The Hartford republican. (Hartford, Ky.) 18??-1926, 1921-10-14
OUR LAWLESS AGE

Contempt for law and the present
revolt against the spirit of authority
make this age eminently zone of
shame and counterfeit" said James
NJ. Beck, SOlicitor-General of the
United States, in an address before
the recent convention of the Ameri-
can Bar Association at Cincinnati
the speaker rejecting the easy theory
that these symptoms Of grave mala-
dy are merely a reaction of the World
War. His portrayal of the lawless-
ness which row seems to be charac-
teristic of the whole world and which
is said to be so much evidenced in our
own criminal statistics, evokes sym
pathetic response from, some of the
religious press, and George + Foster
declares in America (Catholic} that
"the citizens of this country should
be grateful to Mr.. Beck for his time
ly warning Of the perils of the i'm
mediate future" Far from causing
the moral sickness of the age, says
the Solicitor-G General in his address
as published in the daily press, the
World War was in itself, perhaps,
but one of its many symptoms. Some
of the cOntributory causes of the
worlds disorder listed by this legal
authority are reluctance to obey laws
regarded as unreasonable or vexa-
tious, the laws delays and laxity in
which have bred a
spirit of contempt, and the rampant
individualism which began in the
eighteenth century, with its excessive
emphasis on the rights of man and
small stress on mans duties In
proof of his contention, Mr.. Beck in
stances the records of the criminal
courts and police dockets, frequently
mentioned in the press; violations of
the sumptuary laws, which in the case
OF the prohibition statute have re-
suited in fines aggregating an esti-
mate OF 100000. 900; and IAN in
crease in nine years of nearly 400
per cent in the comparatively narrow
sphere of the Federal criminal juris-
dictiOn." Nor is the spiri: of revolt
limited to secular laws, thinks Mr..
Beck, for he says:
I'm the greater sphere of social
life we find the same revolt against
the inst 'tiOns VII cn have tbs SAM.
ton of the past. Laws which mark
the decent restraints of print, speech
and dress have in recent decades
been increasingly disregarded. The
very foundations of the great and
primitive institutions of mankind
like the family, the Church and the
been shaken. Nature
itself is defied. Thus, the funda-
mental difference of sex is disregard
ed by social and political movements
which ignore the permanent differ
of social function ordained
by God himself"
Five plaques are afflicting human
ity, said the Pope last year in a pub
lie utterance before the College of
The first, Mr.. Back re-
calls, is the unprecedented challenge
to authority; second, hatred between
man and man; third, abnormal aver
sion to work; fourth, the excessive
thirst for pleasure; fifth, gross ma /
which denies the reality of
the spiritual in human life. All
these charges. says the lawyer, are
proved in recent experience. 1t is,
however, to a widespread change in
social conditions rather than to any
change of mans essential nature that
he Solicitor-General attributes the
nalady of our time. II seems to
him that 1.-THE morale of our indus
rial civilization has been shattered. |
Work for works sake, as the most !