The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-06-25
HERE AND THERE
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META FolCER TOWNS END,

1 have just read the Call of The
Wild" It's an unpleasant book to
read if you follow up the suggestive
ness of it.
II don't like to look at a monkey,
said a darkey of the better sort; they
make me feel-ugh! They are too
much like niggers" The words were
spoken in a light manner, yet the
listener knew by the witfulneSs in the
boys eye, that there was a deeper
feeling than appeared OH the surface.
Many times since have the words
and the look returned to the listener
as a reminder of the race tragedy
which daily, hourly. is being enacted
around us.
Here was one of the inferior race
working his way through school Am
bilious for better things he was,-
eagerly grasping at the opportunities,
but fully conscious of the handicap
of his ancestry. When a negro shows
this consciousness by a display OF in
Sistent impudence one can have no
feeling of sympathy or tolerance but
when the best qualities of the race ap-
pear in one VINO is humbled by the
weight of his father 'avagery, there
is something woefully pathetic in the
case.
No. l don't like THE Call of tho
Wild" All that snarling and yelpiL
and throat-tearing is too much like
the human race in its fighting mood.
And. it ought to be strange to say,
a recognition of this fact does not
humble US.
The qualities in Buck which began
to show the sliding off of his outer
coat of civilization are the very quail
NVh piH II act
bOasting. The dominant race! The
unconquerable Anglo-Saxon! The peO-
pie before whose might all weaker
ones fade as the snow in sunlight. The
greatest nation is the one whose drum
beat is heard around the world and
whose soldiery girdles the earth with
triple line of bayonets Buck must
be the lead-dog in the sled team.
Who are the greatest men of his
tory? John Howard? Henry Martyr
William Wilberforce? Nay, not so.
Caesar and Napoleon, the world will
say, in spite of the fact that these
men lived only to destroy History's
choral hymn has ever been. saul has
slain his thousand. but David his ten
thousand"
Are we never to get away from it
this worship of the war-gOd? This
apotheOsis of II supreme fighter?
Will not the sure processes of moral
evolution bring about 4 different order
of things? viii there not come a
time when the teaching of the Great
Peace Maker viii appeal to the man
lest of men as being thing suited to
perfect manhood instead of being a
dream for women? A vision for the
feminine of both sexes for do not
the strongest hearted among women
pride themselves because they are
able to buckle on the armor of their
beloved with a calm face and a steady
hand?
Is it Bjornstern Bjoinsterne who APP
against the war-sentiment of the
world TO begin in the home by dis
couraging everything that might have
a tendency to promote the growth OF
such sentiment?
10 follow this suggestion would be
to undertake the very flower of Chris
tan living. 1t would require infinite
love and tact, infinite forbearance and
far-seeingness. And how few of us
would dare to try living on so high
plane!
1t would not simply mean the dis
use of corporal punishment and the
not allowing blow for blow among the
children of a home 1t would mean
glamour of old Romance. 1T would
mean never stirring that thrill SO ma
tural to boy-nature when he hears Of
heroic deeds as herOism goes in one
common speech. Where would be the