Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1913-03-18
CALLS CITIES "COLD-HEARTED'
Inhumanity Is Bred by Multitude'
Says SOutherner in New York.
John Temple Graves, in the New York
American.)

(,Iohn Temple Graves, In the New VOTE
American.)
When Henry w Grady was hesitat
ing whether to remain on New YorF
paper or to return to Georgia, he de.
cided to go home because nobody in
the apartment in which he lived could
tell him about the baby whose little
white coffin was carried side by side
with him down the steps of the adjoin'
ing apartment The "inhumanity o'
cities" overwhelmed him.
How many of us have had similar
experience?
In one of the large apartment hous-
es in which | have lived on the West
Side, my front door, when it swung
open, touched the front door of my
next door neighbor divided from me
only by thin wall of less than hal!
a foot One morning, on going out,
met a pleasant-faced man emerging
from this door. We exchanged the
casual salutation of housemates. This
we repeated on several subsequent oc-
sasions, in a casual way. l never
knew his name
One morning, about six weeks later
asked the elevator boy what had be-
come of the man.
He died two weeks ago" was the
response, "and his body was taken out
after nightfall and carried to the
cemetery"
Here was this man who by every law
of life and every creed OF Christianity
was my neighbor-my very nearest
neighbor l could almost hear him
breathe at night through the interven-
ing wall.
And yet he had sickened, he had suf'
fered, he had gone through the agony
or travail of death. He had been car
ried out in his midnight casket to the
grave and his family had come back <
the anguish and desolation of an I'M
speakable bereavement
And | who was this mans neigh
Dor" had neither ministered to his
suffering in hfe stood by him in the
hour and ordeal of death, nor com
forted the browning sorrow of those
who came back to his broken and des-
olate home-just within a foot of tho
light and love and laughter of my
own-because in the rush of our bic
world | did not know.
l have never gotten over that Incl
dent. l never will Something ought
to be done about it. If something could
be done.
We pay fierce price for the Joy o;
cities. Too many people make any one
person unimportant Great crowds
dwarf and minify individuals. In the
multitudes we forget each other to-
often in life and in death.
When man dies among two IL
three in a little community, it is g
tragedy. 1t darkens the sky, it shad.
ows the spirit, it bows the head in rev.
erence and humility and sympathy.
But when one dies among five mil.
lions the little gap made by the pass
ing of the atom closes up so quickly
from the mighty mass that it is diff.
cult to remember that the atom ever
lived or even died
From which | came to say that tn,
cities are not much of a place for oil
people or people who die They should
find softer and simpler life and
quieter place in which to enact tn,
last great tragedy of life, which l,
death.
| would like to live in a great cit,
all my vigorous life
But l would like to grow old and di,
in the little country town where the
Ineighbors would come to ask after me
in the last days, follow me kindly tc
the churchyard when | was gone, ant
come back for little tender touch Of
comfort to those who were left behind
Is it not well now and tken to hal
this mad rush OF living, and give space
to little breathing time of charity
and tenderness for those who die?
THE VALUE OF POVERTY
(Universalist LEADER