davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-08-06

but he Is a first-class working man-if am any judge of a mans capacity. "Neighbor, reckon a feller couldn't hire a nuss daown about yo' way" Yes, I would see what I could do. And he was garrulous to the very last, Would l tele- phone blank ety-blink Bell If I found one' And wouldn't I come out to see him and his "'old woman and the man son? And so forth-just the usual unnecessary talk we exchange with our other neigh
 bors. And I suppose it's just well, eh? and better so, for here and there, in crowded cars or in pent shop or factory
 the confab makes us know that we are all thinking about each other-that each little word Of confidence brings us closer together, if ever so little more regardfui of each other-perhaps one heart-throb thoughtfuller. more neighborly? And out of the car went that red-haired Trishman, unused to servant hire. l dare say hc will get his ''nuss" and I also hazard q guess that he will find some way to pay her after he gets her. An Lrishman who makes $2. 25 per day, with prospects and buster boy, needs "nuss'' and a good one With Celtic parents, one of whom reads the Scientific American each month. and the other, all that she can procure of Ouida and Bertha M Clay and l.. J. Libbey. an offspring gets born into plenty of vista. Ten years hence the batter (who knowsO will have invented some con trivance to lift aeroplanes straight up,' obviating the necessity of a wheeled start. The ''old woman (who can state positivelyD will have become a sticlSler in the use of intermediate and broad
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-08-06

".Evelina," delightful novel that Is now an English classic that thousands of us have read; but it would be Greek to Jo- seph W. Bailey. Later Miss Burney be- came Madame DArblay and made Samuel Johnson her model. She acquired his style and her subsequent writings out Johnsoned Johnson himself. and they are Greek to you, me and everybody.
 So Bailey. He has read hundreds. thou sands perhaps. of the greatest decisions ever handed down in the English tongue. with the result that when he speaks In the Senate 1t sounds precisely like John Marshall in the supreme court. It Is ex cathedra, 1t is gospel, and he Is Sir Ora cle-until you read it in the Record, and then it is very common stuff.
 Mankind is prone to take every one at his own valuation The Senate so takes Bailey and that accounts for the wide swath he mows in that body. But John Sharp made him to feel and to know that he is mortal, and the worst of 1t was that the Senate and the public saw 1t and knew it, too.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-08-06

Schopenhauer as frame a law in correce fern for the statutes And yet-any in telligent high school boy, given the sub- ject matter. can be taught to draft a paper as readable as Jefefrson's deciara- tien. q merely offer you hints. sugges- tions-and you must follow the 1eadfngs).d
 Let us have a first-olass democracy. L say-and from the melting-pot of culturei and common sense let us ladle the lasting and the durable for the nations uses. II do not know your solution of the riddle, | my friend, or yours, or yours. Yet this crum of learning I picked up somewhers hopes aims ot us all are pretty much ths same I
 From personal observation I find that the essential difference between the n1i1- 1 llonaire and the engine-wiper Is one or outlook.
 I find less difference between tho rafi- way magnate and his chauffeur than yon
 may believe exists; both are sports: and 1t Is not rare that one finds the chaufreur to be the best sport of the two. l The lady of the house and the scrub
 woman are both mothers; the lady reads Goethe and Heine; the woman somehow
 manages to get through the want col-, umns of the morning paper: the lady de-l velops a care for euchre and transcenden-, talism the woman develops a square
 figure and two strong fore-arms.
 And the millionaire and the engine, cleaner, the magnate and the chauffeur.
 the lady and the woman-all human gods and goddesses-m of the same spirit and fiesh-stuff-so alike-so speakingly ] alike,-and yet so nnneIghborly all.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-08-06

