Daredevil Risks

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Oct 18, 1910

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 37, No. 41.

Daredevil Risks.—The sensitive soul reads with a feeling of horror even the head-lines of the recent automobile cup-race in the East where at almost every turn of the track some one was killed or injured. Four, we believe, were killed outright and a number of others greatly injured; yet the race went on. Daily the papers tell us of serious automobile accidents in various parts of the country, owing to fast, reckless riding largely. More or less of this is also seen among men who are essaying to rival the birds. Marvelous things have been done, and even more marvelous things probably will be done, and yet there are always those who are willing to take risks beyond what they know is safe and suffer the consequences. The following item is characteristic in many such events of these days. It refers to the flight that has been made over the Alps by a French aviator, George Chavez. "No sharper example of the irony of fate can be imagined than his. He had soared above the Simplon Pass, 8,000 feet in the air, and had swept past the forest of jagged and icy peaks which form the portals, had glided over the awful labyrinth of chasms which lie on the Italian side, and then was wrecked and almost killed when flying but a few feet over a level country and within fifty miles of his goal." Scarcely is one great trial over when one comes upon its heels, and there are always ready to follow the men who foolishly dare and die. If one were to take such risks as that for purely moral causes the mass of people would condemn him. To win some little trophy, to excel some one who has gone before, men freely risk life. Why should they not be even more willing to do it for principles that are eternal, and for prizes whose value is incalculable?