Cannibal No. 1—What makes the chief such a bunk spreader?
Cannibal No. 2—He just ate the editor of Whiz Bang.
* * * * *
Nah, Nah!
“Is my wife forward?” asked the passenger on the Limited.
“She wasn’t to me sir,” answered the conductor politely.
_Whiz Bang Editorials_
“_The Bull is Mightier Than the Bullet._”
Hats off to a real man of the cloth. The Rev. D. H. Jones has resigned
the pulpit of Huntington Park, California, Baptist Church, because of the
fanatical attempts of his flock to enforce Sunday closing.
“I prefer to dwell with the worldling and be true to my inner
self than to live with the saint and betray it,” Reverend Jones
says.
“There is a way to make the church the super-attraction; but
it will never be done by coercing the consciences of men. The
Cross of Christ is proving to be the greatest magnet in the
world, but use it as a club, and it will become a colossal
failure.”
“Killed professionally, yes. But, frankly, I would rather be a
man than a minister. Character is greater than profession.”
“I would just as soon believe that the perfume of the rose
comes from the polecat as to believe that the spirit of the
blue laws comes from God.”
“Christ whipped men out of the church, but never into it.
‘Professional reformers’ and ‘Christian lobbyists’ at
Washington may mean well, but most of them are misguided
swivel-chair heroes of the Cross.”
“‘Close every door except the church’s,’ cries the reformer,
forgetting that open hearts are greater inducements than closed
doors.”
“The doctrine behind the blue laws is this: ‘I am in the right
and you are in the wrong. When you are stronger than I, you
ought to tolerate; for it is your duty to tolerate truth. But
when I am the stronger, I shall persecute you; for it is my
duty to persecute error.’”
“All the proposed Sunday legislation is simply a human attempt
to whitewash what God designed to wash white. To condemn movies
because some things may be objectionable is like refusing to
eat fish because it contains bones.”
“When human passion is subdued, when the turbulent tide ebbs,
we see that the big thing that lies at the bottom of the
opposition of theatre opening on Sunday, is simply bigotry.”
“It is a wonder to me how many bad things good people see in
the movies; fortunately, if you are so disposed, you need never
be disappointed. The product of a legal religion has ever been
and ever will be either hypocrisy or persecution.”
* * * * *
A little white coffin rested on a small table, covered with flowers white
as the waxen face and fair hair of the baby child whose short life of
thirteen months’ suffering was ended.
A small company of kind neighbors was present. The clergyman repeated
the Saviour’s words, “Suffer the children to come unto me and forbid
them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven,” and told how the little
life had not paid in dollars and cents, but that judged by an immortal
existence begun here, and to last forever, Death was gain. After the
father, sisters and brothers said “Good-bye,” the mother took the last
farewell kiss of her baby and baptized it anew with her hot falling
tears. So small was the casket that the undertaker lifted it in his
arms, just as the mother had the sick child, and carried it to the
carriage and placed it on the seat.
We entered the beautiful green cemetery, and lowered the little
flower-decked coffin in the grave to rest until God’s “Good morning” in
the graveless, griefless home of heaven. As I looked back, the mound
seemed so small that a child could step over it in his play, but I knew
it was higher than a mountain top to the mother because in it was buried
all her love and hope.
So we left the little casket and the little body in the little grave,
feeling that this bud of promise would be transplanted to the Eternal
Garden where the full flower would blossom and bloom without decay.
* * * * *
The Detroit Free-Press calls it the “Snoopers’ Brigade,” and we are
inclined to think that is a well-fitting title for the aggregation of
people who are urging the formation of a society that would compel all
men to be spies upon neighbors and reporters upon their actions.
Sometime ago a federal prohibition commissioner announced plans for such
an association, but he immediately discovered that the people of the
United States are not ready to become investigators of their neighbors’
conduct, in any particular, and the project was squelched by higher
authority.
The courts of the country are, very generally, excluding testimony
obtained by men who lead others into the commission of crime, and
properly; they regard such actions as a conspiracy to break the law,
which makes the tempter a partner in the crime.
In a Mississippi case, where it appeared that a peace officer induced a
man to purchase liquor for him and then arrested the man who succumbed
to his blandishments, the judge ordered the accused discharged and the
officer held. The official was subsequently convicted of his part in the
crime, and the supreme court sustained the verdict against him.
There is a very general misapprehension on this subject and acts of the
officials have been winked at because the public really did not know what
was going on and did not realize the extent of the practice indulged in
by what are very generally called stool pigeons.
The laws of this or any other state may be enforced without making all
the people detectives, as the Snoopers’ League would have them, or
without permitting the practice of certain classes of officials, who
sometimes literally hire men to commit a crime, in order that that very
crime may be suppressed.
* * * * *
_Where did I get my education? Why, me dad used to take me over his knee.
He made me smart._
* * * * *
Bully for the Chicago Tribune. That journal slips the prong into Bluenose
Crafts in a recent issue:
It is beginning to appear that the movement led by Mr. Crafts
is as bigoted and as savage in its purpose as those which we
thought were buried in the semi-barbarous past. It must be held
that no human uplift but maniacal desire to inflict physical
punishment is the motive. Mr. Crafts and his followers wish to
put as many of their fellow countrymen as possible in jail, and
they are trying to wreck this republic in order to do so.
* * * * *