davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-05-28

livious to our neighbor,s beliefs and aims-and they seldom do. Whatever con- clusion reach about earthly or heavenly eveutualities. my friends handolasp Is better. However loyal I may be to a belief. may yet be wrong. Loyalty to a concept is one of the finest gestures of the human mind-but loyalty is no guar. antee of rightness.
 However foolish your concept seems to me. or however crass and. material istic mine may seem to you, we are brothers still ! will wrestle with you fin argument to the worlds edge. but you cannot harm me, nor you.
 Let us begin to understand this real "base, and finale, too, for all meta physics" as Walt Whitman meant 1t. Let us stand for something-let us have vision. too else we will be poor wretehes indeed, without foothold, without room for striving. But let us not be blinded to the brotherh ood of man.
 On our earth today 100000 or so folk hold that God is divine love, and that in some glad forward time all the races of men will understand this God-ness, or good ness, of the universe. Meanwhile, against the time that we shall come into this knowledge of God, we have human love left Us. And as we grow in love, grow in understand
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-05-28

One of the most effective speeches ever made in Congress was that of Claude Kitchin, delivered April 15, opening the debate in behalf of reciprocity. It car ried dismay into the quarters of the protectionists and the near protectionists. It inspirited every true democrat that heard it and it encourages every true democrat who reads it. A holy terror in a political melee, the young son of the Old North State had the standpatters on the rack for three hours. He knew his subject from beginning to ending and in my time I have not known a readier man in debate. A democrat from skin to core, he cannot be cajoled by the spacious pleadngs, nor brow beaten by the truoulent threats, or the mymidons of predatory wealth. He sees in reciprocity an assault on the pro tective principle" as they call it, and that is why he is for it. Those repub- licans who favor reciprocity do so In the hope that this concession will preserve what is left of the dogma; but accord ing to Kitchin 1t Is the opening skirmish of a glorious war for honest and con- stitutional taxation.
 Here is a passage from Kitchin's speech that every democrat ought to read:
 .'fWho is right, Zeb' Vance or these anti-reciprocity democrats? I venture the statement that whenever you see a good democrat against this reciprocity
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-05-28
THE BASE OF ALL METAPHYSICAL A. B. Bea1e

mans largest composition, yet it is typical of that sanity and sweetness found alike in ITO You" and 'The City Dead House" Written in 1870. 1t came after those richly productive years that gave to the world The Body Electric" and Children of Adam those human heart cries that have been variously praised and blamed-praised for their humanness-blamed for their naked
 ness. For this limit1ess reach and power to express with common words the animal and man In us, seeing good in all, he has been praised For what has been called his too risque interpre- tation of the human passions-calling white, white; and black, black-he has been blamed. This unorthodoxy was much deplored by Emerson, of whom Whitman wrote, at Boston, In 1881:
 october 10-13-I spent a good deal of time on the Common, these delicious days and nights-every midday from 11:30 to about land almost every sun set another hour. l know all the big trees, especially the old elms along Fremont and Beacon streets, and have come to sociable-s silent understanding with most of them, in the sunlit air
 Up and down these breadths by Beacon street. between these same old elms
 walkd for two hours, Nof a bright sharp February day. 21 years ago, with
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-05-28

