Monthly Archives: May 2020

Us vs. It—part IX, prayer and politics.

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Last Sunday was Ascension Sunday in our faith tradition. Our minister remarked that he had seen a joke circulating on Facebook that when Jesus ascended into Heaven, he became the first person to work from home.

President Trump, just before the holiday weekend, ordered churches to open “right now” for face-to-face worship. As he has done in the past, he claimed exclusive power to override local and state orders for worship-in-place limits. The president who has proclaimed that it’s up to states and their governors to fight the Coronavirus, with his administration only as a backup, seemed to think on the issue of opening churches that governors and states (and mayors and cities) have no business standing in his way when it comes to letting congregations, uh, congregate.

As is often the case with this president, he was claiming a power he does not have and the motive behind a statement, a bluster, a tweet, a fabrication, a rant—whatever—is a matter of what benefits him.

It isn’t all that hard to see who President Trump really tried to please with his sudden “order.” Politico reported his bolt-from-the-blue announcement Friday was the result of “a sudden shift in support…among religious conservatives is triggering alarm bells inside his reelection campaign.” A couple of reputable religious polling organizations show a “staggering decline in the president’s favorability among white evangelicals and white Catholics.” Both groups strongly supported Trump in 2016. The Public Religion Research Institute last month showed double-digit drops in favorability among mainline Protestants (down 18%), white Catholics (down 12%) and white evangelicals (down 11%).

Once again, it appears the president responded to his advisors who said, “You’ve got to do something!”

The PRRI cited above is run by Dr. Robert P. Jones, who has Baptist roots, a Master of Divinity degree from Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar and who once was an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Missouri State University in Springfield. His 2016 book, The End of White Christian America is a thoughtful study of cultural changes underway in our country, the fears of some that are motivating some political considerations and actions, and an analysis of how the white Christian culture that has dominated the course of this nation can maintain significance in the face of ongoing and inevitable cultural change.

The President last Friday didn’t answer any questions that inevitably would have been asked about his ongoing claim that he has absolute power over such things as this.

One indisputable thing he did say in his Friday announcement is, “In America, we need more prayer, not less.” He’s correct, of course, although he might not like many of the prayers that are being offered. Plus, prayers don’t have to be said inside a religious building to be heard. This observer has heard prayers on street corners. In fact, he and his wife were once stopped on a street in Philadelphia—near the cemetery where Benjamin Franklin is buried—but a great big fella who grabbed my right hand and her left and offered up a mighty prayer for our well-being. Scared the living bejeezus out of us for a second or two. But on reflection, it was kind of nice.

We know the President will be deeply disappointed and maybe angry that our church is ignoring his pronouncement. We don’t plan to gather in our sanctuary at First Christian in Jefferson City until June 7. We hope he doesn’t become upset that Governor Parson did not force us to gather there last Sunday.

It often has been observed that a church is not a building. When a pastor says, “Good morning, church,” the pastor is not talking to a structure but to a flock.

Someone, we tuned in too late to hear who it was on the radio Sunday morning, suggested the President probably hasn’t read the Bible very much, particularly the sixth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in which Jesus suggests (as we in these times might interpret it) that it is not necessary to gather in groups under a roof to pray. In fact, it seemed to suggest just the opposite:

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven…And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you..

Baptist minister Rod Kennedy, who is doing an interim ministry at the First Baptist Church in Ottawa, Kansas, responded to the President’s demand that churches open “right now” on his Facebook page:

President Trump,

On behalf of my Baptist congregation, I want to thank you for your concern for houses of worship. We respectfully decline your suggestion that we reopen. The Frist Amendment, religious freedom, separation of church and state,—all that constitutes our right to ignore you.

I’m not drinking bleach, taking suspected drugs, or buying your demagoguery. We will let you know when our church decides to reopen. After all, we are a free, independent Baptist congregation and government interference iirritates our Baptist gumption.

When churches do re-open we would be happy to see you in church every Sunday. It might help you find some divine wisdom.

If you want to help, wear a mask, stop being divisive, make sure voting will be easy in November, and stop mocking, threatening, and demeaning others. It’s not a religious practice.

Kennedy, who describes himself as a “Catholic Baptist,” retired after twelve years at the First Baptist Church of Dayton, Ohio. He has no trouble pointing out the differences he has with the more fundamentalist members of the diverse denomination. He posted a couple of longer additional messages to the President and the responses illustrate the wide differences among Baptists—and among those of other denominations who call themselves Christian. See https://baptistnews.com/article/self-described-catholic-baptist-leaves-ohio-church-embarks-on-writing-career/#.Xsrq8mhKiUk if you want to know more about him and if you’re a Facebooker, you can go to his page or if you want to hear what he sounds like in the pulpit, go to the First Baptist Church webpage in Ottawa, Kansas.

