The Photo-Play Journal (May 1916-Apr 1917)

THE PHOTO-PLAY JOURNAL FOR JUNE, 1916. PAGE 5 Civilization's BERNA had lived her sixteen years in the hills and wild parts of Russia. She knew nothing of cities, books, nor of churches and courts. Her mind only heid the thought that she should live, be happy, and let others do the same, until the time came for her to die, as her father, Samuel Saranoff, had — surrounded by kind friends and loving relatives. In Berna's mind dwelt the conviction that all was arranged for her and every one. That she had but to do as she was taught as well as she could, and life would prove no problem at all. "Why should it?'' she reasoned innocently. "My friends, the birds and the cattle and the flowers — they are here, they are gone ! Nothing ever disturbs them, and when they are gone, come others. It is the same with me. My father and mother are gone. I am here. When I am gone others will be here.-' But Berna knew nothing of "civilization," that which inspires the white man to travel across the seas to tell the yellow man that he is worshipping the wrong God, which inspires the yellow man to torture his yellower neighbor until the latter admits that his is the wrong idol. The poor little orphaned girl knew nothing of the miles of dead men and women rotting in her beloved earth, sacrificed by their fellows who were intent upon proving that a square of cloth composed of red and blue stripes was of more importance than one of blue and white. When one of her pets was hurt and bled, Berna grieved long and nursed the wounded one carefully, little knowing or thinking it possible that hundreds of thousands of girls like herself had been made lonely and unhappy by men who shed their husband's and brother's blood at the behest of a strange man who was called "king," and who brought it about in order to prove an imaginary line from an imaginary post, here to there, caused all living on the oneside to be in duty bound opposed to those living on the other side. In all, Berna was happy and uncivilized, beautiful and healthy. She read no books, nor wrote any. She read nature perhaps more truly than the greatest scientists, and when she longed for self-expression she sang or laughed. But shortly after her father's death the hand of Fate began to move close to her. Her old Uncle Peter came from the city, and after settling some apparently weighty matters with the few neighbors, took Berna. back to Kiev with him. In his little home on a back street, with her Aunt Rachel, the "little barbarian," as old Peter jokingly named her. spent the days indoors at domestic duties, to which she was but part stranger, and her evenings learning strange things. "It is not right that you should grow up a savage," said the two. 'Civilization is for us all. It will do much for you, little one." And of an evening old Peter sought to educate her and make her understand the ways of modern mankind. They were Jews. In Russia it is not good always to be of that faith, though Berna knew it not. The charm of the church bells in the city had gripped her rustic soul from the beginning. Night after night as she waited in her little cot for sleep to come, and studied the new things she had seen and heard that day, the chiming bells of the churches filled her with an ecstacy she had never known in the mountains. So she thought as old Peter said : "The bells are the symbols of civilization. Of man's progress, of the onward march of humanity. What the bells symbolize is good. Always think of them as standing for your civilization. It is good for you to be, as is the great world about us — CIVILIZED." And the little child of nature was lulled to slumber and awakened daily by the chiming bells of the city churches. She idealized the "Civilization" of which her uncle so often spoke, and as it was doubtless an affinity to her beloved bells, she vaguely wished she could be civilization's child instead of Nature's. In one of America's largest cities, famed for its super-civilization, lived Ellen McManus, beautiful, young and educated. She had never heard of Berna Saranoff, nor of Kiev, nor of old Peter. Still Fate's other hand touched her at the age of sixteen and knotted the thread of her future firmly to that of Berna's. Ellen knew nothing of her mother, but her father she had studied well. She knew him as a great man among men. He had power and money — she had only to wish for a thing in his presence and it was hers. That he loved her she knew. That he loved no one else, she suspected. Starting out as a police court lawyer, McManus had eagerly fought for preference at the political trough, and through sheer brutality and lack of all fine instincts he had shouldered every other away until he had his fill. Nearing the top of the political ladder, he began to indulge in the grosser passions to which he had long wished to cater, but had been too busy. Strong with the corrupt organization which held the city in its merciless grip, McManus exacted toll now from those who aspired as he had in the years gone by. Forcing tribute from the sweatshops and the brothels with his left, he gave freely to To her uncle in America came Berna and was made welcome after a fashion,