The International was his creation: men of all nations come to honor him. The crowd, made up of valiant workers, the sight of whom affects and comforts, shows more muscles than jewels, and more honest faces than silk underwear. Labor beautifies: it is rejuvenating to see a farm worker, a blacksmith or a seaman. By manipulating the forces of Nature, they become as beautiful as Nature is.
New York goes on being a kind of vortex: what boils up in the rest of the world, in New York drops down. Here they smile at one who flees; out there, they make him flee. As a result of this kindness, a strength has come to this people. Karl Marx studied the methods of setting the world on new foundations, and wakened those who were asleep, and showed them how to cast down the broken props. But being in a hurry, with his understanding somewhat clouded, he did not see that children who do not have a natural, slow and painful gestation are not born viable, whether they come from the bosom of the people in history, or from the wombs of women in the home. Here are the good friends of Karl Marx, who was not only a titanic stimulator of the wrath of European workers, but also showed great insight into the causes of human misery and the destiny of men, a man driven by a burning desire to do good. He saw in everyone what he carried in himself: rebellion, the highest ideals, struggle.
Here is Schevitsch, a journalist: see how he speaks: reflections of the sensitive, radiant Bakunin reach him: he begins to speak in English; he addresses others in German. “Dah! Dah!” his compatriots reply enthusiastically from their seats when he speaks to them in Russian. The Russians are the whip of the Reform — no more! These impatient and generous men, tarnished with anger, are not the ones to cement the New World: they are the spur, and prick like the voice of a conscience which might be falling asleep: but the steel of the spur cannot be used as a construction hammer.
Here is Swinton, an old man inflamed by injustice, who saw in Karl Marx the grandeur of mountains and the light of Socrates. Here is the German Johann Most, persistent and unlovable shouter, lighter of bonfires, who does not carry in his right hand the balm to heal the wounds inflicted by his left. So many people have come to hear them that the hall overflows and they spill out into the street. Choral societies are singing. Among so many men, there are many women. With applause, they repeat in chorus quotations from Karl Marx on posters hanging on the walls. Millot, a Frenchman, says something lovely: “Liberty has fallen many times in France, but it has risen more beautiful from each descent.” Johann Most speaks fanatical words: “From the time that I read Marx’s book in a Saxon prison, I took up the sword against human vampires.” Says McGuire: “Rejoice to see united, without hatred, so many men of all countries. All the workers of the world belong to a single nation, and do not quarrel among themselves but are united against those who oppress them. Rejoice to have seen 6,000 French and English workers meeting together near what had been the ominous Paris Bastille.” A Bohemian speaks. A letter of Henry George’s1 is read — the famous economist, friend to the distressed, loved by the people, famous here and in England. And with salvos of thunderous applause and frenzied hurrahs, the fervent assembly rises in one unanimous movement, while from the platform two men with open countenance and glance of Toledo steel read out in German and English the resolutions with which the whole meeting ends — in which Karl Marx is named the most noble hero and most powerful thinker of the world of labor. Music sounds; choirs resound; but note that these are not the sounds of peace.
New York, March 29, 1883
Wandering Teachers
This article, published in La América, New York, in May 1884, presents Martí’s view that education in rural areas should combine work and study.
“But how would you establish that system of wandering teachers that we have not seen mentioned in any book on education and you recommended in the last year’s number of La América, which I have before me?” An enthusiastic gentleman from Santo Domingo respectfully asks us this question.
We will tell him briefly that it is an important matter, but not how to accomplish it.
There is a heap of essential truths that can fit upon the wings of a hummingbird, and yet they are the key to national peace, to spiritual advancement, and to the greatness of one’s country.
Men must be kept in the knowledge of the land, and of the durability and transcendence of life.
Men must live in the peaceful natural and inevitable enjoyment of freedom, the way they live enjoying air and light.
A nation in which a taste for wealth and a knowledge of the sweetness, needs and pleasures of life do not develop equally is condemned to death.
Men must know the composition, enrichment, changes and applications of the material elements from whose development they derive the healthful pride of one who works directly with Nature, the bodily strength derived from contact with the forces of the land, and the honest and secure wealth produced by its cultivation.
Men need someone to stir their compassion often, to make their tears flow, and to give their souls the supreme benefit of generous feelings; for through the wonderful compensation of Nature whoever gives of himself, grows; and whoever withdraws within himself, living for small pleasures and afraid to share them with others, thinking only of greedily satisfying one’s own appetites, will gradually change from a man into pure solitude, carrying in his heart all the gray hair of winter time. He becomes within — and appears to others — an insect.
Men grow, they grow physically and visibly, when they learn something, when they begin to possess something, and when they have done some good.
Only fools or egoists talk about misfortune. Happiness exists on earth, and it can be won by means of the prudent exercise of reason, the knowledge of universal harmony, and the constant practice of generosity. He who seeks it elsewhere will not find it, for after having drained all the cups life has to offer, only in this way will he find flavor. A legend of the Spanish American lands tells that at the bottom of ancient cups there was a picture of Christ, so that when one of them was drained, people said: “Until we meet, my Lord!” At the bottom of those cups a heaven unfolded — serene and fragrant, endless and overflowing with tenderness!
Being good is the only way to be free.
Being cultured is the only way to be free.
With human nature in general, however, to be good, one has to be prosperous.
And the only open road to a constant and facile prosperity is that of knowing, cultivating and benefiting from the inexhaustible and indefatigable elements of Nature. Nature, unlike men, is not jealous. Unlike men, she has no hates or fears. She does not bar the way to anyone. Men will always need the products of Nature. And since every region produces only certain products, active trade will always assure wealth and freedom from want for all peoples.
So now there is no need to engage in a crusade to reconquer the Holy Sepulcher. Jesus did not die in Palestine; he is alive in every man. Most men have gone through life half asleep; they ate and drank, but learned nothing about themselves. Now one must go on a crusade to reveal to men their own natures, and give them, with plain and practical scientific knowledge, the personal independence that fortifies a man’s kindliness and gives rise to the pride and decency of being an amiable creature living in the great universe.
This, then, is what the teachers must take to the rural areas. Not merely explanations in the field of agriculture and mechanical implements, but the tenderness which is so lacking in men and does them so much good.
The farmer cannot leave his work to go many miles to see some incomprehensible geometric figures, to learn the names of capes and rivers and peninsulas in Africa, and to be provided with empty didactic lessons. The farmer’s children cannot leave the paternal farm and day after day, go mile after mile, to learn Latin declensions and short division. And yet the farmers comprise the most valuable, healthful, and red-blooded segment of the population, because they receive directly and in full measure the emanations of the soil from whose friendly inter course they live. Cities are the minds of nations; but their hearts, from where the mass of blood is sent in all directions, are in the countryside. Men are still mechanical eaters and the shrines of worry. We must make every man a torch.
For