world. understand that there is prac- tically no difference in results, though there is in some instances great diff ference in the forms of church life nationally in vogue. The population of Germany, for instance, no longer dis plays the same .steadfast loyalty to the old Sunday church going habit. France and Spain and Portugal and Italy, all feel the loosening of former usages; so that one may venture on gener- alization wide enough to involve all the churches in the sweeping assertion that people do not attend divine serv ice as they formerly used to do.
 In saying this, I have no desire to magnify the forces that run counter to the Gospel and Kingdom of Jesus Christ. One may be permitted to meas ure those forces, however, without be- ing charged with pessimism. On the contrary, optimism never seemed to me so well founded so sure of abundant Justification. Let who will mourn over these changeful fashions. The outcome was never in doubt
 Certainly 1t ;s clear that the spread of popular liberties, especially the lib- erty of religious opinion and of politi- cal action, and the development of so- cialistic theories, of trades unionfsm, of seething and fermenting doctrines af- fecting the life that now Is as well as that which is to come, are the mark Of our age.
 The authority of the old traditions has been so much impaired that the authority of the truth suffers. Law and Gospel, institutions human and divine, all alike suffer. The ice of the millenniums is breaking. The River of Life is in flood.
 And so we come back to King Coun- ty Washington, and to the beautiful and aggressive city by PuSat Sound. These divorces are at least .n illustra- tion of this insistence unon freedom
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-08-06

' HAD occasion to visit Birmingham at
 an early hour this morning, coming ! in from one of the remote suburbs. It was between and 6 o'clock, the hour when the first workers go about their labor. I wanted you prim and cor rect men-you women of the rendered type-to watch the pageant of commuters with me. To me this first movement of workers has right eloquent appeal Ike the first stir of some big prone body raising it's head. Or perhaps 1t is a common sight for you-you with the urban tang bred In the blood! For me, a provincial at heart, the gesture has a certain reverence.
 Tc put you sleeping ones at ease. I want to say there were no heart-breaks paraded-no cadaverous chaps, as one might suppose, going to their wheels of labor, backs bent, and all that-no poor devils flirting with death The most of these were men, if I know men at a glimpse If there were any maimed, or crippled, or miserable ones in that clat- tering car, they were huddled beneath and between the seats. Also there were no masks worn. I have often wished 1t were possible for me to go about and enjoy the free. open naked faces of men but in most gatherings I find more masks than naked faces. There is some thing terrible about this fact. I have wondered long and long about it. The thing must be righted somewhere, some how. But for the most part those that pass in the early morning hours to shop and factory, to furnace and rolling mill are open-faced-what Walt Whitman was
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-08-06

Williams can draw on all history and all literature for illustration but 1t is doubt ful if Bailey could tell you if Henry " or Louis KY first wore the French pur- pie Bailey may have read something re- lating to John Hampden; but he never heard of Prince Rupert or John Graham of Claverhouse. No doubt he has read Coke on Littleton; but to him Humphrey Clinker" or Tristan Shandy' would be intolerable, simply because he has no sense of humor and is devoid of the fac ulty of imagination. Williams can get years of delight from Scott, Dumas. Thackeray. Balzae, Dickens, Fielding, smollett, Mrs. Gaskell, Victor Hugo, Ger vantes. Sienkiewitcz; and these would bore Bailey to desperation.
 Then, you ask, if Bailey is small man? Not at all. He is d big man. If Bailey had the mental integrity of John G. Carlisle he would be as great as that extraordinary man was, Bonaparte gained his victories by having on the spot every available man and every avail able gun. So Carlisle and so Bailey, who
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-08-06

of which there Is much reason to SUD- pose that the abstinence from church is another symptom. Are they not twigs upon the same bough, waves of the same rifle, drops from the same thunder cloud?
 In any event, the urgent question for the churches is thiS Can we convert Demos, now Demos is King? Will his newly discovered intellectual and socrai supremacy become subject to spiritual truth? Can he be brought back again to those altars at which his fathers worshipped? Are there signs that the church can still hold him?
 When you consider that Demos not only uses the trowe and the shovel and the plane and the saw, not only get grimy in the workshop, in the mine, on the rail road, but also sits all day at a desk, runs a bank, conducts all the office bus mess of the Demos who does thoSe gri1ny things, Demos appears to you a very manyheaded, variously intricate person. aity indeed. Take him in the city, and you shall see that even when, OH Sunday, Demos of the horny palm is resting, or even attending his several unions, Demos of the pen and push-button is attending to correspondence, Interviewing drummars, or, being a drummer, interviewing the boss. Demos the Boss, Demos the Drum mer Demos the Plumber, the Carpenter. the Bricklayer, the Engineer, Conductor, Typograhpist, are they not al Demos, the King? And do not many of them celebrate the Lords Day by going either to palaver or to work? What so abso- lutely proves their liberty as keeping their noses fast to the grindstone of com merce?
 Ia mn ruh MrS crowned QueenD and the children are at Sunday school or church, King Demos, in his shirtsleeves, on the porch or down at the store, is reading these very para
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-08-06

