The morning call., 1890-07-07
FALLACIEs AND FRAUDS.

More attention is being bestowed on the
late Fourth of July Grafton than it de-
serves. Mr.. Gator, who is unknown to
most people, has been reading the books of
Henry George and the discoveries of the
Rev. Hugh Pentecost, and he OyerfloWs
in complaints of the conditions of mod
ern life. The lamentations of this modern
jeremiah embrace pretty nearly all the
fields OF human experience. Everything
that is is wrong. and we are all going from
bad TO worse. The rich are growing richer
and the poor poorer. Agriculture is los
ing business, Industry is ground to the
earth. Labor commands no reward. Genius
is unTecognized. Honesty and thrift go for
naught. In word, the times are out of
joint, and if Gator were not there to set
them right, we should apparently all drift
headlong into perditiOn.
This is all very dull, dreary and stale.
Long before Mr.. Gator was born to en-
tighten the world, much brighter men than
he-for instance, Kingsley and ProudhOn-
made all the points he makes, and made
them clearly. foTcibly and tersely, which
he does not do. Their argument, con-
densed and summed up, amounted simply
to this-that there is great deal of wrong,
injustice, hardship and suffering in the
world. AS TO this, the average man re-
replies, in the language Of the immortal
Mrs. Camp, "Who deniges of it Sairey?"
To justify Mr.. Gators notion that we
should try to cure these evils by general
overthrow of existing institutions and ex-
listing social order, he should have demon
strated that the evils are the fruit of tie
institutions, and did not exist before they
were established, This he does not and
cannot do.
Neither Mr.. Kingsley nor any of his dis
ciples have been able to show that the
wrongs which he denounced are more fire.
quent and more grieyous now than they
were in former times. Data are wanting
for an exact comparison of the rewards Of
labor and Industry and the well-being of
the average citizen and his family now with
those rewards and that well-being n CEN
fury or two centuries or ten centuries ago.
But there is reason to believe that in these
respects mankind is better off than it was
at any former period of history. In this
country, at all events there are strong rea-
sons for believing that the rank and file of
humanity take more comfort out of their
lives and endure less injustice and hard
ship than their progenitors did in any pre-
yious age. No one can read the statute
books of last century without coming TO
this conclusion.
To charge upon society responsibility for
all the poverty and crime and wrong which
we see around us is as reasonable as II
would be to arraign existing institutions
for the prevalence Of consumption, typhoid
fever and heart disease, Moral imperfec-
ton is just as obviously the badge OF hui
maDity as physical disease. Man is born
to suffer from both. And while it is the
duty OF popular leaders to endeavOr to min
imize both, by amending the laws where
the amendment is likely to abate causes of
poverty or wrong. or by adopting new REM
edial agents where they promise to allevi-
ate disease, that man is a monstrous char
latau who confines himself to spoutng lam.
entati0ns over the evils without attempting
to formulate remedy. To him rightly be-
longs the title Of pestilent demagogue. For
his lamentations cannot possibly do good !;
and they are liable to create discomfort, and
to foment anarchical notions in the minds
of those whose well-being depends on their
preserving a contented mind and sensible
acquiescence in the sphere in which God
has placed them.
II Mr.. Gator. or any one else, can put his
finger on a law which causes the evils he
deplores and can make out his case, he will
find the community only too ready to follow
his lead in movement for the repeal of
that law. If he can clearly connect exist
ing wrongs with given institution, it will
be abolished in short order. The American
people are always ready to learn.