p. 16 | Human Brutality

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · May 17, 1910

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 37, No. 19.

Human Brutality

In a recent brutal so-called boxing bout in San Francisco a young man of twenty was killed by the knock-out blow. He was called an estimable young man. His parents were at the ring side and his mother bet on his success. Among the other things we are told was that he offered prayer before he entered the ring.

Another big bruising mill is listed to come off the Fourth of July, in which millions of dollars will be expended. The ministers and some of the other people in the state are tremendously exercised over the matter, and demand that it shall be stopped. These exhibitions are indeed pitiable for Christian civilization in the twentieth century. There is no question as to that; but a San Francisco daily paper well remarks that our civilization is but a thin veneer after all, and the real brute is dominant in the man. We certainly would hold up both hands to have all such exhibitions stopped and stopped forever; but why should it be confined to what are technically called pugilistic circles, when the same thing is permitted in football? We can not see why the successful bruiser should be arrested and prosecuted any more than should the successful football player who slugs and bruises and kills some of his opponents. There are more killed every year in football than in pugilism. This one thing is true in pugilism, too: the men are trained for it, and everything is carried on in a fair and sportsmanlike way, but in football we are told that men are slugged and punched and injured and “done up,” especially if they are good players, to put them out of the game, and it is done too when the men are not expecting it and are not defending themselves from such treatment.

These things may all make for “manliness,” but it is the manliness of brutality. Thank God there is more of a man than the brute force which he is able to display. The whole man takes in mind and soul. There are many men who could not stand before one of these even light-weight pugilists for a moment, but who have great hearts and souls which are molding the world. Parents ought to look on the two pictures and choose as to which of these two outcomes they prefer for their children. They would not be at the ring side betting or cheering, but praying.