Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1909-04-12
HUMANS FIRST.

4 The other day an elephant in a pes
:Noines amusement park ran "musth,
as elephants do at certain periods, and
killed his keeper. 1t was natural
enough for the animal to work himself
into a frenzy, and the keeper was sui
ficiently under the influence of liquor to
lack the judgment necessary to handle
him at the time. 50 the beast killed
him. as other elephants have killed 9TH
err keepers, and will again as long as
elephants run "musth" and men play
the fool under the influence of whisky,
After the killing the elephant was shot
few times and generally bunged up
pretty badly in the measures taken to
keep him from killing more.
Now comes the humane officer, pre-
sumab}y in pity and an effort TO save
the life of the maddened brute, which
has several murders to answer for. She
says: tom has been abused. tor
mented and tortured by spells ever
since I have known him, and at one
time I was on the point of making an
arrest. Tom knows more than some
of his keepers
Perhaps she is right in the state
rnent as TO Toms" intelligence. Pos
sibly We're the statement amended by
the elephant keepers to include hu-
name officers 1t would still hold good
Elephants are invariably intelligent an
finals whatever may be said of their
keepers and of humane officers. The
point that will strike most persons is
the divine pity displayed over a rogue
elephant which has lost an eye and had
his thick epidernlis punctured in a
murderous rampage and the lack of
sympathy for the man whom he i'm
paled and crushed to death. This big,
savage brute, with the power of a
locomotive and the 1nurderous intelli-
gence of man. ought to be killed and
put out of the way. And there is little
humanity and less sense displayed IN
pleading for him.
WIFI dlL dUt tleL4G anu IOIlOr 10 tue
men and women who constitute the hui
name societies. their representatives
often mistake neurosthenla for humane
impulse. Human beings should come
first. 1t Is not the highest humanity
which passes human suffering and hui
man need to seek a spawned horse
helping some cripple to earn a precari-
Gus living, or turns from the crushed
body of an elephant keeper to mourn
over the bruises of his killer.
We are hearing much of the horrors
of vivisection. Il IS a horrible subject
When the poor dumb brutes that suffer
by the incubation of the agonizing dis
eases that afflict humanity are consid
cred alone: when the innumerable ami
mails that fall under the knife arc
awake from the anaesthetic to lingel
in pain are 1narshalled into the rnin6
by imagination, they make a process.
sion of horrors. But when with then
we bring the interlninable array c
stricken humanity, the horrors of thu
cancer wards, the white terror of tu
berculosis, the twisted frames and pal
lid faces of the mutitudes that g,
down into the dark past our helpless
hands, and realize that the endless ex
pertinent and horrible toll Of the WV
sectionist has conquered much, and i
passing to further conquest, the pictur
takes on difference aspect. We rea4
hysterical descriptions of the cham
Der of the vivisectionist, but no one OF
fers vitagraph of the keen steel, tn
pure white and vivid red Of the room
where skill strives to guard human be
ings against death and agony.
Humans first. Let us not in our pro
per sympathy and guardianship Of tn
sninals forget our own kind. Let u