Last Sunday morning, we went to the presidential webpage to check on President Trump’s schedule for Sunday, May 24:

President Donald Trump has no public events on his schedule today and is expected to remain in the White House with the first family. With the ongoing coronavirus outbreak and current recovery efforts, the president is likely to meet with national leaders and public officials regarding the needs of the coming week.

Mmmmm-hmm. Churches are essential but not so essential that he would do what he urged millions of Americans, particularly his faithful followers (read that any way you would prefer) to do—go to church even “with the ongoing coronavirus outbreak and current recovery efforts.” Wonder why he didn’t tell Melania and Baron Sunday morning, “We’re going to church—right now!”  Instead he went out and he worshipped the putter and the driver.

Sometime when the man gets all worked up like this, we wish somebody would say, “Oh, go take a pill!” But—– hasn’t he already been doing that?

Us vs. It—part VIII, Laughter as medicine

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From time to time we’ll pass along observations from others that might provide some comfort, some encouragement, or even some black humor that can lift us a little bit. Today we’re going to focus on humor.

These are serious times, indeed, but the Seventeenth Chapter of the Old Testament book of Proverbs reminds us (verse 22): “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine; but a broken spirit drieth the bones.”

First, this observation: This virus deserves a theme song. We have reached back many decades for a famous Peggy Lee song that we have re-titled:

An Anthem for Social Distancing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqNggIve40E

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Former Missourinet reporter Drew Vogel, who now is a nursing home administrator in Ohio, passed along a comment by one of his in-laws before barber and beauty shops were allowed to open in many places: With all the beauty shops closed for the duration, in a month or so we’ll start seeing the REAL color of people’s hair.

It’s not too late for a lot of folks.

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A protestor recently had a sign saying, “Every disaster movie starts with government ignoring a scientist.”

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We saw a tweet the other day from someone called, “Sir Michael:”

Quarantine Diary:

Day 1—I have stocked up on enough non-perishable supplies to last me for months, maybe years, so that I can remain in isolation as long as it takes to see out this pandemic.

Day 1+45 minutes—I am in the supermarket because I want a Twix.

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Another tweet, this one from “JR:”

Day 2 without sports:

Found a lady sitting on my couch yesterday. Apparently she’s my wife. She seems nice.

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Atlantic Magazine recently had an article about why it’s okay to laugh at coronavirus jokes. You can find it at https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/04/humor-laughter-coronavirus-covid19/609184/

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Our dogs think we quit our jobs to spend more time with them. Our cats think we got fired for being the loser they always thought we were.

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The website Fatherly has “28 Coronavirus jokes to retrain your face how to smile.”

We’ll share three. If you think they are sufficiently funny, you can find the rest at https://www.fatherly.com/play/best-coronavirus-jokes/

  1. If there’s a baby boom nine months from now, what will happen in 2033? There will be a whole bunch of quaranteens.
  2. What’sthe difference between COVID-19 and Romeo and Juliet? One’s the coronavirus and the other is a Verona crisis.
  3. I’lltell you a coronavirus joke now, but you’ll have to wait two weeks to see if you got it.

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Email: 2020 is so weird that the Pentagon just confirmed UFOs exist and it’s barely news.

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A sign of the times: A high school classmate emailed me the other day, “Thirty years ago I was arrested for smoking weed while hanging out with friends. Yesterday I was arrested for hanging out with friends while smoking weed.”

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This is a bad time for introverts. They can’t wait for people to leave the house so they can be alone again.

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Another tweet: Pigeons probably think humans are extinct.

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Somebody told me the other day that newspapers can carry the virus. So I wash my newspaper each day in the kitchen sink while I sing two verses of “Happy Birthday.” Last Saturday’s paper should be dry enough tomorrow to read. If I can get the pages apart.

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Another tweet: This quarantine is really affecting the work force, especially the men. We’re losing $1 for every 79 cents that women are losing.

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I hope my barber shop reopens soon. I haven’t had a haircut since February. Hope the barber doesn’t charge by the pound.

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Some people post humorous comments, signs, or videos on the FACEBOOK pages or other social media pages. The Christian Science Monitor recently reported on a man who has a white board in his yard and he posts messages such as, “I ordered a chicken and an egg from Amazon. I’ll let you know.”

