The Goodland republic. [volume] (Goodland, Kan.) 1891-1907, 1900-12-14
A DOLLAR CURSED PEOPLE.
EsIshop Potter CaiIs-Us- q Money Hungry
Eafion-Ths Dollar sIark II the
Bottom OF Every scandal

Bishop Potter, IN an address before
the Church club, at NewHsven, Conn,
speaking on the topic "Wealth and
Commonwealth" recently, said:
81 chose this subject because Of its
paramount Importance. Divorce, crime
and corruption in all our cities have
one root, the lust Of money. The one
eager, dominant hunger which salutes
Us from one end to another Of our
broad land is the passion, the hunger,
the greed Of gain
challenge what method you viii in
the complicated web Of our industrial,
POLITICAL or social life and you viii hnd 1
the question of gain behind it. Listen
to what scandal you may in the haunts
OF politicians, In the camps of soldiers, |
! in the halls Of fasion, the final stand
ard in the whole business may be ex-
pressed by the dollar mark
Listen to the talk Of children
as they measure and compare their
elders. Hear a group of young girls,
whose fresh youth one would think
ought, in the matter Of their most ten
der and sacred affections, to be as free
t from sordid instincts as from the faint
Of Goddess cynicism, and you will find
that they have their price and are not
to be had without it any more than the
1 Circassian slave in the markets Of
Bagdad.
$50 where you may, talk with whom
you Kill-with the clergyman estima-
ting the promise Of a field for spiritual
labor, with women rating the claims
OF other women upon their social rec
ognitiou, with the heads of great uni
versities paralyzed with fright lest
some plain-spoken professor who tells
the truth shall cut down the revenues
Of the cOllege-it is no matter, the
commercial question is at the bottom
of II all and decides, usually, all the
others.
ave read the other day of woman
at q horse show whose attire was
dress made of the skins of unborn
lambs. What do yon think Of such
thing? Is not this a relic Of barbarism?
'sThe situation, grave and threaten
life, is the result Of causes that are
net far to seek. They are to be found
in the spirit of the age, in the eOnditi
ons of our NATIONAL life and in the
standard of our national values.
ave may shout until We are black
in the face that We are the greatest
and the bravest and the biggest and
the strongest and the richest nation IN
Christendom, but there comes q strange
awe in the heart as We turn back and
read Of what kind Of stuff the first
Corners to these shores mainly we're.
an England a man of Silence discOv-
ers an antioeptic dressing for gunshot
wounds, anothers discovers a star, an
other the mysteries of deep sea sound
ing and these are lifted presently to be
peers of the realm. With us the schol-
at, the man Of science, the inventor,
the pioneer in commerce or the arts,
toll, delve and discover and enrich
their age and we distinguish them too
often only by disputing their achieve
ments or by apprOpriating without re-
ward che products Of their genius
"Tt material wealth be the end Of be
ing, il accumulation be the worthiest
aim of human exhibition, if the palaces
or the buying Of legislatures be the hual
aud highest distinction possible to
modern manhood, then We must needs
look them in the face.
an the country in which you and I
live what We call civilization has IN
dergone what is nothing less than a
gigantic revolution. The huge agRrega
tions Of capital which have practically
taken from the hands Of the individ-
! ual the independent disposition Of his
labor and have introduced into his ex-
l istauce paralyzing uncertainty as to
both his comforts aud his future, aud
the gradual widening Of the brooches
that separate classes from classes and
( the competitions that, while they cheap
en- the necessities of life, increase the
elements Of perpiexity and uncertainty
as to how great multitudes may obtain
them-aH these are features Of our
modern situation full Of danger.
For one, L have no hope that any
mechanism of legislation, any system
of socialism, any science Of agrarian
/ distribution or texation will in the re-
hottest degree remove them. The
church Of God must go up, must stay
up, on a much higher plain than that"