“I did not get the prize,” said Vachel sadly. “The editor probably thought that with a million dollars one could do just a million dollars’ worth of good. He thinks, as does my dearest friend, that you can employ people to do good at a salary, and the one who got the prize probably allotted ten thousand dollars to this charity and ten thousand dollars to that and endowed this thing and endowed that and did not even dare to buy himself an ice-cream soda. They’ve got such a high idea of money that it’s almost an attribute of God himself. Now, I rank money low. I’m right up against the weekly magazine advertisement point of view--‘Doing good is only possible when you’ve a lot of money. Get money! Oh, get money first somehow, then you can do good. Wear good clothes and then you’ll be in the way of doing good.’” * * * * * WE had made our camp under a great overhanging rock beside rushing cataracts. The huge vague scenery about us was made more immense by a cloud screen which prevented one knowing exactly how high the mountains were, and we looked outward at a vastitude of scarred precipitous cliffs. Our fire warmed the rock against which we had laid our blankets, and we had found a delightfully cosy place in which to be at home. Night came down upon us, but we lay long in the flamelight and talked. “I don’t think,” said Vachel, “that this money incentive is really a strong one or leads far. That is where I part company with the radicals of this country. They have all founded their faith on the economic theory of history. I’d like to write for them a ‘romantic theory’ of history. I believe in the romantic theory; I do NOT believe in the economic theory.” “All right, dear Vachel,” said I constrainedly. “There are only you and I present, and God. Say it more quietly.” “Vanity and ambition have always been stronger motives than the desire of gain. And that is good. I put vanity a whole lot higher than greed. In a country of hogs the peacock is a praiseworthy bird.” “You say that because you are a peacock.” “I KNOW IT. I AM A PEACOCK. I AM NOT A HOG.” “All right, Vachel. Now, if money is not so strong an incentive how do you account for the fact that in your own beautiful State of Illinois Governor Small has been under arrest for appropriation of funds, and at Chicago members of one of the greatest baseball teams in America are under trial for selling championship games to the other side?” “That’s the influence of the magazine advertisement--praise of dollars and the implication that everything in the world has a commercial value or it has no value. And there are no other honours but money honours.” * * * * *