The herald., 1922-02-09


contempt for law and the present revolt against
the spirit of authority make this age eminently
zone of sham and counterfeit" He rejected the
easy theory that these symptoms of a grave mall
ady are merely reaction of the World war. ar
from causing the moral sickness Of the age, says
the solicitor general, the World war was In itself,
perhaps. but one of its many symptoms Some Of
the contTibutOry of the worlds disorder are
reluctance to obey laws regarded unreasonable
CT veXatiOus, the laws delays and laXity In ad-
mniStration which have bred a spirit of contempt,
and the rampant individualiSm which began in the
Eighteenth century, with its excessive emphasis
the rights of man and small stress mans
duties. In proof of his contention. Mr.. Beck in
stances the records of the criminal courts and
police dockets; violations of the sumptuary laws.
which i'm the case of the prohibition statute have
resulted in fines aggregating an estimate of more
than S30O000,0O0: and IAN increase i'm nine years
of nearly 400 per cent in the comparatively mar
row sphere of the federal criminal Jurisdiction"
"In the greater sphere of social life find
the revolt against the institutions which
have the sanction of the past" says Mr. Beck.
Laws which mark the decent restraints of print,
speech and dress have in recent decades been in
creasingly disregarded. The very foundations of
the great and primitive institutions Of mankind
like the family the church and the state-have
been shaken. Nature itself is defied Thus, the
fundamental difference of sex is dsregarded by
social and political movements which ignore the
permanent differentiation Of social function
daned by God himself"
Five plaques are affecting humanity, said the
pope last year I'm public utterance before the
College of Cardinals. The first, Mr.. Beck recalls,
is the unprecedented challenge to authority; Sec
Ond, hatred between man and man; third, abb
normal aversion to work; fourth, the excessive
thirst for pleasure; fifth. gross materialism which
denies the reality of the spiritual in human life.
charges lawypp
recent experience.
1t is, however, to a widespread change in social
conditions rather than to any change of mans
sental nature that the solicitor general attributes
the maady Of our time 1t seems to him that
"the morale of our Industrial civilization has been
shattered. Work for works sake, as the most
glorious privilege of human faculties has gone,
bota ideal and potent spirit. The con-
ceptiOn of work degrading servitude to be
done with reluctance and grudging ineficiency
seems to be the ideal of millions of men of all
classes and in all countries"
The great enigma, then. which this situation
propounds to US. and which, like the riddle Of
the Sphinx, will solve or he destroyed" is this
"Has the increase In the potential of human pow
err through thermodynamics, been accomplished by
corresponding increase in the potential of human
character?' Then Mr.. Beck goes on to say:
"a mass morality has been substituted for in
| dvidual morality and group morality generally in
| What was true of Germany true-although
| in lesser degree-of all civilized nations In all
| of them, the individual had been submerged in
group formations. and the effect upon the charac-
ter of man has not been beneficial
"There many palliatives for the evils which
I have discussed. To rekindle in men the love Of
work for works sake and the spirit of discipline.
which the lost sense of human solidarity once in
| spired, would do much to solve the problem, for
| work Is the greatest moral force I'm the world.
| II we of this generation can only recognize that
the evil exists then the situation Is not past rem.
| edy.
II have faith In the inextinguishable spark of
| the Divine which is in the human soul and which
| our complex mechanical civilization has not ex-
tnguished. OF this the World war was In itself
proof. All the horrible resources Of mechan-
les and chemistry were utilized to coerce the
human soul, and all proved Intellectual"
! As everyone knows law-abiding citizens in q
number Of big American cities have been driven
by conditions to organize aw-enforcement com
mittees-a fact which would seem to corroborate
Mr.. Beck. Denver is the latest city to feel the ne
cessity Of such organization. The indictment
against the city administration is mildly expressed
by Mrs. Mabel Stearns Noble, executive secretary
of the Woman's Cooperative league, who puts II
thus:
Drunkenness immortality and gambling oul