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And then there’s editorial cartoonist Gary Varvel of Creators.com, whose defiant cartoon surely will turn into a real product that a lot of us could wear.

In a few months, perhaps a new t-shirt will add “’20 CORONAVIRUS.”

And finally, for this entry, a comment from Max, another friend at the Y, who hopes the pandemic fades before warm weather brings out the ticks that carry Lyme Disease. If it doesn’t, he says, we’ll have Corona and Lyme.   Those of you more familiar with adult drinks than your obedient servant will appreciate the humor, I trust.

I used to say when something happened that would be memorable, if not historic, “That’s something to tell the grandchildren about.” Can’t do that now. The grandchildren are living it. So I’m changing the statement; “That’s something my grandchildren can tell their grandchildren.”

I wear a 2x, by the way.

 

Dr. Crane on the heart of the matter

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(Look, we all know it’s the brain not the heart that controls our emotions. But so what? Can you find anything romantic in a song that says, “If I give my brain to you…,” or “Brain letters in the sand…” or listen to someone pick out single keys on the piano that play “Brain and Soul, I’m so in love with you..”??????? Or do you think you could draw inspiration from a well known painting that should be entitled, “Christ Knocking at Brain’s Door?” Dr. Crane goes to the heart of the mater with—-)

THE HUMAN HEART

The human heart is a wide moor under a dull sky, with voices of invisible birds calling in the distance.

The human heart is a lonely lane in the evening, and two lovers are walking down it, whispering and lingering.

The human heart is a great green tree, and many strange birds come and sing it its branches; a few build nests, but most are far from lands north and south, and never come again.

The human heart is a deep still pool; in it are fishes of gold and silver, darting playfully, and slow-heaving slimy monsters, and tarnished treasure hoards, the infinite animalcular life; but when you look down at it you see but your own reflected face.

The human heart is an undiscovered country; men and women are forever perishing as they explore its wilds.

The human heart is an egg, and out of it are hatched this world and heaven and hell.

The human heart is a tangled wood wherein no man knows his way.

The human heart is a roaring forge where night and day the smiths are busy fashioning swords and silver cups, mitres and engine-wheels, the tools of labor, and the gauds of precedence.

The human heart is a garden, wherein grow weeds of memory and blooms of hope, and the snow falls at last and covers all.

The human heart is a meadow full of fireflies, a summer western sky of shimmering distant lightnings, a shore set round with flashing lighthouses, far-away voices calling that we cannot understand.

The human heart is a band playing in a park at a distance; we see the crowds listening, but we catch but fragments of the music now and again, and cannot make out the tune.

The human heart is a great city, teeming with myriad people, full of business and mighty doings, and we wander its crowded streets unutterably alone; we do not know what it is all about.

The human heart to youth is a fairy-land of adventure, to old age it is a sitting room where one knows his way in the dark

The human heart is a cup of love, where some find life and zest, and some drunkenness and death.

The human heart is the throne of God, the council-chamber of the devil, the dwelling of angels, the vile heath of witches’ Sabbaths, the nursery of sweet children, the blood-splattered scene of nameless tragedies.

Listen? You will hear mothers’ lullabies, madmen’s shrieks, love-croonings, cries of agonized terror, hymns of Christ, the roaring of lynch mobs, the kisses of lovers, the curses of pirates.

Bent close! You will smell the lily fragrance of love, the stench of lust, now odors as exquisite as the very spirit of violets, and now such nauseous repulsions as words cannot tell.

Nobilities, indecencies, heroic impulses, cowardly ravings, good and bad, white and black—the mystery of mysteries, the central island of nescience in a seas of science, the dark spot in the lighted room of knowledge, the unknown quantity, the X in the universe.

Us vs. It—part VII, Thoughts from a Quiet Street, Pandemic edition

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A lot more thinking happens on the quiet street when you can’t mingle with your usual social groups and when you have to stand in the middle of the street to talk to your neighbor. It is amazing how profound one can be if the only one you can talk to up close is yourself.