reason that angel became petrified. We are further told that when the stone was put into the wall it was clear and translucent. It Is now black, made so by the Kissing of it by sinful men. This is the generally accepted story of the "black stone of the Caaba, at Mecca's sacred shine. You are at lib- erty to doubt any part of the nara tive or-to swallow 1t whole.
 Ah let me here mention the famous
 'Barney stone,'' lest I forget 1t al- together I rather believe in the in- tluence of this stone, though I may have some misgivings about the stone of the Caaba. Blarney castle Is about five miles out from Cork, in the land of the sh hamrock. You are met iat the entrance of the old ruin by loquacious Irishwoman who is in charge Around the ancient donjon, as well as In US crumbling crannies, are growing weeds,
 grasses woodbine and ivy. It is all the more picturesque because of Its delap-
 dation and the effort that nature makes
 to cover over the wounds 1t has re- ceived from the storms of the centuries.
 It was built in 1449 The special stone of which all the world has heard is
 near the top of the tower, and is
 reached by ascending a stone stairway
 It is part of an overhanging para pet and is held to its place by two strong iron bars. In order to kiss the 'Blarney stone one must reach out and grasp tho iron bars and project his body beyond the tower wall Should his grip fail him he would fall upon the rocks, about 120 feet below. But why sh ould anyone want to kiss the "Blar-
 ney stone?" My dear sir, to become elo- uuent, ready of speech, quit witted, and the like! But do you really believe that
 a stone can impart all this? You are not
 eloouent or witty" That's true enough
 of myself I did not kiss It. I merely reached out my foot and touched it. If I had not doubted the strength of
 my mucles and had kissed the stone I. even I, possibly, might have become an orator for the old Irish song sings thus of Blarney,
 Sure there's a stone there That whoever kisses,
 An, he never misses
 To grow iloquent"
 | Or might have become as Paddy
 Blake, the wittiest Irshman that walks | St. Patrick street, in Cork. He will | tell you with a merry twinkle in his blue eyes, Iris meself that kissed the Blarney stone.''
 | There is stone in this country that stands for much In the minds of many | people, especially among many New l Englanders It is carefully protected and suitably inscribed. It marks the Handing place of the Puritans. in 1920.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-05-28

they were yet warm friends and contem- porares. Common truth-seeking drew them together, let us say. to exchange vision for vision-for the measure of lit erary values. No laboring pencil can shape words that truly tell what unites friends, so miraculous a thing friendship is, not to be recorded in black and white. I can more nearly understand the good gray poet in communion with John Burroughs or with Joaquin Miller. than with Finer son I can understand WIS vexatlon with Els graceful periods in "The over-Souf' just as I can E.'s scolding of Walt for the "Body Electric" and "Song of My self Yet how distinct are ones literary valuations from loves and friendships valuations!
 "As a man thinketh in his heart so is he'-yet beneath all of our theories about life, underneath all our guesses about God, there Is an elusive something that makes the seers of the earth and the honest candid men strike hands when they meet and understand.
 After all, what do the high-flown dis putations matter when man meets man? "As a man thinketh in his heart so Is he" in part. Neither the hell in us nor the heaven in us should make you or me ob-
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-05-28

vestigation to lend some sort of respecta- bility to monopoly's opposition to reci- procity. I'll tell you the farmer 1t hurts the Kirby Lumber trust and Its biggest stockhoder, the Frisco railroad. An
 other is the paper trust. If reciprocity did not threaten the ill-got gains of these gentry there would have been no profess
 sional farmers here to protest against
 this pact of strictly democratic antece-
 dents and 1t would have been passed last
 Congress without the slightest opposi-
 ton in either House
 I doubt if there Is a real farmer in America who will not be benefited by this Canadian reciprocoty if 1t becomes the law. Every farmer is a user of tim Der, either the raw material, as lumber for barn. or dwelling, or gin house,
 or other outbuilding, or as wood in the finished product, such as blows, thresh- CTS, rakes and other utensils and ma chinery The fierce opposition of the lumber trust to reciprocity shows-lt demonstrates-that wood and lumber will be cheaper to the consumer. Nor is this all, paper of all kinds will be cheaper books, newspapers, magazines, wrap ping paper and so on. By the way, MT. Bailey seems not to have heard that books, newspapers and magazines are sold by the city to the farm, and the "propaganda'' he talks of would reduce the price of those, now become necessa- ries of the farm. I undertake to say that the advantage to letters and to
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-05-28

