The Midland Journal

HUMAN BROTHERHOOD.

When Disaster Came All Were Kin and Equality Reigned.

Friends who went through the horrors of the San Francisco earthquake in 1906 and kept their spiritual senses alert tell me that its most poignant experience was not one of horror or of pity, but of the almost miraculous attainment of human brotherhood.

"Just after the disaster, when rich and poor waited in line together for their allowance of bread and milk, I saw," says a friend, "a rich woman from the St. Francis hotel lying asleep on a doorstep with her head on a muff. A long sable coat was thrown over her and under one corner of it a young Japanese boy, a perfect stranger to her, was curled up asleep. * *

"Everybody was everybody's friend, and, though we were all dog tired, there was not a word of complaint or ill nature. To bivouac together in the park and care for each other's babies around fires of driftwood gathered on the beach transformed men and women into defenseless children of the earth, revealed each to each by their innate lovableness.

"Common danger and mutual helpfulness, common misfortune, common work, common confrontation with the elemental, brought a swift achievement of almost ideal brotherhood. A crushing blow made all the world for a time kin."-Atlantic Monthly.