Kentucky Irish American. (Louisville, Ky.) 1898-1968, 1921-07-30
but Discerns Neither the Real Cause
Nor the Right Way
Out.
Seems Young People Have Taken
the Bit and Are Running
Wild.
THE END is NOT IN SIGHT.

| When catholics attempt to say
that our civilization is SHINING.
tnat society is sick, and the indd-
Huuals walking on the brink of a
ihorass, which has already de-
voured many millions and seems to
threaten many millions more that
seem unable to extricate them
selves from the mass of rising
slime, they are apt to be called mot
alone pessimists, but defamers of
our great century, humanity and
modern progress. But il we take
note we will readily find proof that
Catholics are not the only ones
ROCKING with fearsome eyes on the
conditions of men and society
about them.
The June issue of the Century
contains an article by Richard
hoDertS on THE Breadth of the
Narrow-Minded." Agreeing with
Henry Adams, that with the Mid
die Ages something passed out of
life which we have ever since been
trying to run down and recapture,
something vital and indispensable,
this author admits that ''our dull
and uncritical servihty and ener-
waiting imposture of progress is the
measure of the spiritual emptiness
which the disruption of the medi-
aeval world left behind it, and
which is still here with us, agape
and stiffiy refusing all substitutes"
Even more significant is the fur
Their admission of the Middle Ages
having evolved a programme and
a technic for the whole of life, by
which it rose to those high things
in religion, art and literature in
which, though dead, it vet speak
eth
Then came the great disintegra-
ti0n and the inability of the
Reformation to exert a strong NOR
al controa over the nations. Puri-
tanism he considers reaction
against the conditions prevailing
in England since the middle of the
sixteenth century, with the lux
orious Henry in the seat of spirit
ual and moral authority" And at
the present time, after a century of
religious liberalism, he says I'VE
appear to be confronted by a sit
uation not unlike that in which the
early Puritans found thmselves."
Roberts sees sufficient evidence
that there is afoot a process of
active and ominous social disinte-
grafton" 1t seems to him thai
the young people have taken the
bit between their teeth and are
running Wild" They are wholly
contemptuous, he says, "of the ira
ditional controls and show no dis
position to impose a speed limit
upon themselves. Fond parents.
maiden aunts, all the amateur
censors of morals, are at their wits
ends. They are shouting volume
nous warnings after the runaways.
but the pace only gets hotter. And
the end is not in sight"
With others Roberts believes
that the war is undoubtedly some
what to blame for this condition.
But while others are content TO let
the case rest there, he voices the
opinion chat the war is not wholly
to blame for the present lapse into
folly and moral anarchy" He con-
tends quite correctly: "At the
worst. it did no more than COM
plete a disintegration that was
active long before" The balance
of this confession of modern
man HdktS II CiCdl lhdI I'll III
opinion the materiaaism and mann
monism of the age is at the bot
tom of the moral dislntegration OF
the present generation. 1t is left
unarmed and helpless, he admits.
1--WE have no resistance to offer TO
the drift, vainly shall we bid way
ward youth to call halt; they will
ask why they should, and we have
no answer to give. They will chal-
lenge the validity of our deca-
| Iogues and 1t is useless to talk to
them of prosperity. For they are
not after prosperity, but after what
they think Is the joy of life. The
rising generation has trodden all
that was left of the Puritan tech
mic to powder"
Thus Richard Roberts In the
Century He sees clearly and adj
mits in the beginning OF his ar
ticle that the Reformation, being
from its very nature as affair OF
the individual conscience and in
tellect, became in the circumstances
a disintegrating influence and
helped to complete the rout,"
which the Renaissance had begun
But he does not recognize or wish
to admit that the disintegration we
are witnessing is the result of the
revolutionary principle which gave
the Reformation its impetus.
G. B. OF c. V.
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NO