The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-12-09
A sORDID

Bishop Potter, in his New Haven speech,
struck straight at the heart of one of the
great evils of the day-the lust for money;
perhaps, as he says, the greatest evil.
That everything is coming to be measured
by the dollar mark is no new charge. 1t
has not needed close students of social
conditions to discover the tendency. That
keen observer, George Warrington Stew
ems, detected the drift of things during
his brief stay in this country five years
ago. and though his designation of the
United States as "the land of the dollar"
was half humorous and not intended to be
offensive, it was none the less a deserved
reminder of our too rampant commercial
ism. The excuse has been made for the
Proclamation given to the money interest
that it is inseparable from the develop
ment of a new country, and that as our
civilization becomes older we would give
more attention to the aesthetic and the
spiritual and compel m to take
a less conspicuous place in the affairs of
life. But it turns out as might have been
expected. The eagerness to win financial
prosperity and the ease with which it has
been won has brought about a worship of
mammon which grows more pronounced,
rather than weaker, with time. The fol-
lowers of mammon, naturally enough, have
not been transformed into lovers of the
finer things of life, nor has this pursuit
encouraged the growth, much less the
supremacy of spirituality, high thinking,
unselfishness and those graces which char
acterize the truly great of earth. Like
has produced like, and the shadow of the
dollar falls darker each year. AS Bishop
Potter says, personal standards are low
cred, and everywhere is the faint of sordid-
ness TO be discovered. The money valua-
ton is the test even with clergymen and
women who are supposed to represent the
finer issues of life, even with children.
who of all beings should not be touched
with the spirit of greed or influenced by a
money standard.
How to fight this sordid tendency in the
face of the great material prosperity which
encourages it is a problem which is prob
ably only to be solved by a determined
acceptance by those who see the need of
the time of a simpler STANDARD of living.
When those who can set the pace see fit
to indulge in simplicity the lesser lights
will initiate them. 1t is the effort to ape
a style of living beyond their means which
makes life a burden to a multitude of peo-
pie and forms one of the worst features of
the evil complained of. Men, women and
children set their standard by that of some
one else whom hey wish to emulate with
out regard to the fitness of things or their
own financial condition, and the strain
begins and seldom grows lighter. But if
people high in the social and financial scale
will not set the example, it remains for
those of smaller income to exercise their
strength of mind and make life easier and
better worth living by adopting simplicity
as their motto and their practice. There
are many things in the world of greater
worth than money, things money cannot
supply, and it should be the part of all
who see the beauty of these better things
to encourage their development and thus
Offset the sordid influences of the time.