specting workman into modes of work known as relief" work, which are con- cocted for the sole purpose of giving the unemployed something as an ex- cuse for paying him an apology for wages, the new method will coop crate with him in preparing for such emergencies, so that when they arise he may have time if necessary even to change his occupation and to attend trade school for training in such new lines of activity as may be available.
 To the old-time doctrinaire employer Of labor, suggestions of provisions like these must seem grotesquely needless, partak- ing of the Quixotic more than of the sanely Christian-sheer imbecility of sen timentalism, reform gone mad But on the other hand, whoever knows the dumb or clamant sufferings of the toliing classes in England cannot but thank God that they have found so powerful a champion. As to sentimentalism, that bugaboo of the scientific, modern social science is quite willing to ignore it, while she reaches by mathematical methods fur ther than all the tears of the sentiment alsts can soak in. John Bull Is longer on statistics than on sentiment; and he has found it less costly to insure his sons against sickness accident and unemploy- ment than to pauperise them by the old individualistic neglect, tempered by soup kitchens, bead-lines and relef-works.
 Now, what is interesting to so many men in these days Is the discovery that already America is possessed of the same fierce social problems as the old world, but with less willingness to grapple with them. Yet there are watchmen on the walls of Columbias industrial Jerusalem, the professors of political economy, the students of "Eugenics,' the collaborators In such vast fields of activity as the Rus sell Sage Foundation, who very well know that the forces which produce suffering and injustice in Europe will grind the same grist in America.
 I am studying two little books pub lshed by the MacMillan company, in a series already referred to (May D, the American Social Progress series, at s1.OO net apiece, which show that Lloyd George in England has his sympathisers in America, who would rather upset the
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-05-28

of Texas that his hart bleeds for the
 welfare of the Demmercratic party, and
 that he is ready to lay down his life
 for his beuvved constituents, provided
 that they convinse him that it is nec-
 essary, and aftur he has accomplished
 nis ambision in life-sed ambision being poor or "eminently respectibul'-slick
 to die of an extreenly ripe old age.
 He has had time during the dull seesuns in Congress to take a few cases, and at tend to sum small matters for the Standard oil company under one of it's menny allyases, and to annex frum that evver burdened consern a few samoleons that weer not working-of course this lit- tie outside work and bizness did not in the least interfeer with his duties as a Representative of the PeepuP' or in the slightest degree inflewence his vote In Congress, no--no, not at all-sertanly not. Lay down, Fido. As Painter, however he certainly shines, to begin with he has painted his own portrate and he has maid it most blessing, espessially to the peepui of Texas, for who's express benefit 1t was dun with a masters hand and brush he has painted white, all of his menny trans actions that weer of anuther euler, reallz- ing that if they stood forth as they reely weer that they would not harmonize with the puppy-slush that he had fed to his gullabul constituency for so long. But they do say, that for evvery Nappolyon
 there is a waterlou. and If we air not mistaken Josefus' finish is getting reddy rite now to ask him for his ticket. Josefus attempted his masterpeece In trying to
 paint L.orrimer, but In spite of the master ly effert of which Josefus only Is capibul; in spite of the long and splendid flights of reel ellerquence, the verry best he could do on Lorrimer was to get him a pale | IL, ,I,A- .fn1, Bayleyized Texans, but when subjected to the cold and calculating inspecksion of an lunhiptomized and critical public living in | luther less benited states Josefus master peece has cum in for few rather 1olting and strictly persunal remarks. and is all
 most unanimously pronounced an onion. Josefus sed when they biased the Toga
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-05-28

constitution itslf than leave the sick, wounded, or unemployed American work man in the slough of hopelessness from which his English brother is now to be rescued. The first of these is by the pro- lessor of political economy at Columbia Henry Rogers Seager, and is entitled Social Insurance" The other is on the broader topic. inclusive of this: '.Governmental Action for Social Vel fare" and was put together by Professor Jeremiah w. Jenks of Cornell. The very titles are gall and wormwood to such of the old stagers as refuse to modify the ideas current 50 years ago. What? Is not America ''The Land of Opportunity" Is 1t not wide enough and new enough to welcome the worker, to provide him something to do though his own trade be slack? Can he not get out and dig? Die not i've" make money though we started with nothing but pluck and our own bare hands? Shall we coddle and so weaken and pauperze our American working man?
 Suffice 1t to say in answer to all such diatribes that the woeful bread line" is a fact in America that sick ness comes to the uninsured, accident to the heads of families in America, WIeTe lHueeu they nave lcSo piotcS tion in the courts than in any other great industrial country. But most of all, 1t must be said that intelligent employers, even In America, have come to recognize that the comfort health, oontentent, permanence of their work men are commercial asset of very large value to themselves Along all lines forces are moving which will compel community cooperation for the protection and welfare of its own members. The days of the old individ- ualistic conscience have gone, and in Its stead is the new social or com munity conscience. And so it comes to pass that there Is "school of philanthropy" whose aim it is to an ticipate and guard against the SheoI into which the sick, the unemployed the discouraged, the middle-aged em- ploye so easily sinks. The School ot Philanthropy has in New York what is known as the John Stuart Kennedy lectureship, under which trained ant alert minds, saturated with the dats
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-05-28
MEDICINE-By George Eaves, D. D.

