The daily banner. (Cambridge, Md.) 1897-2008, 1918-04-17
Brotherhood Of Mankind
Bruce Barton in Every Week.

bruce Barton in Every Week.
America was founded by people
who wanted TO get away from other
people.
The Pilgrim Fathers decided that
they would rather run the FISK OF
starving to death in new, clean,
unpeopled land than TO live any Ion
ger with their neighbors.
After them came men of various
sorts; political offenders; QuaNers
who would rather emigrate than
fight Irishmen 'ag'in the govern
ment:" rowing sons of settled house
holds
All sorts of people. but driven by
the same common motive-the de
sire to live their own lives IN their
own way, free from the restrictions
of an older social order.
We are the descendants Of those
daring pioneers: their vigorous IN
dividua,ism flows through our veins.
If, before the war. you had put
your ambition into words, you
would porbably have expressed the
wish to be absolutely independent.
don't know what the war may
have done to you, but to me it has
revealed this one tremendous train:
that there is not, and never Will De
again, any absolute independence;
that l, in my little home, am abso-
lutely dependent to some degree or
other, on every other man and Wo-
man in the world.
In the Balkans, an Austrian prince
of whom | never heard, and his wife,
are murdered A pretty far-away
event; what has it to do with me?
Nothing, of course. Nothlng-eX-
cept to throw my life into disorder,
and change the whole thought and
current of my days.
In Russia twenty million men are
taken from the farms; and behold,
the loaf of bread in my little home
feels their leaving and fades away.
Millions of shoes are ordered for the
men OF Italy; and the shoes | pur-
chase for my boy cost four dollars
now instead Of two.
Absolute independence! What a
foolish phrase, indeed. The world
has become a neighborhood, and the
welfare of every single house along
the street is conditioned by the wei
fare of every ether.
There is hardly an item in the
newspaper that doesn't somehow or
other, come straight home to me.
l read that the railroads are hard
up and their stocks and bonds de-
cline, l should worry; | own no
stocks or bonds
Oh, but don't /, though? The saw
ings bank where my few dollars lie
has invested them in railroad bonds :;
the life insurance company that must
look after my wife and family If |
die has invested its funds in railroad
bonds.
Whether l like it or not, the rail
road cannot be hurt without hurting
me; for better o. for worse, my pros
perity is bound up with theirs.
When the Apostle Paul was being
sent to Rome, the ship on which he
sailed was tossed by storms.
At the moment of the greatest
danger Paul caught the sailors TAX
ing to the boats.
Stop" he cried; and to the Cen
turion he shouted:
Except these abide in the ship,ye
cannot be saved:
Today the good ship World is be-
storm of its existence.
And now, in the time of greatest
danger, l see some signs that are not
good l see some capitalists taking
to the boats aud saying to themsel-
yes: We'll pull out and play safe,
no matter what may happen to the
ship"
see some groups of labor taking
~, 70 h cAl-
yes: when the ship is sinking is a
good time to strike for higher pay.
And if the lesson of the war means
anything, it seems to me to mean
just this:
That the time has passed in the
world when any single group Of men
can advance its interests permanent
ly at the expense of the common
good.
Unless all of US. rich and poor,
stick together in the ship, then all
of US are lost.
Individualism. as we used to I'M
derstand it, is dead.
God hath made of one blood all
nations" The same great life-giv-
ing current flows through the veins
of every class and race and people
everywhere. And the only way to
advance the interests of any class
permanently is to purify and siren
CITIZEN the stream of life that minis
tiers to all.
That, it seems to me, is one great
lesson of this war.
Buy, buy Liberty Bonds, or bye
bye Liberty. North American.