“I feel,” said the baroness, as the train rolled out of Benson, “as if I had a renewed lease of life; these delicious airs stir the blood like wine, and, entranced with the perfume of almond and oleander and jasmine bloom, I forget that it is still midwinter in the East.”
“You are drugged, madame,” said the doctor, slowly passing his finger scrutinizingly over the soft flesh upon his hand. “You could be lured to your death in a few hours by—I wonder what ails my hand?” he broke off meditatively, still feeling for the insidious and evasive little hair.
“Cactus, sir,” put in an “old-timer” across the car, “and you ain’t got no use to look for it, if it does feel like an oxgad. I could hev tole you when I see you foolin’ around them fine flowers at the station, but you fellers hev all got to try it once; another time you’ll know better.”
“This is Mr. Morning’s state, I believe,” observed the doctor, after the laugh at his expense had subsided, and all sat dreamily looking away to the dimly-outlined mountains in the distance, “and we must be nearing the place of the wonderful gold deposit, with the results of which he is rapidly revolutionizing the world.”
“You are right, sir,” said a bright-eyed, smooth-shaven, portly gentleman, of forty years of age, who occupied an adjoining seat. “It is Morning’s state in every sense of the word. He has made it—industrially, politically, and socially. His enterprise and money have constructed great reservoirs, and laced the land with irrigating canals, and changed its wastes into orchards, and its deserts into lawns. He is the idol of its people, as he ought to be, and his ideas are embodied in our constitution and laws. They are all the product of his thought, from marriage contract-laws to abolition of trial by jury.”
“Abolition of trial by jury,” said Doctor Eustace.
“Yes, sir; at least the jury is composed of judges, instead of men who don’t know the plaintiff from the defendant, and we have no Supreme Court.”
“No jury, and no Supreme Court!” observed Miss Winters. “What a capital idea. I shall come here to practice.”
“Well, miss, if you practice law here, and wish to patronize the twelve men in a box, or enjoy the luxury of an appeal, you must bring your case in the United States Court, or take it there. In our State courts we have dispensed with all that ancient rubbish.”
“Rubbish!” exclaimed the doctor.
“Even so,” rejoined the stranger. “The judicial system in vogue elsewhere than in Arizona is as much a relic of barbarism as slavery or polygamy. It is no more fitted to the wants and enlightenment of the age than the canal boat for traveling, or the flint lock musket for shooting pigeons. Suppose you wish to recover a piece of land from a jumper in California or Maine, and one side or the other demands a jury trial. Every good citizen who is busy shirks duty as a juryman. Every intelligent citizen who reads the newspapers forms an opinion and is excused. From the residue—which is sure to contain both fools and knaves—you get twelve clerks, mechanics, laborers, merchants, farmers, and idlers—none of whom have any training in untangling complicated propositions, weighing evidence, remembering principles of law and logic, and according to each fact its just and relative importance.
“After these twelve men have listened to a muddle of testimony, objections, law papers, and speeches, concluding with bewildering instructions, which half of them fail to remember, and the other half fail to understand, they retire to the jury room and guess out a verdict. The losing party appeals, and, after wearisome delay, the Supreme Court decides that ‘someone has blundered,’ and, without attempting to correct the error by a proper judgment, sends the case back for another trial, another batch of blunders, and another appeal.”
“And how does your Arizona system correct the evils you depict?” queried the doctor.
“We commence at the other end of the puzzle,” said the stranger. “We place the Supreme Court in the jury box. We have a preliminary court of three judges in each judicial district. Every plaintiff must first present his case informally to this court. He states on oath the facts he expects to prove, and gives the names of his witnesses. Any willful mis-statement of a material fact, is perjury. If the evidence would, if uncontradicted, entitle him to recover, an order is issued giving him leave to sue. In practice, not one-half of the proposed suits survive the ordeal. The saving of time and money is great. Under the old system, after a jury had been impaneled, and days consumed, the plaintiff might, after all, be nonsuited. Now it is all disposed of in an hour or two. The preliminary court practically puts an end to all blackmailing litigation.”
“And when leave to sue is granted, what is the next step?” inquired the doctor.
“The case is brought under the same rules of procedure as of old,” replied the stranger, “with only such changes as were necessary to adapt litigation to the new conditions. We have three judicial districts in the State, and nine judges for each district. Upon questions of law arising during the trial, the judges pass by a majority vote, and in making the final decision, from which there is no appeal, seven judges must concur.”
“Does this system satisfy litigants?” asked the doctor.
“Much better than the old method,” replied the stranger. “What honest litigant would not prefer to have his rights determined by nine men, who were trained to sift truth from error, who were honest and just, and without other duties to distract them, rather than by twelve men such as ordinarily find their way into the jury box? The judgment of seven out of nine judges will be as nearly right as human conclusions can well be, and people affected by it are better satisfied—even when they lose—than by the guess of a stupid and sleepy jury.”
“Can the courts you have organized attend to all the business?” asked the doctor.
