Grand Forks herald. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1916-1955, 1918-06-24
MONDAY EVENING, JUNE "a. 1918.


Though men are being slaughtered by the thousand
on the battle fields Of Europe, and the statement that
/. this or that army lost so many thousand men last week
!. is read with little more interest than that with which
one scans the weather report, war has not yet made us
callous' with reference to loss of life except in connec-
ton with the war itself. and a single case Of suffering
finds as tender a spot in most hearts as ever.
!. News of the wrecking Of a circus train in Indiana,
I with the loss of more than half a hundred lives, has been
:. received in a way which brings out this side Of human
/! nature. And, aside from the other features of the case,
tho occupation of the victims gives it a peculiar interest
to most people. The passengers on that train were all
circus people, and most of those who lost their lives were
ring performers. who, when on duty, were accustomed
. to appear daily in the glittering regalia of their guild and
perform their feats before thousands Of applauding spec
tators.
To most Of us the circus is a great mystery and its
people are a group apart from all others. Something Of
the mysterious awe with which the circus was regarded
in childhood persists in later life. and it is a little dini-
cult to think of circus people apart from their work.
And yet they are just people, like the rest of us. And
when, in the dead Of night a train bearing them to their
next city is ground to splinters, it is not the wonderful
beings Of gilt and spangles whose lives are snutred out.
but very human beings, with very human traits, who
have lost their lives.
In the list Of persons killed in the Indiana wreck
are the names Of husbands and wives, OF persons who
had homes. and who, doubtless. had friends. And it is
not the acrohats and animal trainers and eduestriennes
who have died, but just men and women to whom the
call Of death. came suddenly while they were seeking
rest after a hard days work. One of the men killed was
Joseph doyle, Clown His wife and two children also
died on hesrelief traia. Who ever thinksSSoo Of a clown as
q person? He is a funmaker. The public sees him with
his chalked face and in his grotesque uniform perform
ing strange antics for the amusement Of the crowd. But
when his hour of entertaining is over, and his paint is
removed and his regalia laid aside, he becomes the or
binary human being. with the characteristics common
to humanity, and the relationships usual in society. He
has his joys and his sorrows. He lives his dometic life.
He loves his children and seeks to provide for them.
And we may be assured that when the rending crash
came, and Coyle was thrown into the awful debris. If he
was granted a moment Of consciousness his thought in
the moment Of dissolution was of the wife and children
who. were near him, and his solicitude was for their
safety.
And so, while accident and circumstances place some
of us in this group and some in that, and while we ap-
pear to be moving on different planes, when the touch
stone Of humanity is applied it reveals that we are all
made Of one clay, that the elements of brotherhood are
in US ALL