Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-01-17

Ing loose, plaster that il cracked, back
steps that are falling down.
It is melancholy picture one evokes,
it is true, but there is nothing lannen-
table about 1t. except the generalization
which, thousands Of persons use when iS
comes to getting faulty devices fixed.
1t is not so much the article itself as
the failure to do something about It
which irks the contenplative mind.
These faulty things may be taken as
symbolic OF mankind Most human be-
ings have quite time Of it to live up
to- their best, In anything, and most Of
them fail at times. There is little per-
lection to be found any place, and If
we read the "reminiscences Of famous
! men we md that chance played q great
part in their grandeur.
The truth is that we are under a con-
slant necessity Of fighting to keep
things up" Is we say, to prevent every
thing that we are from falling down,
and everything we have from falling
apart. The law Of gravity exerts an
influence, or down-pulling, not only on
sticks and stones, but upon human
minds and hearts. Our appreciation
for the higher things Of life is built up,
or is born with us, until a certain age,
after which the inevitable pull Of inertia
gets under way. There is an old say
ing that man never learns anything
willingly after he is 80 years old, and
no doubt there Is much truth in the
observance.
One sees everywhere and in many
men and women the inevitable deEen-
GRAFTON which flowers in T11onotony and
boredom and which ends in intolerance
Did any one think that intolerance was
shown in religious matters merely?
Perhaps it's least manifestation Is there
xyA
world Is that dislike of the average
peTson--tae more truly average, the
more ir1tense---foK any one who Is diff
ferent from himself. for any thought
which is unfamiliar TO him, for any
thing which is new or upon which he
has not first stamped the mighty seal
Of his gracious approval.
This is the stumbling block Of the
ages and the centuries. Against ii
every greatly daring man who ever
lived has Stumped his toe It has re-
sisted the best efforts Of martyrs and
holy men for centuries and centuries
Great ideas Of love and peace have
bled, 10, these many centuries because
these ideas are known to the great bulk
Of men only in their few supreme
moments. Revenge is q familiar idea,
one of the oldest, one of the closest and
nearest. BY nature it breeds irtoler-
ance OF gentIenesS ana love, ana knows
nothing Of peace except as a dream.
= = "A
In the everyday life intolerance crops
UP thousand times day in every
ones life. Here is fine old man, his
| head crowned with the white hairs
which are supposed to stand for wis
! dom, but sound him out with an idea
not known to him since the days when
| his hair was black as coal, and you Will
see that he is hotly ir1toleTant Of it.
The years have taught him nothing he
did not know in the beginning. He
| has grasped the torch handed On to
him by others. but it is not grsnder.
freer burning fame, but the same old
one, still guttering in the wind of free
opinion, still sending up noxious fumes
as the first cross-current which dares
to blow from the, foothills of God.
We are not such things as dreams
are made of, after all, but may suspect
that the unknown rhyr1er was right
when he put into the composition Of
little boys an adrntxture of puppy dog
tails. The apple which Eve ate wae
the fruit Of intolerance, and the world
has never been quite the same since.
1t is like stick holding up the broken
window of life.