Neither do we lay blame to the policeman who said, "ter hell wid you!" to our waif, nor to the authorities above him, nor to the people who choose the officers to wrestle with lawlessness. Christ would have said of the policeman and the people, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." But we lay all blame to the conditions that must exist wherever there is lack of Perfect Social Quarantine.
But let us proceed with our task of turning searchlights on the inconsistencies that are the result of this social astigmatism, in hope that they may be the means of clearing the vision of individual duty and responsibility and of effecting a cure.
The American people entered upon the Spanish war in the face of an estimated cost of a million of dollars a day until the last Spaniard had laid down his arms in recognition of the principle of universal freedom from cruelty or neglect, and of the duty of the strong to protect the weak within whatever family, municipal or national inclosure they may be found. One million of dollars is one and one-third cents for each citizen of the United States. If collected by equal per capita assessment it would not be much of a hardship to any, even if it were all wasted in burned coal and in exploded ammunition, but, on the contrary, much of the money went immediately back to the people, giving employment to those who would otherwise be unemployed and stimulating trade and industry.
The loss of life that is liable to occur in war is not so great as is sacrificed to such worrying controversies as that between gold and silver or that between free trade and a protective tariff. The excitement of speculation and the fever of politics are much more deadly than war, while a season of extended national business depression is more disastrous to life and more destructive of happiness than any armed controversy that has ever occurred in the annals of warfare.
None of these causes, however, is so murderous as the infanticide resulting from neglect of irresponsible childhood.
In the hands of well matched contestants, as seemed to be the case in the beginning of the Spanish war, war may be a terribly destructive thing, as it has proven to be for Spain, and it was this possibility that was faced by the United States when she threw down the gauntlet for suffering Cuba.
THE INDICTMENT.
In the face of this expression of virtue stands the fact that childhood has no assured protection within the boundaries of the United States between the time of birth and, say, six or seven years of age, when infants become eligible for admission to the public schools. There are many who are the victims of haphazard parentage with neither guardianship nor court of appeal for protection.