The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-12-02
The Tax Of Ignorance
THE HUMAN race since time began has
By DIR. FRANK CRANE

HUMAN race SLICE tAuc UcSoH mas
 been preyed upon by parasites. blood
 suckers, and thieves. History is but record of the systematic, institutional plumber of the people by the shrewd and selfish few. It has been lamb populace managed by wolf exploiters. Mankind has been taxed incal- culably, taxed of money, blood, life.
 But of all known taxes that of 1GNOR- ANCE has been the greatest, includes per haps all other taxes. All the tyrannies of rulers, kings, upper ieastes and cabals have not equalled in their pillage the amount robbed of humanity by Ignorance. All the pirates of the Spanish Main, all the buccaneers, free booters, highway robbers, burglars and thugs have not taken from. us ,so vast pile of goods as has this same Ignorance. Not all the swindling schemes of mining shares, wa tered railway shares, wildcat investments, predatory trusts, stock exchanges and money powers have so depleted us as Ignorance. All our loss by waste and profligacy cannot equal our loss by Ignorance.e.-
 Ignorance claims its cent. per cent. in all trades Nine-tenths of the failures are due to Ignorance. Boys enter onto business un- trained, uninformed i; they go down in the struggle The slums and prisons are full of men who stumbled into crime because they entered the battle for success without skill or weapons
 Civilization systematically keeps its girls in ignorance of the laws of their bodies, of the significance and functions of sex. The hordes of women wrecks that swarm in our cities is the resulting tax of Ignorance. How much domestic tragedy is due to the same cause Our entire literature teens with sex-sugges- tion we do everything to arouse passion, nothing to instruct it..
 In the way of hygiene what measureless tribute the race has paid to Ignorance. The pests of former ages, cholera, the black death, and the red death, the multitudes of corpses heaped up, simply because people did not know enough to keep clean!
 The myriad lives that have been darkened and bodies tortured, by sincere but narrow men playing upon the common Ignorance Of the unknown! This tax which the hierarchy has levied on the light and joy Of souls is perhaps most horrible of all. tax due to pure Ignorance.
 War. it is impossible to pile up super latives of execration, curses cannot be screamed too loud, to do justice to its abysmal infamy; and there never was war that was not due to Ignorance. The spectre of every war shall arise on Judgment Day to point denouncing finger at the rulers of men; for it is only to cover their stupidity that the commons are led forth to slaughter. There never was a war that could not have been better settled in some other way" Add, then,
 
 in mounds by the Rappahannock, that per ished at Ladysmith, San Juan, or Sadowa. and all other of those orgies of blood and hate that fill the pages of history as the stars fill the sky.
 Think of the tax of economic Ignorance! Money piled up in extravaganza here, and wonder human creatures starving; all because we don't know how to distribute the products of labor!
 Look at the human beings crowded like cattle into the street cars, look at the public everywhere insulted, bullied, assaulted, and we submit, because we don't know how to help ourselves.
 The most economical thing the United States could do would be to spend billion ! dollars more a year to give ALL children an education, and thus do what may be done to remove the taxation Imposed by Ignorance It is The Only Wayi
 HIGH COST OF SIMPLICITY.
 In the old days the word simple meant fool ish. Now it is used only to make frocEA eoS' more.-Hartford Times.