Bisbee daily review., 1917-07-22
HE BIT THE HAND
 THAT HAD RAISED
 HIM OUT OF GUTTER

OHCe upon n tune a certain BlSDce merchant, while in Chicago. came in contact with poor. pinch-faced street Arab whose big eyes and pitiful face moved him to stop and talk to the boy. His story was pathetic. He had no family or friends or work and but lit- tie health. Privation and exposure had set their seal upon him and the dread ally. Tuberculosis. was already stretching forth hand to claim this derelict.
 The merchant was much affected by the boys plight and he resolved to give him chance to win back health and secure a standing in the world. He took this outcast of the streets to Bisbee with him and fed and clothed him and gave him a job in his store as a kind of janitor and handy man. The boy. under the healing of the clear air of the uplands. and the helpful strength of the mountain peaks. be- came strong again. He was indus trious and skillful. From janitor he rose to the rank of window dresser. He showed talent as a painter and his benefactor took pains to develop that talent. Soon he became a sign painter and began to get ahead in the world.
 The merchant was much pleased with what he had done. To help fel- low being from the gutter of sickness and poverty to place in society that is self-sustaining. is a most worthy thing to do. If this merchant was sure of anything in this world he was sure of the gratitude of the boy he had befriended.
 The boy drifted from the employ of the merchant to a field in which he could make more money. Far be it from this merchant to stand in the way of his protege. He gloried in his success.
 And then one fine day labor trou- bles broke out in Bisbee. The Chicago street Arab, who had become a sign painter and a man of affairs in the circles of the labor unions, had also attended the school of the soapbox or ators and platform agitators He had absorbed all the poison of the Social ist and the I. w. W. teachers. And so it was that he was selected as a worthy disciple of an unworthy cause and sent forth to intimidate the mer- chants of the town in the alleged cause of Union Labor.
 He entered the store of his benefac- tor. He walked up to the man whose hand had lifted him from a pit that was worse than the grave. and said to him: You'll have to get right in this matter or we'll break you up in business"
 The angels wept that day. The merchants faith in humanity received an awful blow.
 But let us not judge this boy rashly. lest we be ourselves judged. He was doubtless grateful enough to the good merchant-for a time. But. in our very midst, allowed to thrive while good citizens and the courts slept on. were the very schools mentioned above, in our parks and on our street corners and in public halls. they held open session day and night. and to them this boy had free access. The clear water of his gratitude was polluted by every species of heresy and fallacy and marplot and treason. His young mind was perverted by a lot of doc trines that were impractical in precept and positively evil in practice.
 No man ever yet raised his voice to proclaim a doctrine. great Or little. good or evil. wise or foolish. that he did not have followers. If the evil is checked at the root there will not be so many branches withered.
 This young man was lifted up and saved by good influence, only to be destroyed by evil teachings we have allowed to become a part of our social system today.
 It is one of the blackest cases of ingratitude that has ever come under the newspaper mans observation. And the causes thereof are the strongest indictments against the I. w. w. creed and teachers that could possibly be written for the world to read.