The Paducah evening sun. [volume] (Paducah, Ky.) 1906-1929, 1909-11-26
MODERN SOPHISTRY.

complished. The process is Christening
MODERN SOPHISTRY.
Public interest is aroused in the question of
responsibility for the deaths of nearly 400
miners at Cherry, ILL.,; citizens of Cairo, ILL.,,
are trying to convince themselves that lax en-
forcement of law by their officials is response
BILE for a terrible crime and lynching there;
federal authorities are engaged in fathoming
the extent of the conspiracy by which the gov
ernment was robbed of hundreds of thousands
of dollars duty on sugar imported by the sugar
trust; scandal is rife concerning land swindllng
operations against Indians, and graft of water
power sites and mineral and timber rights in
the west. Various fallacious reasons are given
by superficial observers for conditions we are
unearthng; much as contemporaries frequently
attribute the prevalence of murders to the PTS
tOl-toting habit.
The cause lies deeper. We must get back to
the knowledge that there is absolute right and
wrong, quite apart from convention, statutory
provisions and commercial ethics.
Desire for rapid material development of the
west during the last century made the public
impatient of restrictions imposed by conscrva-
tive processes and popular sentiment was
quickly manifested in lax government regula-
tion and supervision. Hence, the western land
frauds, so long condoned that the guilty parties
consider themselves prosecuted by fanatics.
Our laws declare that workmen assume GER
tain known risks of their professions when they
enter upon an employment, and these risks are
specified in legislation of questionable origin.
So it has become customary to quiet one 5 con
science with the thought that 1.-THE law plainly
defines our obligations, and it is the duty of the
state TO look after the enforcement of regula-
TONS
Loyalty to one employer and obligation to
the stockholders has taken precedence in the
public mind over the dictates of responsibility
to God, patriotism and self-respect. Men will
steal, Cypress, blackmail and commit perjury in
their organized capacity, while thinking them
selves clean in their private morals. Yet the
poison of the one way of thinking must newt
ably deaden their sense of right and wrong.
Party loyalty a sentiment born of an era OF
bitter sectionalism, has blinded men to the obi
cations to state, and the vicious doctrine "to
the victor belongs the spoils," has done more
to threaten the destruction of our liberties and
bring our institutions into disrepute, than any
other one party cry. 1t comes closest home in
local affairs, where party prejudice takes a
personal note.
Cynicsm OF the modern scholar, a growing
national appetite for Injuries, and IA CORE
spending decadence of spirituality have pre-
vented the intellectual element of society from
sympathiZng and cooperating with the less
class, which, under the burden OF
it, recognizes and feels the weight of evil, but
has not the learning or the perspicacity to UNI
derstand it and discover the remedy.
We need Socrates to strike beneath the
surface of our modern sophistres. Murders
may be due to pstol-toting; but pistol-toting is
due to an accepted popular idea that under GER
tain conditions man becomes IA law unto him
sell and is justified in taking human life with
out due process of law. This is proven true by
tie Tact that in those sections, which prescribe
no penalty for pistol toting, pistols are not
toted; because there no such faacy about the
rights of man exists and there is no occasion for
packing a gun''-to use western expression.
All the evils of modern conditions find their
root in the rich soil of the human heart, and
develop through the expression of the heart 5
desire in the ballot, in public print and in nome
We can change the horrors of in
dustrial catastrophes, the immortality of social
the corruption of local politics and
the treachery of commercial relations in "A
twinking by change of heart, an awakening
Of the conscience and a recognition of right and
wrong as absolute quantities.
This is matter for every man to consider in
relation to himself.
n