San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1923-04-08
Every Day in Every Way the World
Is Really Getting Better
By KATHLEEN NORRIS
~AMFRICAs
By KATHLEEN NORRIS
"AMERICAS MOST POPULAR WOMAN WRITER FOR wol

Ever since men and women, alleT
dinner party, have stopped dis
ctissing the relative merits of DICK
ems and Thackeray, favorite theme
has been, Does the World Really
Get Better?"
IL holds its own, this subject, even
with that burning topical problem,
s'Where Do You Get It," And 1t
will hold its own years from now when
bootlegging is no longer fashionable,
and prohibition and murder, slavery,
war. torture, duelling, bigamy, speed
ing and child labor are all on one
footing.
A few nights ago, at dinner. | sat
next TO a pessimist VINO advanced the
most heart chilling theological belief
TO which / have ever listened.
I don't know whether or not one
NAV find this in any book; he spoke
Of il as MARK Twain's religion but
in no written word of Clemens have
I ever found it. 1t IS not exactly
infidel: there is a supreme being IN
n but he is a malicious being, being
infinitely powerful-for evil.
we Do Get Better.
Ones heart stands still for a sec
ond before such a thought; but mine
nresently began to beat normally
again. and in this extraordinary
svnopsis of a creed l have found a
real. stimulus TO some reassurlng
thinking.
Because we do get better. We do
move. however painfully and bhndly
and slowly. toward the light. We
make mistakes. we detOur, we delay.
Bur even against heavy handicapS,
there is gain.
1--WE do mott" says some college
boy of nineteen, readily.
Look at religious wars and perse-
cutions, and the housing OF tie poor
in big cities, and the prisons and
Warehouses;, and the slums and sweat
shops !" g.,
And he may wind up with that
favorite story of young students-the
story of the shipwrecked mariner
staggering to an unknown shore, and
seeing a gibbet with a man dangling
from it silhouetted against the sky,
and crying out:
"Ah, thank God, I'm in a Christian
country"
The trouble with this boy, and with
thousands of men and women like
him. is not that they don't think
hut they think 10 a certain point and
then stop short. And nothing ever
makes them think on that subject
again.
know a man. for example, who
was overfed. during his boyhood, upon
a strong and exacting creed. Later
he found a certain amount OF blind
ness in the clergy of that creed,
certain amount of money greed, GER
tain percentage Of utter stupidity and
biyotry. and he consequently con-
dennis all creeds and beliefs, all cler-
rymen. in one glorious sweep.
That he himself is the narrow and
bigoted one. never occurs to him.
That his oft-voiced belief that there
is nothing after death, that we die as
animals do. that we are "snuffed out
like candles" is in itself a strong,
biroted creed. based upon the unproy-
able and the unknown, never occurs
10 him.
He sends his children to schools, he
belongs 10 clubs, he trades, he banks,
he reads, he attends theaters, although
he knows that among school teachers
and club men and traders and bank
ers and writers and actors there are
cbarlatans and cheats and fools and
blind. He has thought clearly, to a
certain point, and there he. remains.
A Glance Backward.
But about our progress.
We see it the instant We go far
enough back, biologically, and begin
with real beginnings.
Here is human life, launched into
being. Here are men with bodies that
have immediate and urgent needs. and
souls that presently begin to make
themselves, and their appetites, alsC
felt.
The women protect their young. a.
animals do. The men protect theil
women, during the bearing and rear
ing time, as some animals do. Ant
when there are too many young, the!
kill them actually or by neglect.