The Washington herald., 1915-12-02
That Chicago Baby.
~ JOHN y. DARRY.

The case of the Chicago baby allowed to die
is chiefly remarkable because it was made public.
Not long ago il would have been kept secret It
expresses the changing attitude among thoughtful
people in regard to the saving Of life. II should
be borne in mind, however, that it has peculiar
feature in representing passive aequiescence.
And yet, in sense, this passive acquiescence is
essentially active For there seems to be no doubt
that by the performance of simple operation The
life of the child might have been saved. The fact
remains, nevertheless, that the child was not put
to death. 1t was allowed to, die
In considering the incident it may be worth
while to remind ourselves that in our society
many infants are allowed to die. They include
that vast army who brought into world of
unreasonable and exacting economic conditions
and who perish from malnutrition. Their cases
no more pitiable, in some ways they are less SO.
than those of the children who survive malnutri-
ton and develop into the incompetents that
ciety treats with such severity, those who cannot
meet economic pressure, who cannot do sustained
work and who become dependents or criminals
both
Whether that Chicago physician had right to
let the child perish is nice question. Once medi-
cal science would have been almost unanimous in
its denial. Now there is division of opinion.
Technically, the doctor violated his OATH But he
doubtless considered that under the circumstances
he following higher law. At any rate, it is
unquestionable that he did what he believed to
be right and what large number of people ap
prove. To take superiar attitude toward him, as
some of the stern moralists are doing, is absurd.
Those who defend the doctor are likely to ex-
press an opinion which Dr. Katharine B. Davis,
Commissioner of Corrections, New York. has
vigorously suggested in the form of question:
"If the child should be helpless idiot what pur-
pose would be served by keeping it alive" There
seems to be no doubt that idiocy destined for
that child. 1t would have been Others
in its functioning hardly more than a animal
But those who speak of it as one bound to be
unhappy make gratuitous assumption. ! imagine
that the average of happiness is just high
among idiots it is among the normal, perhaps
much higher. in a world that so great poet
Keats speak of as place where but to think
is to be full of sorrow and leaden-eyed despair"
If the worth of life were measured by happiness
many great man would have to be included
among those who had led worthless lives. Per-
haps, the religious and the philosophical say,
it is to be measured by service Then, in itself
the life of an idiot can have direct value. But
it may have great deal of indirect value through
inspiring others to service. The mother of an i'm
beetle child may become finer woman through
her aflietion and may have far richer life.
When we take life we don't really know
what we do We may be interfering with the
divine plan or with Natures plan. But, mat
ter of fact, directly indire city interfer-
ing all the time. Oscar Wilde has grossly exag-
gerated commonplace observation in the words
that have puzzled many readers of his Ballad Of
C,.1v l., x6a a.: a.
love" Our unkindness to those and dear to
US may have effects that know nothing about,
farreaching in their influence on health. Observe
people under the influence of love. They bet
ter. They look better. They enjoying more
life. Observe them when they suffering from
those they love. They enjoying less life. They
are suffering They are the prey of those forces
that make for sickness of mind and body.
There are times when the deliberate prolong
alton of life seems like cruelty, for example,
where it involves intense pain. In such cases it
cannot be said that nature is allowed to take its
course On the contrary. If nature is let alone it
will often provide the relief of death what VIC
call some such soothing phrase But, of course,
we know nothing of what death does to the con-
sciousness. 1t may open up an avenue to deeper
CONSCIOUSNESS, with capacities that beyond our
imagining. The best can do is to form our
opinions by the little light we have. What call
civilization may express the natural evolution of
society," the aspiration toward the highest good
man is capable Of the goal of the race or it may
be blundering course, taking real direction
toward any goal. The time may come when hu-
man beings will find that they have strayed way
off the track and that they must make complete
lreadjustment of values.
Those who associate the death of that child
with capital punishment in my opinion are con-
fused in their thinking. Many of the strongest
opponents of capital punishment would approve
the treatment of the child and would say that on
general principles, they in favor, not of less
killing, but more. The commission of a crime or
of many crimes does not necessarily imply unfit
ness to live. II there to be general slaugh-
ter of the unfit those that by most enlght-
ened human standards were considered unfit,
large number OF the victims OF the state would
escape and among the condemned thefe would be
names of sensational eminence. Some years ago
in Chicago, when group of leading citizens un-
dertook to find out who. in their opinion, was the
worst citizen in the city thew Lit upon a man