The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1911-07-08

NOT az keen. their hands are not a.
ldaft hone which gives bouyancy 70
youth has gone, and capital needs the
| swifter hand and foot and that exnii-
iarancy which lis the charm Of youth.
Prematurely old, they have lost their
attractiveness. Losing their occupa-
zion thew wander YEARLY from office
TO office, factory to factory, seeking
aid often treated with respectful
courtesy. receiving every excuse
but that which is true, told
that every place is filled
when they know that when the next
applicant comes, who is young, there
win be work. often answered with curt
refusal, or told with brutal frankness
that they are too old.
Nothing is more pitiable than the
weary pilgrimage of the middle aged
seeking work Behind them there have
perhaps been prosperous years. Not
few have had affluence. They have
been bred, perhaps, to luxury. But
parents have died, and hands unuseS
to toll must find employment. The
business has failed. Ill health has
come. The little capital which seemed
sufficient has been wasted by well-in-
tentioned but ill-advised investment
and the gray haired man who has
commanded the labor Of others seeks
labor all in vain; the shrinking wo-
man. unused to rebuff must receive
scant courtesy, and sinking lower and
lower in their grade OF employment,
with income becoming more and more
precarious, hope goes, despair comes,
and at last self-respect fails and,
weary with the struggle, they succumb.
This is the great tragedy of human
life. 1t is not so much the tragedy OF
age, for the wants Of age are few and
it's ambitions are gone; 1t Is not the
tragedy of youth, because youths
fountain Of hope is filled to the over
flow; 1t is the tragedy of the middle
aged, the period when hope is less
buoyants ambition is still alive, and the
defeats Of today are intensified by the
remembered Victories of yesterday.
LamentabIe Fact Of Life.
This is the great fact of life. lament
able. sad, not easily remedied. much as
1t ought to be. Flippant censorship
with criticism as shallow as 1t is volu-
BILE, of which the world is full pictures
the horrors of the unemployed and
condemns the rich, and the employer,
and the capitalist. They would have
human improvidence provided by
some flat legislation. The weak should
be made strong by edict, the cripples
crutched by legislation, the idle and
imprudent should be pensioned by the
thrifty. The employer should be re-
CARELESS of the laws Of efficiency and
the stimulus of necessity, and the PEN
- 4R,yIv
should be pauperized. The lesson OF
the ant who In summer provides the
winters store should be unheeded, and
In some way never clearly defined by
them, the self-imposed and unavoid-
able misfortunes Of the world should
be shifted on to others. This is the
burden of the agitator, the unlaked
philosopher whose entire con-
tribution to human ameliora-
ton is with his speech. He gives
nothing but words. Others are at
work in settlements and slums, others
give their means and themselves; they
have no speech nor language. their
voice is not heard" but they are work.
ing while others are uttering vapid
talk and emitting unreasonable CEN
sure, but doing nothing save to excite
discomfort and hatred against those
who are doing what they can TO light
en- the load Of human suffering.
1t Is not heartlessness always which
turns away the middle aged from the
places of toll. The laws OF competition
hold iron sway, and no man. however
strong or wise or good, can alone
change the great universal laws on
which the business of the world Is
founded. The merchant who has fall
ed asks that he may come In and do
a boys work and get a boys pay, but
the employer prefers the boy, because
he can be nodded to his work The
employer knows he cannot remake the
old man, whose ways are set, and he
has not the heart to give orders to the
one-t time prosperous man from whom
he once received orders, and pity the
middle-aged as he may, the efficiency
of business seems to require a hope,
an alertness, which the old or the age
ing do not have.
The great facts of life must be rec
koned with. Life has it's tragedies,
some of which are preventable, some
imperative. not to be forseen, not to
be avoided, not to be wholly amelio-
rated by "the poor device Of man."
It is wise and just that we should
recognize the needs and sorrows of
humanity. That they are many and
pitiful. That we should have intensest
sympathy for misfortune and remit no
effort to give 1t not simply the help
OF words but deeds. That we should
recognize how much noble men and
women are doing to help their kind
and should not expect that unwiss
men In their weakness should be abba
to do what an infinitely wise Provi-
dence cannot do and does not do
make misfortune and sorrow utterly
impossible.
In the old days. when they rebuilt
the walls of Jerusalem every man
built the wall that was nearest his
own house. If each one of us would
mitigate the sorrows which lie nearest
our own lives we should. at least, do
something to lessen the worlds mis-
eryi