The Washington herald., 1912-06-02

You may rise on stepping stones OF
~ your dead self or you may rise by
stepping on or over other people. In
the one case your chief agent Is q critical
judgment, gained by experience with your
self and the world. In the other you have
used some means Of ntimidation-tyranny
jealousy, or persecution.
Tyranny has no more common weapon
and jealousy no more universal instrument
than susplcion- Suspicion Is common to
both a successful and an unsuccessful man
It is as common among those who are high
up as among those who are low down.
Though many Of the Conditions Of the past
which bred suspicion have ceased to exist,
their equivalents are not absent from mod
ern society or social conditions.
Tyrannical kings, prescribed or warning re-
IigIous sects, and mattresses with nothing
to do but SPY on their maids are no longer
common, yet men attain many positions IA
yorabIe TO the development Of tyranny, and
society always furnishes the forcing frames
for hotbeds of jealousy. As one Of the tai.
ented. but withal suspicious, men Of the
eighteenth century once wrote. Many dan
gerous insects are daily at work to make
men Of merit suspicious Of each pther." And
II men Of merit are so what can we expect
in the case Of more common mortaIs?
We may forgive the unsuccessful for his
minanthropy, or for the suspicious habit OF
mind that not infrequently grows with fall
ure, and that alienates him more and more
from his kind. He is particularly q victim
Of this evil for a sane return to confidence
and trust in mankind becomes to him more
and more impossible. But why should the
fortunate. the successful. the highly placed
be suspicious? Among such the worst forms
Of suspicion have been engendered. The
rich have been suspicious that all mankind
has designs upon their riches. It has in
some cases been almost impossible for them
to feel any friendship for any that were
not equally rich. They have suspected any
honest overture toward friendship by those
who might be Of great help to them. and
have been likely to imagine that there was
dishonesty and peculation among all who
served them. OF course, this has by no
means been universally true, but the ex-
ceptions to It have not been over common.
They have given Ill names which begat Ill
blood. and the conditions that their sus-
picions have created have brought about
results that seemed to malCs those sus-
picions justihsble.
= if
Prosperity Creates Suspicion.
When a man Of narrow mind and but one
sort Of experience forges his way to place
Of command, how does he behave himself
there? Prosperity viii as likely as not turn
his head and II his suspicious have natural
ly been quick they become all the quicker.
He will imagine no ones ideas quite right
except his own. Nothing has been done quite
right before his time. Nothing that Is Is
good, but must be corrected. He viii very
likely suspect that there are shifts and CHI
csnery being practicsd against him because
he is new at his job. His suspicious may
be as much a thorn in his own flesh as they
are in the flesh Of others, and his seeming
prosperity Will in the end yield him, but the
least possible satisfaction.
A seemingly open hearted and pleasant man
will sometimes lose all sympathy with his
fellows after he acquires money. Outrageous
pride in him begets suspicious Of the darkest
shade On the other hand. the man who -
down and out may in his own way be as
prideful, as prejudiced, and as completely out
of touch with human kind. His case is, OF
course, the more pitiful, as he has no ma
terial support in his pridefulness, but he
is not the less spiteful, and sure he Is right,
on that account.
The essayist Hazltt, in writing On the
Conduct Of Life" says: d" It was my mistor-
tune (perhaps) 10 De preo up among Qls-
senters, who look with too jaundiced an eye
upon others and set too high a value on their
own peculiar pretensions. From being pro
scribed themselves they learn to prescribe
others. Those who weres oub OF It
and did not belong TO the class OF rational
Gissenters was led enormously to look
upon as hardly deserving the name Of "a
tIonal beings. Being thus satisfied as to tn
select few who are the salt Of the EARTH
it is easy TO persuade ourselves that we are
at the head Of them and to fancy ourselves
Of more importance in the scale Of true des-
sert than all the rest Of the world put to-
gether who do not interpret a certain passage
OF scripture in the manner that We have been
taught to do"
Religious differences have ever stirred up
suspicious, and the prosecuted
have turned prosecutors in the most morbid
and insane revolt. The more narrow mind
ed and bigoted the sect or the social group
the fuller Of suspicious. The frantic troubles
Of small communities, isolated from the
world and in which there is often raised q
turmoil Of volcanic possibilities, did It have
mountain over It instead Of q mole hill, are
generally due to the bitterest suspicious.
They suspect in the sense that they imagine
guilt or wrong doing, or perhaps Just wrong
thinking, upon slight evidence or without
any proof at all.
Many Wrongs Imaginary.
Some people Of vivid powers OF Imagination
,avar rIse them except TO iu1agine the exist