The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1906-05-19
b|GEL0W DEFINES THE
MEAhEsT Man LIVING
Popular Preacher Gets Lesson
From Experiences in San
Francisco Fire.
Holds That the Ghoul During
a Calamity os Victum of
Our System.


Who is the meanest man living? Ask
the prosecuting attorneys and they will
point out some red-handed murderer
waiting his death. Ask the judges Of
the law and they will say that the
worst criminals are behind the bars
II, however, we were to look for the
man, all things considered is the most
morally culpable, the most inexcusably
mean of any man in the world, where
would we go to find him? Probably
we should not find him in Jail at all.
l dare say We should find him clothed
with power, sitting in the seats of the
scornful, a man much given to piety,
perhaps, and the last to dream that
his is convict soul and meaner than
any murderer whom the gallows waits.
San Francisco Heaven-Hell.
How hardly could one suppress tears
of thankfulness when reading of the
Oakland doctor who treated the eyes
of a refugee fleeing from the terror of
San Francisco. The patient was blind
ed by smoke and c1nders The doctor
treated his eyes with great care. Then
the patient demanded his bill and wish
ed to pay but the doctor was obdurate. s
Pointing to the flames across the bay
he exclaimed: mot a cent from those
who come from that terrible city" .
Justice is not dead and in all the up
roar of this age of trade, love lives
and the heart is sovereign still.
But every light has it's shadow Look
again-there on the ground lies a
VrrSVy ~sr,er H@1x
soldier with a rifle. What was the
man doin that he should be shot.
Horrible to tell. He was rifling the
dead and in his haste to make the most
of the common calamity, he was
chewing jewels from the ears of
corpse. A bullet dispatches this hum
an jackal
Thus as the earth shakes with its s
hidden commotion, fierce tongues of
flames join in relev OF obstruction
heaven gives and hell takes-the an
gel and the demon called forth by the (
anarchy of the elements and the frenzy
of the hour. ! r+.v stI-, So SO
Who Is Judges
The distance between the doctor and
the ghoul may seem the distance be-
tween heaven and hell. Yet who can
say? Here in the ears of a dead wom-
an are gems that might buy bread for
starving man Here III tins moment
Of terror, poverty can come out Of
it's hole and loot in an hour Of rewards
of the labor of a life time. If civil.
ization has kept men in want and
envy, If civilization has driven men
back like dogs into their Kennels, II,
in the sewer holes Of the slums men
have grown monstrous with oppres-
sion who is to blame, and, If law is
swept away, the foul pack from the
underworld break their lashes in their
lust of gain? In the higher judgments
of humanity which, after all, is worse
for one human rat to gnaw the ears
off corpse, or for genteel jackals to
discount the profits of war and send
armies after markets, reaping har-
vest of dripping dollars while the rot
ten bodies Of their fellows are torn
with beak and claw upon bloody bat
tie fields?
To some it may seem to prove the
depths Of human depravity that
creature could sink so low as to pill
fer the dead of the stricken city. But
1t is more a reproach to society than
to the man. If society had never de-
MED men the opportunity to earn all
that nature demands, If society had
not made men so cheap and gems so
dear, if society had not harbored be-
hind its temples Of religion and trade
horde of men forever hungry, the
ghoul could hardly be possible.
Men who have always earned a COM
petence by their labor and have no
fear OF want and enjoy the respect Of
their neighbor-such men will not fall
to robbing corpses on the first op-
portunity
Thus it is impossible to take the
most revolving criminal or the most
gilded devil that ever lived and not
feel that in justice, our blame Of him
should be- softened by pity, for. the
sins of a creature are never wholly his s
own. Loathe the crime-yes, but who
are we that we should damn the mani
Herbert S. Bigelow, Pastor Vine
Street Congregational Church, May 13,
1906 sS