The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-07-08
SLUMP OF CONSCIENCE !, DECLARES DR. GLADDEN.
IN FINANCIAL AND POLITICAL CIRCLES; IN SOCIETY AND
 CHURCH.

as Lending Citizens Arc Nowadays
 Doing Horribly Wrong Things-Cor.
 porations Have No Souls and cOnse-
 quentIy No consciences-Doing Injus.
 tice and Innicting Injury, Loss ans
 Suffering Every Day.
 Baltimore, Md, July 7-Before s great gathering at the international convention of Christian Endeavorsrs tonight the Rev Dr. Washington Gladden. of Columbus, O. who conducts ed the fight against the acceptance Ot the slOo,ooo Rockefeller gift by ths American Board. spoke on the Educa- tion of Conscience He said in part;
 "Thsre is q tremendous amount oa uneducated or miseducated consciencs in this country. People in good society
 people who are members of our churces people who are known as our leading citizens are doing things which ars horribly wrong; and neither do their own eonsciences protest, nor is there any moral sense in the commun- i ity which disapproves their wrong do 1 ing. The things which have been go- ing on of late can only be explained
 upon the theory of a general slump 0 fconscience, in financial circles, and in political circles, and in society, and most deplorable of all, in the church litself. The one thing that this coln- | try wants to-day is not better laws or better methods of administration, but a clearing up and toning up of the
 consciences of it's citizens, and while the young people of our churches are lconsiderink what culture could do for
 them, and what they are going to do with their culture, I hope that they mary need of the training of their con sciences, so that they shall speak
 promptly and decisively upon the prac- tical moral questions with which saasssy l will have to dsal.
 Another point on which tale con-
 sciences of most of us need toning up lis that of individual responsibility for
 corporate action. NeaIly everything is done nowadays hy Corporations. Now I corporations have no souls, and Of
 course, can have no consciences; upon this theory the realm of industry and
 commerce is nearly vacated of moral I significance. The truth to be noted iss that corporations certainly have the IpoWer of doing injustice, of infIicting injury of causing loss and suffering and they are doing this in their corpor- late action, every day. and 1t is perfectly Isure that where injustice is done and injury and suffering are thus caused,
 somebody is to blame.
 I The tendency is for the individual of. ficers and stockholders to shelter thern< Iselves behind the. corporation. and to largue practically that what is every- lbody's responsibility is nobody's. Thg lpoint to be insisted on is that every Imember of the corporation is responsfs
 ble. The officers and directors are first and most directly so of course, and they should be held firmly to their responsis lbility. Corporations are composed of linen and every man has a conscience. Let him not divest himself of 1t when he enters the corporation. He will need lit there, whether officer or simple lstockholder, as much as anywhere elsq lin the world. And if he finds that stg demands and it's protests cannot ba made effective within the corporation Ilet him go out of it, and stand not or the order of going.
 If by force of cunning group oA linen should manage to extort $1,0O0 a year from each of 1000 good citizens of 1.-the city where you live, they would think 1t a monstrous crime and so
 would you, but suppose that the saana lgroup of men by watering the stock oa la street railway, make it necessary tc keep the farees half cent higher thaas they otherwise need be and they savys \ l$10000 a year in half cents upon 100,- 1000 people-this does not seem to most
 Of us a very serious matter. Now 1t ia to be noted that most of the great faor- tunes of our day have been heaped un Iby this method of securing practical
 monopolies, by virtue of which it has
 been possible to lay under tribute miI- lions of people and to collect from them small tolls in slightly enhanced cost oi the necessaries of life"
 There has been much discussion of Il the address made by Rev. Oliver Huckle, of this city. to-day on ''Inter- national Fellowship and there ara
 those who say that in it's ultimate ef- fects 1t may prove to be the most irns |. Iportant utterance of the entire conven- tion. It is taken as suggestion look ing to and strong plea in favor of a federation of all such organizations aa
 the EpWorth league, the Westminster league, the Lutheran league and the ! Baptist union, In the course of his re- 7 marks MT. Hclcle said:
 } If 1t was essential that there be in . the Methodist church an Epworth league, in the Baptist church Baptist : union, in the Presbyterian church a Westminster league, in the Lutheran church Lutheran league, no objec-
 tion could be made, but that they
 should all unite in one grand central organization, where the denominationaI . Ispirit could laid aside once in a while and where all could Join in the great work of the church. This would pre-
 vent the spirit of antagonism that has so recently been made manifest in mis- ,, sionary work and would be sure to
 make. impossible a repetition of the oc- r currence at Tokio, where a dozen or !, lmore different denominations were l struggling for Christian V supreynacYs