V.gabond Editorials

By Jack Dionne

How our public thinking has changed ! I can remember when the Police Gazette was barred from the United States mails because it published pictures of women in tights. Today the pictures of almost-naked women fill the pages of every magazine.* {. *

And on tJle stage our mct respectable people hear discussed subjects that they, themselves, couldn't possibly discuss even on the darkest night on the back porch. And they continually hear itage jokes pulled and language used that twenty years ago would have been reserved exclusively for the darkest rear corner of a saloon.

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In spite of which unquestioned facts I am convinced that the world is getting better in many fundamental fashions. People in general are more kindly, more charitable than they have ever been before in the world's history. There is more kindliness and human interest between man and man than th6re ever was before. There is infinitely more charity than ever before. To the world has come a sense of stewardship, of obligation to the other fellow, that was never dreamed of before. t**

The direct and active interest that every real citizen today displays in the unfortunate, the unemployed, the under-privileged-is new in human relationships. We never had it before. Even those who are badly hurt financially and are themselves in serious straits, nevertheless give from their shortened means to help the fellow who is even less fortunate. Search the history of human events for any previous acceptance of such a stewardship. You search in vain.

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The charity of our American people as demonstrated on every hand today, proves that there is more satisfaction in doing something for someone, than there is in doing someone for sornething. {.8*

We are coming to understand the REALITY of that heretofore vague crime against Providence called the sin of omission. We used to hear about it some, but no one took much genuine stock in it. We are coming to really understand that he who has it in his power to PREVENT human suffering and fails to do so, is fully as culpable as he who CAUSES human suffering. Much more so, I would say. The man who in the heat of passion, injures a fellow human, is a less serious sinner than that rnan who is given great power for human good and could by the proper use of that power or possession prevent-and relievc the sufferings of fellow men, but selfishly refuses or fails to do so. I firmly believe that philosophy. rl. * rN.

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And the saddest parody on manhood to me is the man, overloaded with .this world's goods, who in times like these hangs onto his dollars wlth miser grasp while strong men cry in vain for help, women weep, and little children extend their famished hands and ask for bread. I pass men of that stamp on the street every day, and step aside for fear of pollution. As Brann used to say "they are too foul for I{eaven, and unfit for Hell."

Fortunately for the world, they are not an army in numbers. Yet every one, is one too many. And how' splendid, by comparison, are the men who evidence by their daily works that they believe, with Humboldt, that "we are all children in the Kindergarten of God," and that HELPFULNESS is GODLINESS. ***

I despise a stingy man ! I loathe a miser ! I have nothing but utter contempt for the human whom Providence has provided with wealth far beyond his present and future needs, who lacks the vision-yes, the decency-to realize that an obligation comes with that power for good; a stewardship accompanies that munificence. A million times more immutable than the law of gravity is the law of COMPENSATION. The fellow who CAN help and WON'T help-in proportion to his ability to help-in times like these, must some day step up to a bar of infinite justice where breaks the great white light of truth, and lay bare his niggardly soul,

It is my firm conviction at this Christmas season when all the world is bowed down with trouble, that there never was a God so narrow-minded as to condemn a man who loved and helped his fellows; and none so broad-minded that He would not kick into the lower left-hand corner of perdition the selfish and miserly rascal-regardless of his religious pretensions-who withheld his hand from those distressed. And on that rock I stand.

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