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We’ve been keeping a journal of our thoughts about the pandemic year since March 28. No idea when we’ll stop because there’s no idea when the virus will stop. It’s not too late for you to start one, too. And you should. The State Historical Society has suggested it as a worthwhile time-filler for you and as a valuable historical resource in the future for those who want to see what life was like during this event. The society has some journals from the Spanish Influenza years and they give us some insight behind the newspaper headlines we have in our microfilmed newspaper files (about 60-million pages worth). Personally, a lot of mental wandering goes on as we reflect on each day’s events. Hopes and fears. Anger and frustration. Funny occurrences. Next-door sorrow. The disappearance of our children’s inheritances. Struggles to pay the rent, the mortgage, and the grocery and pharmacy bills. The sound of birds as we take our daily walks. The real story of this era will be found in the daily journals we keep and put into historical societies and other archives. And what we are experiencing can be instructive decades from now (we hope) when another pandemic sweeps the world.

As long as you are cooped up, write about it. It can be therapeutic.

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Today, tomorrow, and Friday are all that’s left of this legislative session, a historic one because of the circumstances facing it. The legislative session of 1820 when lawmakers created state government, the sessions leading up to the Civil War and the turbulent governance years during the war, and the longest session in history after adoption of the 1945 Constitution might be considered equally unique. The 1945 session that started on January 3 lasted 240 days for the House, which adjourned on December 12, 1946, about three weeks before the 1947 session began. The Senate met for 251 days and adjourned on November 25. The legislature met every other year back then but the 1945 session ran through ‘46 because the legislature had to change so many laws to make them conform to the new Constitution.

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This session will be remembered because of the virus that extended spring break, caused a re-write of the state budget, and rewrote the rules for floor debate, not to mention the images of masked people in committee hearings and on the chamber floors. Depending on how irrational the omnibus bills that have materialized in the closing weeks because so many different issues were combined in one bill because of lack of time for regular processes, we might see an unusual number of vetoes or court cases challenging the legality of the bills passed.

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This business of quarantining might not seem as difficult to retired people as those with jobs. Retired people have been working from home for years.

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We do wish our state and national leaders would don masks when they go out in crowds or to check on how well businesses are reopening. This is not a time for, “Do as I say, not as I do.” Please, folks, be the example of what you promote.

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We suppose a lot of you have binge-watched a lot of television in the last several weeks. Your vigilant observer and his faithful companion are going to have to make a list of all the shows we’ve been binge-watching, just to keep track of which ones we’ve exhausted, which ones we’ve tried and didn’t think merited continuing, and which ones are still active. The other night we accidentally watched a third episode of something we gave up on after two shows several weeks ago. If we don’t keep a list we’re probably going to waste another 46 minutes on the fourth episode sometime in the future.

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Nancy has the sewing machine humming today making masks. She made a mask for informal occasions last week and she’s working on a “tuxedo” mask for me now that I can wear for a formal occasion or when I want to look as dignified as I can look with hair that hasn’t been this long since the high school senior play when I was a cousin in “Hillbilly Wedding.” You probably haven’t heard of it. For good reason.

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Cole County kicks off its bicentennial year with an event at Marion on June 5th. Maybe I can wear my formal mask for that. Marion was the first county seat of Cole County, back before Moniteau County was split away from us. Our first courthouse and county jail were built on Howard’s Bluff, just down Highway 179 from the Marion Access to the Missouri River. For most of the county’s history, we’ve been told it was named for Stephen Cole, “pioneer settler and Indian fighter.” But that’s about all we’ve known about him. We’ve spent the last couple of months or more trying to learn more about him. And we’ve come up with some surprising stuff. If you want to know about it, come out to Marion on June 5th. We’re going to be joined by some Cole ancestors.

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As far as we have been able to determine, Stephen Cole was never in Cole County unless he stopped here while canoeing back and forth from Boonville to St. Charles.

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Something we’ve noticed when we go on our almost-daily two mile walks through the neighborhood. Men drivers who go past us are more likely to wave than the women. And all drivers have a tendency to swerve into the other lane of the street even though we’re hugging the curb when they go by.   We always walk toward oncoming traffic, which we were taught long ago is the proper way to do it.

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A few nights ago we were on YouTube and came across Johnny Carson’s 17th anniversary Tonight Show. It occurred to us that we enjoyed Carson because he was funny. Today’s late-night hosts seem to have lost that spirit. Of course, Johnny Carson didn’t have Donald Trump to kick around.

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Therefore, we’re thinking of using this space next week for some Coronavirus humor.

Dr. Crane on growing old but still growing

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(Just because you have lived through a lot doesn’t mean you are old. Don’t say, “Why, in my day…,” because today is your day, too. Doctor Frank Crane never caught—–)

THE OLD-AGE DISEASE

Boston, said the funny man, is not a locality; Boston is a state of mind. To those who have experienced Boston this is a truth that needs not be proved.

With equal accuracy it may be said that Old Age is not a number of years, it is a state of mind.

