It"s no just the siller there"s to be earned frae the wee discs, though there"s a muckle o" that. It"s the thocht that folk that never see ye, and never can, can hear your voice. It"s a rare thing, and an awesome one, tae me, to be thinkin" that in China and India, and everywhere where men can carry a bit box, my songs may be heard.
I never work harder than when I"m makin" a record for the phonograph.
It"s a queer feelin". I mind weel indeed the first time ever I made a record. I was no takin" the gramophone sae seriously as I micht ha"
done, perhaps--I"d no thocht, as I ha" since. Then, d"ye ken, I"d not heard phonographs singin" in ma ain voice in America, and Australia, and Honolulu, and dear knows where beside. It was a new idea tae me, and I"d no notion "twad be a gude thing for both the company and me tae ha" me makin" records. Sae it was wi" a laugh on ma lips that I went into the recording room o" one o" the big companies for the first time.
They had a" ready for me. There was a bit orchestra, waitin", wi"
awfu" funny looking instruments--sawed off fiddles, I mind, syne a"
the sound must be concentrated to gae through the horn. They put me on a stool, syne I"m such a wee body, and that raised my head up high enow sae that ma voice wad carry straight through the horn to the machine that makes the master record"s first impression.
"Ready?" asked the man who was superintending the record.
"Aye," I cried. "When ye please!"
Sae I began, and it wasna sae bad. I sang the first verse o" ma song.
And then, as usual, while the orchestra played a sort o" vampin"
accompaniment, I sprang a gag, the way I do on the stage. I should ha"
gone straight on, then. But I didn"t. D"ye ken what? Man, I waited for the applause! Aye, I did so--there in front o" that great yawnin"
horn, that was ma only listener, and that cared nae mair for hoo I sang than a cat micht ha" done!
It was a meenit before I realized what a thing I was doing. And then I laughed; I couldna help it. And I laughed sae hard I fell clean off the stool they"d set me on! The record was spoiled, for the players o"
the orchestra laughed wi" me, and the operator came runnin" oot tae see what was wrang, and he fell to laughin", too.
"Here"s a daft thing I"m doing for ye!" I said to the manager, who stud there, still laughin" at me. "Hoo much am I tae be paid for this, I"ll no mak" a fool o" masel", singing into that great tin tube, unless ye mak" the reason worth my while."
He spoke up then--it had been nae mair than an experiment we"d planned, ye"ll ken. And I"ll tell ye straight that what he tauld me surprised me--I"d had nae idea that there was sae muckle siller to be made frae such foolishness, as I thocht it a" was then. I"ll admit that the figures he named fair tuk my breath awa". I"ll no be tellin"
ye what they were, but, after he"d tauld them tae me, I"d ha" made a good record for my first one had I had to stay there trying all nicht.
"All richt," I said. "Ca" awa"--I"m the man for ye if it"s sae muckle ye"re willin" tae pay me."
"Oh, aye--but we"ll get it all back, and more beside," said the manager. "Ye"re a rare find for us, Harry, my lad. Ye"ll mak" more money frae these records we"ll mak" togither than ye ha" ever done upon the stage. You"re going to be the most popular comic the London halls have ever known, but still, before we"re done with you, we"ll pay you more in a year than you"ll make from all your theatrical engagements."
"Talk sense, man," I tauld him, wi" a laugh. "That can never be."
Weel, ye"ll not be asking me whether what he said has come true or nicht. But I don"t mind tellin" ye the man was no sica fool as I thocht him!
Eh, noo--here"s what I"m thinking. Here am I, Harry Lauder. For ane reason or anither, I can do something that others do not do, whether or no they can--as to that I ken nothing. All I know is that I do something others ha" nae done, and that folk enow ha" been willin" and eager to pay me their gude siller, that they"ve worked for. Am I a criminal because o" that? Has any man the richt to use me despitefully because I"ve hit upon a thing tae do that ithers do no do, whether or no they can? Should ithers be fashed wi" me because I"ve made ma bit siller? I canna see why!
The things that ha" aye moved me ha" moved thousands, aye millions o"
other men. There"s joy in makin" ithers happy. There"s hard work in it, tae, and the laborer is worthy o" his hire.
Then here"s anither point. Wad I work as I ha" worked were I allowed but such a salary as some committee of folk that knew nothing o" my work, and what it cost me, and meant tae me in time ta"en frae ma wife and ma bairn at hame? I"ll be tellin" ye the answer tae that question, gi"en ye canna answer it for yersel". It"s NO! And it"s sae, I"m thinkin", wi" most of you who read the words I"ve written. Ye"ll mind yer own affairs, and sae muckle o" yer neighbors as he"s not able to keep ye from findin" oot when ye tak" the time for a bit gossip!
