The times., 1899-07-03
MOI WORTH TIE Living
Trusts Making the Masses Depend
on a Few for Support.
DIR. Alexander Kent Discusses the
Question That the Suicide Answers
in the Nesntiyc-The Strike war
Measure Made Necessary by the
Conditions In Industrial System.

/ Dy Ut. AleAdHueT hsnt, at the t6Ople
/ Church, yesterday morning are coming
near making life hardly worth the living.
| Competition between employers is gone,
ami the conflict is now wholly confined 10
the employed class.
The theme was THE Life That Is Not
Worth the Living. 1t was treated in palt
as follows:
| Some one, in answer to the question
is life worth living, replied, with some
thing of the cheap wit of the punster, but
more of the sound sense and discernment
of the true philosopher, That depends
| upon the liver, which brings to mind a
kindred remark of Henry Ward Beecher.
that Many people imagine themselves to
be pious when they are only bilioSs
When that organ known as the liver is
badly out of order, the person spoken OF
as the liver is never mentally or morally
| altogether normal. A torpid liver and a
poor digestion are responsible, | doubt
not. for more of the tro1bes and miseries
of this world than anything else except
selishness and greed. Indeed, they
not unlikely to foster those last named
vices, for they develop those fears and
anxieties in regard to the future of this
world which tend to make people gasp
ing.
People who are forced to think OF
themselves and their miseries do not
naturally take great deal of interest in
the general welfare, so it comes about
that torpid liver has very much TO Co
with torpid living, and hence again it hap
pens that whether life is worth living or
not depends very much upon the liver
that is upon the kind or quality OF the fe
one lives.
"All normal life is worth living even on
the lowest plane of existence. There can
be no question that through the whole
range of animal existence below man life
yields large balance of pleasure over and
above all palms. and this | doubt rot is
equally true of man himself, considered as
a whole.
THE human element ought to have a
value TO its possessor and to the world
as much above that of the merely animal
as he himself is higher in the scale of
being. The superior intellectual and moral
powers of the human. necessarily contem-
plate in a moral universe, kind and ce-
gree of pleasure. satisfaction. enjoyment.
in their exercise, far beyond anything ios-
sible on the merely animal plane How
comes it then that man alone, of all ex-
isting creatures, is tthe most dissatisfied
with life? How is it that he alone is ask
ing himself whether life is worth living.
: and in thousands of cases reaching mega
] tive conclusion? Why is it that he is the
only creature who. by his own effort. seeks
to escape from life, and-he hopes-from
misery it has brought him?
2 Because while some measure of the
human has been awakened it has not yet
F., come to the throne in human affairs. 1t
has not yet effected those social adjust
ments which properly recognize and ex-
press the human, and which are absolutely
essential in a truly human development.
I Animal selfshness, greed, cunning, have
still so large a place in the shaping of
social laws, customs. and institutions that
the human element finds no adequate rec
ognition or encouragement. The strong.
. under the influence of these animal in
stincts and passions, unregulated by rea-
son, dominate the weak, abridge their
I freedom and establish conditions which
7 bring them into virtual servitude and
? bondage.
: The movement of civilization is move
. ment to throw off this brute inheritance
and develop into actual dominance end
control the distinctively human. The ex-
tent to which this has been carried is the
, measure of civilizations advance. We Lave
got rid of the old conception that might
makes right in the physical realm, but ii
I
A man may not legally, in our modern
days, deprive his neighbor of liberty by
superior physical force. He may not hold
!, him as slave to sell or use at pleasure
as he may OK or a horse. But he may
. legally corner him by strategy, and SC
. shape the conditions about him that he
is as completely at his mercy as he would
: be were he slave, while the cornerer Is
: under no legal obligation to give thought
| ic i,ta Tp a down
with material bludgeon we hold to be
brutal, and to take from him his purse
we denounSe as robbery. But to crush him
in the strHggle for life by superiority oi
intellect or cunning, by commercial fore
! sight or business shrewdness, and leave
him crippled and penniless, this We call
business And yet 1t has brought condi-
tions to millions of our people scarcely less
T CALLING than chattel slavery, and conditions
. involving a far greater amount of inXiety
and money.
! To-day the trusts have organized nearly
. the entire business of the country, and
the masses are dependent on them fol
l employment. Competition has run its
course in the employing classes and killed
q itself out. 1t is now raging among the
, employees, and unless they have the sense
, to combine consolidate and stand to-
gether, those who are out standing with
those who are in, conditions for the mul-
titude, will reduce them to life which
we're it permanent, would not be worth
! living. No more pitiable spectacle car
, be seen anywhere than that presented by
the conflict between the union and non
, union men in the strikes now going on
1t Is a terrible pressure that makes these
men willing to take brothers job and
, to do it at the peril of their own lives
merely that they may keep bread to the
mouths of their starving children. And
| the pressure is scarcely less that impels
q the striker to interfere with the freedom
of the brother who is taking his place.
1T is a war measure, rendered neces-
sary by the exigencies OF the conflict In
which he is unwillingly engaged, and not
\ to be approved by ideal ethics any more
: than war itself The marvel to me is
that SO many of these people still cling
to life as something worth living; that
so few comparatively give up the struggle
and seek release through death. But hope
springs eternal in the human breast, and
so long as there is hope there is courage
e to endure and struggle.
i THE life that is not worth living sc
: far as the possessor is concerned, is the
: life that is void of hope. With most oi
n us, pleasant and precious as life is, it is
I hope of greater good in what lies before
t us rather than satisfaction with present
n attainments that puts in our lives some
e streaks of sunshine.
= 'The only life that is not worth living Is
r the life that yields no satisfaction to sell
e and no benefit or happiness to others. Such
e is a really selfish life. l do not mean a
h self-regarding life, but life in which the
n self-considered has no concern Tor others!
I The real self is n man with sympathies, af-