But those in whose hands lie the
destinies of the young and of the beasts who serve and love us, of the
weak, the friendless, the sick and the insane, have not, alas! this
excuse for ignoring the black records of man's abuse of power!
The records of its abuse in the savage who loads women's slender
shoulders with his burdens, leaves his sick to the wayside jackal, and
knocks his aged father on the head when he is past work; the brutality
of slave-drivers, the iniquities of vice-maddened Eastern
despots;--such things those who never have to deal with them may afford
to forget.
But men who act for those who have no natural protectors, or have lost
the power of protecting themselves, who legislate for those who have no
voice in the making of laws, and for the brute creation, which we win to
our love and domesticate for our convenience; who apprentice pauper boys
and girls, who meddle with the matters of weak women, sick persons, and
young children, are bound to face a far sadder issue. That even in these
days, when human love again and again proves itself not only stronger
than death, but stronger than all the selfish hopes of life; when the
everyday manners of everyday men are concessions of courtesy to those
who have not the strength to claim it; when children and pet animals are
spoiled to grotesqueness; when the good deeds of priest and physician,
nurse and teacher, surpass all earthly record of them--man, as man, is
no more to be trusted with unchecked power than hitherto.
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