The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-05-21

John Blarscom in the Baltimore Evening
 Sun
 H VERY observant person, much more every student of history, admits - the fact of progress. Our genera ton slories in the possession of advan- tages our grandfathers never even dreamed of having. The whole world is increasingly better off in material re- sources in the means of communication, in the diffusion of knowledge, in ethical conceipts, than ever before.
 Progress has been more rapid during the last 100 years than at any previous period of the worlds history.
 Discovery and invention, commerce and travel, libraries and colleges, missionary enterprise and humanitarian effort, have annihilated distance, freed multitudes from the perils of cold and famine, sub dued and exploited nature, increased pro- duce, enlightened ignorance, scattered su- perstiton and created conception of uni- versal brotherhood. Millions now enjoy food and clothing, advantages and priv fleges, pleasures and amusements. knowl- edge and experience, such as their an-
 
 If in the light of high prosperity pow erty seems more extreme, it is the effect of contrast and not reality. In general the poor are richer than they were. The peasants of Europe who come to this country may put up howl of small wages and hard times. but they are certainly better off than they were at home. Even our sums are comfortable compared with the novels in Spain and the hill towns of Italy, our wages higher
 Progress, however, has its penalties. and these are either ignored or magnified The march of civilization is strewn with vic- ! tins. We wade onward through blood and tears. Every advance is at the cost of suffering. The very rapidity of the pace kills mutitudes of the unfit
 1 This is tragic, but it is inevitable. Our optimism must be corrected by recogni- tion of the penalties that must be paid. yet the penalties may not deter us from the advance This is the law of life. l The new inventions in the use of mech
 anisms a century ago created new indus l trial conditions. They were the instru- ments of progress. They brought wealth to the manufacturer and made cheaper goods for the people of the world. But they also wrought great social changes. | They cast down the landed aristocracy from their seats and exalted new social
 standng,r poverty, hunger, despair and
 death to the thousands who could not
 adapt themselves to the new conditions
 'Silas Manner and ''John Halifax pic ture mildly some of the results in that early Victorian era. In India the introduce
 ton of machinery threw myriads out ol employment and destroyed happiness prosperity and life as surely as does dis ease and famine.
 Every new labor-saving device, like the linotype and the adding machine. has its record of pathetic results in the loss oi
 work for a multitude of the unadaptabls I and their consequent sinking in the socia
 scale.
 Moreover the general increase in pros
 perity has meant such quickening ol
 the pace of life in every direction tha
 multitudes are breaking down under tn,
 strain. The statistics show that insanit,
 is enormously on the increase in ever,
 advanced civilization. Suicide becomes
 more frequent than ever before. Ant crime, both in highly organized forms an, , in sporadic. instances, reaches gigantic proportions. In general the moral tom , of whole communities has become so viti . ated that serious and intelligent people ar inclined to deny that what we take to b [ progress is in reality progress at all. Ther
 is scope for the pessimistic jeremaid in study of this aspect of social life. Envy and fear especially. play thei
 part in the inevitable process. Evolution means a change from the homogeneous t the heterogeneous. it means differentia