“Easily,” was the rejoinder. “No time is consumed in procuring juries, and much less in objections to testimony. Arguments are abbreviated, and instructions eliminated. In practice, four cases out of five are decided from the bench.”
“Are not the salaries of so many judges a heavy tax upon you?” asked the doctor.
“The system costs the public treasury less than the old one,” was the reply. “Many court expenses are dispensed with, and the expense to litigants is reduced, although the loser is now compelled to pay the fee of his opponent’s attorney, which is fixed by the court.”
“As you have no court of appeals, I suppose no record is made of court proceedings,” remarked the doctor.
“Oh, yes, each court room is provided with one of the new automatic noiseless receiving and printing phonographs.”
“And how about lawyers who have bad cases?”
“They endeavor to take them into the United States Court, where the old practice prevails.”
“Beg pardon, ma’am,” said the Pullman conductor, approaching Mrs. Thornton, “but we are passing over the new line, which runs north of Gila River, and a view may be had of the sleeping Montezuma now, and the passengers generally like to see it.”
“The sleeping Montezuma! What is that?” asked the lady addressed.
“It is the giant figure of an Indian resting on his back on the top of the mountain. You can see it now quite plainly from the right-hand windows of the car.”
And across the plain—in centuries gone densely peopled by some prehistoric race, and then for centuries a waste, and, since the completion of the Gila Canal, a checker-board of orchard, vineyard, and meadow, the eye looked upon the lavender-tinted mountains to the northward, and it required no aid from the imagination to behold, upon the summits of those mountains, the profile of a stately figure and majestic face, with a crown of feathers upon the brow, lying upon its back.
Once there lived, in the shadow of this giant, a race, of which traces may still be found in mounds containing pottery, and in the ruins of great aqueducts, and in stone houses seven stories in height, a portion of the walls of which are still standing.
“The Indians hereabouts have a story,” said the conductor, “to the effect that Montezuma went to sleep, when the sun dried up the waters, and his people died, and they say now that Morning’s canal is making the country green again, the old chief will awaken.”
“You were saying,” said Doctor Eustace, by way of suggestion to the stranger, “that there are some peculiar marriage contract laws here.”
“It is all expressed, sir, in the preamble to the law, and in the law itself, a copy of which I happen to have with me, as I am on the way to attend court at Yuma. Here it is,” and he offered the book to Professor Thornton.
“Read it aloud, professor,” said the doctor, and the professor read:—
“The Senate and Assembly of the State of Arizona recognizes the truth that not easy divorce laws, but easy marriage laws, are at the root of the conjugal evil; that men and women have been accustomed to marry, disagree, and divorce in less time than should have been allowed for a proper period of betrothal; that the loose system now prevailing often results in children destitute of the inherent virility of virtue and affection; that no adequate defenses have hitherto been builded for the protection of young females too unthoughtful and too trusting; that the laws underlying the physical as well as the mental constitution, with their multiple of subtile, gravitating, and repellant forces, have hitherto been wholly unstudied, or disregarded; that the arbitrary conditions of society compel woman to accept marriage, in violation of her higher aims; that in certain human organizations the conditions created by propinquity are altogether false and ephemeral; that certain other human organizations are, by nature, filled with inordinate vanity and self-love, which qualities, beguiling the judgment, constitute fickleness and instability of purpose, and that the true solution of the great social problem is likely to be found in preventive rather than in remedial laws. Therefore, be it enacted”—
“Hold up, John,” said Dr. Eustace. “That is all my mentality can assimilate without a rest. Are you not reading from an essay by Mona Caird, or a novel by Tolstoi? Is that really and truly the preamble of a law enacted by a Western Legislature? Have all the cranks, and all the theorists, and all the moonstruck, long-haired, green-goggled reformers on earth, been turned loose in Arizona?”
“Doctor,” said the professor solemnly, “the truth is a persistent fly, that cannot be brushed away with the wisps of ridicule. The Arizona legislators have fearlessly attempted to deal with conditions which every close observer of our social life knows to be existent.”
“Papa,” said the baroness, interestedly, “in what way is it proposed to deal with the problem? Please read further.”
“The law is too lengthy,” said the professor, after glancing over a few pages, “to be read in detail, but I will summarize it for you. Marriages are declared void unless the parties procure a license, which can only be issued by an examining board of men and women, composed in part of physicians, and in part of graduates of some reputable school, dedicated to physiological observations and esoteric thought and investigation.”
“Anything about ability to boil a potato or sew on a button?” interrupted the doctor.
“Peace, scoffer,” said the professor. “It seems to be required that all applicants for license shall have had an acquaintance of at least one year, and be under marriage engagement for six months, and shall pass examination by the board upon their mutual eligibility, as expressed through temperament, complexion, tastes, education, traits of character, and general conditions of fitness.”
“Is red hair, or a habit of snoring, or a fondness for raw onions, considered a disqualification?” queried the doctor.
