Idaho semi-weekly world. [volume] (Idaho City, Idaho Territory) 1875-1908, 1889-03-29
CIVILIZED cANNHALlsM.

A denominstioaal paper publishes
the following paragraphs from an ar
ticle from the pen Of Colonel Robert
q. Ingersoll, which appeared in the
March number Of the North Americ-
an Review:
"ln the days of savagery the strong
devoured the weak-actually ate their
flesh. In spite Of all the laws that
man has made, in spite Of al advance
in science, the strong, the cunning,
the heartless, still live on the weak,
the unfortunate and foolish. True,
they do not eat their flesh or blood,
but they live on their labor, on their
self-denial, their WEAKNESS and want.
The poor man who deforms himself
by toll, who labors for his wife and
child through all his anxious, barren,
wasted life-who goes to the grave
without ever having had one luxury
has been the food of others. He has
been devoured by his fellow-men.
The poor woman, living in the bare
and lonely room, cheerless and fire.
less, sewing night and day to keep
starvation from child, is slowly be-
ing eaten by her fellow-men. When
| take into consideration the agony
of civilized life-the number of fail
ures, the poverty, the anxiety, the
tears, the withered hopes, the bitter
realities, the hunger, the crime, the
humiliation, the shame-I am almost
forced to say that cannlbalism, after
all, is the most merciful form in
which man has ever lived upon his
fellow-man.
1t is impossible for any man with q
good heart to be satisfied with this
world as it now is. No one can truly
enjoy even what he earns-what he
knows to be his own-knowing that
millions of his fellow-men are in mis-
cry and want. When we think Of
the famished we feel that it is almost
heartless to eat. To meet the ragged
and shivering makes one almost
ashamed to be we'll dressed and warm
-one feels as though his heart was
as cold as their bodies.
In a world filled with millions and
millions of acres of land waiting to
be titled, where one man can raise
the food for hundreds, yet millions
on the edge of famine, who can com.
prehend the stupidity at the bottom
of this truth?
Is there to be no change?
Are the law of supply and de-
mand," invention and science, nonop'
oily and competition, capital and leg
islation always to be enemies of those
who toll? Will the workers always
be ignorant enough and stupid
enough to give their earnings for the
useless? Will they support millions
of soldiers to kill the sons of othel
workingmen? Will they forever al
low parasites with crowns, and VAN
pires with mitres, to live upon theil
blood? Will they remain the slave.
of the beggars they support? Viii
honest men stop taking off their hats
to successful fraud? Will industry
in the presence of crowded idleness
forever fall upon its knees, and will
the lips unstained by lies forever kiss
the impostor's hand? Will they un
; derstand that beggars cannot bs
generous, and that every mar
must earn the right to live? Viii
they finally say that the man who ha
! had equal privileges with all other
has no right to complain, or will the.
follow the example that has been Sc
by their oppressors? Will they lear'
that force, to succeed, must have
thought behind it, and that anythin,
done, in order that it may endure
must rest upon the cornerstone @
7 justice?