Daily Kennebec journal., 1908-10-28

wages and unemployment is industrial
lnefficiency. But what causes indus
t"iai lnefliciecy? Among the greatest
| causes are bad housing. and under
lcedlnS ana these are caused by icno-
| renee and poverty So we come for
ever round and round to causes that
| are consequences and consequences
| that iii their turn are causes Until we
| get to see that there is no simple pan
| acea Tor the Ills of suffering mankind
but that what we must work for is
| general upilft all along the line. We
must say, to paraphrase Terence, we
are lumanltarlanS and no effort to
benefit humanity is foreign to US
Ihc result of such thoughts and eX-
| perleilces Is that today, in the advanced
and most intelligently conducted socie-
| ties for organizing charity, You will
| 1lnd a vast amount of effort and time
| devoted to the movements against con-
tngious disease, against child labor of
the kind that may justly be called
| child salvcry, against bad housing and
slums, whether they are found in vast
| city tencments or in wrctched alley
shacks and hovcls. Everything which
will forestal and prevent wretched-
ness and degradation, everything that
is constructive rather than merely re-
constructive, be longs today to the work
| OF the societies for organizing chari-
| ties
| an several cities, the campaign
against tuberculosis has been initiated
| by the charity organization society. and
! know of none in which the society has
not aided when the effort has been be
gun by others. The housing problem
! is one of the chosen ones of these
societies, as how can it but be, when
| their agents, day by day, in all wealth
crs visit the homes of the poor. The
ir& sniticcnt work of the New York
| Tenement House Commission is the di-
rect result Of the work of a committee
OF The society; its first commissioner
was president of that society, and the
same or similar developments have
| been seen in most of the larger cities
of the land.
Let me tell you what the greatest,
deepest. widest truth of Sociology ap-
| pears to be to me and to some others.
It nhcres in what we call the theory
OF the social organism. This thing we
call Society;-our city, our State, per-
haps our Nation, is no mere haphaz-
| ard aggregation of individual units,
brought together as the Whirls of
chance and the desire to make a living
or to make a fortune may have dire ct
ed. In the truest sense it is more than
III organization. 1t is living organ
| ism, composed of a multitude of self
| conscious cells, all connected in such a
way that no one can suffer, nor can he
be clad. alone This great organism
is not and cannot be we'll until every
one of its component parts is well.
| While any cell suffers, is WrorScd is
vile. to some extent the whole organism
suffers. When many cells suffer great
and evil consequences must bcfall the
whole.
''Our loved and lamentcd leader in
philanthropy, in the Middle West, Os
car Carlton McCuloch, used to say in
vibrant tones that touched every heart,
When any little child suffers or is in
danger my little girl is not safe
'Dear friends. these people around
us. the sick and mamed. the ignorant.
even the vicibuS. are ours. They are
our brothers ana sisters, bone Of our
bone and flesh of our flesh. All are
members Of one body says the Scrip
ture. If they suffer so do we. if they
are vile, we are not guiltless If typhoid
fever or dphtheria or tuberculosis rage
in the tenement quarter, they do not
| stay there. You remember Carlylc'S
story of the poor Irish widow who
wandered through the streets Of Gl2S-
gov with typhoid in her veins and no
one would help her. until she staggered
into q tenement house and lay down in
the entry by the stair and died, and so
infected the house that many We're
carried out dead after her. proving
in her death. what they would not adj
nit while she lived, that she was in
deed their sister.
"Dp YOU question sometimes Is life
worth living Do YOU find existence
stale. Fat and unproftab BILE? | believe
the theory Of the social organism is one
of the best antiSepticS for such germs
of infidelitN. To believe that there is
u great and progressive order of the
universe. That with whatever difficult
tics and doubts caused by the presence
Of pain ANA sorrow. this order, on the
whole is bcnelicient That most
if not all disease may he some
d1y rro vented. that bad conditions of
city life are not inevitable but within
the power Of al intelligent citizenship
to remove. That life may be made
| ioNnlif, or at IcdSt lotcrdDlc. loT al.
That you and | are called. as by a
trumpet. to join our forces, whatever.
they may be. great or small. with thoS"
of our fellows, to carry on the great
work the Fathers business of making
his children happy and blessed. know
| of no tonic like such a thought. In its
felt presence, unfaith and selfish fore
bodings disappear like the valley mists
before the clear pure wind from the
mountains Life on noble possibilities.
Whatever our religious faith may be.
we say: 4 must be about my Fathers
business
The following are latest to reg
lister. Mrs J. \. Thompson. Mrs. Fred
crick Fl. Noble. Mrs. George w. +.
Barrows. Mrs. T.. r. Neatly. Bangor;
George S Bliss. West Pownal; Rev
Lcayitt II Hallock. Lewiston: Ala ~
L.ibbey. Lewiston; Mrs. Ida l.yford,
Oakland: William Vaughn, Belfast;
Alexander johnson. Fort Wayne, Ind.