THE MEYERSDALE COMMERCIAL, MEYERSDALE, PA.
EH i ————
3 son or Secretary Houston. A
Te angle fonmmerciat big powder company has been
= saying it in advertising which
~- you may have seen. It is worth
" Published every Thursday by ths
Commercial Co-operative Council.
EBER K. COCKLEY,
: r Business Manager. wet
¢ HERMAN G. LEPLEY, Editor.
repeating, not for the sake o
attention to another matte
“Entered at the Meyersdale postoffice that everybody ought to be] existence is not necessary to progress.
about—the idle
as second class mail matter.
— + | thinking
Subscription price, $1.25 per year. _* lacres,
> Advertising rates, all matter, 10 cents
sition work; 20 per cent extra lor prefer- than all the stumps and rock
red position; small readers, 5 cents per
line; Business Directory, 50 cents { per
month.
iis does not relieve the condition
Ask for prices on job printing.
created and maintained by fic
~~ |titious values. Speculative val
IDLE ACRES
This is from Successful
Farming, with a circulation of
more than a million:
The loss of each food ship
is a tragedy. But the idle
acres of America could grow
more food per year than all of |
the enemy’s ships can destroy. '
Every idle acre helps the | rn
enemy.
you hinder victory... Culti- |
a
boulders, or swamps.
We urge the taxation of al
lation.
time or place,
i ind in i p 3 ir intaining ‘human qualities. Does
vate every available acre or | The mind in its own place, and | factor in developing and maintaining a
land. Don’t let labor shortage |
hinder you.”
No, Mr. Hoover didn’t say |
that. Nor did President Wil- |
~~
in itself
a hell of heaven.
— Milton.
A
ee et ed a NA a NS mm NS Sm arm ooo
RELIGIOUS NOTICE.
Amity Reformed Church, April 21, 10:45 a. m., special service
for men and women; men’s choir; number of short addresses.
7:30 p. m., The Significance Of Ordination--the Value of Friends.
ee er
0
~r
N THE OPEN ROAD
With BRUCE CALVERT.
“Silence is the soil in which thought grows.”
writer might have said, “in which the soul grows.” It is good
for man to be alone—sometimes. There is a certain spiritual
adjustment, or orientation, of the soul that a man can find only
insolitude. Not for nothing have the great prophets, sages
and saints of all ages sought the sheltering quiet of the clois-
ter or the great silences of the desert, the mountains, the
woods and caves. In these retreats far from the disturbing vi-
brations of the noisy crowd the greatest revelations ever given
to man have been received.
We do need, now more than ever, in this age of pragmatism
gone mad, to be alone once in a while and to get acquainted
with ourselves. Shut up in the crowd, we lose perspective.
Little, inconsequential things assume undue proportions. We
become submerged in the petty banalities of life. The mechan-
ics of living obscure the real meaning of life itself, as a penny |
held close to the eye blots out the sun, moon, stars and all the
solar system. We need to get away from the clatter and clut-
ter of business—away from the soul-killing grind of routine
that corrcdes the heart and gives us mental ankylosis. We
need especially to get out into the great open. We each ought
to take to the open road for a season as often as possible for the
preservation of our sanity and our very soul’s salvation. The
greatest disinfectants known are shunshine, fresh air and the
newly upturned earth of the elds. For the mind as well as for
the body is this true. There is nothing like the wild, free
winds of heaven to sweep the cobwebs from our brains. Noth-
ing like the woods or mountains to steal away that earth weari-
ness that presses upon us in the crowd and to restore our men-
tal balance. Away from all human contact, alone with nature,
we come to an understanding with ourselves. The silences of
the open become populous with our own thoughts, and every
bush, tree, bird and flower vocal with our own reflections.
The concentration of people in the great cities, with the
inevitable bitter struggle for existence, is destructive to char-
acter. | The cities always have been the sink holes of iniquity.
Ifilth, disease, poverty, crime, ugliness, always have flourished
in the crowded places of the earth. From Hellenic cities down
to New York this is true. The city does not represent the high-
est in man’s nature. Its life is artificial, feverish, neurotic,
erotic. Instead of the quiet deeps of peace wherein the soul
expends, the city breeds unrest, fear, pain, brutality. Greed,
indifference, selfishness, fill that place in the human heart from
which should flow sympathy, meighborliness. There isn’t
enough air and sunshine to go round; not enough of the very
essence of life itself for all. Some one has to suffer. We cut
our souls to fit the size of the flats we live in. God help the
basement dweller! Our wretched civilization is stamping it-
self upon our very features. We have the factory face and
the business face. The former is pitiful, the latter vulpine,
Men’s deepest and holiest experiences come to him only
when his feet are firmly planted on the soil. Soil and soul
come from the same root word. Noble deeds are inspired,
great poems born, splendid dreams dreamed in the open and
of the open. There isn’t room enough for them in the two-
room soul, the spiritual tenement of the crowded cityite. What
has the mob to offer, really? Drunk with its own effluvia, the
crowd sees nothing, hears nothing, feels nothing but its own
misery. It will trample upon you and crush you into the dust
and never hear your cries of agony! What chances has a hu-
man being in it?
meen helping the advertiser, or help-
ing the food supply, but to call
ont: Speculation in land is doing : s 10 :
per Inch net, 5 cents per inch for compo- | yore harm in food production |out that in the Socialist commonwealth the human race will
and all the swamps. Blowing| pare animal existence. And there are many other enemies of
them out, or draining the land 0
land values for the purpose of [all of the qualities of the human race.
eliminating the idle acres by
doing away with land specu-
Hinder rations and|A mind not to be changed by
| Can make a heaven of hell, and | generacy of the human race.
