Editorial June 17, 1911 Issue

SERVICE AND SATISFACTION

John B. Willis

Whatever the field of human interest, in the last analysis that which begets envy and jealousy, strife and division, with all their attendant ills, is a false estimate of values, the failure to see that real achievement and real merit are determined not by the specific work one has performed, but by the spirit and efficiency with which he has performed it. To be considerate for always doing the part that has fallen to us, in an ideal way, is to deserve and ultimately receive that recognition for serviceability and worth which duly settles all questions as to our place and reward.

All this is so obvious as to be beyond dispute, and yet it is true that sensitiveness to so trivial a thing, perchance, as a question of rank may not only defeat a great army but imperil a great cause. The seductions of selfish interests, as they are conventionally catalogued, are very subtle, and they can be escaped from only as one finds his satisfying portion in conscious devotion to a service which yields its own reward.

In the presence of some great disaster, perchance, which has imperiled the lives of many operatives, it is not an uncommon thing for a large body of men to realize such an identification with the plan for rescue as immediately eliminates all consideration for self-interest whatever. Without hesitation or reserve they will offer to render any service which may be assigned them, however difficult or mean it may be to human sense, and that even though it involve the hazard of their own lives, in the interest of the valiant undertaking. In such a moment the spirit of an ideal brotherhood is disclosed, and men rise spontaneously not only above all pettiness, but above all fear, in their willingness to assume risks in order to save human life. Not long ago a disaster in a French mine near the German boundary presented an occasion for the immediate forgetting of all past feuds, all racial antagonism, and the near-by German miners rose to it and faced danger for their brother workmen in a way which thrilled the heart of the world and instantly begat a new confidence in the inherent manliness and worth of men.

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