Cleveland High School - Beacon Yearbook (St Louis, MO)

Page 28 text:

if 5 , 1? vv fzffffgmqfk aigf, assi 'ww gifgm-gf.-EmgR,fs5gv . ff' . ,, iaazgft' ia rv. I E 1, ft' W4 cg f C-R . - H il X if uw. Ef fie A 3 'mi I - 4 AA' lg f--n' X -3 l abil. , M. .--- s.- A , , .fm Well-known to every American citizen are some of the generous donations of great financiers. Whether in the advancement of science, art, music, or in the betterment of social conditions, whatever the result, the purpose is the same. There are some people who follow the slogan Every man for him- self, but they are few in number when compared with those who are trying to help others. At the Hague stands the beautiful Peace Palace, erected at a cost of more than Sl,500,000. The desire of Andrew Carnegie for international peace and the abolition of war led him to build this vast monument to Peace. The Carnegie Hero Funds are well-known to the general public. They offer a reward for heroic efforts made to save human lives. The success of the American fund caused Mr. Carnegie to establish similar funds in more than ten other countries, and these are not his only donations. Gifts of many valuable art objects were made by Pierpont Morgan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, of which he was president. He founded and endowed the New York Lying-ln Hospital and helped in a financial way the New York Public Library and various other organizations. John D. Rockefeller and Henry Ford are both well-known as men ready to help others. Their charitable efforts helped in a large way to spread con- tentment among their fellowmen. The fact that such prominent business men spend their time and money in eleemosynary pursuits is ample proof that even in this twentieth-century business world of ours there is room for that widely-spread principle-the Brotherhood of Man. THE WORKERS OF THE WORLD GRACE g5flENNAN June, '28 OT the warriors, not the heroes, not even the philosophers, that fgmiig - , , each preceding age boats of, made this world so pleasant a Ei place in which to live. It was the workers of this world, who gfi! in helping their fellow man in ways great or small, helped man learn the lesson of brotherhood. iff w' F'-'H Five hundred years before the birth of Christ, Confucius, one of these workers and one of the greatest of Chinese teachers, said to his pupils, What that ye would not that others should do unto you, do ye not unto them. These words define one of the greatest ideals that Confucius tried to place before his people: the ideal of brotherly love and of the value of a life spent in doing little acts of kindness for others. But Confucius was only a man, and more than a man was needed to help put the doctrine of brotherly love into practice. Five hundred years later the Great Worker came to this earth. Twenty-four

Page 27 text:

N 545'-. , iq r'4 aw V, Ml 129.31 'Il' fix ' W ,v ,V f ' I av ll' Hr ' A mis .u J 5 --f ia X. t ,7 ra x ,. Y, . -- ,Y Y, A ,,,, ,Y Q .rg- You could send ten million boys and girls through college at a cost of one thousand dollars each, or build one thousand schoolhouses, costing one million dollars each, in every one of the forty-eight states. Before the World War a well known army engineer estimated that an expenditure of seventy-five per cent of the Federal Revenue would cover the cost of paving every unpaved country road in the United States. ln com- parison, the United States in l920, two years after the end of the war, was expending ninety-three per cent of the Federal Revenue on wars, both old and new. The monetary cost of war may seem enormous, but compared to the cost of human life it is insignificant. From the United States one hundred and fifty thousand Americans sacrificed their lives in their country's service, most of them in the flower of youth. After a war the physically unfit, the aged, and the mentally unbalanced are left to carry on. Thus war tends to retard human progress. One hundred and fifty thousand men, the most intelligent and physically fit, stand at the edge of a yawning abyss. Death awaits them. Slowly, inex- orably, the relentless tide of war pushes them over, one by one. When Nations eventually realize that nothing is really gained by engaging in war, the millenium of International Brotherhood shall be reached. TWENTIETH-CENTURY ALTRUISM LUCILLE CRTITGIER, 'za HERE has come to us through the ages this idea: lt is better to give than to receive. Whether or not it is diligently carried EK' out does not matter. The idea persists, as all good things do, and wherever one goes there is sure to be someone who is trying to help his fellowmen. With our world courts and good-will ambassadors the subject of war is becoming rather obsolete, and more than ever the nations are establishing friendly relations with each other. Several centuries ago war was quite the fashion and peace was considered as rather a hopeless state of lethargy. just as today war is thought of with dread, even so was peace avoided then. But civilization has advanced another step and with it has advanced the Brotherhood of Man. Throughout the world there are scattered monuments that prove the pres- ence of this brotherly love. Not impressive masses of cold stone with an inscription in bronze, but monuments that are filled with pulsing life-colleges, libraries, organizations for welfare work, and all sorts of charitable aidsg these stand out in our twentieth-century world as living testimonies of good- fellowship. Twenty -three

Page 29 text:

on : g f-if f ww ww- I n 27 , .smgyh aff, rx 4. in W . as ' u,. ,.4'v':2': .. ,, .X . B, 9 1, H M -1 ii I , 4, A I 41, .JV . In , , - . . 1 4 A I1 gt g- ,-fi Q ,: X. n cf s P lf-'i f rr' ' E- L Christ in plain and simple language laid down His rule of life and brother- hood: Love thy neighbor as thyself. I-low simple a rule it seems when read but how hard a one to keep. Man had not yet reached the stage where he was able to understand fully so superb a doctrine. It was necessary for other workers to develop with the ages to help a blind world see the light. For eleven centuries brotherly love was hidden in the darkness of hatred and strife. ln the twelfth century, however, a glimmer of light penetrated this darkness, for St. Francis of Assissi, the brother of all men, had joined the ranks of the workers. Under the leadership of St. Francis, there sprang up an organization of men, who thought not of their own comfort and joys, but whose sole purpose in life was to give comfort to the weak and despised. Love and the brotherhood of man, Love and the fellowship of God, were the torches they bore through the World. A Many years passed between that time and ours, but each age had its workers who were forever striving to help man learn to live in peace with his fellowman. During the Middle Ages, such men as Martin Luther and Savonarola devoted their lives to the cause of humanity. ln the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Galileo and Newton in the field of science, and Milton, Wordsworth, and Burns in the field of literature, strove to better their race. ln our own great country, during the last century, we have an example of what lack of the spirit of brotherhood can do: the Civil Warg brother fighting against brother, and for what reason? Because man could not hold his brother man in slavery without demoralizing himself and his country. To Abraham Lincoln, however, every man was a brother, regardless of color, race, or creed. The beauty of his character, the broadness of his mind, and the high-souled purpose of his life made of him the man for the ages. He took from his nation the shame of slavery and gave her in its stead the gift of four million free men, who were to help the white race learn more fully the lesson of brotherhood. But a white man alone could not lift the negro from the depths of a slave to the heights of a man. It took a negro himself to accomplish this task. Booker T. Washington, born a slave, did more to bring about a feeling of friendliness and brotherhood between the white race and his race than did any other man. Perhaps in this modern day of ours We would be prone to lose sight of the progress which man is making toward universal brotherhood. Nor do we often stop to think of the men who are making this progress possiblep in this very day and age, however, there are men who have devoted all their efforts to the purpose of making the lives of their fellowmen more beautiful. From among these workers Thomas A. Edison may be chosen as one of the greatest. All his life has been spent in perfecting, and putting into operation the idle day dreams of other men. For his less fortunate brothers Twenty-five