Evening star., 1925-04-05

the ignorant to throw another stone
at something that is down has done.
The work of town upbuilding has
been made infinitely harder for the
good citizens. 1t has taken the heart
out of them. They don't want to live
sneerS.
One cannot escape the feeling that
With the blackening of Herrin's name
there has gone a considerable dash
If the relish for horrors. Men and
women seem to get real satisfac-
ton out of scandals, violence, the
science of crimes. The only reason
we don't all troop nowadays to hang
ings and executions is that the law
forbids. Sixty years ago every house
top and treetop in the neighborhood
of the gallows was crowded by a
curious. chattering crowd. and men
of family and education travelled long
distances to be present.
Let a tragedy happen today and
all the roads that lead to the scene
are jammed with cars Fastening to
see what there is to see. We like
horrors. like to tell and reten them.
like to say, Il was there near Her
rim at the time when in 1922 20 men
were killed and mutilated by a mob
after they had surrendered, and l
saw the spot where in l924-6 men
were shot down in the town." This
and the details they pick is all they
know or care of Herrin. 1t is a place
of murders and all the years of in
dustry which have developed the
town and the country around are for
nothing in the story. So are all the
thousands of men and women living
orderly, useful lives.
X \ 4 X
a cruel phase of the matter is that
Herrins neighbors help in tearing
down her character. So far | OBJ
served. she has no defenders at home.
rs it possible you went to Herrin
Do they have lecture courses there?'
This hardly so miles away.
There's a little exultation perhaps.
Herrin has been queen" in Egypt
and the queen never lacks Jealous RI
walls glad to cast stone.
Then there is a certain self-protec-
ton and perhaps fear. All that has
happened in Herrin might so easily
happen to them. No town with a big
population of miners can be certain
that it, too, may not be the scene of
future troubles. 1t is glad to show
it's disapproval of a town that does
suffer from them. 1t may be a deter
rent.
malicious satisfaction in seeing 9TH
ers in trouble, jealousy, self-protec-
tion-all have combined to empha-
size, call attention to Herrins out
lawry.
AS a matter of fact, she is a normal
town-normal even in her sins. 1t is
unfair to make her pariah as we
are doing-to see only her dark
deeds
MilIicent Garret Fawcett in her
"reminiscences tells of her first ex-
periences sitting on an English
bench before which parents-usually
women-had been summoned to ex-
plain why their boys or girls had
been kept from school The tales
were so sodden-so heart-breaking
that Mrs. Fawcett was often over
whelmed by pity-saw nothing but
wretchedness in the lives of the Lon
don poor.
You must not let these things
make you too unhappy" her COL
league, an elderly gentleman of ex-
perience told her; these that come
before us are the failures, but the
great mass is very satisfactory in
deed"
Now that is the way 1 feel about
Herrin-after seeing it. What the
country knows is the failures-so
like the failures of so many other
places. The great mass is very sat
isfactory indeed