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PAGE FOUR
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0 The Good, the Bad, the Otherwise, and a Few Laconics By L. A. L.
The Vagaries of the Charitably Inclined.
pVER since the European War assumed tlie
tremendous size it has attained, the
United States has been flooded with couriers
from every part, of the war-stricken places,
in the interests of those who were suffering
from the effects of the war.
We have titled, distinguished, and just
plain folks, from Germany. Austria, France,
Belgium, and one from Ireland, all asking
alms for the men who were helpless, the
women who-Avere penniless, and the children
who were homeless and parentless.
And right nobly did the people of this coun
try respond. There is no data at hand by
which one could accurately compute the actual
amount of money given, nor the value of the
provisions, clothing and various supplies sent
to Europe, by the charitably inclined.
That part reads very good; one feels a flush
of pride as one realizes that this, one of the
youngest of nations, should be able to do so
much for the stricken of other countries.
There are in New York City, a band of
people who seek very little in the way of pub
licity for the work they are trying to do.
There are some splendid names on the list
as managers, trustees, patrons and all the rest
of the titles which every well-meaning board
for the bettering or the uplift of our brother
in distress seem to regard as absolutely neces
sary for the carrying on of the work, and
once in a while there are phases of the dif
ficulties they have to overcome that makes one
wonder just what motive actuates the average
charitably-inclined person who will give so
willingly and so freely to people whom they
do not know, to whom they are not bound
by any ties of kinship, relation or sentiment,
and ignore so absolutely the claims of those
near home.
Two of the cases in point are these: for
some years there have been efforts made by
the Welfare Association of Xew T York to pro
vide work for some fine old men whose only
fault was their age, and their inability to
compete with younger men; some of these
men had been artisans of great skill, but they
were poor, homeless, proud, and anxious to
fam their living.
When the European War prevented the
usually heavy shipment of made-in-Germany
toys, some one suggested that the simpler
toys might be made in this country, and some
one else suggested training some of these old
men in jack-saw carving, painting and put
ting together the results of their efforts, and
making a supply of toys of the simpler sort
that might appeal to the sentiment, if nothing
more, of the people of New York.
Did it succeed?
It did not. There was no glamour about
so simple a matter as helping some old men
to provide themselves with a home, and
save their pride; there was nothing to be
blazoned in the newspapers, nothing which
would give the donors of any money a niche
in the hall of newspaper fame. So. after pull
ing through a winter that was unusually hard,
these old men faced their old enemies, home
lessness and hunger, for the lack of interest
in the work they had been so glad to do.
The little Noah's arks, and the little wooden
animals, and the rose bush supporters, and the
bo< k-racks. piled up in the rooms that had
seen them born, and the old men were told
they would soon have to move, as the owner
of the building was going to rent it. or tear
it down.
So far. there has been no note made of any
rich New Yorker coming to their rescue, and
it is not unlikely that some of the old men
have eaten their last bit of sweet food—food
THE JEFFERSONIAN
that they earned, and were so proud in the
earning.
The other case in point was that which had
tried to maintain a home in the poorer dis
trict of New York, in which the women of
foreign birth, knowing little of the ways and
language of the United States, might be
taught to care for themselves and their chil
dren, according to the standards we have es
tablished. It, too, will have to close its doors,
because of the lack of funds, and the absence
of anything sensational in its undertaking.
The love of publicity is a bug of gigantic
proportions, and its bite is fatal; it has made
more theorists, ruined more one-time sensible
people, fostered more conceit, made it pos
sible to play more petty, mean tricks on people
who do not deserve them, than any other
feature.
And it is growing. There isn't a hamlet
of any size that hasn't its self-appointed
leaders who assume that any movement which
is not guaranteed to make of them leading
lights is not to be encouraged.
If we could see a little clearly, those things
near us, that would mean so much for so many
that are worth helping and encouraging, we
might get a just a little nearer the ideal of
Him who said “And the greatest of these is
Charity.”
In recording the death of a woman who
had lived to be one hundred and six. the
New York papers reporting it said: “She
had been slightly ill, and attended by a
physician, but recovered, and died a natural
death,” which is some slam for the physician,
isn't it?
Senator Smoot has prepared a splendid ad
dress to women, on extravagance, and sezzee:
“A full garbage pail makes a slim purse.”
