In the summer of 1933, as Congress was engaged in a circus atmosphere of trying the J.P. Morgan bank for various and sundry corruption and malfeasance, someone thought to amp up the circus atmosphere of the Congressional investigation by having J.P. Morgan, Jr. sit with a midget on his lap. Although the wealthy man and the short young woman appeared to have an instant chemistry, with “Jack” Morgan acting like a proud grandfather, in reality both of them were quite sensitive and suffered extreme distress as a result of the media attention. In particular, for the young woman, Lya Graf, who was the Barnum & Bailey midget, the results of her distress were particularly tragic: “The story of Lya Graf ends sadly. As sensitive as Jack, she was traumatized by the endless jokes about the episode—so much so that in 1935 she decided to return to her native Germany, even though she was half Jewish: her real name was Lia Schwarz. Two years later, she was arrested by the Nazis as a “useless person” and sent to Auschwitz, where she died in the gas chambers. All this was only learned after the war when Nate Eagle, the Ringling Brothers manager who cared for the midgets, traced her history. Jack Morgan never knew what became of her, nor that her extreme distress over their brief encounter set in motion events that led, ultimately, to her death [1].”

Who murdered Lya Graf? To be sure, her death is one of many millions of deaths that lay at the responsibility of Hitler and his lieutenants responsible for their gruesome Final Solution against the Jews and others in the lands ruled by the Third Reich during World War II. A delicate and sensitive circus midget would not be likely to be considered fit even for the slave labor that temporarily extended the lives of many of Hitler’s unfortunate victims, and so her life was snuffed out quickly among the charnel house of cruelty of that place and time. Yet she would not have been in Germany at all to be arrested and ultimately murdered had it not been for the cruelty she faced in her adopted homeland of the United States, the subject of continual taunts and jibes and jokes and parody cartoons making fun of her in connection with the wealthy and powerful Jack Morgan. A touching moment that showed the shared humanity between two deeply sensitive people on the outside of mainstream society—a wealthy but deeply shy man whose wealth and power led him to be demonized by populist politicians and mistrusted by ordinary people, and a young woman whose short stature led her to be exploited for entertainment for the amusement of others, but similarly remote from ordinary society and considered freakish—did not lead either of them to feel more in touch with others, but it led both of them to be horrified and traumatized by the continual ridicule heaped upon them by others, and while Morgan was able to preserve his safety, the effect on the more vulnerable Graf led to her death. It was the taunting of Americans that led Lya to return to Germany to be killed in the Holocaust, and those who teased her without mercy have some measure of blood on their hands for the consequences of their ridicule and abuse.

I do not wish to suggest that we are responsible for the sensitivities of others, or that others are responsible for ours. Nevertheless, we do have to answer for the harm that we cause others because we cause them distress. This responsibility varies, of course, based upon our own culpability in the matter. Where we act knowing that we cause others distress because they have told us and because we act with malice aforethought, our culpability is great. If we deliberately seek to cause others harm or distress, we have a lot to answer for, because we meant them harm and that is a mission that is not too difficult to accomplish. This was the sort of harm that was done to Miss Graf, intentional mocking because of her shortness of stature and the existence of a photo where she appeared as small as a child on the lap of an old man thought to be inhumanly remote from others as a result of his wealth and power. At other times, we may cause extreme distress to others by accident, in which case we may be responsible for harm that was caused without malice and intent, simply by being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or being awkward and uncomfortable in our ways, without being unkind or cruel. In such cases, if we knew the distress we caused, and knew how we could stop it, we would be willing to do so. Let us hope, at least, that if we or others are in this spot that it would be easier to ask for and receive mercy.

It is not hard for me to understand why this story made such a strong impression on me. After all, I am a deeply sensitive person with a strong disinclination to cause distress to others given the intensity to which I feel distress. As someone who, through little fault of my own [2], has always been an outsider wherever I have been, I have always been sensitive to the unpleasant and unjust reality that outsiders are often exempted from the usual courtesies and politeness that people give to others as a general rule. As human beings, it is easy for us to view respect and honor as that which belongs only to those who are like us, and something which can be denied routinely to those who are not like us. This sort of snobbery and unkindness works in a variety of ways, and none of us is entirely immune to the tendency to show favor to others in a selective fashion while showing strong disfavor and unkindness to others based on perceived differences. Given the widespread sensitivity of so many people nowadays, it is little wonder that we spend most of our time around those we judge to be like us, because of the fact that we do not find many people who are kind and friendly and gracious across wide segments of the human population. What is it that makes us so reluctant to be kind? What is it that makes us see so many potential friends and friendly acquaintances as so different from ourselves that we feel exempt from even mere politeness and civility to such people, and shrink in horror from the rituals of positive social interaction? Clearly, we who are so sensitive ought to be friendly and gracious so as not to cause distress to others by unfriendliness and discourtesy. Like so much else, though, it is easier to feel such extreme distress than it is to avoid causing it to others.

[1] Rod Chernow, The House Of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty And The Rise Of Modern Finance. (New York: Touchstone, 1990). 368-369.

[2] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2015/01/27/i-wish-that-i-could-be-like-the-cool-kids/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2013/04/27/the-miseducation-of-nathan-albright/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/no-more-a-stranger-or-a-guest/