The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1893-07-20


each others throats Not only do mer-
chantscut each Others throats, but men
of different industries war one with an
other
We have beautiful theory that
things will regulate themselves; that
open and free competition is sure TO be
the salvation of the world. And yet
financial panics, glutted markets, are
| the daily incidents of the history of our
civilization. Somehow our free, regu-
lative theory has not worked and does
not work. And our political economists
bravely inform us that the hope Of the
world is in war and pestilence. And we
have been taught by men who claim to
be rational that pestilence that will
| remove millions of human beings will be
q good to the world in lessening the num-
Der of people to be fed that war is bene-
| fetal in furnishing us market in certain
commodities and in destroying the ca
pacity Of the race to propagate itself and
| use food
Our regulative theories are beautiful,
and yet the results are trusts and COM
binations, which are the negation of the
| whole theory.
Our system of competition is beauti-
| full as theory, and yet the system must
answer for cheating and lying and
| swindling and stealing and crime and
| intemperance and suicide and despair.
These are its necessary, its inevitable, ac-
compartments.
When business success is to be achieved
by chicanery, by lying, it becomes the
| business of the head Of the firm to be-
come an expert swindler, scientific
liar, and to train all his subordinates in
the art of lying. This is one of the first
| principles of instruction practiced in
some of our great commercial establish
| ments. The clerk who is advanced is
the man who can tell the biggest lie
] with the straighteet face and drive the
hardest bargain with customer. The
/ fundamental notices of such system
are mass of colossal lies. To declare
that life is measured by dollars and cents
is to stultify the very fundamentals of
| real life. A thief only believes that life
is measured by dollars and cents, and
the business man who seeks to attain
dollars and cents of themselves, for them
selves, and to estimate them az valuable
by the figures on their face, has placed
himself unconsciously on the platform of
the thief.
Money, to be Of any real value and to
touch the realm of real wealth, must be
righteously obtained. The richest and
best things in life are those that do not
pay in dollars and cents. Love and no.
bility and honor ard generosity do not
| pay in dollars and cents; therefore they
have no part in the science Of modern
commerce. The life of Stanley who
explores the darkness Of the world by
this standard is failure. The life of a
Washington who would suffer in hunger
and cold is necessarily failure judged
by such standards.
Such is the contrast between success
full Christianity and successful business
today. There cannot be a moments
questioning OF the fact that the business
of today is in conflict with eternal truth
and righteousness.
So much the worse for business.
The stars in their courses fought
against Sisera. The forces of nature are
in league with the eternal forces of truth
and right. The business which violates
the fundamentals of right in the process
Of its development must have of neces-
sity its Black Fridays, and the Black
Fridays are the necessary developments
of the clash with righteousness. These
days of panic are the natural result of
long continued VIOLATIONS of justice. If
they did not come, law would cease to
be law ,nnd chaos would reign. The fact
that they come is an indication that there
is God Of right and truth who is guild
4 ing above all the scenes of conflict and
confusion. The man who violates truth
and Justice has thrown his puny body
against the very stars of heaven. He
has thrown his PROSTATE form before
Gods great wheel of the universe, and
he will be ground to powder. The nation
that violates fundamental right must
suffer, and suffer in the very ways in
which it has wrought the violation.
The Christian way of trade may not
be an easy way; it is certainly not pop
ular way today; it never has been. But
Christianity D. the mightiest power on
earth today. Il is the one power that
dominates politics, trade, nations. 1t is
the power that through the ages has
righted a Thousand wrongs that seemed
beyond remedy. Kingdoms, empires, So
cieties-apparently invincible-have per.
ished ut its touch. We stand upon the
pinnacle of the nineteenth century and
look back with increasing amagement at
| this procession of dead societies and dead
| peoples and dead nations who have died
because they clashed with the eternal
| forces,of truth and of righteousness.
| AT times we have an apparent triumph
Of wrong 1t is only apparent. 1t is but
the beginning of the end. Men have de-
clared that it is impossible to exist in
| the business world and live on Christian
principles. Men have declared that all
| men are liars in the business world. A
| man aaid TO me short time ago that all
| business men are chronic and incurable
liars. HeBpoke from the point of view
Of the money market and the money
broker. He declared that men would
take advantage Of one another whenever
they had the opportunity. He declared
that all of them would tell lie to make
money; that honor ana truth are not
elements that are considered in the mod
ern business world.
This assertion is entirely too broad
when our friend would declare that all
men are liars. From this point of view
it is true, but there is such thing as
mirage. A man in the arctic seas looks
out over the water and sees a ship ap-