———r
And the river will dry up.
_ WHAT'S SO AND WHAT ISNT
fl Copyrighted by JOHN M. WORK
ri No, the struggle between human beings for a bare animal
It is a great barrier to progress.
Benjamin Kidd, in his Social Evolution, has tried to make
S| degenerate because of the removal of the fierce struggle for a
$ Socialism who agree with him.
He lays it down as an absolute and invariable rule that
man beings with each other. And he draws from his false
premise the conclusion that Socialism, by removing the compe-
1| tition for a bare animal existence, will degenerate and destroy
It is emphatically false that competition is the only factor
in developing and maintaining human qualities.
But 1 shall not enter into that question just now. For the
present moment I will grant, for the sake of argument, that
Mr. Kidd is right when he says that competition is the only
it logically follow from this that Socialism will work the de-
On the contrary, it follows logically that Solialism will
remove the causes which are producing the bad qualities of the
human race, and will continue and develop the causes which
are producing the good qualities of the human race.
The trouble with Mr. Kidd is that he has committed a
glaring error in logic.
Not only are his premises erroneous, but this conclusion
is too big for his premises. I have agreed to overlook the fal-
sity of his premises for the present, but I want to call attention
to his too big conclusion.
His mistake in logic may be illustrated in this way. It
is as if Mr. Kidd had said: ‘A river cannot have any water in
it unless it hag tributary streams flowing into it. The sewers
of the cities are tributary streams. Theferoe, if the cities
burn their sewage instead of letting it low into the river, the
But, there are other tributary streams besides the sewers.
Sociaiism does not propose to cut off any of those tributary
streams which are bearing pure water into the river.
It merely proposes to burn the sewage, and thus purify
the river. :
Socialism does not propose to abolish competition.
It does propose to abolish competition for a bare animal
existence._
| It does not propose to abolish competition for excellence,
i superiority and pre-eminence in the myriad of higher human
| activities.
Competition in these myriads of higher activities is so
much more humane than the brutal competition for a mere
| animal existence that it might more properly be called emula-
|tion. But I will stick to Mr. Kidd’s word and call it competi-
tion.
It used to be quite customary among human beings to com-
-levery quality possessed by humanity is developed and main-|-
ues create an overhead exX-ftsined by conflict, by competition, by ceaseless struggle of hu-
pense that is far greater than
the presence of stumps and
memenemi
to which Socialism will give a free field, are of such a nature
that each competitor, by competing, instead of dragging his
fellow men down, must necessarily assist and- elevate them.
For, by doing any of these things better than other people can
do them, he is doing other people a good turn.
It is also perfectly evident that these special of competi-
tion, to which Socialism will give a free field, are of such a
nature that they will develop manual dexterity, mental acumen,
broadmindedness, enlightenment, good: will, cordiality, brother-
hood, happiness, generosity, courage, honesty, magnanimity,
liberality, kindness, buoyancy, gladness, hopefulness, optim-
ism, cheerfulness, purity, self-possession, love, and other kin-
dred qualities.
But these are eminently desirable qualities.
«+ To develop them is to improve, not to degenerate, hu-
manity.
Consequently, even if Mr. Kidd’s rule that competition is
the only factor in the development of human qualities were
correct, it would necessarily and inevitably follow that Social-
ism, instead of degenerating the human race, is absolutely
necessary to the development of the human race, because it
alone can abolish those kinds of competition which develop
brutal and undesirable qualities, and it alone can give men a
full and free opportunity to engage in those kinds of competi-
tion which develop higher and eminently desirable qualities.
Thus, the desperate and hard pushed enemies of Social-
ism are convicted out of their own mouths. :
In so far as competition is a factor in the development of
human qualities, Socialism will strip it of its villainous and
degenerating features and turn it to good advantage.
But, as a matter of fact, competition is not the only faec-
tor in the development of human qualities.
It is not even the chief factor in the development of the
higher human qualities.
It has been the chief factor in the development of the bru-
tal and undesirable human qualities.
But it is only a minor factor in the development of the
higher human qualities.
Co-operation is the dominant factor in the development
of the higher human qualities.
Competition is one of the vital principles of the universe.
But it operates chiefly in a comparatively low sphere; at a
comparatively low stage of progress.
Co-operation is also of the vital principles of the universe.