Which is true, in the North, maybe, but in
the~South it is the full dish of the leaving
cook that works such havoc with the house
wives' pocketbook.
4-4-4-
Oh well, those German soldiers who come
back home with one leg, or an arm missing,
or both eyes out. must feel amply repaid
when the Kaiser pins a little iron cross on
them, and his wife shakes hands with them.
Poor folk mustn't expect too much, it makes
them selfish.
Wuxtry! Atlanta is left tied and gasping
at the post. Savannah has had a real, sure
enough German spy-scare. Three men caught
with photographs, etc., of all the military
posts and roads on the coast, near Savannah.
But listen: Is that a Zeppelin we hear hov
ering over Atlanta? Sure it is!
So long as Easter was in the offing, with
the half-promise of fair weather, the average
woman didn't worry as much about suffrage
and other things like that. Given a good hat
and dress outfit, and a minister she liked, her
mind was too placid for any of the minor
worries.
It's a wonder some doctors haven't discov
ered a new style of jim-jams, brought into
being by some of the horrible moving picture
stories. The nerves of more than one child
who sees these horrible, pictured dramas will
pay the price long before it reaches middle
age.
Judging from the reports from the Mexican
seat of war. General Carranza's men have
had a change of heart and mind, and will
■welcome any little diversion in the shape of
shooting up American sob tiers that fate may
be pleased to send their way.
Between providing juvenile homes for de
linquent children, official dentists for all the
public school children, and official vaccinators
for those who survive the dentist, Georgia
bids fair to become the grand-daddy, in ear
nest of all the little Georgians.
If some men could be induced to keep on
looking as impressive, and be as silent as they
are in the photographs they give the papers
in a political campaign, we know a lot of them
that would make some of the present movie
stars look like pikers.
The champion forgetter for the year 1916
has just been discovered; he is the Governor
of Virginia, and he forgot the date, by a
month, on which he was to make a speech at
a place in Virginia, and arrived there, only
to learn the trick his memory has played him.
Kaiser Bill is greatly peeved at the loss of
some of “the papers" on which rested the von
Papen charges, and he demands their return.
The country will eagerly wait to view the
correspondence between the White House and
the Kaiser, on the subject.
4- 4- 4-
Poor old Great Britain! With her it's just
one d— —ed resignation after another, in so
far as her Cabinet members are concerned,
and it is reported that Lloyd-George is soon
to follow the retiring list.
The Senate, after what Uncle Simon Bees
wax would call “consid’able biling,” lias
decided that we are to have a bigger Army—
and it is simply up to the young men to enlist,
which same they don't seem to be in a hurry
to do.
With the Standard Oil Company, in Ohio,
declaring a 100 per cent, dividend, it doesn’t
look as though rhe price of gasoline would
hurt that greedy corporation if it dropped a
dime or two, does it?
Cabinet sees U-Boat note, says dispatch.
Fine; but if the dead ones on the boat that
the U-Boat blew up could see daylight and
their loved ones, there would be more interest
in the dispatch for some who read it.
4- 4- 4-
Too bad Georgia can't do what Washing
ton is doing—raise the beer tax to pay neces
sary expenses; and poor of Georgia sorrow
fully incurs, “There ain't goin’ to be no
beer.”
4" 4- 4"
Economy’s bug has hit Atlanta hard: the
Park Board won’t allow the children to have
an Easter egg hunt on the park grass, because
of the advance in the price of grass seed.
South Carolina is an unlucky State; when
she isn't suffering from an attack of Cole
blease, she has to have an epidemic—and it’s
pellagra, at that.
Nice, -hefty article in the Savannah News
on “The Be-valuation of Snakes,” and there
are a lot of us who will let any old value do,
so long as the snakes are not about.
4- 4- 4"
A life term sentence for a wealthy criminal
has no terrors for him. He knows it is simply
a case of watchful waiting for a governor
with a pardoning disposition.
4-4-4’
“China to the fore in athletics,” says a
sporting item; but many a housekeeper will
say it is China to the floor, in her domicile,
when the cook’s feeling bad.
4-4-4-
As a player of both ends against the middle,
Willie Randolph Hearst seems to be the
bright particular star, just now.
