The Alaska citizen., 1916-09-25

CHRIST AND THE SCARLET MAN. .
 Wasted his substance with riotous living" Luke 15.l3.
 We are living in day when all patriots are thinking about the con scrNation of our national resources. ! In the onward rush toward the de !. struction of the things of value we have come to a sudden stop that We might think on such unnecessary and wanton waste. Forgetting the right of the next generation, men have made desOlate the national i storehouse Farms, from neglect, are 1. not bringing forth their fruits. Care . lessness has found one-half our for . csts in ruins. Through ignorance the miners have lost one-third of the coal. the oil and the gas. Modern 1 science Is telling us we will be i able to recover some of the loss !, from the slag heaps of abandoned | silver. copper. coal and gold. They | hold out hopes that replanted for 1 csts on the hills at the heads of i our rivers may yet hold there the | rich soil from slipping down into these river beds. They tell us that 1 intensive farming will partially re i lmburse the waste of extensive farming But all this sounds like flotsam and jetsam; like locking the barn door after the horse has | been stolen.
 Far more striking, however are l the social losses through human !. wastes. Modern economists tell us that one-third of the people support l the other two-thirds in America Thirty-three million people plant the ground. weave the fabrics, build the houses, drive the engines and sail the ships This is well nigh incredi- ble until We remember that our peo pie are divided into three divisions: Une-third children, one-third repre- scents he aged and invalid, and the other third have the burdens to bear The human machine was built for seventy years of toll, but man does not live out more than half his days When We consider aCci | dents. illness. strikes, strife, indus trial fcuds. political disputes and wanton wars. the losses of society are enormous
 What if every third ship would founder in the sea, if every third train load of freight would go down over the abyss, if every third fac tory or store would be destroyed by fire, if every third library or church or hospital should be blown up with | dynamite. and men would have to reckon on that ratio Of destruction when they stepped on the business stage of life? Society could scarce ly survive long such waste. Indus try would be ruined, all progress paralysed and eternal doom in the near future.
 But greater still is the waste in human life Greater than all the losses by fire and flood and war. Think of the children that are un derfed and half clothed in a rich country like America. Think of the millions of little ones in our asy lums for the blind, the feeble mind ed, and the orphans homes. Think of the working people that are un- derfed and OyertaXed delving in places of darkness and unsanitation. Think of the children born with no hope of better surroundings and de cent care. Think of the losses through drink valuable treasure wasted, and worse than wasted through the injury wrought upon the human mechanism. Think of the industrial losses through crime, the necessity of courts and all their train of expensive machinery, the prisons and penitentiaries and re
 formatOries. Stand, if you please, in dark hours of the night and note those who pass down our city streets and not always the large cities-men who have become mov- ing masses of sensuality, organized bodies of passion and gross appe
 tites The districts that they haunt remind us of the lair of ferocious beasts, the mouth of perdition. Greiv
 ous is the loss of an advancing army houses burned and homes de- StrOyed, crops devastated and cities burned to the ground, horses and cannon blown to pieces in frightful confusion. But far more grievous is the wreck of the Scarlet Man who falls by the wayside. The why of it all baffles the intellect of the wisest
 In every age the social leaders have written volumes upon the Scar
 let Man. A note of despair and all They seem to have given up hope and lost faith in the possibili- ty of recovery It is doubtful if the number of human derelicts to- day are as numerous in proportion as in the days of Jesus. Historians tell us never was the human waste so enormous It was an era of bit ter poverty, misgovernmenet, unjust taxation which hurled the poor al most to the gates of starvation. Wars
 th1