Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-12-26
THE GOWNSMAN

buttons nor his hands eternally waving flags,
some pert Miss would plaintiveiy inquire,
Have you forgotten the Belgians? Have
you no heart? They are giving all. what
are you DOING" The other day the Gowns
man, in the harmless pursuit of his daily
vocation and within his own precincts, was
waylaid with an impertinent ex-
animation. as to his antecedents, his relations
and his intentions, and compelled, Vi ct
arms. then and there to purchase the right
of ingress and egress to and from his own
room. He was g~uiltless of any intent to
defraud anybody, though his mind had
wandered momentarily from the ever-present
regalla. posters, booths, chatter and irrele-
vancy OF the ladies who hold us up in the
name Of humanity.
AMERICA has given in our great cause,
1Aand given nobly. The Gownsman finds it
difficult to believe that America has so given
because of the noise, the hustle, the excite
ment and the junketing Of the drive" We
drive the unwilling, the reluctant, the re-
calcitrant,. the stupid. Has America been
unwilling, recalcltrant. reluctant or stupid?
Surely our patriotism Is made of sterner stuff,
and there Is something more in 1t all than
a chance to make a safe investment fully
embraced, as there Is nssuredly a service
Of which we hear little. unselfsh, unassum-
ing and effective that 1t is-other than irrele-
want nMsquerading and the badgerlng Of
unhappy old curmudgeops into giving when
out Of humor instead Of in q generous con-
tentment of spirit.
As TO spontaneous charity. has the kind
\ hearted reader never INDUCED himself in
an indefenslble impulse? Has he never given
to one who has neither impertinent lead
pencils nor unnecessary shoe laces to sell?
Has he never sought to link himself to a
half-forgotten past by dropping a nickel into
the hat OF an anachronism in the shape OF
a blind man waiting for aims at the corner?
Has he never listened, to his undoing, to
the pathetic lying Of a master mendlcant or
helped a tramp, who could eat but little
meat" on his way to perdition with a dime
predestined to follow it's predecessors into
the bar till? II the reader has in none OF
these things been .reprehensible, II he has
given a soup ticket to one who cried for
bread the address of an organized board OF
charity to him who was a-cold and good
advice, with nothing more, to the widow and
the orphan, then may he In Il world even
more organized than ours-qonsiderIng that
there could be SO awful a place--congeal in
q charity colder than his own. ~
CHARITY begins at home and sometimes
stops, there. other charity stlrs only
when abroad and knows not home or kin
dred, 1t is 30 impersonal, so impartial, so
just. SO regulated. so commercial. The
charity that keeps a daybook and a ledger
is scarcely authentic. The Bookkeeper of
our good deeds should be alone the Record
ing Angel, and with all our giving calcu-
lated, herded. organized and arranged for us.
IL is at least questionable II the Celestial
Bookkeeper is greatly overworked, II might
be worth the inquiry as to whether, DESPITE
our apparatus in this matter Of giving. wa
have noticeably raised the spiritual con-
seriousness of the race. Measured by ma
teriai standards, by statistics to the effect
that more people are fed. more warmed, mora
reformed, perhaps more pauperized, much
may be said for the Intrusion OF the order
Ing intellect into our charity. As much may
some day be said, alas for eugenlcs In the
sphere OF marriage, But what is love and
what Is charity II each be not an affair OF
the hearth