of political economy, devote themselves to the elucidation of the causes of misery and the way out in this favored land. It was in this way that both these books took shape, Drs. Jenks and Seager having been invited to deliver the Kennedy lecture to the School of Philanthropy respectively in 1908 and 1910. Let me add moreover that to the uninitiated it would be a matter of very great surprise to discover in such a school, studying the problems of the seamy side of civilization at first hand, very large number of earnest men and women whose only motive can be a passion for helping the under dog" They are generally people O. sufficient income for their own needs Their method is never the old method of financial relief, but the new method of trained observation friendly fellow ship, clear understanding, and thu skill to represent the facts to the whole community. Every day of such study means more or less anguished ques- tioning of "the god of things as they are."
 So there is no help for 1t. Even Amer ica will have to pay the penalty of it's past lamentable mistakes. We have been learning to civilize ourselves, and didn't
 
 their opportunity, and thinking ourselves to be asute, we also plunged in. The doctrine of free contract, the doctrine of trades unionism, the doctrine of trusts and combines-are they not already chal- lenged by Uncle Sam himself who comes along with a tax on corporations and an interstate commission to sit on railroads and interfere with their business? We are about to interfere with the wool bus mess, and we have already interferred with the wire and nail industry close at hand.
 For mo man liveth to himself. and no man dieth to himself" The little seam stress who has no employer responsible for her, if she breaks a needle In her hand and gets blood, poisoning, has as great a moral claim lon the community as the richest capitalist or the noisiest demagogue-and why? Because she is part of the community, one who has Loyalty added her part to the general well-being Before she breaks down, already the com munity will do wisely to cooperate with
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-05-28

K Tux voMIcA is often indicated
 M when the doctor overhaus the
 l ' energetic American and finds out what ails his nerves. Nux vomica ne therefore gets, though the drug is none other than that deadly poison popuariy known as strychnine. It is excellent as medicine. but would be disappointing as A regular article of diet, even for cat
 except from all but the crusty bachelor point of view. Likewise there are social ills for which social medicines are pre- scribed. medicines which would hardly succeed as a regular item In the social hill of fare. Most of the sorrows of so- ciety are due to the mistaking of drugs for diet. If society lives on dope no wonder it Is sick and this is now the theory of expert philanthropists. Thus, for instance, the popular American opln- ion that the less legislation interferes, the more welfare grows, Is precisely the doctrine of the anarchists. It Is, never theless, not without truth, however easily exaggerated. On the other hand, the the orv that all ills will yield to wise leg islation. which many enthusiasts espouse, is the doctrine of the socialists And there is much truth in 1t. Only when we un- dertake to cure all our ills by letting them alone, or on the other hanu eo cure them by incessant extension of leg islative activity, we become, socially speaking, dope fends. know young man whose dressing table has bottles enough to stock village druggist ana deleterious compounds enough to make a whole family sick for twelve month or more. Is he strong? If he were. he never would have been tempted to take medicine But, being sickly, his return 1,a a of fresh air and sunshine rest and food, than by medicinal prescriptions. And yet the medicines were not without their use. So then, there Is, by analogy, place for remedial agencies. place TOT the social nhvsician, and a very large place for a return to normal conditions of so- cial existence. We may need dose or anarchistic ''laissez faire." or we may re- riaIist,c rhubarb and squills; but the greatest need is surely analogous to fresh air and sunshine. return to nature
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-05-28
1d Paper-By Dr.. w. E.. Euans

