Life — March 12, 1914 — page 28: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

TERE What Do You Think? We are Coustantly in Receipt of Important Letters Which are Too Long for Our Limited Space. Brevity is Desirable. From a Missionary Who Dis- continues (Mr. Martin Replies.) Dear Live You arc a bit too many for a staid missionary. Please discontinue my sub- scription. Regretfully, AW. M. A._P. Misstox, rau, Us P., Ivpta, January s, 1914. Of course subscription has been discontinued, but I am sorry. 1 believe it is a mistake, because prob- ably you can’t buy Lire on the news- stands in India. I know it is a pretty had paper, and sometimes does shock- ing things. That is because I am the only pious man on it, though there are some pious girls. I have borne with it for thirty-odd years, often rebellious, and I am just beginning to hope I may get it good; and now you quit. I see wonderful strokes of good done, under Providence, in this curious world hy bad people; astonishing mis- chiefs done by good people. Don't you? \ I think it has been good for me to live so much in touch with Lire, so much of which I disapprov It is stimulating and broadening to live with radicals. It is not good for us, I think, to live too exclusively with people who think too much as we do. I hope you are a good missionary. Good-bye, Enwarp S. Martin. P. S.—If Lire is too many for you you just ought to see The Masses. Please take The Masses a while (about $1.00 a year for twelve numbers) and Icarn how staid Lire really is. your Something Higher To tx Epitor oF Live, Sir: In reference to eugenics and the pro. posal to breed human beings under medical supervision, as prize cattle and hogs are bred, it seems to me to be over- looked that the hogs are not selected for breeding by other hogs, but by the “man higher up”, and not for any proposed uplift of the pigs, but solely with a view to the development of their bodies for the sake of filling his own purse and his neighbor's stomach. But that the desired uplift of the human species is no such simple and ross matter, but depends mainly upon mental, moral and spiritual influences, and that some of the noblest lives on record have been notable in- stances of the triumph of a noble spirit over a very frail body. Are the ingenious specialists who scck fame and fortune aad the gratification of their cultivated “ scientific” tastes by cutting holes in the skulls and stomachs of dogs and squirting in. boiling water and burning acids, or who pitilessly watch the appealing agony in the eyes of the helpless hound that they have se- lected to illustrate the interesting phe- nomena of death by slow starvation, and who extract from the quivering bodies of their victims the poisonous toxins thus developed, and with them infect human subjects with all kinds of diseases, old and new—are these just the kind of indi- viduals to whom to entrust the fixing material \ “THESE TORTOISE-SHELL GLAWSES MAKE ONE APPEAR RAWTHER LITERARY, DON’T Y’ THINK?” “ can readi of the mental and moral standards of future generations of the race, even as the farmer fixes the physical standards of future generations of hogs? There is a quotation from an authority of the highest standing which seems to me to be apropos, and it runs thus: “Then gocth he and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first.” Yours truly, Citas. W. Hargison. East Liverroot, Oui, Feeruary 15, 1914. A Large Industry Foitor or Lire: I am enclosing you an abbreviated state- ment of the divorce industry in Los ‘Angeles. Multiply this by five and you will get a fairly good idea of the magni- tude of one of our principal industries in the State. I am not writing you for publicity or even editorial comment, but simply to correct your idea that Reno, Nevada, is the source from which no married couples return marricd. You are always mentioning Reno! Reno!! Reno!!! Yoo observe, by the enclosure, that Los Angeles has Reno skinned from Whitehall Street to Worth’s Monument. There is a monetary consideration in the business which completely over- shadows the moral aspect. An_ inter- locutory decree compels the parties to remain within the jurisdiction of the court for one year, which = 2,785 2,100 = $5,858,500, an amount probably equal to four weeks’ receipts of Lire. Yours truly, E, W. Spencer. Another Mad Dog Epiror or Lire: I can tell you a more remarkable dog story than that of your Richmond cor- respondent. About sixty years ago, when I was a small boy, in Pennsylvania, I once called on one of my father’s neigh- bors. Said neighbor had a dog. Either because he did not like my looks, or for some reason known only to the brute himself, that dog bit me. And he bit me so badly that the blood oozed out of the calf of my right leg at two or three places. I felt sure at the time that the dog was mad, and I have not since changed my mind, I have noticed that when dogs bite anything but their food they are always mad. They do not bite when they are in a good humor. Not only was the dog that bit me mad, his owner got mad also and tried to beat the dog with a club. That dog died long ago and his owner died also, and I alone am Iecft to tell the melancholy tale. Cuarces W. Surrr.” Atuexs, Onto, January 28, 1914. comicbooks.com