It"ll be all verra weel to talk of socialism and one thing and another. We"ve much tae do tae mak" the world a better place to live in. But what I canna see, for the life o" me, is why it should be richt to throw awa" all our fathers have done. Is there no good in the inst.i.tutions that have served the world up to now? Are we to mak"
everything ower new? I"m no thinking that, and I believe no man is thinking that, truly. The man who preaches the destruction of everything that is and has been has some reasons of his own not creditable to either his brain or his honesty, if you"ll ask me what I think.
Let us think o" what these folk wad be destroying. The hame, for one thing. The hame, and the family. They"ll talk to us o" the state. The state"s a grand thing--a great thing. D"ye ken what the state is these new fangled folk are aye talkin" of? It"s no new thing. It"s just the bit country Britons ha" been dying for, a" these weary years in the trenches. It"s just Britain, the land we"ve a" loved and wanted to see happy and safe--safe frae the Hun and frae the famine he tried to bring upon it. Do these radicals, as they call themselves--they"d tak"
every name they please to themselves!--think they love their state better than the boys who focht and deed and won loved their country?
Eh, and let"s think back a bit, just a wee bit, into history. There"s a reason for maist of the things there are in the world. Sometimes it"s a good reason; whiles it"s a bad one. But there"s a reason, and you maun e"en be reasonable when you come to talk o" making changes.
In the beginning there was just man, wasna there, wi" his woman, when he could find her, and catch her, and tak" her wi" him tae his cave, and their bairns. And a man, by his lane, was in trouble always wi"
the great beasties they had in yon days. Sae it came that he found it better and safer tae live close by wi" other men, and what more natural than that they should be those of his ane bluid kin? Sae the family first, and then the clan, came into being. And frae them grew the tribe, and finally the nation.
Ye ken weel that Britain was no always the ane country. There were many kings in Britain lang agane. But whiles it was so armies could come from over the sea and land, and ravage the country. And sae, in the end, it was found better tae ha" the ane strong country and the ane strong rule. Syne then no foreign invader has e"er set foot in Britain. Not till they droppit frae the skies frae Zeppelins and German Gothas ha" armed men stood on British soil in centuries--and they, the baby killers frae the skies, were no alarming when they came doon to earth.
Now, wull we be changing all the things all our centuries ha" taught us to be good and useful? Maybe we wull. Change is life, and all living things maun change, just as a man"s whole body is changed in every seven years, they tell us. But change that is healthy is gradual, too.
Here"s a thing I"ve had tae tak" note of. I went aboot a great deal during the war, in Britain and in America. I was in Australia and New Zealand, too, but it was in Britain and America that I saw most. There were, in both lands, pro-Germans. Some were honest; they were wrang, and I thocht them wicked, but I could respect them, in a fashion, so lang as they came oot and said what was in their minds, and took the consequences. They"d be interned, or put safely oot o" the way. But there were others that skulked and hid, and tried to stab the laddies who were doing the fichtin" in the back. They"d talk o" pacifism, and they"d be conscientious objectors, who had never been sair troubled by their conscience before.
Noo, it"s those same folk, those who helped the Hun during the war by talking of the need of peace at any price, who said that any peace was better than any war, who are maist anxious noo that we should let the Bolsheviks frae Russia show us how to govern ourselves. I"m a suspicious man, it may be. But I cannot help thinking that those who were enemies of their countries during the war should not be taken very seriously now when they proclaim themselves as the only true patriots.
They talk of internationalism, and of the common interests of the proletariat against capitalism. But of what use is internationalism unless all the nations of the world are of the same mind? How shall it be safe for some nations to guide themselves by these fine sounding principles when others are but lying in wait to attack them when they are unready? I believe in peace. I believe the laddies who fought in France and in the other battlegrounds of this war won peace for humanity. But they began the work; it is for us who are left to finish it.
And we canna finish it by talk. There must be deeds as weel as words.
And what I"m thinking more and more is that those who did not do their part in these last years ha" small call to ask to be heard now.
There"d be no state for them to talk o" sae glibly noo had it no been for those who put on uniforms and found the siller for a" the war loans that had to be raised, and to pay the taxes.
Aye, and when you speak o" taxes, there"s another thing comes to mind.
