The Detroit times. [volume] (Detroit, Mich.) 1903-1920, 1916-05-16
JUSTICE.
~ On. FRANK CRANE
(Copyrtght. 1915. By Frank Crans)

There are many earnest souls occupied
in trying to do people good.
There are nihe million societies, moro
or less. organized to improve and to
ameliorate.
There are preachers, missionaries,
evangelists, reformers, exhorters, view
ers-with-pride. and pointers-with-alarm
without number wrestling with sinners.
All forms Of industry are booming
these days in the u. S. A., but the uplift
business is still several laps ahead.
1t seems ungracious to say q word TO
any enthusiastic person who is engaged
in so laudable an enterprise as that of
rescuing the perishing. feeding the hun
cry. and healing the sick.
And yet. when you take time to think
through to the bottom Of things, you
must come to the conclusion that there
is but one real, radical and effective way
to help your fellow men. and that is the
way called justice.
II want to redeem the world can
come nearer my object. and do less harm,
by being just toward myself and Just to-
ward everybody else, than by doing
good" to people.
The only untainted charity IL justice.
Often our ostensible charities serve to
obscure and palliate great evils.
Conventional charity drops pennies In
the beggar's cup, carries bread to tho
starving, distributes clothing to the
naked. Real charity, which is justice.
sets about removing the conditions that
make beggary. starvation, and naked
ness.
Conventional charity plays Lady Boun-
tiful; justice tries to establish such laws
as shall give employment to all, so that
they need no bounty.
Charity makes the Old Man of the Sea
feed sugar plums to the poor devil he is
riding and choking; justice would make
him get off his victims back.
Conventional charity piously accepts
things as they are, and helps the unfor-
tunate justice goes to the legislature and
changes things.
Charity swats the fly justice takes
away the dung heaps that breed flies.
Charity gives quinine in the malarial
tropics; justice drains the swamps.
Charity sends surgeons and ambu-
lances and trained nurses to the war;
justice struggles to secure that interna-
tionalism that will prevent war.
Charity works among slum wrecks;
justice dreams and plans that there be
no more slums.
Charity scrapes the soils surface; jus.
tice subsois.
Charity is affected by symptoms; jus
tice by causes.
Charity assumes evil institutions and
customs to be part of Divine Provi-
dence," and tearfully works away at TAX
ing care Of the wreckage; justice regards
injustice everywhere, custom buttressed
and respectable or not, as the work Of the
devil, and vigorously attacks il.
Charity is timid and is always passing
the collection box; justice is unafraid and
asks no aims, no patrons, no benevolent
support.
1T is presumed" says Henry Seton
Merriman, that the majority of people
are willing enough to seek the happiness
of others: which desire leads the individ-
ual to interfere with his neighbors' az
fairs, while it burdens society with a
thousand associations for the welfare Of
mankind or the raising of the masses"
The best part of the human race does
not want help, nor favor. nor charity; it
wants fair chance and square deal.
Charity is mans kindness.