graphs by way of a sermon I know he is, for he has told me over and over again that this is what he does on Sun am not so egotistically vain as to sup pose he stays out of church to read even these uper-illuminating lines. If it were not these it would be others, per haps not half so good ssHe has the habit And so, concerning these Demos-speci- mems, the modern preacher can quote Paul, and be forgiven for his orthogra- phy. in saying Demos hath forsaken me having loved"-his correspondence, his union, his Age-Herald, his shirt-sleeves, above all his singular modern garment generally known as his don't t-have-to". I see him getting off the car at any time after 10 a. m. each Sunday, in the Vi- cinity of First avenue. where offices are many. And I think that he Is known to hie him later to the golf-links Among the mystic wands borne by the caddy
 is one constantly used with charm ing effect. whose pet name is "Do-as- you-pease." With that stick, Demos has been known to drive the ball, Conscience clean out of his own memory into the
 lake below the hill.
 Moralists. pedagogues and bishops may well consider the cratic tenden- c1es therefore of the new free thought. beloved of men. But they will not do it justice till they set beside 1t, the new opulence. I catch this from a re- ligious paper by way of concrete eX- ample:
 An Ohio man found that his auto mobile was not taking him to heaven and gave it up. T made up my mind he said to his pastor, that I had to part with it or lose my religious ex- nj m Ia I ford. My wife and daughters insist on taking a country drive each Sunday afternoon. To get the machine ready, l have 10 miss the morning serNice and
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-08-06

and 1t was the greatest attribute of his genius It gained all his victories, clothed him with the purple, made him the greatest of the Caesars, and he would have died master of the world but for the decay of his physical constitution But in the case of the mighty Corsican, as in that of the worlds only Shakespeare, im- aginaton was guided and controlled by the avastest stores of common sense and infallible sagacity. Richelleu, Chatham and Bismarck were all men of powerful imagination, held in check by the most masterful will and directed by the pro- foundest prudence. Burke, the greatest parliamentary orator our tongue pr any other tongue ever produced, had most riotous imagination that was the chiefest pecuiar1ty of his gigantic mind. No man can be a great statesman unless he be endowed richly with the mental quality of ideality. He may be a successful cap tain in the field and gain victories by sheer force of circumstances, but he will never be great general.
 L. Q. c. Lamar. was bountifully en-
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-08-06

eyvery boddy conseeds that next yeer Is the time, If evver the Demmercrats ex- pect to tally, to make no mistakes and get out the rite man, and hand the Re- publicons a seesun ticket Back to the
 Rockers Club, The prosperity that was promised with Taft did not fill its engagemint, and in spit of big crops and favurabul condisions the inside of the fulf dinner pale looks like vacant lot in Muntgummery. We captured the. con-
 gress frum them in a walk, but, that don't count much, we want to sit on the lid a while.
 Cents we have been furnishing the votes for all these years and the North
 and West the goats. we think it is about time we get recognision: we have few fay orite suns ourselves that srave chanse. Demmercatic .annydates, here to-four have been rfrum doubtful states l so they could carry 1t, and sum times l they would carry there own presinks but most of the time they didn't. but if
 they let us put out one he'll carry his
 state all rite, and cum as neer carry | ing those up there as enny of them will | Where is the man moor fitted for this
 grate honur than Osker Underwood? | Where indeed? No where l say. nor mo-
 where's else. Osker is the most talked of
 man in the country. It is because he has
 dun things. and most of the things he 1 has dun air well dun. particularly the
 Republicons and if Osker is given the
 opportunity to do the rest Of the party
 he'll compleet the job to our satisfac-
 tion.
 1 Osker is perfectly famiier with the
 tariff question. So is evvery bQddy else, 1 if is true, but. Osker can take The tariff ] question up in one hand and take It's
 insides out with the uthef and pull them
 apart and oil them up, and put them gack togethur and newer lose a nut Oslier knows the tariff question backwards and | as Chairman of the Ways and Meens committed, he has had the opportunity to
 display his nolledge and get 1t in the pa-
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-08-06

