Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers | Page 4

the editorial
columns of the various Hearst newspapers throughout the country.
These articles may have some interest for the student of modern
happenings, because of the fact that the newspapers publishing them
have an aggregate daily circulation of two millions of copies, and are
read each day by no fewer than five millions of men and women. Such
wide circulation of identical opinions on current events, in different
parts of the country, is a new feature of our national life. The character
of such writings, and their probable influence upon the public mind,
whatever their lack of intrinsic merit, may be of sufficient importance
to justify the publication of this collection of ephemeral writings.
WHY ARE ALL MEN GAMBLERS?
The annual report of the gambling house at Monte Carlo shows a profit
of about $5,000,000.
A large collection of human beings travel from all parts of the world to
Monte Carlo for the sake of giving $5,000,000 to the gambling concern
there.
Wherever you look on earth to-day or in the past you find human
beings gambling, and you will find the gambling instinct stronger than
any other--stronger than the love of drink, infinitely stronger than the
love of normal, honest gain.
* * *
Christopher Columbus's sailors gambled on the way over, and the
Indians on this side were gambling while waiting to be discovered.
In an office overlooking Trinity graveyard, in New York City, an old
man, past eighty, with a fortune of at least $50,000,000, gambles every
day with all the excitement of youth. The fluctuations in his game bring
to his sallow cheeks the color that no other human emotion could bring
there.
On his way home this old man passes crowds of children in the streets
and looks down, concerned and sorrowful, to find that they, too, are
gambling.
They are matching pennies or shaking dice.
* * *

Clergymen are startled and amazed to find that women are gambling
heavily.
They have gambled heavily ever since civilization has progressed far
enough to give them large sums to gamble with.
Marie Antoinette staked thousands of louis at a time at Versailles.
She was so wrapped up in gambling she could not see that her neck was
in danger.
When the lava came down from Vesuvius it buried Pompeiians who
were gambling.
The men who dig up the old monuments in Africa find gambling
instruments crumbling away side by side with appliances for taking
human life.
* * *
Nowhere in the lower forms of animal life, so far as we know, is there
the slightest indication of the gambling instinct.
The monkey, the elephant, love whiskey, and easily become drunkards.
The passion for alcohol seems innate in animal life; even the wise ant
can be readily induced to disgrace himself if alcohol is put near him.
For all the human weaknesses and mainsprings--ambition, affection,
vanity, drunkenness, ferocity, greediness, cunning--we can find
beginnings among the lower animals.
But man appears to have evolved from within himself the gambling
instinct for his own especial damnation.
Where did the instinct come from? Why was it planted in us?
Like every other instinct with which intelligent nature endows us, it
must have its good purpose, and it must not be judged merely in the
corrupted form in which we study it at Monte Carlo or in Wall Street.
Perhaps the spirit of gambling is really only an atrophied, perverted
form of the spirit of adventure.
Columbus staked his life and gambled, when he started across the
water.
The leaders of the American Revolution expressly staked their lives,
their fortunes and their "sacred honor" in signing the Declaration of
Independence. They were noble gamblers, working for the welfare of
their fellows.
Perhaps gambling is only a perverted form of intelligent ambition--we
are all natural gamblers because we have within us the quality which

makes us willing to risk our own comfort, security and present
happiness for a result that seems better worth while.
The universality of the gambling instinct in human beings is certainly
worthy of our study.

NO MAN UNDERSTANDS IRON HOW CAN WE HOPE TO
UNDERSTAND GOD?
Is there laughter in heaven--or can nothing move the eternal heavenly
calm?
If mirth exists among the perpetually blissful, how must the angels
laugh when in idle moments they listen to our speculations concerning
the Divinity? They peer down at us as we look at ants dragging home a
fragment of dead caterpillar. They hear us say things like this:
If God exists, why does He not reveal himself to ME?
How could God exist before He created the world? Force cannot exist
or demonstrate its existence without matter. How could a creator exist
except with creation around him?
Where did He live before He made heaven?
If He is all-powerful, could