heroic men in gray, who, in or near Richmond laid down their lives for the cause that they believed was right. To stand in the shadow of this sacred, rough hewn monument; to walk upon the soft sod between the thousands of graves marked unknown is to have awakened within one the profoundest ad- miration for his countrymen. Not far from this lofty pyramid one of my own kinsmen laid down his life for the Con- federacy, though his body was laid away behind the old church in the country But here, in the shadow of the Confed- crate pyramid. lies my inherited family lot in which I expect to lie in the sleep of death; and if there's pride in death. I'm sure shall be proud to lie so near the dust of the heroic men who loved and gave their lives for the cause that at last failed. In this same cemetery, out of whose grasses rises the Confed- crate pyramid lie at rest the bodies of Jefferson Davis, A. P. Hlll. "Jeb" Stu art. Fitzhugh Lee, the gallant Pelham. | and men of the old school. such as Pres | ldent Monroe President Tyler and many 1 others. An, here are stones that suggest | sermons-headstones and monuments. | urns and broken columns, towering | shafts, and simple slabs. If | were Q | great man, and one should ask me. whether I should rather be buried in | Westminster Abbey, or at Hollywood, in l Richmond, I should quickly answer in | the words of an unknown writer:
 '"The days are never quite so long, l As in Virginia.
 | Not quite so filled with happy song, | As In Virginia.
 And when my time has come to die Just take me back and let me lie Close where the James goes rolling hys
 In old Virginia.
 There nowhere is land so fair As old Virginia
 So full of joy and free of care, As In Virginia.
 And I believe that Happy Land. That Gods prepared for ransomed man, Is built exactly on the plan Of old Virginia
 The most beautifully artistic group of stones in the world stands under the skies of India. It is surrounded by trees land swards marble walks, artificial lakes and mounds and statues. It is called the Tai Mahal. It is the tomb of a woman. For 20 years 2o0oo men worked upon it. The worlds best skill, the artists best genius, and the highest conception of mans dreams of architecture were all
 
 CONTINUED ON PACE SOL
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-05-28

IT CONFINED my first paper to a con
 sideration of what are commonly X called precious stones.' In the pres ent essay I shall refer to certain stones which readily furnish sermons, albeit they belong not to the class of stones already written of by me. Some of these may be found in the world of ancient ruins, in sculpture, in architecture. in memorials, in mythology and in history, religious and profane.
 The oldest historic stone in the world, if legends and traditions concerning it be even half true is that called the stone of Scone," which has a place in the coro- nation chair of Edward the Confessor. This chair is used by English monarchs at their coronation ceremonials and has permanent place in Westminster Abbey. The stone is really the support or the chair. Long before the English kings as- sociated it with their coronations, it was thus employed in Scotland But ages be- fore it became the property of scotland Ireland owned 1t, and regarded 1t with prefound reverence It was brought to Ireland from the holy land, it is said' by q portion of the Host tribes of Israel, hundreds of years before the Christian era. In Israel it was used in the Holy of Holies" of the temple for resting place for the Ark of Covenant; and trac- ing 1t back through the period of it's con nection with the temporary tabernacle service in the wilderness, it is found to be the stone upon which the head of Jacob rested. when he fled from his brother Esau, and saw in vision, the angels of God descending and ascending upon a ladder So runs the long story of the hoary stone above which in short while King George V. will be crowned.
 There is one stone which the follow CTS of Mohammed claim to be older than the stone of Scone" It Is at Mecca. The story runs that Adam wandered a poor pepitent for 200 years after his fall, without the pardon of God But finally reaching a point of absolute remorse and despair he lift ed up his dying cry to God for mercy, and was then forgiven. On the spot where he received the pardoning mercy of Allah, the shrine of Mecca, the Caaba was established in subsequent years. It was built by Ishmael and Abraham. Jshmael placed in the wall stone. ! which the angel Gabriel gave him. The stone had been the person ofthe guar dian angel of Paradise, but for some