The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1927-09-08
InSiStenCe
for Truth
to Utmost
BY ALLENE SUMNER

derful woman I have ever known.
But many people think her IAN un-
natural mother" hard unfeeling and
dead to all decency."
Her only little boy, a beautiful
child to look at. until one sees the
emptiness in his eyes, is feeble
minded. Nothing, say the best doc
tors of America, can bring under
standing into those blue wells of
nothingness, his eyes.
The best imaginable heredity
could not prevent it. Something
went wrong. Malforrned, they say.
The boy so beautiful of body, is only
an empty shell who feels neither
his mothers kisses nor her tears.
She, a woman Of the quickest, finest
perceptions, who thrills to evening
star and morning sunrise, to chord
of music and the thunderouS
rhythm of mighty words marching
together, knows that this child of
hers can never respond with her.
She not only knows it, but she adj
mitS it. Oh, not generally. She is
no woman to wear her cross abroad,
but it has seeped out from the rare
overhowings of too-full heart that
she has even herself called her own
child feeble minded"
Was 1t Pride?
MY grandmother had child like
that" one of the critics said, lard
she'd no more have admitted that
he was that way than cut of her
own head! She called him deli
cate and the most she ever said
was that he was "a little backward
Women had pride in those days!"
1t may have been pride, and then
again it may have been mere dis
honesty and cowardice. 1t may have
been fear Of looking life in the face
and daring to be brave even if by
looking one saw nightmarish things.
This woman "unfeeling?" 1 have
seen her pound her pillows and
scream, "I can't bear It'll can't
bear it, but I mustl"
I have known the woman since
the days we wore each others dress
es TO school. I know that she is
afraid of only one thing, and tfat
thing is mental dishonesty. SE9 is
afraid that she, too, deluding her
self with lies and sidesteppinCs, will
call imbecility "delicacy." She is
afraid of dramatizing her situation,
of finding solace by being heroine of
drama called Wounded Mother
Love-"
Ultimate of Truth
She goads herself into seeing
things for what they are and yet
bearing them. This is no case of
not only calling spade spade,
but also calling it a darned old
shovel. It's no case of spreading
her cross abroad. But it's insist
ence on truth.
I have been thinking of the rarity
of mental honesty while reading
gripping new book, can American
Saga" by Carl Christian Jensen.
The frontispiece picture interested
me first.
This picture shows the author
working in his home. He sits be-
fore plain kitchen range, a tea
kettle on the lid. He sits in a plain
rocker. 1t looks like highly var
nished golden oak. He is writing by
one of the funny old acetyline
lamps. Simplicity. Unpretentous-
ness. Honesty.
Unsparing of Family
He tells about his family in the
book. He was born over the cob
bler's shop in tannery yard. His
mother fed her brood on oxtail soup
made from the reeking tails which
she slashed from the hides in the
tannery. He tells of his fathers
aunt who was an old beggar wom-
an; of his fathers brother who was
"a bleary-eyed drunkard, who died
in delirium tremens chewing bed
straw" of the probable cousin serv-
ing ninety-nine years for murder in
an American prison; Of "the peat
bag" woman and her idiot children
who were their neighbors.
These revelations are given not in
pride and not in shame. But merely
in honesty by one who seems to find
life too big to argue with or deny.
Schumann- Heink's life story is
another refreshing document of
truth; of admission of facts over
which one has no control-such
facts as poverty and weakness in
self and others.