The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-05-24
The Mockers
By pRs. FRANK CRANE

Never a great deed was done but some mocked.
 Never great word said but some sneered.
 Never a solemn moment, but some laughed. The mockers are ever with us, enternal as the brook that goes on forever. r When you plant tobacco, no matter if there has never been a tobacco plant within thousand miles, the tobacco worms will appear, the mocker. like satan comes also.
 You stand before statue of George Wash ington and reverently take off your hat, and behind you you hear litter, at the statue. and at you.
 Noi man, living or dead, is put upon q pedestal but hands reach up to put him down.
 The price of superiority is envy
 Those who can do nothing else can mock.
 It is the one revenge of mediocrity
 It is the one triumph of failure.
 When you see beautiful woman, with an air that says she is good as beautiful. you are eaddened to know that there are many to whom beauty is an offense and the superiority of grace and eentIeness an insult.
 When Richard Wagner wrote the music that transformed the music world the air of Europe was filled with the groans and hee-haws of critics and musicians.
 Socrates was the butt of ridicule upon the Athenian stage; the theatre-goers who could not understand him could laugh At him.
 Jesus upon His cross has been the object of the adoration and the sonrse of hone to millions, but they who stood by wagged their heads.
 Never was book written, child born, a prayer made, pair of lovers married, kindness done, noble influence followed, but there was some one to grin aud twink the eye
 There is no fine human emotion that can. not be looked at on the bias and be made to seem grotesque
 The modern world has pushed the art of earicature to its perfection. M
 It is the glory of mediocrity
 To flash in wit that is kindly as it is bright is genius To ridicule superiority, to draw a hero with, an ass's earsA to make a comic valentine with a touch of venom, to deride the living and slur the dead to be smirch woman's mama with meaning shrug and smilet-all these are as easy as making faces as your mothers funeral, | Let us be merry, by all means, but let our mirth be as the whitecapsaof the ocean, and not disturb it's still deeps of reverence, jus tice and pity.
 Let us be gay, but respect the inner shrines of sorrow.
 At the bottom; of all nockery is bitterness. At the bottom of bitterness is pettiness, un- faith, cowardiee. and self-pity
 When great souls jest their humor is help. 4 ful and tonic. Through the joking of Thomas Hood and Abraham Lincoln there shone the kindliness of strength and love.
 Save your ridicule for the shams, hunibuss and Phairsees, There are plenty of them, and ridicule is the surest sword for them. But spare the simple, honest and ignorant :; spare the unfortunate and spare the great
 And if to you there be no great souls, Be deeds of pure heroism, no pure acts of self sacrifice nor emotions of virgin shame, then get off the earth this is no place for you, There is another place where all the walkers of the red-hot streets grin uneeasing; their language is sheer fhe air they breathe stinks with the eternal moekery of all that is good