The record-union., 1896-11-08
SOME RAMBLING THOUGHTS,
By MEMO.
(C0nyriShfSd

(COpyr1ghtsd.)
(These Thoughts by layman reach a
quarter of a million homes, scattered in
every State OF the Union. In this county
they can be found in the columns of this
paper only, as We have made arrange
ments with the author for their exclusive
appearance)
Life in "the home of the brave and
the land of the free" is not by any
means the selfish tooth-and- strug-
sic for existence that some would have
US believe it to be. One phrase of evo-
luton has become so commonly ac-
cepted among us that we rattle off
survival of the fittest'' quite glibly.
and imagine it explains everything of
unevenness in the lives of our fellows
who are better or worse off than we.
When, however, you and l can see so
many unfit both surviving and -four
ishing, We must look for some law in
operation different from that which
Herbert Spencer shows to prevail
among lower creatures, 'carnivorous
animals remove from herbivorous herds
individuals past their prime, and weed
out the sickly, the malformed and the
least fleet and powerful
And what may this different law be
that explains the continued existence
of those who are weak and feeble and
puny? The law that in the hearts of
the highest beings of the earth there
shall grow with their progress upward
from the animal an increasing recog-
milton of the claims that the feeble
have upon the strong. This impulse of
man to look after and protect his weak
er brethren is more completely perva-
sive of our civilization than would ap-
pear from the surface of our daily life
covered as 1t is with people scramblng
eagerly for self and pelf, these two
But surface indications are not enough
for our inquisitive human race, else
were coal mines and other forms of
mineral wealth practically unknown,
caves and gather our scant sheepskins
about us.
Look then with me, just for a few
moments, beneath all the fierce struggle
for wealth, food, life even, going on
around US, and by the law of the sur
vfvai of the fittest" explain to me the
existence of SO simple a thing as your
public school. You will find yourself
unable to do it, for you will find there
the children of worthless, shiftIess par
ents who make no contribution TO the
maintenance of the teacher, and yet who
reap the benefits that are secured to all
children alike by the industry and thrift
of the parents of some.
By that same law explain a hospital
where suffering creatures, manned in
many cases beyond all hope of future
utility, are kept alive by the most ex-
pensive appliances OF science; where
even the slightest neglect of the poorest
patient, if that neglect becomes known,
arouses an uproar. You cannot by any
possibility see from such a place that
the fit alone survive or are deemed
worthy to survive.
Endeavor to understand how, by the
rule of every man for himself your
little country church came into exist
ence. Your task VIII be a hard one.
for into it are built the widows mite,
the farmers hard-earned dollar, the
mechanical gift saved out of some peril
Gus employment-all given up gladly
without hope of personal gain.
Again, tell me or yourself whence
vate aggregati tions of the middle ages, y
public parks instead of enclosures prohi-
bitively walled against all that are
common or unclean"; public art gall
leries, where the connoisseur needs
must jostle against the poor and the
threadbare.
In all the foregoing examples the
ctief beneficiaries are those who have
succeeded in doing least to gain such
Pleasures. From the well-to-do have
heen distracted the advantages they or
theirs have earned, and these advan-
toges are given to others who have not
earned them. Yet not a voice of protest
ic raised, though this is all manifestly
i'll favor of the unfit" at the expense of
the fit"
We run counter to this animal law,
a law that has ruled even human beings
through many a dark age of the past,
because the great advancing common
sense of civilization is superior to any
such british. beak-and- method of
making progress. You and I belong to
scciety-to some one Government, II
you willard we are no longer regard
ed by it as individuals. We are mem
hers of that Government, much as your
fingers are members of your body, and,
as members, are to be protected, guard
ed cherished as part and parcel OF your
own life. BY our social instincts and
our Government, which, after all, is
more for the protection of the weak
than the strong, an end is put IN some
degree to the inter-individual struggle
for existence, and the strength and ad-
vantage Of all is in a sense given go
each one In fact, an unhindered strug-
ole for existence would break up gov
ernnent, society, every thing that now
surrounds us. the defeated and the
weak. with pleasures that would have
been unreachabIe by us in the days of
Magma Charta, or even in the days OF
the Declaration of independence.
This principle of government ex-
rlains the theory of our courts OF law,
where the most feeble, represented by
stbe State as plaintiff, may bring to
his knees the most naughty and
wealthy ciminal. If you are enjoying
anv of the mental, legal physical, spir
i,ua1 helps that surround you on every
side. you may set it down as a certainty
that some one somewhere has given up
something for you, whom he has never
seen. lust because you are member
of the same society or the same body
politic. 1t amounts in all to this, that
we are coming more and more to recog-
piza the value of human beings as
brothers of ours; that the interest of
all is best subserved by throwing the
hest products of a high civilization un-
reservedly before those who, in their
Individual struggle, are at least able
to attain them.