The Washington herald., 1920-11-23
Mission Head Says Death
And DiseaseTa Toll of
Gotham's S Friendless.
OPEN HOMES Is ADVICE
Social Expert Wants New
Workers to Welcome
Strangers in Gates.
BY wINIFRED VAN DUzER.

NEW YORK, Nov. 22.-The canker
at the heart of this city is loneli-
ness
1t gnaws its way alike through
hurrying hours OF sunlight and
long, long hours OF night; its ex-
Preston is a white-lipped smile;
eyes resting hungrily upon little
children; a sob.
The man who works at the desk
next your own: the woman in the
apartment across the hall; the timid
little person who ventures a bit OF
conversation in the subway-these
perhaps. have felt its blight; these
may be some of New York's 5000, 900
who live with things that have been
and are not; or with dreams which
never came true.
A devastating influence. But does
it kill?
Yes" replies the Rev. DR.. Charles
H. Mears. superintendent of the
Baptist City Mission Society. ours
is a city where men die of loneli-
ness in a crowd
TT us the land of plenty, where
starvation stalks abroad; a place
where 1000 people live on an acre
of ground they never see; all oasis
to some, IL rs all desert to others;
thousands live in a single block and
never know they have a neighbor."
For many years DIR. Mears has
worked toward a cure for the city's
plight, and his belief that men and
women die for lack of friendship
and home is founded upon expert
ence.
HIS contention is backed up, in
part. by DR.. Edward Anthony
Spitzka, alienist, who has treated
many minds corroded by the can
ker. He said:
THE most usual. form Of loneli-
ness is Inconsistencies, or nostalgia,
for which there Is no cure excepting
the sight of home and loved ones.
Normal men and women may be
homesick. but extreme cases of
nostalgia are abnormal and devel-
oped by those predisposed to mel
sncholia.
TT is these cases which run to
WEAKNESS with life and suicide. In
such manner loneliness kills in
directly"
Today there is a happy home up
in Fordham where DIR. Mears lives
with his wife, a 19-year-old son and
little daughter.
But more than twenty years ago
this man, who recently astonIshed
1embersg of n conference held un-
der auspices of the Metropolitan
Board of Promotion of the North
cru Baptist Convention with a full
account of the subject nearest his
heart, stepped into the Grand Gen.
trail Station with no more than a
half-worn grip and ambition. A
country boy who had answered the
call of this city whose voice is heard
in every other city and in the wide
spaces between throughout all the
land.
When he reached a position from
which he might direct a fight upon
II. he worked quietly, with very
little explanation. Particularly has
he been interested in the citys stu
dent population He said:
New York has become the first
student center in the world. 1t has
gone beyond London, Paris, Berlin,
Toxic in this respect.
About fifteen hundred students
are from sixty-six foreign lands;
224 of these are in Columbia in its
eleven schools for law, journalism,
pharmacy and mines. My nephew,
in charge of Baptists' work among
the students, says he has known men
to be in this country six years who
have never been inside an American
home"
AS a means of relieving the lonely
condition Of friendless ones, particu-
larly students, for one holiday at
least, DIR. Mears has requested that
they be invited into homes for
THANKSGIVING dinner. He continued:
rs IL too much to ask that
Christian homes be opened to the
student. population just as, during
the war, they were opened to men
In service? II Christianity has not
made good in the very place from
which II Is being sent to foreign
lands. why should it be adopted
In these lands?
TT is not always easy to pene-
trate the loneliness found by all
who reach New York. But at least
We can do this for the students"
DR.. Spitzka explained further his
experience with loneliness in New
York:
Mental and physical states can
not be divorced. Those who come
here bent on success are more likely
to give in to loneliness IL they do
not find what they desire
"Brooding develops digestive dis
turbances. the debility and febriie
conditions follow. tuberculosis may
set in .... ... -
ITO such persons as these 1 pre-
scribe a return to places where
friends and success are more easily
gained and kept"
- Woman's Body Found.