The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1892-05-11

of the groans of men. There will be
leisure for the heart and brain OF our
race"
What a mockery that golden vision ap-
pears today Three-quarters of century
past. The gods have done their part. The
wealth of the world mas multiplied q
hundred fold. Civilization has grown rich
rich beyond prophecy. The gold of the
Caesars and the treasures OF the old East
of the nations OF the "Oxus and Ind
are as a palid dream beside the imperial
wealth OF our modern cities. That old OD-
ulence compared with ours was as their
crude gailey-boats to the queeniy ships
that cleave oar modern seas.
From this gitterng barbarism turn to
the darker and deadlier side OF the picture
to our modern slums where you see mis-
erabie homes, wherein human beings
crouch together like hungry dogs-cradles
wherein lay little children, whom God
meant to be rosy and sweet and warm. bus
whom poverty has changed to punY skele-
tons which moan and shiver in uneasy
sleep.
Look again, and see the scanty fires,
which hardly serve to warm an inch of
space in barren rooms. wherein sit wrecks
of men and women who seek in drink 20
hide the sting of cold an6 hunger. Young
girls stretch thin and claw-ike hands
above jet of Pickering flame and seek
to draw title warmth from II to thaw
their frozen blood. Mothers clasp starv-
ING babies to their shrunken breasts.
Don't turn away until you see the graves
whence comfort and long surcease from
hunger and pain beckon with alluring
hands. See the rags that are the sport OF
riDald winds, and behind the rags are ten
der flesh and benumbed and breaking
hearts. Want and misery and their sister,
care, evermOre the companion piece 70
poverty, with an ever-present background
OF darkness whereon the anurlng SPLEEN
dor OF Nineteenth century wealth and
civilization are cast in ali their glory.
Does the spectator feel it in his heart Ia
question God why such sharp contrast
should be, or why the earth is always to
stagger and groan under its burden OF
unmerited woe? Does IL occur TO him to
ask why little children are born to cry and
starve and die like the wolves? And
/ why. the earth over. must it be that one
/ mans wine Is another mans poison, one
mans opportunity another's loss2
With the work of civilization so far ac-
comp lished that there Is enough accumu-
lated wealth to make comfortable all the
! people of civilized countries there re-
mains before the world the spectacle of
almost infinite suffering and want. Be-
/ hind the spectacle of suffering is the spec
! tacle of inequality without corresponding
merit. Behind the spectacle of inequality
/ Is the spectacle of fear in the lives of In
J nOcent millions.
A few centuries ago these grim facts
would have troubled nobody. Those were
! years OF force and brutality. Men were
/ Indifferent to the sufferings of their fei-
I no Of hrrr, irhf haH
/ quickened. Today it is different Gen.
( Grant tells US in his memoirs that,
! knocked about in his boyhood in many
/ log school houses, he was told so often
! that noun was the name of a thing that
! he began TO believe Ii. A similar fatality
has overtaken modern Christianity. The
| brotherhood of man has been preached so
/ long from the pulpits of the world that
there are people even outside of the
churches who begin to suspect its doctrine
! of truth. To the minds of millions of
men and women the equality and
brotherhood of man are no longer
rhetorical phrases. The presence of pow
erty and suffering in the midst of plenty 10
felt as a moral discord. BY every sun that
rises we read reports from some parts Of
this republic of the strikes or lockouts OF
thousands OF wOrkmen, significant Of
1 mighty personal suffering which conclu-
sively proves that social classes do owe
something to each other"
These are the facts by the side of which
all other facts-of learning, OF art OF dis
covery. or commerce, or law-sre as moth
ing. They are the facts which have met
civilization in its pathway as the old The
ban sphinx met the traveller, who must
solve its riddle or die. They make the
! problem of our time.
| Let whoever will solve it.