Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-08-05
CIVILIZATION'STILL
ALIVE AND KICKING
The World Remains Faithful to the
Bathtub and What It Represents
Despite All Wars and Rumors Of
Wars.
By B. K. LITTLE


BECAUSE a man puts on overalls to do a
ID dirty piece OF work does that signify
that he has lost all taste for white gloves,
top hat and evening clothes? If some one
sets hre to his house will he therefore, wave
a sad good-by to his bathtub, to his steam
heat, to his evening paper and the Inherited
and ingrained habits OF thousand years
and go Off In pet TO pass the rest of his
life In caye7 II the FIRE of a great war
breaks out In the world does that mean that
we have kissed our old friend Civilization an
everlasting good-by?
No, Not necessarily.
Did you ever look at a bathtub in the
proper lisht7 Ever think what It really is
! and means? It's the cornerstone Of human
society. DO you suppose the mere matter OF
a world war is going to make man give
up his bathtub and all that goes with It?
A year ago. when this row broke out in
the human family people with chattering
teeth warned us as soemnly as they could
in their hysteria that "a hours Of such war
would send "a centuries of civilization back
to demnitIon barbarism. They said
Millions Of men will be killed. The an
cient slumbering lust of slaughter will rise
again in men and make them beasts. Gull
ture will drop away from us all like
cracked veneer!"
Forgot to Shiver
Yes, but wait minute Thus far some
thing over 100000 Englishmen have died in
battle, they say 1t is very sad, very mlserr |
able and neXcusabe. 1t Ia almost as many |
die of consumption every year In peace |
and civilization in England alone. That, too |
Is very sad and inexcusable. It is all the
more inexcusable because the leisure OF |
peace should give us plenty OF time and
every opportunity to end such sorry waste.
All the same year after year, that waste
has gone on, and we never shivered for the
fate of dear old civilization until the lesser
but more spectacular waste of war shook us
in our laziness. We have never permitted
mine disasters that kill their hundreds,
Eastlands that kill their thousands in
dustrial accidents that yearly kill their hun
dreds of thousands, to shake our faith in
and our love OF the bathtub.
oh the alarmists grunted, there may be
survivors Of this war. Even Noah survived
the flood. But the Arts will be dead, and
Science and Philosophy. There may be peo-
pie left alive when this is over, but what
will they be like? We shall all have to go
back and begin again where Noah left or"
Well, hundred years ago this year, they
thought things had come to an end when
Napoleon broke loose again and got the
world by the ears. For an excellent reason
ne was a far more terrible menace than
anything afoot today. He was a man of
;enius and perhaps the greatest captain of
I'll time. Yet since he lived and shook the
world steam navigation has come in With
t came the stationary engine and the fac
ory system that brought us a greater revo-
ntion forward than forty Napoleons could
AXE us backward. He never stopped q man
amed Morse from inventing the telegraph
Ie never held up for second the telegraph,
he electric light, and wireless, and the aero
lanes-aye, and the bathtub Every Sat-
rday night Simon Smith gets a better bath
han Napoleon ever had, in spite of all Ma 7
oleons genius to prevent It,
Do you know that at the very time Napo-
ION was persuading the timid that the world
ad come to an end. and with 1t the Arts
nd Science and Philosophy, another person
genius named Jane Austen was quietly
Imposing humorous novels that never in ,
ngle line or word refer to the convulslon
lat was then shaking the world?
Today you probably led little Willie to
he photographers to have his picture taken
lille he Is young and beautiful so that If