CURRENT TOPICS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 72, 4 July 1910, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS

THE GLORIOUS FOURTH. j To-day is the glorious Fourth of July,' when Americans are so glad to he hide- i pendent that they kill several hundred ' people with joy lireworks, and generally cease hunting the dollar to capture the fleeting sensation. Any great national event in America ought to transpire on the Fourth of July, because the people are keyed up to the highest pitch of enthusiasm about "Old Glory." You could obtain an army on the Fourth of July to fight anything on earth. National sentiment is a fine thing, and national events are good for the people. The people are going to let Mr. Johnson try to kill Mr. Jeffries to-day, and they are going to try to kill Mr. Johnson afterwards if the police and the militia (who will not get a share of the picture proceeds) do not suppress the fight. Johnson is an emancipated negro. His forej fathers were slaves. The white folk of America do not forget this. They remember that negroes like Mr. Johnson I were one time bought for dollars, and with a whip made to pick cotton. The idea of a negro putting his hands on a white man an slavery days was unthougiht of. If it had happened tne "property" would go right out of the market. The fight between the negro Johnson and the white man Jeffries is a fight of American white men against Afro-Americans, and if Johnson beats Jeffries the negroes of the Southern States will want to know why they have to walk in the road! in a white man's town, to ride in a special car on the railroads, and to forget to take a street car if there are any white folk in it. Times were when the man who equalised himself with an Afro-American by putting the gloves on with him would have been hounded out of the State he fought in, hut times have changed. The people want to see Jeffries kill the negro because he is black, the succesor of slaves. Johnson wants to whip Jeffries 'because he will get much money. Jeffries goes to ,the fight, knowing that win or lose he will make a fortune, even if it is only in living pictures. White Americans do not want the better man to win, if the better man is Johnson. They don't want Johnson to live if he whips Jeffries. At the back of the white American's head is the fear of the increasing power of the black race—and the white American doesn',t like to think that any colored person is a better man than he u. So he has chosen Emancipation Day as a fitting date to send Mr. Johnson to the home of his fathers. At least that's where they hope he will go. ,

SAVAGES STILL. Nearly every right thinking man agrees that prize fighting is brutal and degrading, that it is very wrong for anybody to countenance it, and all the rest of it. But why is it that everybody takes such an absorbing interest in the matter? Why do the people of Taranaki, for instance, eagerly discuss a battle of fisticuffs between men in another country? Wliy do they want Jeffries to whip Johnson, or the black man to knock out the white man? Because, dear brother, whether you are doctor or lawyer, farmer or grocer, draper or laborer, you are only a savage veneered. Man loves the savage delights of conquest just as much in 1910 as man did in 149 8.C., or any other date. The modern man does not go round with a club looking for someone to smite, but he wouldn't mind having the opportunity of being a natural man once more, if there was half a chance. There are no subjects so fascinating to men as those dealing with physical endeavor, prowess in the field, or the mere use of brawn and muscle. A man rejoices in his strength if he has any, and he rejoices in the strength of other men—if he isn't apposed to them. America think? it worth while to send the measurements of two fighters across the world. Those measurements will be discussed in New Plymouth and HongKong, Vancouver and Liverpool, Capetown and Sydney, this morning with the greatest avidity by men in the bulk. Therefore, it is worth while sending the figures all over the earth. It is said that this will be the last great prize fight in America, and presumably the last appeal to the savage instincts of millions of men; but there is football left, and we shall stil be able to laugh when our friends get bucked off their horses, and rub our hands with glee when we read that some more Turks have been wiped out, and so on. Man does not materially alter, whether he lives in the reign of Herod or George V.

DRUNKARDS. The man to whom alcohol is no temptation in his strength, has no right to he angry with the man to whom it is a supreme temptation. Any person who has come in contact with the drunkard, knows that the drunkard hates himself for his lack of self-control. But as there are drunkards, the law must deal with them somehow. It generally deals with them by fining them. The absurdity of the fine as a "cure" for a weakness is so obvious that the point need not be elaborated. Having fined a man a number of times, the law prohibits the drunkard from drinking by issuing an order. The drunkard perforce becomes .sober, supposing the sellers of liquor obey the law. That they do obey the law in almost every case is unquestioned. But prohibited persons frequently have " friends "—misguided fools, who ought to go to gaol without the option of a fine. If the ordinary sane person wanted to do a kindness to a man with a broken leg, he probably would not break the other for him. The man who supplies a prohibited person with, alcohol is the personification of cold, calculated treachery. The problem of punishing and curing "drunks" is perennial in all civilised countries, and no one has ever found a cure. But there is one system of dealing with the drunk that seems to have some excellent points. Germany has its large proportion of alcoholic ■wrecks, who, as is usual with the specie-*, punish everybody with whom they ;i;-f' connected, as well as themselves/ TheGerman drunkard who does not support his wife and family, is looked upon as a menace. The State is sorry that he is diseased and incapable of looking* after himself. So it gathers him in and dotains him. He is made to work, and nil the money he earns is given to the people who would ordinarily be dependent on him. This system doesn't cure the disease, but it stays it while die man is in the house of detention. It has also the useful moral effect of suggesting that if he does not keep sober when he has been released he must go back again. He probably keeps sober for a longer period than either our "prohibited person " or the inmate of any colonial establishment for the "cure" of alcoholism.