Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 240, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 October 1915 — RECLUSE IS A PHILOSOPHER [ARTICLE]

RECLUSE IS A PHILOSOPHER

Negro Found Living In Cave Near Santa Barbara, Cal., Tells Some Plain Truths. "There’s rich living in garbage," says Orrin Swift, negro recluse, who has just come into publicity through the lodgment of a complaint questioning his sanity, reports a dispatch from Santa Barbara, Cal. He has for 20 years lived in a little cave on the mountainside, between Rincon and Ventura. When the officers went out to investigate they found him curled up in a corner of the cave sleeping the morning away. The place was littered with tin cans. When aroused Swift greeted his visitors cordially and explained to them his mode'of life and the reason therefor. “Civilization,” he said, “is only another evidence of how slavery can be lifted up and made ppsslbly more re* fined outwardly. The man who works for his living is nothing more or less than a slave. He is a slave to the whim of his employer, who may discharge him just like that,” and the negro snapped his finger. “If a man has an income today he may not have one tomorrow. The consequence is that both the man who toils for an employer and the man who draws his income are slaves to worry, neither of them knowing the peace and happiness that comes with the quiet life. Men would live forever if it were not for worry. That’s the most subtle destroyer the human family is prey to, for it leads td all other ailments whose windup is death. “Here I am living contented. No one can demand rent or taxes, and I find my living in the garbage on the town dump, many*fine morsels being left in cans and otherwise thrown away. There’s rich living in garbage.” The man’s talk was rational, though strange, and his conduct was quiet. Therefore, the officers left him to his lonely life. “There is a whole lot of genuine truth in his philosophy,” said the sheriff. “Men die from worry and what comes in its train, and the race will die more rapidly as it advances in civilization, for the burden of taxation grows apace.”