It has been observed that a woman is as old as she looks, and a man is as old as he feels; as a matter of fact, both are as old as they think.

There is no need of anybody growing old. For age is entirely a disease of the soul, a condition of ill health, which with reasonable caution may be avoided. It is no more necessary than measles, which the world once thought every one ought to have; now we know better.

The human being begins existence as a vigorous animal, whose body naturally weakens with time and finally perishes. The body runs its course, “ripes and ripes, and rots and rots,” like an apple, or any other organized growth of matter. Hence of course there is a decrepitude of one’s frame.

But this is not at all true of the mind. All things in nature, from mushrooms to oaks, from insects to elephants, and even mountains and suns and systems, have their periods of growth, maturity, and decay. The mind, however, has no such law. It is the “one exception” as Mark Hopkins called it.

And the mind is the real man. And the mind can be as young at ninety as it is at twenty-one.

In asking ourselves what is it that makes youthfulness, we discover the answer to be that it consists in three things.

Work, Growth, and Faith. So long as life functions in these three ways it is young. When any or more of these elements fall off, we are old.

By work is meant an active participation in the interests of human kind. Notice how the boy cannot be idle, he wants to be at something, he burns to play the game.

Idleness or aloofness is the essence of growing old. The business man who “retires” and devotes himself to doing nothing is committing suicide.

John Bigelow recently died at the age of ninety-five, and up to the last retained his interest in affairs.

It is work that keeps men young, more than play. No man should give up selling dry-goods if that is his life business, unless he has found some other business equally congenial and interesting.

I know a woman of eighty, mother of eleven grown children, who is as young as any of them, for she declines to be shelved.

The way to stay young is to keep in that game.

Secondly, growth. That is to say, mind-growth. Let the mind be always learning, alert for new truth, eager for new accomplishments.

It is when one’s intellect closes, ceases to learn, and becomes an onlooker that old age sets in. How many old people impress you as beyond teachableness? They have settled everything, religion, politics, philosophy.

You can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but because he will not learn new tricks is exactly why the dog is old.

It is when one takes up the study of Greek at seventy or at eighty begins to investigate psychology, that his mind breathes Spring air.

As long as a mind is teachable, open and inquiring, it is young.

There ought to be special schools for people of sixty and over. Who goes to school keeps young.

Lastly, faith, not intellectual assent to any statement (which operation is no more to do with faith than sole-leather), but a general belief in man and things; confidence; settled, abiding courage and cheer.

Faith in one’s self, in one’s destiny, in mankind, in the universe and in Him who manages it, this is youth’s peculiar liquor.

Doubt is the very juice of senility. Cynicism, pessimism, and despair are the dust that blows from a dried-up soul.

And faith is not something over which you have no control, it is a cultivable thing, it is a habit.

So long as one keeps at work, continues to learn, and has faith he is young.

Whoever does not work, does not learn, and has no faith is old even at thirty. Old age is a state of mind.

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(John Bigelow was an author and diplomat, one of the founders of the Republican Party, was described by the New York Times on his 94th birthday as “a marvel of good health and strength for a man nearly a century old. He still takes the liveliest interest in affairs, both in America and abroad, and no one is much better posted than he on existing conditions the world over.” He died three weeks later, December 19, 1911. Actually he was 94, not 95.)

 

Us vs It—Part VI, This better work

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This is the third day that Missouri is open for business and our lives haven’t changed here on our quiet street. The people at our house haven’t been tested yet and we don’t know anyone who has been. Our two hospitals offer testing. Maybe we’ll go see one of them soon. Columbia has five locations. Osage Beach has one. We mention those places because a lot of Jefferson City people work in Columbia, or will when the University reopens. And a lot of Columbia people work in Jefferson City now that state government is getting back to the new abnormal. A lot of these folks never quit working, of course. They just haven’t been in their offices. But we’ll be watching case numbers in Boone and Cole Counties, in particular, because of the numbers of people who pass each other going in opposite directions twice every day on Highway 63. And we’ll be watching case numbers in Camden County and Osage Beach because the reopening means tourism season has begun.

Governor Parson, the state health director, and various other state and private entities have assured us in the daily briefings that Missouri’s most critical numbers have been declining for the last two weeks, one of the main measurements needed to reopen. We’ve been assured the state is ready to quickly respond to hot spots such as meat packing plants in California and St. Joseph (St. Joseph had only one testing station when we checked the list last Sunday and California has none) and Marshall (which has one).

