The Elk Mountain pilot., 1922-09-14

The editor has generously set apart
for me a column of this newspaper
which I may use as suits my whim.
This confidence in me l hardly need
say I appreciate, and all the more
since the editor must anticipate that
his views and mine will not always
and on all points coincide.
The heading, 'Views and Reviews,
an old, almost hackneyed title, adopt
for this column, because it we'll de-
scribes what expect to contribute.
The Reviews" will be reviews, or
second views, of material in prose or
verse, which for some reason I may
like to give repeated currency.
Points Of View
Looking at things from different
angles of tradition, environment, ed
ucation, etc., men naturally form diff
ferent views. Moreover, most of us
happen to stand at our particular an
gle of vision owing to birth or other
chance, and not because we have tax
en- these positions deliberately. Why
are you Democrat? Republican? a
Catholic? Protestant? a Presbyter-
ian? Well, about 7596 Of people take
their politics from their father or
mother; 1870 their Catholicism or
Professionalism from the same source;
and if the father was professional
man, the sons chance of getting a col
lege education was ten times better
than if the father happened to be a
laborer. And thus it goes. Some of
us pride ourselves on our initiative
and our capacity for independent
choice, but in very real sense most
OF us are born to what we are, quite
as truly as Hohenzollern or a Gould.
If, then, the Republican, who ,ex-
asperates US, had been born in DEM
ocratic family, the odds are at least
three to one that he should not now
exasperate us but he would be of our
Democratic faith. Then, too, if one
looks out on the struggle for living
from the industrial workers hearth
stone, the Labor Problem can not
seem quite the same as it does from
that point of view where high wages
and low prices mean pecuniary loss,
or even from that angle of indiffer-
ence to which has never come the dis.
quieting fear of privation for those
one loves beyond all else. Doubtless,
there is moral here about the fool
ishness and pathos of partisan feuds,
so far these are due to difference in
point of view, but leave it to the
reader to do his own preaching.
The Idols Of the Cave
Francis Bacon presented another
aspect of this matter, three hundred
years ago, when he wrote of "the idols
of the cave. "For every one, besides
the faults he shares with his race, has
a cave or den of his own which re-
frac is and discolors the light of ma
ture". By ''idols" he meant images,
that is, images or likenesses of truth;
and by "cave" he meant a private
place apart from the light of day
where men ordinarily examine truth,
that is, in the deceptive light of their
prejudices. Truth under such condi-
tions is never seen in its naked real
ity. This is now commonplace of
science. Yet in our hurly-burly
world where controversy is wont to
rage, this ancient caution is not out
of date, namely, that we can't per-
ceive truth, if we examine any matter
merely in the light of party. creed, or
class. He that hath ears to hear, let
him hear.
The Publrc's Point of View in the
Railroad Strike
By the time this appears in print,
the railroad strike gives promise of
being settled. But, however that may
be, this doctrine of points of view,
applied to the strike as yet prevail
ing, shall not altogether have lost its
pertinency. For if there were anoth-
er strike in any industry tomorrow,
our respective points of view would
probably be much the same.
Take your own point of view and
examine it. Is it the point of view
Of your class? the middle class? the
soft-handed. class? the merchant class?
Have you ever tried to take another
point of view? Can you guess how
the problem may look to the fellow
on the other side? But this isn't the,
end of the difficulty. Why should
anybody be obliged to take, one point
of view in preference to another?
Whose point of view, indeed, should
hold, the field against all others7 The,
popular answer. now, written into
of editorials and proclaimed
Concluded on page two