The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-08-23

RESPONSIBILITY.
INDIVIDUALS

INDIVIDUALS RESPONSIBILITY
Wider is a true disciple of the
theorists who would make the individ-
uaI the mere product of social circun-
stances who charge all crime to So
ciety, and who thus weaken the sense
of personal responsibility. There is a
world of modern misunderstanding.
semiphilanthropic and semisocialistic
teaching in that fnept saying that
they should not have exposed a man to
temptation by putting him in control
of everything from A to q. AS II, In
Shakespeare's expressive sphrase. we
were criminals $compulsion," by
sort of divine thrusting-onm
1t is bad enough when individualism
ceases to be the keynote of the poll
it will be infinitely worse-it will be
fatal-when it loses it's prominence in
the moral field, when society and cir
cumstances are made the scapegoat
for individual misdeeds, when the
austere, the eternal Ought" which
every man feels within his own soul,
is silenced "I am the grist between
the mill6toneS."
The fact that Erwin Wider's wife
wanted things he could not afford Is
no excuse for his act. The fact that
other people lived more stylishly than
he could maintain his family was no
excuse. They are Ineligible as causes,
in the light of many cases. But When
that is said all is said.-Chicago Inter-
Ocean.
RICHES OF THE WEST.
Especially interesting because of the
glowing accounts of western prosper
ity and money-making attractions
which have been actively difiused
through this section of the country IN
the last few months is the testimony
of John NJ. Rood. sheriff of jackson
inc m OF
which have come to us in the slow and
phlegmatic east, nearly every family
out west has from one to a dozen auto
mobiles, and money is so plentiful out
there that they are feeding it to the
cattle. Sheriff Rood Is quoted in
report from Kansas City, as saying
| that he has from six to eight motor
cars in his possession all the time on
attachment suits. He remarks that he
never has to take the machines on bills
| for tires or for repairs, but that nine
times out of ten it is the grocer or the
dry goods merchant. who has Drought
| suit to collect his bill.
This recalls the story of the Maine
farmer who was accosted by the occu-
pants of a passing automobile. who
| demanded to know why he did not
leave the miserable. unremunerative
soil of Maine and GO as they had done
many years before, to Kansas, which
| they described as a veritable Ell Do
RADIO. oval" was his laconic conciu-
sion, I'm mighty glad you fellows are
doing SO we'll out there. for I hold
mortgages on seven Kansas farms.
| Manchester Union.
| WOMAN AND THE PIN.
1t was in deductive way that the
| captain found out that Ethel Claire La
Neve, the supposed accomplice of DR.
| Crippen, was a girl, though she waf
| dressed in boys toys. She had sup
| piled a missing trousers button with &
| safety pin. The method was entirely
| feminine. A boy would have Dor.
| rowed a marline spike or a nail, oil
| Whitfield a wooden peg.
This dramatic use of the safety pir
| again focuses attention on woman''
| marvellous capacity as a pinster- Givs
her a hat pin and she can alright 6
footpad or lure olives from a Ions
necked bottle, with equal ease. Sh'
makes it decorative, too, and deadly
In a crowded street car 1t is as fear
some a weapon as the kris of Malal
| running a-muck
But her chief record is made will
the common or garden pin. She fas
tens buttons on shoes with 1t and
when the baby swallows the rattle
harpoons that out with a pin. If
tornado blows and the shingles ar
| threatened she crawls out on the roo
and pins them down.
Writer of those fascinating summe
| stories in which a man and lowell
girl are cast away on a South Sea Is
land miss the chance of their live
when they do not provide the heroin
| with a paper of pins as her salvag