But it operates chiefly in a comparatively high sphere, at
a comparatively advanced stage of progress.
However, just as we need a mild form of competition in
operation in the higher spheres, so also we find a mild form
of co-operation in the lower spheres.
I am only repeating what has already been pointed out by
others when I say that we find co-operation in the animal and
vegetable worlds and even in the so-called inorganic world.
What is it, for example, that keeps the earth in its orbit?
Why, if the stars and planets did not co-operate with each
other to hold it in its place, it would go crashing through space
and be shivered into countless fragments by contact with some
larger sphere. This is co-operation in the so-called inorganic
world.
Almost every plant has a flower with bright, beautiful
pete with each other in physical strength. The stronger man
killed the weaker man.
blood-thirstiness. But blood-thirstiness is an - undesirable |
quality. To do away with that quality is to develop, not to|
degenerate, humanity. Consequently, it was a good thing |
for the human race when that custom largely passed out of
existence.
money to buy the necessaries of life. The man who possesses
more of the qualitips necessary to succeed in this competition
gets the money, while the man who possess less of the qualities
necessary to succeed in this competition either starves to death,
or at least starves mentally, morally and spiritually.
of competition develops greed, graft, dread, fear, hatred, jeal-
and other kindred qualities.
But these are undesirable qualities.
generate, humanity.
when these qualities are destroyed by the abolition of capital-
ism and the introduction of Socialism. :
Socialism will remove the brutal and desperate competi-
tion for a bare animal existence. It will thereby give men a
full and free opportunity to compete with each other for pre-
eminence in such things as making products, managing indus-
tries, inventing machines, curing disease, developing any and
all of the many arts and sciences, writing books, painting pic-
tures, and the thousands of other things which these suggest.
In other words, Socialism, by abolishing the brutal and
desperate struggle for a bareanimal existence, will give men
eminence in all of the industrial arts, all of the fine arts, and
all of the liberal arts.
It will even give men a full and free opportunity to com-
things.
Yes, let’s take to the woods. There’s beauty and nobility
in the great solemn, religious woods that expands the heart and
lifts the soul to the highest in nature. In the whispering of
the leaves born upon the evening breeze you hear the voice of
the Infinite, and under the cool and silent stars your troubled
spirit finds peaple. Take to the woods?
It will even give men a full and free opportunity to com-
pete with each othier for pre-eminence in doing good in the
world, for excellence in altruism, for excellence in unselfish-
ness.
It is perfectly evident that these species of competition,
That kind of competition developed | and reproduction.
That kind | 2¥¢hY-
ousy, pride, vanity, narrowmindedness, ignorance, pessismism, { enough.
hopelessness, meanness, stiginess, cowardice, craftiness, sealth, | plete.
"Tis said the wounded soldier The
He bends upon each sufferer
a full and free opportunity to compete with each other for pre-|Ineffable compassion lights
petals. These plants attract the bees and other insects. These
insects help to distribute the pollen, thus insuring fertilization
This is co-operation between the vegetable
and animal worlds.
Among the lower animals, those which survive in the
greatest numbers are the ones which co-operate with each
other. In other words, those which go in droves or herds, like
the elephant, the buffalo, the deer, the antelope, the wild-goat,
It is now a custom among human beings, forced upon them !the sheep, the wolf, the jackal, the reindeer, the hippopotamus,
by the capitalist system, to compete with each other for enough ‘the zebra, the hyena, and the seal.
Among men, we owe all the civilization we have to co-
operation.
If we did not co-operate at all we .would have stark an-
The trouble is that we have not carried co-operation far
We are permitting it to remain imperfest and incom-
We must carry it to its logical and natural conclusion.
We have come to a point where we can not make any
To do away with these qualities is to develop, not to de-|{further progress unless we do.
We are socially marking time, because we are ready for
Consequently, it will be a good thing for the human race Socialism and yet capitalism is still hanging on.
Capitalism has outlived its usefulness.
It is now a detriment.
It is a barrier in the way of progress.
me,
A tate He lifts His hands all bleeding,
: T MRADE
THE WHITE CO Nor robe, nor sandals, hide
Far out upon the battlefields The print of nails upon His
In watches of the night, feet,
spear-thrust in His
sees side.
A Comrade robed in white. Oh, if ‘tis true, I know not,
Or a vision of the night,
Formed by the fever-tortured
brain—
A look of tender grace,
His marred but kingly face. The Comrade robed in
He touches dying brows, and white.
lo! Well might the agony of earth
The fear and pain are fied, Have called Him once again
pete with each other for pre-eminence in moral and spiritual | And smiles of joyful wonder To mingle in His human form
wreathe Among the sons of men.
The faces of the dead. Seen or unseen, He walketh
He bends above the wounded Within the place of pain;
Vith strength and sympa- Let not the Great White Com-
y; rade
“Courage! I, too, was wound- Call to your soul in vain.
ed— — Carroll Loupe Fisher.
I suffered this for thee.” Turtle Creek, Pa.
Nad It am a aa