Idaho County free press. [volume] (Grangeville, Idaho Territory) 1886-current, 1912-06-06

oeratic rule The curse of government
ia America today is the inadequate
morality Of the people. There has
come, in the free air of Dur broad life,
| a marked weakening Of our sense Of
moral distinctions, Of moral obliga-
ri0ns and Of moral retributions. We DO
| mot believe as sternly as our fathers
i did in the authoritative Brightness of
, right and in the absolute wrongness of
? wrong. The sense Of right may be
: strong and alert IN personal affairs,
! but not in social and corporate rela-
lions We do as corporations, or profit
frm its doing, what we would scorn to
Ia as individuals. Times and places
, and purposes warp our moral Judgment.
VIGOROUSLY is this true today in large
enterprises and i'll political and social
duties. Government never can be just
or strong or enduring so long as great
areas of our life are regarded as free
and-easy moral regions ''where the
best is as the worst and there are no
Ten Commandments In our cham
bers OF commerce, in our institutions of
finance, in our stock exchanges, as well
rs in our party conventions and halls
Of legislation, we need to return to the
elemental morality of Bntler's dictum
which John Moreley told the Univer-
sity Of Toronto he would write over the
doorway to every university and par
lament in the British empire: ''Things
are what they are; their consequences
win be what they will be; why, then,
should we deceive ourselves !"
And our quickened moral sense
must be alert not only as regards the
wrongdoing of the common offenders,
the publicans and sinners OF outraged
social life, but even more keenly for
that wrongdoing which society desig-
mates by some more euphemistic name
than adultery or theft. If under our
government every man has an inalien-
able right to life, liberty and the pur-
suit of happiness, 1t is sin and a
crime for privileged interests to inter-
fere with that inalienable right. If the
campaign song of the British land re-
formers, "God made the land for the
people,, is God s truth for the lords
in Britain, it is equally authoritative
in America that God made for the peo
pie not only the land, but the minerals
deposited in the land, the forests that
grow out of the land, the electric ener-
gy stored in the water that flows over
the land, and the fish that swim and
1
the shores of the land. God made all
these for the common people of Amer
lea, and any system of organized mo-
nopoly interfering with that Divine
provision for human needs is an Of
Tense for which America shall have to
pay, even as Britain has had to pay for
the crying injustice of the feudal land
laws. And Christianity can do nothing
for governments in America more eff
fective than making Christ's princi-
pies of political economy and social
justice apply justly and in the Christ
spirit to the details of everyday life,
not for the vulgar lawbreaker alone.
but for men as decent, as highly re-
spected, and as nominally religious as
any man among us. Unless revolu-
ton is wrought in the world of the
well-to-do and the privileged classes, an
issue may be raised by the unprivileged
masses which will be no respecter eth
er of persons of of privileges.
| 90 The root of evil of ali this trou-
bic in high classes and in low classes
that threatens governments and endan-
gers democracy itself is the uncured sci
fishness of man. And there is no cure
for selfishness except love. Love alone
has the power to so strike the chord of
self that it shall pass in music out of
the harp of life. Love alone as the
motive in life goes deep enough or is
strong enough to turn selfishness into
unselfish service. The economists and
philosophers all through the ages have
declared that self-interest is the SUI
preme and lasting motive in life. 1t is
the radicalism of Jesus that he repud-
lated the whole self.interest school and
declared love to be supreme over all
other compelling motives in moral
world. He made service the standard
of life and love the motive to service.
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy
self;'' that is the Christ motive for
Christianity and without it neither
man nor nation is Christian.
Men of this congress, unless we hold
this Christ view that love is the SUI.
preme compelling motive in life our re-
igion is not Christian. Unless we car
ry that view into actual life in our bus
mess relations as employers, as employ
ees, as public men, as private citizens,
what we call our Christianity is not
according to Jesus Christ. And unless
We can make love to be the motive in
the lives of other men, the dominant
motive in the industrial world and in
the life of the nation, our Christianity
will do noting real for the governments
of America.
(6) Into our politics and into our
social programs there must come this
radicalism of Jesus or there can be no
real solution for oppressive trusts ON
one side or for destructive anarchy ON
the other. Self-interest is the motive
Of all that selfishness, and against its
self-blindness must be set the distinct.
i've program of Jesus.
The eternal law said: "Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with all thine
heart and thy neighbor as thyself.o
Jesus crammed that law with Deep
er meaning and gave it a broader
range: "a new commandment give /
unto you, that We love one another y
That is the basis of Christian sociology
and that love makes aristocratic Unjust
ice impossible.
.leaus said. tsIf INV -oull H. ,--.A