The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1911-10-02
BY ESTHER GRIFFIN WHITE.

again came into conspicuous notice in
Austin, dispatches from that fated
town stating that a lot OF people who
might have escaped over a high fence
that separated the upper portion of
because of the pain attendant upon
grasping the wire.
| II there was ever any necessity for
the use of barbed wire to mark divis-
ion lines between properties, either in
rural or urban communities, in the
more thickly settled parts Of the coun-
try, it has long since passed,
| On cattle ranges and on the plains
where conditions are more primitive,
barbed wire may still be unitarian.
But in towns like Austin it can hardly
be justified.
| It's barbarities can be illustrated in
Richmond by walk about the fringes
of the town and in its suburbs. The
pleasure one may have in the exercise
and the charming views which obtain
herea bouts. is continually spoiled by
humping into lot of barbed wire
stretched over some place of egress
without any apparent reason, or trip
ping over these wires which have sag
ged and whose sharp points go through
the shoes.
The use of barbed wire for fences
ought to be prohibited.
Disasters like that at Austin bring
into startling distinctness the helpless
ness of men in the grasp of some great
natural force.
And might shake the most loyal be-
lief in the goodness of the Infinite.
1t is said that not sparrow falls
to the ground unnoted. This is reduc,
ed to the status of mere epigram
when viewed in the light of such over.
whelming horrors as that at Austin
Johnstown, San Francisco and Calves
ton.
Glass, nor sex, nor creed, nor condi
tons, nor age, nor race are respected
All are swallowed up in the inexor
able nav of nature. All alike go down
to death without warning. Innocent lit
tie children, men hoary with sin and
crime, the beautiful, the gay, the sad
the happy, the unhappy, the deserving
the undeserving, the hypocrite, the
time-saver, the priest, the pagan-al
alike are grist for the awful mill.
The last ditch of the pious-"it is al
for the best" causes an ironic smile.
He doeth all things WE'LL" sounds
like an empty platitude.
Explain it how you will, you canno
convince of it's justice.
The truth is that every religion, ev
cry creed, every scheme of thing:
which has for it's radiating center the
supremacy of Man in the universe il
nullified by some great cataclysm ik'
that of Saturday.
At Galveston five thousand peopk
were swept into nothingness by ii
dial wave. These forces make no NOR
of human life, either individual or il
the aggregate, than one does of tn
speck of dust that is flecked off tn,
sleeve.
Whether or not force is blind, O
WHETHER intelligent in it's operation
has never been OWNED.
1t can only be measured by results
the wake IL l6dFcS III us PAIN. L Id
this is destruction of everything ma
terial, and humiliation of everything
human in it's way, is admitted.
Natural force is Juggernaut tina
grinds animate and inanimate alik
under it's wheels. 1t makes no distine
ton between the thing with what i
termed a soul and the thing that i
said to have no soul. Man and tree ar
alike. Either in the way of it's pre-
gress is hurled aside or beaten dow1
Oblivion awaits that which obstruct
in the least degree it's onward sweel
The most confirmed orthodoxy wa,
|ers in the face of an memorable Fact.
1t is useless to deny that we are tn
sport and plaything of natural forces
Some of them have been chained t
human uses-but only in part-onl
with vague understanding of their e,
tent and their power.
In the light of those tremendou
|catastrophes resulting in indiscrim
nate human humiliation, the question
ing intelligence cannot PROSTATE itsel
before the god OF Justice.
For Justice is a man-made god.
; And, in the supreme crisis, he turn
: a deaf ear to his creators.
: Very few people know anythin
about the status of their profiles.