Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1913-01-25

yet we are losing the personal touch.
Control in the affairs of men Is ex-
branding from the individual unit Of
former days to the larger or group
unit Of the future.
The moral problem Of our age is
thus set for us and 1t is: How al We
amplify the standards Of personal NOR.
ality and so extend them as to cover
adequately our many group relations?
Ideals of personal responsibility,
justice and honor have been a slow,
steady growth among men since the
beginning of the world. Men have
fought and struggled for their tirmer
establishment in every age through
out the long and gradual development
of our present civilization. Now, sud.
denly, largely in a single generation
we are face to face with new and
highly complex conditions requiring
the application of moral principles and
ideals in a vastly extended form to
heterogeneous groups Of men with
conflicting interests-groups striving
to act as a unit-to act as M man.
Can we expect to survive SO great
a change, such a f%ar-reaching read
justment undertaken in haste, without
some conspicuous moral breakdown
without friction, heat, human unrest,
injustice, class hatred, social warfare?
Present social transformations eX-
hibit a b%ewildering confusion Of ten
denotes, and some who are still blind
folded among US are shouting the
loudest directions. We shall not dis.
Germ the large underlying causes of
Jul troubles by hearing, but by seeing,
by carefully sitting what we see, by
studying it, not specifically, but fund.
amentally; not by working in one cor.
ner, but by working at all corners.
The greatest menace n evil of our
time is not poverty, nor in~temperance,
neither is it the social evil, nor per.
sonal wrong doing. These are cor.
tributary. These are symptoms, con.
sequences, they must be resisted and
fought, ven more than they have
| been resisted and fought in the past.
but neither their existence nor their
influence is new 80
The great danger, the modern peril,
in the worlds activities are inevitably
drifting into organizations, organiza-
tions which have not yet grown q soul,
developed a conscience, nor assumed
Il personal responsibility equal to the
! moral demands which have come upon
them. .""
Let us take by way of illustration a
Jew chance examples of group mani
festations. some big, some little, but
all significant in one way or another
of our moral attitudes. Let us see
| what some of our mistakes in moral
adjustment are costing MS.
Consider the relation to the public
Of our large, close-knit, highly deyel.
oDed industrial and transportation
corporations. Their officers and dix
rectors are nearly all of them men OF
high integrity, keen sense Of justice
and open generosity in their personal
dealings with men. Yet their corpor-
ate acts are frequently morally, If not
legally. questionable.
Working men, met singly and per.
%sonally, are often kindly, honorable.
just. Yet acting together in unions
J they arc frequently guilty Of actions
! cruel, unjust and d~ishonOrable.
Thus when corporations come into
conflict with labor unions, the issue
is not a question of right or wrong,
but a test of power, not moral power,
but a struggle for supremacy by brute
force, for power not to do justice, but
to crush. E~ En
In the conflict, things are done
. which no nal In II group acting
alone, would ever dream of doing to
any man in the other. One must go
back to the stone age to- find a prey.
alence of personal conflicts, and anil
mositics to match many of the group
conflicts of the present day.
Graft is q new and convenient word
to describe money misappropriated by
an individual in a transaction between
two organizations, or between an or.
ganization and a man. When we deal
personally, nan to man, graft Is I'm.
thinkable, because the machinery fol.
1t does not exist.
Again, many a man will fitch public
money, or corporation money, who
would never dream of picking a.lpock.
ct. Any se~lf-respecting man, given
wrong change in his own favor by .
shopkeeper, would instantly call the
mans attention to the mistake he had
made. Yet there are many who feel
differently when q railway conductor
passes them by without taking mile.
age or taking takes too little for the
Journey. Many will keep or maltreat
q book, magazine or, newspaper from
La public collection who would not do
the like with the private property Of
another man. u.
These are hut random, some OF them