H ING county, in the state of Wash
 N ington, of which the city of 4 N Seattle is the glory, scored a record in June of this year in the mat
 ter of divorces, of which the number 160 stands to that county's credit. June brides have been thus run close by the unbridged Junos, of whom no fewer than 36 obtained freedom on the last day of Junos month Hence it would be most erroneous to pronounce the name of the great Pacific port as though 1t were spelled Settle, as the uninstructed sometimes do. On the con trary. the whole population would ap- pear to be quite unsettled Among the 36 liberated children of Hymen who date their emancipation from the 30th of June are two deaf mutes, a man with a cork leg, two grandmothers, and an April bride" One would have sup posed that all these were fairly well established for the present, but the lure of liberty, the bangs of bondage, or else the atmosphere of the Sound has been too much for their vows, and they have won their way to splendid isolation, with the parenthetical note, attached to a query thus: (pro temO
 Here Is a phenomenon indeed. Does it have any bearing at all on the title of this essay? Is there much vital re- lationship between what may be called the modern lust for freedom and the peril of the church? People may fre- auently be heard regretting that the attendance OF church services is fall ing. In Scotland the change is marked
 In England the same report obtains. America in all it's parts gives sim liar results, not excluding these south ern states, where. however, the ab- sence of the foreign-born makes for old usages. Australia and even New Zea- land tell the same story. And if we step outside the English-sp speaking
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-08-06
THE PERIL OF THE CHURCH-By George D. D.

the discipline of struggle for existence, she would be dead. The new environ-
 ment of the new age makes the new that of any preceding age Can the f church convert the wealth and the lfb- f erty of the new age? Can she take
 the new intellectual independence of men, and wlnsomely guide 1t In quite
 loyal obedience 10 the Spirit of Jesus?
 Can she center the minds of modern
 men not only on God, but on real
 God, an iminent Presence whom the
 church itself absolutely loves and wor-
 ships2 Can she really unify the em-
 ployer and employe who are already in her fold? Can she honestly seek anal | inspire justice between men, betweeni classes and interests? Is she Chris l tianizng civilization or making peace
 with 1t as half-converted organism?
 These deeps underlie any question of
 church attendance, Sunday school en-
 rollment, interest in foreign missions.
 growth or death of young peoples so-
 cieties. For if. as already indicated. the social passion of Jesus is a normal | evidence of the presence of His Spirit, | If the worship of His Father involves
 the service of men, the theologians
 may be left to fight about theories, but l the church must meet her hostile en- vironment and live She must help to destroy the greed, the falsehood, the 1 vanity, the blase ignorance. which arc eating out the soul of the age Shel must conquer the rapacity which b1ocksI the road along which the King Is com I ing. In the aura of her personality i'd must become impossible for modern, rascality to live She must find thea balm that can heal the wound of tn q daughter of my people, and courage-1 ously apply it. The working people, of the world are telling her that theyi seek no impertinent ''uplift," but the removal of barriers to growth. Thusf Demos. Can the church win Demos M
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-08-06

the social factors I am indicating. Per haps the greatest and most baneful in fluence of wealth is in the Association of classes within the church, so that the man with golden ring and goodly apparel shames away him whose suit cost sl0 under schedule K. tariff law. And perhaps the completiton of wo- mans dress. which means the appear ance of wealth, has something to do with the matter, quite disqualifying for Fifth avenue churches the feminine counterpart of the gentleman in $10 rig, so that she prefers to take a car ride or to go to the Nickelodeon on Sun day night, where Demos mingles him self with himself, and there is no dis
 tnetion between the $50 millinery and hers, who bought shape at the 10 cent store and fixed 1t up in toto for s1.05, "a very fetching hat"
 For the. worst influence of wealth Is to create near-wealth, shady imitation
 wealth, whereby the blessed Demos may fool himself into the belief that
 in all his entity every head and hand and foot and so forth is equally well off with every other hand and foot, etc. The end of these things is the
 dead beat. but the evolution of the dead beat Is by way of sorrow, heart
 burnings, envyings, aspirings, and weepings and gnashing of teeth. It may seem that l have at last got as far from my topic as a preacher from his text, wide asunder as the poles. But those who have canVassed a modern city in the interest of church attendance and have taken pains to patiently explore the world beneath the surface, will find the connection easily enough
 It is, in brief, in the social condition itself that the peril of the church must be sought. As 1t was in the begin- ming, so now. The environment of the
 church is seldom adjusted to it's easy progress. If she should cease to need
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-08-06
BILL VINES ON SOUTHS OPPORTUNITY