We have welcomed the Governor’s daily briefings. They have been examples of the kinds of Coronavirus briefings adults should conduct and we appreciate the recent change that allows reporters to be present instead of submitting questions. That’s important because answers often lead to other questions and the old system didn’t provide that opportunity very well.

We understand the growing pressure on states to reopen for business but the lack of a vaccine and the admission that the virus has not and will not go away leaves us nervous. The YMCA reopened on Monday with a lot of precautionary policies put into place to keep us safe. We haven’t resumed our three-times-a-week morning workouts yet although we miss our friends a great deal. We’ll go back soon, just not right now.

Our church isn’t going to go back to in-person worship services until the first Sunday in June. I don’t know that we’ll go to a restaurant or to a movie theatre anytime soon. We both plan to wear our masks for awhile any time we go someplace where a lot of people are visiting or shopping.

We are going to tiptoe into the world, not dash into it.

We want things to be okay. We want to be able to be with friends. We want our working friends to get their jobs back.

Your faithful observer has kept a journal since March 28th and it is unlikely that journal will stop anytime soon. Our wish is that there be little to add to it but we’re keeping it going into autumn, into the next flu season and, if the scientists are correct, into the second wave of this virus.

To be candid, we suspect reopening the state and the nation is as much a political decision as it is anything else. But reopening has to occur, or had to occur, sooner or later and most of the people in positions to decide when reopening is appropriate and safe (enough) recognize the responsibility they are assuming by giving the go-ahead. It seems to us from having watched the daily briefings from our capitol that the reopening order has not been hastily or easily given.

We do hope there are thresholds in place that will determine when stay-at-home orders will be put back in place.

If you’ve read these entries this year you know we spent a lot of time looking at what happened with the last great pandemic, the Spanish Flu of 1918-19, and while our abilities to fight a pandemic are better than they were, the shortcomings in response that we have seen leave us nervous.

We don’t think our governor would unlock the doors if he didn’t think it was safe to go out and responsibly conduct ourselves and our business.

But this is bad stuff and more Americans died from it in April than died in the entire Vietnam War and it is still on the loose.

This reopening better work.

 

Dr. Crane on: The impossible

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(There are people who do not believe good or great things are unattainable, even in the face of great opposing power or circumstance. Where would we be as a society or a nation or an economy if there only such people? Dr. Crane has the same questions. And some answers. Although his list of accomplished impossibilities is a century old, our lifetime’s experiences validate what he wrote.)

IT CAN’T BE DONE

If you’re looking about for something to do, something big, something that will bring you fame and money, find something that can’t be done, and do it.

Whoever is at work that can be done is not indispensable. If he quits, seven others are in line to take his job.

But the man who can do what can’t be done is not to be dispensed with. The business cannot get along without him.

Advertise for applicants for a job in your store…a job any industrious person can hold, and next morning the street will be black with the crowd of seekers.

Advertise for a man who will tell you in a day how to increase your net profits or decrease your expenses ten percent, and all you will need at your door is a policeman to handle the cranks.

Particularly in the higher realm of endeavor, in the domain of thought and of morals, it is the impossible that is essential, dominant, needed.

Conscience always points to what is beyond our capacity.

Reason invariably demonstrates that what should be done is the impractical.

The world progresses only as mankind does what can’t be done.

The eight-hour day, says Mr. Forbes, was socialistic, anarchistic, and absurd when first advocated. Nothing could be more impossible. Still, it lay on the conscience of the humane employer as well as upon the desire of the worker; and it was realized, and without any tremendous upheaval of the industries concerned.

It was once said that seven-day work could not be done away with in the steel industry. The nature of the business demanded continuous labor. Give steel workers a Sabbath rest? It can’t be done. Yet it was done…

Against every demand of humanity it has been objected, “It can’t be done.”

You can’t treat prisoners like human beings, they said, and for centuries the vile birds of horror and cruelty befouled every penitentiary. Today militant reformers are doing the impossible, and the cursed ramparts of humanity are crumbling.

Men could not spread religion without quarrelings, torture, force. But is being done.

Plagues could not be prevented, the ignorant common people could not be educated, little children could not be spared from stunting labor, sweatshops could not be abolished, corporal punishment and trial by torture could not be brought to pass, slavery, dueling, and gladiatorial games could not be abated. At some time or another practical men held all these things impossible.

And now they sagely tell us that war cannot be evaded; nations must have war; to expect to abolish war is ideal, fanatical, theoretical, impossible.

Very well. If it’s impossible, let’s do it.