ere and the ruledvmaster and servant
And now an epidemic of patriotism
is gathering its toll in the cockpit of
Europe. This plague has seized up
on all classes of human society. Even
Christians and Socialists, who had
been vaccinatetTwith the Fatherhood
of God andvthe Brotherhood of Man,
find the vaccination didn't take.
Science claims "to Tiave discovered
a sure" cure for syphilis, and to have
made some headway with cancer, and
tuberculosis, but patriotism is still
king of incurable diseases.
-o-
o-
HOW A 'GREAT MAN, BEING DEAD, YET SPEAKS
Of late the clever chaps who, thanks to privilege and pull, have piled
up great fortunes by taxing us without our representation, have under
taken to do many things for us.
Carnegie wants to keep us in reading matter and pension our teachers.
Rockefeller has hired doctors to "do" the hookworm and other germ
enemies; has set apart a big fund to endow our charities and is about to
bring in an eminent foreigner to tell what is the matter with our industrial
relations. -
Russell Sage left a wad to be used in investigating various things.
And so on. " "'
Many of the expert uplifters applaud this system of private'endow
ments, for it means steady hire at fat pay for a lot of their kind and a
chance for .all to get next
But a wonderful thing has just happened in Cleveland, 0., where a
pool of philanthropic millions, known as the Cleveland Foundation, has
been put under partial public control.
The experts of this fund have flatly reported their revolutionary belief
that poverty is a community responsibility and that, therefore, the relief
of poverty should be provided at public expense.
The way to force people into considering seriously the causes of pov
erty, they argue, is to tax them for its relief. Hence they recommended
that the city take upon itself the whole duty of raising and administering
poor relief.
Couple with this an effective stopping of tax dodging, and you will
have the ideal plan.
At present, under private charity, surplus wealth gives only what it
feels that it can spare and operates as a check upon the radical study of
poverty's causes.
But if the people, instead of the plutocrats, did the taxing, it would be
to their interest to have the causes of poverty corrected as soon as possible;
for the sooner the poverty was lessened, the sooner would their tax burden
decrease.
Tom Johnson used to tell Clevelanders how foolish it was to keep a
few private skiffs in the river rescuing an occasional drowning man, instead
of going up stream and putting out of business the private inte-cs that
were tossing thousands of persons in.
Tom is dead; but evidently his soul is inarching on.
MOST MISSED
"So you don't like living in the
country? What do you miss most
since moving out of town?"
"Trains."
A LONG HIKE
THe Excelsior fiddling band walke.l
itself almost down last week trying to'
learn to play a march. Hogwallow.i
Kentuckian. - '
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