These folk who ha" sae a muckle to say aboot the injustice of conditions pay few taxes. They ha" no property, as a rule, and no great stake in the land. But they"re aye ready to mak" rules and regulations for those who"ve worked till they"ve a place in the world.
If they were busier themselves, maybe they"d not have so much time to see how much is wrong. Have you not thought, whiles, it was strange you"d not noticed all these terrible things they talk to you aboot?
And has it not been just that you"ve had too many affairs of your ain to handle?
There are things for us all to think about, dear knows. We"ve come, of late years, we were doing it too much before the war, to give too great weight to things that were not of the spirit. Men have grown used to more luxury than it is good for man to have. Look at our clubs. Palaces, no less, some of them. What need has a man of a temple or a palace for a club. What should a club be? A comfortable place, is it no, whaur a man can go to meet his friends, and smoke a pipe, maybe--find a bit and a sup if the wife is not at hame, and he maun be eating dinner by his lane. Is there need of marble columns and rare woods?
And a man"s own hoose. We"ve been thinking lately, it seems to me, too much of luxury, and too little of use and solid comfort. We wasted much strength and siller before the war. Aweel, we"ve to pay, and to go on paying, noo, for a lang time. We"ve paid the price in blood, and for a lang time the price in siller will be kept in our minds. We"ll ha" nae choice aboot luxury, maist of us. And that"ll be a rare gude thing.
Things! Things! It"s sae easy for them to rule us. We live up to them.
We act as if they owned us, and a" the time it"s we who own them, and that we maun not forget. And we grow to think that a"thing we"ve become used to is something we can no do wi"oot. Oh, I"m as great a sinner that way as any. I was forgetting, before the war came to remind me, the days when I"d been puir and had had tae think longer over the spending of a saxpence than I had need to in 1914, in you days before the Kaiser turned his Huns loose, over using a hundred poonds.
I"m not blaming a puir body for being bitter when things gae wrong.
All I"m saying is he"ll be happier, and his troubles will be sooner mended if he"ll only be thinking that maybe he"s got a part in them himsel". It"s hard to get things richt when you"re thinking they"re a"
the fault o" some one else, some one you can"t control. Ca" the guilty one what you will--a prime minister, a capitalist, a king. Is it no hard to mak" a wrong thing richt when it"s a" his fault?
But suppose you stop and think, and you come tae see that some of your troubles lie at your ain door? What"s easier then than to mak" them come straight? There are things that are wrong wi" the world that we maun all pitch in together to mak" richt--I"m kenning that as well as anyone. But there"s muckle that"s only for our own selves to correct, and until that"s done let"s leave the others lie.
It"s as if a man waur sair distressed because his toon was a dirty toon. He"d be thinking of hoo it must look when strangers came riding through it in their motor cars. And he"d aye be talking of what a bad toon it was he dwelt in; how shiftless, how untidy. And a" the time, mind you, his ain front yard would be full o" weeds, and the gra.s.s no cut, and papers and litter o" a" sorts aboot.
Weel, is it no better for that man to clean his ain front yard first?
Then there"ll be aye ane gude spot for strangers to see. And there"ll be the example for his neighbors, too. They"ll be wanting their places to look as well as his, once they"ve seen his sae neat and tidy. And then, when they"ve begun tae go to work in sic a fashion, soon the whole toon will begin to want to look weel, and the streets will look as fine as the front yards.
When I hear an agitator, a man who"s preaching against all things as they are, I"m always afu" curious aboot that man. Has he a wife? Has he bairns o" his ain? And, if he has, hoo does he treat them?
There"s men, you know, who"ll gang up and doon the land talkin" o"
humanity. But they"ll no be kind to the wife, and their weans will run and hide awa" when they come home. There"s many a man has keen een for the mote in his neighbor"s eye who canna see the beam in his own-- that"s as true to-day as when it was said first twa thousand years agane.
I ken fine there"s folk do no like me. I"ve stood up and talked to them, from the stage, and I"ve heard say that Harry Lauder should stick to being a comic, and not try to preach. Aye, I"m no preacher, and fine I ken it. And it"s no preaching I try to do; I wish you"d a"
understand that. I"m only saying, whiles I"m talking so, what I"ve seen and what I think. I"m but one plain man who talks to others like him.
"Harry," I"ve had them say to me, in wee toons in America, "ca" canny here. There"s a muckle o" folk of German blood. Ye"ll be hurtin" their feelings if you do not gang easy----"