Los Angeles herald., 1909-10-11
MINISTER URGES
CIVIC ACTIVITY
"lOS ANGELES AND COMING
ELECTION" THEME
CITIZENS URGED BYREV. PHELPS
TO OPPOSE GRAFT
Importance of Determined Fight
Against Corruption and Misman-
aaement Is Emphasized by
Popular Minister

"The problem is a man problem
Election is selection. Fill the impor-
tant places with men from the business
and political world who have been
tested and found true. Hold the candl-
dates up to the standard your Chris
tianity has set Josh Billings said you
couldn't trust man who was 50 per
cent honest and per cent dishonest;
that per cent would beat you.
These were the sentiments expressed
bv Rev. DR.. Arthur S. Phelps, pastor
of the Central Baptist church, in ser
mon on LOS Angeles and the Coming
Election" last night at the Temple
Baptist church.
Dr.. Phelps has supplied the Temple
pulpit several times during the illness
of DR.. Burdette, and last night preached
an eloquent sermon to the large congre-
cation.
DR.. Phelps took his text from Psalms
cxxvii, l, Except Jehovah keep the
city the watchman waketh but in VAIN
He said:
"You can determine the power of a
man by learning his sense of propor-
tion. Small men are interested IN petty
details; large men in great issues. Vol
taire in Charles XII marshals ma
tions and moves them like men on a
chessboard. Milton, in Paradise Lost
arrays the hosts of heaven against the
armies of hell, making man the prize.
Haydn and Handel, in the Creation
and the Messiah deal with eternal
problems. The great questions OF our
nation today are not conservation ana
irrigation; not commercial questions,
as Interstate commerce and ship sub
sidy; the great questions are moral
questions; there are no other
Graft Looks In
'The questions of the city are the
questions of the nation. AS we SIT
about the table in the evening, gaunt
faces look in at the window, which
make us uneasy. There is the face OF
graft. He that is slack in his work
is companion to the destroyer. Inc
man that puts too much sand in his
concrete, that puts untried metal IN
the auto he is making is is much a
murderer or thief as the sandpagger'
Charles F. Aked of New York says
Every American city is run by
thieves That is false, but it is not
false of many cities. The face or IN
temperance leers in at the windows OF
our city. Under the sign of the two
donkeys, we kick when we don't get
R beer one feels like writing,
That's because you are donkey.
They are kicking. A saloon was closed
on the average in the United States IN
1908 for every half hour. lmpur1ty at
tends on drink. Two hundred thousand
pure girls go down to ruin, it is SAID,
every five years in the United states.
Our city helps keep up the average.
The man who says it is necessary
eViP should furnish his own daughter
sabbath desecratiOn is one OF the
sins of our southland. Has the saloon
any more right to Sunday than the
barber shop? The law prohibiting sun
day theatrical performances in New
York met with a storm of protest.
Governor Hughes was led to support
it, we are told by letters from Presi-
dent Harris of the State Federation of
Labor and Francis John Moran OF the
Actors Church alliance, who said that
actors and actresses get no rest with
out a Sunday theater closing law.
"A woman rid her parlor of bad com
pany with which her husband had
filled it by holding a Bible in her hand.
Try it on the city officials.
"Where does your own influence fall?
To raise the general level, raise your
own. What business have you to de-
mand a standard which you won't live
ND to? Why do you want the news
papers to champion a righteousness in
public life which you shrink from in
your private life? Change your life
or your creed. Quit lying to God.
Which side are you on? 1t is time to
take your stand with Jesus Christ in
daily life or be reckoned among his
enemies"