Deseret evening news. [volume] (Great Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1867-1920, 1904-05-14
DANGERS THAT
BESET SOCIETY.
Theme of an Interesting Address
Delivered Last Night by
Rabbi Reynolds
GREED FOR COLD UPPERMOST.
Another Danger, Says the Speaker, is
Our Morbid aud Abnormal
Sceptlcism.

Rabbi Reynolds delivered an inter
esting address last evening in the
Jewish Temple on THE Dangers that
Beset Society," In the course of his
remarks, the speaker said
Greed is becoming a dangerous
canker upon the moral tissue OF our
nation. II interpenetrates every rela-
ton Of our rich and manifold life, and
it's vile touch considers nothing too
holy, nothing too sacred. II the path
ology OF our national political and In
dustrial life will ever be studied, II the
morallsts Of the future will ever at
tempt to make a dlfferential diagnosis
Of the ills that beset us, II WILL ! be-
lieve, be very easy TO trace them all to
our primary lesion; the desire to live
for money, to go into politics for money,
to SOW corruption for money, to grow
pauperism for money, TO disrupt fam
lilies for money in a word, to poison
the very life stream Of the nation with
this mad and insane thirst for money.
This money craze is enyenomlng the
industrial peace Of the nation.
"Our great army OF employers and
employees, instead OF being harmonious
-ordinated parts oG one great
smoothly working mechanism, are pit
ted one against the other in cruel,
merciless struggle. The industrial
arena intended for the display Of great
pacific creative powers Is becoming n
.kY 40
which means nothing more than the
creation Of "A huge lnsuperable money
despotsm, is sapping the life OF the
nation to the utmost, With the capital
list II means the gradual destruction Of
all creative competition, and with the
trade unionist the denial of the lnher-
ent individual right to work to anyone
not within their body
Greed is trying also to revolutionIze
and upset the normal plans of our ma
tional education II insists that the mis-
sion OF the school Is not TO bring about
a healthy and sound discipline of the
mind, but to enable the student to
make money quickly and surely. Greed
Is also entering the churches, where
people Of much money, though OF ques-
tionable character, are occupying the
front pews. II invades also the halls OF
administration III lllt ptINul VI NHt INV
politician, on whose filthy banner Is in
scribed the still tilthier motto. To the
victor belong the spolls'
Another danger 60 society Ia our
morbid and abnormal scepticism, There
is also a normal side TO doubt, and this
is to doubt prevailing systems OF re-
llgion and life In order to rectify and
reconstruct them upon a firmer aud
truer basis. Thus the doubling Of the
correctness OF the Ptolemaic system,
paved the way for and helped TO usher
In the system OF Copernicus. The dis
belief In the spirit and humor theory
Of the old psychologists made possible
Haryey's discovery of the circulation
OF the blood When | speak OF scepti-
cism ms danger to society | mean the
callous absolutism OF unlimited and all
pervadlng doubt the growing disbelief
In the real presence OF supreme and
all embracing intelligence--inhnlte,
everlasting and righteous. such scepti-
cism is coincident with the disintegrat~
ing processes Of society II Is the sur
est symptom of moral decay. However
much the Individual during the prlm-
tive stages of his wild and lrresponsi-
bile life, may have gotten along with
out God, he cannot so get along during
the formative and constructive stage OF
his social life, - -