Ingratitude is the crime of weak, inferior intellects. The man who will
eagerly accept favors of another, and not feel grateful towards the donor
afterwards, displays the coarse inferiority of the brute. The savages and
barbarians are noted for their spirit of gratitude. They never forget a
kindness. The genuine superlative ingrate is generally the spectacular
white man. The man in whom vanity and self-interest predominates all the
finer feelings of the soul.
Very often he is a self-sainted molder of public opinion, standing high
in the church and political circles, with an inordinate appetite for
public position where he can be observed by the passing world. He is the
self-stuffed hypocrite who pretends to love humanity—for the profit it
will bring him.
I have in my mind a parasitical vampire in human form who had a friend
moving in political circles where railroad passes where supposed to
be gifts of friendship. This was before the anti-free pass law came
into effect. The parasite begged his friend to secure a pass for him,
and it was secured and given to him, midst a shower of profound thanks
and pledges of eternal gratefulness. The pass was used to a gluttonous
extent, and renewed at its expiration, and again accepted with many
obsequious bows and renewed pledges of everlasting friendship.
A few years ago the friend died, and his relatives expected words of
kindly remembrance from the parasite. Even the dead man’s enemies spoke
kindly of him after death had silenced his tongue and put the eternal
chill upon his warm heart. It is one feature of our higher civilization
to always speak well of the dead—to overlook the dead man’s faults
and remember only his good qualities. To spurn the dead body of one’s
fellow man is considered cowardly, dastardly and inhuman. But when a
supposed friend turns on the body of one whom he made a victim of his
hypocrisy and deceit while living, and stings the dead with the venom of
a treacherous viper, the world looks on and blushes for very shame.
This was the case with the parasite I have referred to. No sooner had the
breath left the body of the man who had so often befriended him, than
he began circulating stories that told how corrupt his dead friend had
always been during life.
Did the public applaud the ungrateful parasite? Did he gain favor
from even the dead man’s most bitter enemies? Far from it! Those who
remembered how the fawning sycophant had groveled at the feet of the
dead man for the favors so lavishly bestowed while life lasted, had
only feelings of contempt for the cowardly traducer of a dead friend’s
character.
The world said: “If the dead man was as bad and corrupt as this false
friend paints him, why did he wait until after death has sealed his
tongue with the lock of eternal silence? Why did he court the dead man’s
society as long as there was a favor within reach? Was it not his sacred
duty to reform the corrupt man, instead of sharing gluttonously all the
good things with him, with the greed of a vampire sucking the life’s
blood from a sleeping child?”
The story he now tells of his dead friend is but the flapping wings of
the vampire fanning his new victims to sleep while he sucks favors from
the veins of their unsuspecting generosity. Once a parasite, always a
parasite, and the attempt to build a character out of abuse heaped upon
the memory of a dead friend, is but wasted energy. The public is a pretty
good judge of humanity, and the human vampire can not paint his wings and
pass for a dove, no odds how saint-like he may “coo” to the other birds
of prey.
Another case of ingratitude came to me just the other day: One man
asked another for a loan of $200. It was taking great risks to loan the
fellow anything, but the friend took chances and loaned him half as much
as he asked for. Now the fellow hasn’t a single kind word to speak of
the generous lender. This is not only injuring the man who so kindly
befriended him, but the abuse may sour the lender against humanity in
general, as some day some other honest but unfortunate man may be turned
away empty handed, on account of the wound made by the ingratitude of the
human parasite.
Those who are not thankful for small favors, are absolutely barren of
gratitude, and deserve no favors at all. And where there is no gratitude
there are no generous impulses, no spirit of charity, no love for
humanity, either dead or alive. And the world is full of them. I have
only referred to two cases—two of the most common cases—every reader
knows of a dozen other cases. Ingratitude is the white man’s great sin
against humanity.