The Liberal democrat. [volume] (Liberal, Kan.) 1911-1924, 1915-12-03
JUST LUCK

JUST LUCK
There's an idea that's been alloat
in the world ever since time unreck-
oned that some men are born nat
urally lucky while Others are fore
ordained failures. 1t seems to. be a
question that's ever open to debate,
and is foremost in the minds OF
many. There seems never to have
been any satisfactory conclusions
drawn from these differences of opin-
ion, and none of its mystery has been
satisfactorily explained.
With many, luck" is synonymous
with brains. One of their great ar
guments is that two men are born
equal into the world. Their environ
ment and opportunities are the same.
The one succeeds in everything he
undertakes, while the others luck is
quite the contrary. Sometimes, they
say. even the unfortunate man strives
the harder.
Is that so?
He may appear to. He may de-
ceive himself into believing that he
is. But there's something wrong.
He's off on the wrong track, some
how. If both men we're of equal in
telligence, as the argument goes, and
had everything in common, why the
reverses? There should be none.
and would be none If such were true.
But, someone says, they were of
the same intelligence and had equal
opportunities, and the man who
failed strived even harder than the
man who succeeded.
But how about the mans inner life
the inner man, as 1t were? You
had forgotten to consider that,
hadn't you? But. nevertheless, 1t
must be reckoned with. When you
get it all down in a nutshell. it's that
part of the man that counts. It's
| the invisible of him. It's not the
outer mantle man of him that we
see-that does things. The outside
of him may work hard for the things
that this life cherlsh-he may live in
faith and in hope and do all the
things that the ten commandments
require-and then be failure in the
sense that the argument implies.
And why? You ought to be able to
draw your own conclusions on that.
God endowed us with a faculty
that. if properly developed. makes
us independent powers, in a sense.
That is brains He gave them to us
to use-and not to have to depend
on somebody else's for every little
whim that arises in this life. He
did not intend for us to accept re-
ligion, a creed, doctrine or a belief
/ just because most of the people do,
or because our fathers did, or be-
cause it had been handed down from
generation to generation. The old
argument of What's good enough
for my father is good enough for
me" is the very thing that has him
dered progress through all the ages.
If you're not a better man than your
father you're not as good, for you
have his experiences, as we'll as the
progress of the times, to profit by.
There was an age when there was no
room in men but for superstition and
the animal instincts and passions
that lurked within.
And after the countless thousands
of years that have fed we are Just in
the first stages of civilization. Is
there really any hope at all?
At some remote age there may be,
1t is hardly possible that you or
shall see it, for the things that men
do are weak, and the progress OF
evolution is SLOW
Now, we have no time to waste on
the man that wants to stop in this
great rush and argue the theory Of
evolution. The time will come when
he will be as much a back number
as the man today who argues thai
the earth is fiat or square. We have
learned that arguments with such
people are rarely beneficial to ethel
party concerned, and that it leaves
each in bad state of mind-bott
disguised at the utter hopelessnes'