The professor, ignoring the interruption, continued: “It is required that one or both of the applicants shall possess property of sufficient value, to support both of them for one year, in the manner of life to which the proposed wife has been accustomed.”
“A gleam of common sense at last in a glamour of moonshine,” said the doctor. “But how can such a marriage law be enforced?”
“The act provides,” said the professor, “that children born to parties who have no license, shall be deemed born out of wedlock, and all such children, as well as all children born to extreme poverty or degrading influences, may be taken from their parents and educated at the public expense.”
“How does this experiment of turning the State into a moral kindergarten for adults, and wet-nursery for infants, succeed?” said Doctor Eustace to the stranger.
“The law was enacted only a few weeks since,” replied the gentleman, “and it is too soon to answer your question.”
“Humph! have you any more of such revolutionary legislation?”
“Nothing so important as the marriage contract act, but on page 72 you will find some provisions of law which may interest you.”
The doctor read:—
“Women who perform equal service with men shall be entitled to recover an equal sum for their labor, and all contracts made in derogation of this right shall be void.”
“Good!” applauded Miss Winters.
Again the doctor read:—
“The men who represent the State of Arizona in the United States Senate shall be chosen by a majority of the voters, and not by the Legislature, as in other States of the Union, and no man, however favored, shall be eligible for the position whose property interests, justly estimated, exceed in value the sum of $100,000.”
“That will exclude Mr. Morning from the millionaires’ club, will it not?” queried Dr. Eustace.
“Yes, sir,” answered the stranger, “but he favored the law. Of course, under the United States Constitution, this section is not legally operative; but it is morally binding, and the Legislature has always elected to the Senate gentlemen who were previously designated by the people at the polls, and thus far no man suspected of solvency has ventured to be a candidate. Arizona is friendly to progressive legislation. You will find our law for the prevention of cruelty to animals on page 56; it may interest you.”
The professor read:—
“Any person or persons convicted of having beaten, abused, underfed, overworked, or otherwise maltreated any horse, mule, dog, or other animal of whatever kind, may thereafter be assaulted and beaten by any person who may desire to undertake such task, without the assailant being responsible civilly or criminally for such assault.”
“That,” said the doctor, “to quote a Boston girl on Niagara Falls, ‘is neat, simple, and sufficient.’ Have you any further novelties in the way of legislation to offer?”
“Our law of libel is in advance of all other states,” said the stranger; “you will find it on page 163.”
The professor read:—
“Any man or woman or newspaper firm lending themselves to the dissemination of scandal, or defamation of private character, to the moral detriment of innocent parties, shall, on conviction, be adjudged outlaws, and may be lawfully beaten or killed at the pleasure of the party injured.”
“Lord,” said the doctor, piously raising his eyes, “now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have beheld thy glory.”
“We take a great deal of pride in that libel law,” said the stranger. “It has inspired a degree of courtesy on the part of Arizona editors that would have made Lord Chesterfield ashamed of himself. The Yuma Sentinel, which was accustomed to personal journalism, lately alluded to a convicted highwayman as ‘a gentleman whose ideas on the subject of property differ from those of a majority of his fellow-citizens;’ and the Tucson Star, which used to be the chief of slangwhangers, reviewed a sermon and spoke of Judas Iscariot as ‘that disciple whose conduct in receiving compensation in money from the Romans for his services as a guide, has caused his memory to be visited by all religious denominations with great, and probably not altogether undeserved, criticism.’ But we are at Yuma, sir, and I must bid you good-by. Boats run up the river from here to Castle Dome. There is an excellent hotel here. Tourists usually stop over to visit the Gonzales place, and I suppose you will not neglect the opportunity. The house is a marvel of beauty. It was built by direction of Mr. Morning.”
“Does he live there when at home?” queried the baroness.
“Oh, no, madame! The Gonzales family nursed Morning through an attack of fever, after he was shot by the Apaches near the old Gonzales hacienda several years ago. The Señorita Murella never left his bedside for weeks. Really, the doctors say the girl saved his life. He was, naturally, very grateful, and, when he recovered, he bought the Castle Dome rancheria from the Indians, and had a rock tunnel run into the Colorado River, and took out the water and carried it in irrigating canals over a thousand acres of land, which he had planted in oranges, lemons, vines, olives, and other fruit. It will pay a princely revenue to the Gonzales people in a few years.
“Morning ordered built upon the dome overlooking the river the most beautiful marble palace on the coast, and they say it is not surpassed anywhere on earth. The whole business must have cost him several millions, but money is nothing to him. The place is kept up in princely style by the Señora Gonzales and her daughter. They entertain a great deal of company, and are always delighted to welcome strangers who may visit the place.”
“And I suppose that Aladdin is a constant visitor at his palace?” sneered the baron.
“Morning? Oh, no; strangely enough, he has never been near the place since its completion, two years ago! Too busy, I suppose, helping the world out of the mud. But he is on the coast now, preparing for his ‘dynamite exposition,’ and may put in an appearance here.”