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Show PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. If we could but rid ourselves of the "Morgan system," meaning thereby the competitive or capitalistic system, the world would be happy; a local socialist remarks. Some of us have often wondered why watermelon time makes an African so happy. And perhaps the African wonders won-ders why all the world is not happy in watermelon time. ' The constitution of the United States says that among our inalienable rights are the right to life, the right to lib- ; erty and the right to "'the pursuit of ; happiness." Mankind has asserted that ! right from the era of Belshazzar down ! to the age of Washington and into our i own time. And each man has asserted I it in his own way. Epictetus, the stoic philosopher, was a slave, but he wrote ! a book to demonstrate that he wr.s I happv because he was the captain of ' his soul, if not the master of his own body. And we imagine that the Afri- 1 can -was happy in watermelon time, j even when he was a slave. ; Political liberty has permitted men I to widen the "pursuit of happiness, ' i but still we have more of the pursuit than the happiness. "Vv'e dream of hap- j piness like the local socialist. If we j are selfish we think of what will make j only ourselves happy. If we are altruists j ve think of what will make our neighbors happy. Some of us will think that our ' neighbors tvould be much happier than they are if some of our socialist phil- ! osophers would 'dry up.'' But that, j rerhaps, is due to our blindness in j not seeing that the co-operative com- j monweaith will eliminate all unhappi- ces. ' ! Having enjoyed the blessings of polit- j ioal liberry for more than a century j a a American is slow to condemn any- I one who thinks he sees a means of i:n- roving the general welfare. We listen ; with i a'.ience and tolerance to the vendors ven-dors of all panaceas, but as we grow older we become more and more skeptical skep-tical about the cures which are to end misery and produce perfect happiness. ' We are inclined to take more stock in the happiness-producing qualities of our dentist or family doctor than in the : : a in-killing panaceas of social reform- : rs. Xot that we have become moss- i haks acd are against progress. On the ! contrary, some of us are able to re- ; tain our optimism amid wars and dis- asters ard to see the wnrld constancy, j if slowly, growing a better place to , live in. j But the man of experience is apt to ! turn a reflecting eye upon the past, and ( when the social rhib cthronists offr him ' ha pir.f?s on a golden or a wooden p. at- ; tr he will try to remember what it was that caused the men he knw in the - dead past to fail in the stnigrjlfrof life, and to reome the objfrts of pTtv be-fan'e be-fan'e th"y wore "unhappv." Verv few of them were unhappy beaii?e of poverty; pov-erty; or, at all event", that was th : nast of tVir ills. It was ilrink in one ' rase, lut in another, disease in another, an-other, and perhaps ail of those, in a few ra?M. Pometimes it was mental ti:3Pa?p; not actual in-aniy, hut mental qualrir-.s that pMt some tortured soul out of tune with normal mankind. Some-t;;n Some-t;;n it v.-as a fairly healthy individual who did not have miurh to v. orry him in this !, but who could not help worrying about the next life, like Ham-l't. Ham-l't. Who would fardHs b--ar, Tn grnnr and J-woat under a weary life; IWt trint the t"ar ot somr-ung n::.r owith The i fi d i.-'overd count ry, from whoM-iio'i whoM-iio'i rn No t ju r-U t Tf rn1 I'lji!'1? the will ; A i.d n;a k '-s u h ra t ln-r Ijta r t hoe i i J have. Than fly to 'lirrs that we know not of! Ilatf, a nihil-ion, r'-v-ngo. and hope-;, at wf II ;ih pa - - ion and d t.-a f, have brought our l.-i'-nds of old, ay, an. our eriTr.i, too, ijov.n into th: dust of rr.i '-ry. Th" world r.--N to'ial and political ff f,rn,rs nvn like Keren k v o rid MilukotT, U'.yd-Oforifo and I.bkrjf lit and S -h-i j -inri f i n and will rfrr thin for rr.any yars to r,rw, but we ft re pr'n" to think that (he rc'it reform-'T. reform-'T. (f Ihe f lit j r will not be unlike Mi ff'-al'T nf . .ropo:indd a i, i orn nur v. en ' h and gavtj if. 'tif -). rub' - ' ' I,o V t ) v n ! ji bor ;i x ti ,'!!'.' ' 'i liaf riM! run u-y und'T ' if," ' ' '.f 'i r,'a :i ' f - m i ' ' ;if v. -ll a i 1 1 n --I'T the .,- ; 1 i "V-te,,,, nd it. ran ''., u;d'T both. A f ' j i-r.'i ' i rr,;n- is certain to be even more disappointing j than any ' Morgan system ' that has j existed since the days, of the Pharoahs. A grea t reformer of the future will be, not the man who founds a co-operative .commonwealth, but the man who finds a cure fur the white plague or for any of those insidious diseases tljat sap our strength, mental and physical, and shut out God's sunlight from our souls. He will give us the liberty that the political reformer however great of mind and heart he may be cannot give. The reformer who can minister to a body diseased or to a mind diseased, dis-eased, or to a character diseased, will be as blessed as the reformer who sums up the all and all of life in some panacea for poverty or industrial unrest. |