The World Conference of Animals
Man is the noblest of all animals , the final product of untold ages of progressive evolution ; but, he is not consciously striving to live up to his heritage. The beasts held a World Conference, to confabulate on the authenticity of man’s claim to be the acme of creation and the monarch of all that walls the earth . The lion presided over the deliberations.
The tiger questioned the claims of man. The leopard seconded the resolution of emphatic protest. It made a devastating speech, condemning man.”He is a standing disgrace to animals everywhere.He manufactures and drinks merrily fatal poisons and is proud of his utter foolishness.
He cheats his own kind and spends all his energies and resources in devising diabolic weapons to wipe out his sisters and brothers. He prods horses and dogs to run in desperate haste and gambles his earnings away, while they gallop along the track. He is cruel, greedy, immoral , insatiable and unashamed .
He sets a bad example to the animal world . Though endowed with superior emotions and intelligence, his behavior is disgusting and demeaning ,”he said. “We do not know if and where we will get our next meal. We have no sure place of rest. We have nothing to wrap round ourselves, except the skin. But yet, the least of us is a far worthier child of God than this monster called man,”he concluded.
The fox rose and added ,”We have a season when we mate , but man , I am ashamed to say, has broken all regulations and cares for no restraint . He is a law unto himself and a disaster to the rest.”
The lion rose, to sum up the arguments.
He agreed with the general trend of the tirade against man, provoked by his undeserved claim to supremacy. But he refused to tar all with the same brush. He distinguished between men who are bestial and worse, and men who have transcended their bestial past by the proper use of the special gifts of discrimination and detachment . The latter , he said , ought to be received by all beasts as Masters, while the former deserved severe reprisals and condemnation.