St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-06-08
A GROWING EVIL,

There is wholesome sense in the way the
Brooklyn Eagle discusses the Cincinnati
tragedy, in which well-known physician
shot and killed his drunken brOther-in-law,
who came to the house and endeavOred to
extort 81, 900 from his mother, whom he
beat sOundly for refusing the money. The
young man who was maltreating his mother
aimed to kill the physician who came to
the rescue of the unfortunate woman, but
was shot by the doctor before he could use
his carving knife. The dead man was the
son OF wealthy parents, but was an idle
young vagabond, who had given up the vul-
gar business of earning a living because it
was irksome and he had been brought up to
look upon work as too commonplace for
rich people. The fact that he was drunk
will be used by temperance lecturers as a
text to show that the tragedy was due to
drink, and they will demand legislation to
prohibit its sale and manufacture. But be-
meath the habit of drunkenness the Eagle
sees a more immediate cause. 1t is
because there is tendency among
well-to-do people to bring up their
children precisely as this young man
was educated in blackguardism. Every
sensible mind must agree with the
Eagles opinion that the whole trouble lies
in belief that ''work is necessity of the
poor and ill-bred, and a stain upon men
who pretend to gentle birth and breeding.
1t is the monstrous fallacy of an ariStocratic
system that any human being comes into
this world for the enjoyment of rights and
privileges without payment for them in re-
sponsibilities and eXertions. The belief
that the possession of means adequate to
the maintenance of life in pleasurable form
entities the pOssessOr to live in idleneSs I'M
profitable to the rest of the world is an
error so vital and SO full of peril to him who
holds it that common charity urges us to
proclaim its foolishness. To bring up
child to be consumer Of products without
being producer is to deprive him of ma
lures most important balance wheel OF
character. AS he concentrates his thought
upon himself and his appetites to the ex-
clusion of other aims and ambitions he
sinks swiftly into that moral state
which is death. There is growing
up among us class distinguished
from the honey bees of society Of whatever
estate of fortune by the title rich mems
sons. This they are called, not because
the SONS of rich men are necessarily not
good citizens, but because these offensive
and detestable young creatures are rich
mems sons only; that and nothing more.
The phrase charges them briefly with folly.
vice, idleness, incapacity to do good and
aptitude only to their own and the worlds
hurt. 1t is these unhappy lads OF whom
the criminal and insane asylum records
treat continually. They are the dudes, the
drones, the spiritless, potential rogues who
curse the world by existing in it, And they
are developed into this shameful being by
the pretentious vulgarity of parents, who,
having made their fortunes by means that
they are secretly ashamed of hesitate to let
their children labor at all, lest they become
as contaminated in the worlds eyes as
their fathers are in their own. Honest la
Dor is mans best protection against the evil
prOclivities of his own nature, whether that
labor be in the field, in the counting house,
the library or the office"