The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1913-07-15
says UNCLE CIV

Some of our 1atter-day philosophers
are bilious with the making of many
books. The mere writing of the books
Is doubtless less harmful to themselves
than to the public, but the contempla-
ton of the myriad-sided life of the
times seems to have afflicted them in
sidious but persistent. One of the COM
| monest of the complaints of these SER
ious- minded little FUCKERS at the gar
ments of the ages is that materj".i pro-
gress has been achieved at tie cost of
ethical and moral Improvement No
sadder. falser whine ever assailed the
fretted ears of eternity.
If the world ever galloped toward
ethical and moral excellence 1t has
been hitting the high places during
the past hundred years. The god of
things as they are seems for the first
time to have looked about him and
discovered the starved the hungry
god of things as they should be, and
it is pretty certain that he has begun
to take account of the wishes of his
misused younger brother. And he has
learned his lesson by watching men
strive manfully in the realm of ma
terial things.
The last century gave the world the
democracy of toll. 1t has taught us
that one man is as good as another
If he is useful. and that the sons of
Marth are the salt OF the earth.
We no longer take seriously any priv
ilege but that of making good, few
relics of the old order to the con-
trary notwithstanding. We know no
excellence save that which serves.
We are daily becoming more insistent
that every man shall have his chance
his chance to live, to laugh. to be
of use. to be educated, that he may do
these things, aye, to be born we'll and
to be nurtured tenderly that he may
play mans part.
This is no little thing 1T is the big
gest thing that the world has ever
seen, and the last century, nay, the
Look here you chasers of butterflies
you yearners after whipped cream
moralities and dainties a la mode!
While you have been fitting and
squirting and yearning in a world of
ethereal imaginings, we common men
who work with common clay, are
making the good red earth fit to live
in as you tell US it was in the be-
ginning. Our morals may have the
sweat of forge and mine upon them,
and doubtless there are things sweet
er to the nostrils, but they are sound
and they endure.
While you have considered only the
head and the heart. We have gone to
the gizzard of the matter. While you
have theorized. We have learned by
hard experience ana nave written
that experience into human lives that
are stronger and better and happier
and healthier and more useful than
were the lives of yesterday.
The men of this age are above all
things useful. The useful are the
thoughtful. and by experience they
know the keen and bleeding needs of
the weak. We have learned that we
can no longer set the weak aside We
know that it is not enough to lift
them up and sustain them. We know
that it is their right to be enabled
to stand alone, to be men among men. ,
So we have set our statesmen and our
philanthropists. our physicians and /
our social workers. our labor unions
and our school teachers to work to
make all men strong, physically and .
mentally.
It's a long job. We have called to
aid US every known art and science.
And we're getting there. So over
against the milk and water moralities
and the pitiably insufficient ethics
the decay of which you lament we set
the one splendid fact that we have
newly learned-that all men are
brethren and have an equal right to
the help of society to become useful.