The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1910-05-26

imagine time when there will be COM
munion. Union is no more than negative
absence of strife. 1t does not take into
account the necessary and healthful differ
ences of persons, classes and countries.
Communion suggests acknowledgment OF
all fruitful differences, but also the grand
ideal of friendly insight, kindly allowances
and helpful joining of hands. In commu-
Mon we still say:
can that inhabit this great earth,
Whatever be their rank worth,
Are kindred and allied by birth
And made of the same clay"
The difference is that we do not end the
thought at that point. 1t is explained that
no two human beings are precisely alike or
should be. If it were the eternal design
that all should be of one pattern we should
be born full grown. There would be no
infancy, childhood or old age to vary wants
and abilities, to evoke higher feelings of
compassion, sacrifice and tenderness. Men
are kindred by birth and made of the same
clay. Therefore they have equal rights;
mutual respect is demanded by the law of
love and the law of justice. But they
differ. Therefore the exertion of inteli-
gence is required to see the good while ex-
tending equal rights; to apply the principle
of cooperation that the world may become
constantly better and happier. elm state
of nature,' said one of the early political
philosophers, Hobbies, ''all men have a
desire and will to hurt He argued that
government was adopted by men to prevent
them from hurting each other. Hobbies
had but half of the truth, for there is in
the natural man the instinct of love and the
desire of peace. Aside from this specula-
ton on the origin of governmental institu-
tons, the twentieth century knows as a
common fact that progress in the comfort
and enrichment of life is intertwined with
the reconcilement of Misunderstanding
and the removal of friction from the great
art of acting together. The nobler living
can come only after the disappearance of
"the harshness of an irreligious temper
clothing itself in religious zeal, and not
seldom exhibiting symptoms of mental
Reorganization that looks scowlingly" at
whatever it INDUCES itself to dislike. That
temper must be first chastened and fought
to discipline. Then comes mutual percep-
ton of merit and, last, the pleasure of
communion in the production of good.
There is no perfect state of society SO long
as any of US are contradictory, prag-
NAUTICAL and apt to differ from mere cap
tiousness."
Each man learns by thinking of other
men. 1t was wise thinker of our time
who wrote: "The education of man of
open mind is never ended. Sympathy is
the universal solvent. Nothing is UNDER.
stood without it." Men of open mind learn
each other. They arrive at communion,
interchange, the exertion of each for the
benefit of all.
In this United States we have the highest
example of cooperative society yet reach
ed. Beginning at a lucky moment of hui
man thought, it combined political liberty
with religious and social tolerance. Citi-
zens of different antecedents respected
each others qualities and learned recipro-
cal amity and united action. Taught in
the same common schools, members of the
same labor unions, reading the same news
papers. they have put aside much prejudice
and advanced far toward communion. Far,
however, only in comparison with more
backward conditions elsewhere. We have
much to learn and much to do. There is a
regrettable excess of the pragmatical and
captious, vastly too much irreligious harsh
ness and an impeding amount of class
hatred, as we'll as of individual prejudice.
1t all comes from imperfect openness of
mind, from ignorance. To the closed mind
everything wrong is the fault of the other
person, of the other faith, of the other
class. The incalculable power of COM
of that keen-eyed perception of
each special gift and that effectual combi-
nation of the best for mutual advancement,
is only half mastered. With the qualities
Of all the best races in our citizenship and
1t our disposal, we still lose time in exag-