Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-04-19
Thunder Of the Modern
Conscience.
By. DIR. FRANK CRANE.
Copyright, 1918, by Frank Crane.l

This that l call me is made up of many
| ingredients.
| First, there is earth. dust. matter,
| which I hold in common with stones,
seas, stars and material substance in gen
eral.
Then there is my living organism" in
| this l am akin to all plants in meadows.
mountain and river bed.
Another part Of me is animal. wherein l
am brother to all birds, fishes, insects
and other animal life.
Then comes my human element, in
which possession 1 am partner with the
whole human race. All who have died,
from Adam to my parents, have poured
this quality into me; all who now live
constitute a huge body of which I am
| small member.
A large part of me is English, a part is
American, part comes from my own
family stock, part is created by the in
luence of all I meet.
When l get down to that portion which
is distinctively me and nobody else,- 1t
is extremely small
1t is what the taste is to the apple, the
perfume is to the flower. the Correg
Is to an authors words.
This being the case, If you wish to
save" or to reform me, you have a
large and interesting contract on your
hands.
To change the apple you must not only
alter the flavor bit. but you must make
different the tree, the garden, the coun-
try and the climate.
To reform in that Will in
sure that / stay reformed, you have to
reform the folks l belong to, the city
live in. the books l read, the friends l
play with, together with my state, ma
ton, race and the whole human family.
We will excuse you from reforming ami
NAL and plant life and the nature of the
soil for the present.
For many centuries those who wanted
to make men better have pounded away
at the individual. For ages the church
was possessed of the idea that the larger
me-that is to say. the state or man
kind at large, was doomed: it was non
savable. and the best the savers could do
was to pluck a few brands from the
burning" Humanity was a goner; few
might be rescued as the elect.
. 1t has been discovered that this sort
of saving does not save. To secure a
good, honest. upright and noble man We
have to begin with gfeat-grandparents
and to include society at large.
The benevolence that gives beggar
quarter has become suspected. To be
real benevolence it must alter the condi-
tons that make beggars
To imprison grating police and to
rescue fallen women here and there seem
to do little good; more and more you
hear the saying. ut is the system that
is wrong"
The conscience of the world is deepen
ing. It Is enlarging to embrace the
larger me.
We are not losing faith; we are discov-
ering that to help people permanently it
takes more faith than we ever dreamed
Of
We can no longer go on in 1.-The good
old way" rescuing individuals and calling
social business and government conditions
1.-The will of Cod We are waking to
the conviction that we can and we must
bring those conditions up to conform
with Justice and humaneness.
There is new note in the thunder of
the modern conscience 1t no more says
we must rescue the fallen, feed the huns
Rry and give aims to the poor; it declares
that we must prevent crime hunger and
poverty.
The cry of ancient Rome was that the
barbarians must be destroyed; the cry of
modern civilization is that there must be
no more barbarians.