pers. and up North and West, where his yeeWs air agreed with he looms up like four aces. lie can cum neerer winning
 than enny Democrat living; he. CAN WIN. The Republican party, in the meen time is all broke up. They have fallen out ovver sundry matturs and ways to equtahully divide the spells. There ehanses air slim, and they know it; and they air as gloomy as corporasion aftur a visit rum the back tax collec- tur Like Nebudcudshassar they can see the handwriting on the wall, "Mee-nee- mee-nee, tekeel uforsen.' which meens Mud. They air going to put up Taft and see him die on second base.
 Eut in spite of this situation they stand ready to take advantage of the leest CT TOT in judgment of there oponnts-1f we should be so foolish as to nominate the gentleman frum Nebrasky, who's feeldng average is 0000 minus they could beet him with enny old lame Duck in there flock, and would put up the coin to do it, A baseball game is newer ovver till the last man is out in the 9th. An electsion is nevve" ovver till you find out who has the biggest campain fund. The regulers who have been putting ID the needful for the Republicans air sore; there has been loo menny investigasions. feller can t buy him a United Statest Senater now and coff up sl00,0)0 for him without cree ating lot of talk: peepul who except brlbeS air no longur admitted in our best sosHety It is almost crime to purchase Ia legislature Withpr air we drifting?
 Send sum feler that is a loud screen when 1t cums to making speech to the iScsional Conversion rum this state and let him put OsSer in nominasion, and we grab the plum and elect him. Then he can appoint to fat jobs. I'd like to be Post Mastur General, I'd like to fire sum cf the Toys ovver the ng-distance tele- fone--if the telefone could stand the strain. It's a grate opportunity, if we throw it away we air Bumm lot. be- lieve me. Yours trooly, BILL VINES.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-08-06

The girl had tender heart, the mobile temperament of her race, was timid and very sensitive. At a dressmaker's where she first found employment she chanced to say some- thing about "warruck,'' and the others girls Uttered and said, You mean 'woyck,' don't you?' When the girl saw they were making fun of her she left the! place.
 She engaged at a department stores where again laughter greeted her utter- ance, and the rude teasing wounded herJ spirit. She labored hard to correct her| English pronunciation but the Limericiei tongue would not twist easily. Going to another shop. she endured srn- liar treatment and was in despair. Herj face grew sad, and she brooded. Onel day she told her relatives she had taken1 a life insurance policy. "Why?' they asked. ''I might die she said. with far-i away look. ''rhe money would be forI you" = II On her last Sunday the poor child, dressed herself in her best clothes anal went 10 park Here she stayed all davl and all the night following. She wasi debating the awful query, ITO be or nosl to be-"
 
 the distrait mind and the sensitive soul .l Monday morning at dawn she went toI 8 elump of bushes and swallowed carbolic acid. A policeman found her writhing on the grass. And in the ambulance on the way to the hospital she gasped
 They'll never make fun of me again.".
 And then she died
 No, lassie, they never will make fun of you again. And bitterly sorrowful must they be to know they bounded you un- willingly to destruction.
 You see, there's more than one way to kill poor girl!
 And, Kathleen, in the kinder land to which you have gone your limping mother tongue will trouble you no more. There will be no rough syllables to pronounce. Where you have gone there is only ono language spoken--a language used all to seldom here. It Is the language of love.
 Moral?
 Be careful lest you hurt some sensitive soul by your careless gibes.
 What to you may seem trivial jest may prove in the heart of the easily af- tected a fostering wound.