The Newark star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1909, 1909-05-03
CHANGED IDEALS
BACK OF PRESENT
FINANCIAL Panic
Realization Of This Causes Hesi-
tation Among Investors, De-
clares Orange Pastor.
NEW MORAL STANDARDS
REPLACING THE OLD
Relation of the Church to Condi-
tians in Business World
/ Analysed by Speaker.

what Is the Cause of the Present
Era of Disaster? ~ was the problem dis
russed by the Rev. Adoiph Roeder,
pastor of the New Church, Orange. in
the first of a series of lectures on pub
JIG conditions in that church last night.
In part, Mr.. Roeder saida =
"a man MAJ have doubts of the pres
! ence and value of God as a mental
concept; he may lost his faith in this
or that. spiritual verify. he nay lose
the friendship and the esteem of this
pr that person, and none of these things
will trouble him half as much as if he
had lost a large sum of money or pos
/. Eibly all his money. This is partly
4 because we love money because Of the
c~orforts it brings, and partly because
we need money, and its abeence makes
Itself more directly felt than the alb
Nence of anything else in our present
structure of society. Not that / would
Tor a moment think of upbraiding one
because of this weakness; rather would
"a say think up some way of amend
ing the financial system of the world
that money may be relegated to the
more ordinary place which 1t by nature
occupied in the older days of the world,
from the time when men used shells
Tor money up to the time when they
used tobacco for money.
Those days are gone, and with them
re rome some features of the world
which 1t is distressing to miss. Much
the old courtesy, of the old cordial
ty, of the old. quiet enjoyment of life.
the simple life Is gone, because we
ave settled down with set jaws and
hitting teeth to the sole pursuit of
honey. And no man can look about
f|n for a moment without stopping at
mes to note that the old home is
me, the old idea of the family Is gone,
old idea of the relation of parents
children is gone, the old idea of
Xtny other things is gone, and as We
nj II over we realize that these
dngs are gone for good. 1Aey will
over come back. There Is no POSSIBLE
of their coming back. And men
ealize that, and that-why that
axes them stop, and when they stop,
ley create the era of disaster, of
1hich we are thinking. For they begin
fear. they begin to doubt the essen
eli values of human life, and as soon
his doubt grows sufficiently strong
hey hesitate to do the things which
hey have hitherto done, and thai cre-
0tes ysoppage.
Length of the Panic.
"For IL you will think for a moment
~ the inordinate length ofsthis present
panic, as compared with 1913 or with any
other panic Of which o have IN
mental record, you will note that there
are more auses back of that protrac-
tion han there were back of the other
zpanics. Fol never before was the world
of finance faced with the serious con
federation of the gambling habit, the
evercapitalization disease, as it is to-
day. We think sometimes that the re-
former alone has noted these things,
and that the fnancier has not. How
absurd! The f1nancier is much more
worried about the status of things
T financial than a refermer will ever be.
He does not make as much noise about
1t, possibly, but he is troubled, and l
know from personal experience among
those of my personal friends who are
helping more or less successfully to
carry the absurd financial burdens Of
our present system that he is worried
about 1t. l know whereof l speak; for
] am. a refornier myself. and my heart
goes out to the good men and true who,
standing in the mids of a financial sys-
tenn which they know is wrong, are try
Ing to make it do things which they
know It will never do"
"But not only Is this a cause Of
stoppage, of delay or cessation of i'm
vestrnent, but there is q cause back of
that. For men realize that If standards
Of morality were not changing there
would be greater safety of investment.
But we know, of course. that more
people think certain things are wrong
than thought so ten or twenty years
ego. Several groups of men, not neces-
sarily Socialists, are giving very serious
thoughts, for instance, to the fact that
cir present way Of handling public
utilities by private corporations is as
wrong as it would be for us to handle
private utilities by public corporations,
and the man who really thinks this.
and there are as many who do in the
ranks of financiers as there are in the
ranks Of Socialists, Immediately hest
tates as to his attitude toward public
and private utilities, and If he does so
he changes the nature of his invest
ment or of his attitude toward invest
ment, which is the same thing.
Mental Concept.
But back of that change in attitude
Hes what else? The conviction that