The Holly chieftain., 1922-02-02


contempt for law and the present revolt against
the spirit of authority make this age emiuently
zone of sham and counterfeit" He rejected the
easy theory that these symptoms of a grave NAL
ady are merely reaction of the World war. Ear
from causing the moral sickness OF the age, says
the solicitor general, the World was in itself,
perhaps. but one of Its many symptoms. Some of
the contrihutory causes of the worlds disorder
reluctance to obey laws regarded unreasonable
vexatious. the laws delays and laxity In ad-
ministration which have bred spirit of contempt
and the rampant tndiyidualism 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; violations of the sumptuary laws
which in the case of the prohibition statute have
resulted in fines aggregating an estimate of more
than SSo0.O0O,0o0; and IAN increase In 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 we find
the same 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
creasingiy dsregarded. The very foundations OF
the great and primitive institutions of mankind
like the family the church and the state-haye
been shaken. Nature itself is defed. Thus, the
fundamental difference of is disregarded by
social and political movements which ignore the
permanent differentiation of social function or
dained by God himself"
Five plaques are affecting humanity, said the
pope last year in 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 alb
normal aversion to work; fourth, the excessive
thirst for pleasure; fifth, gross materialism 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 widespread change in social
conditions rather than to any change of mans es-
senia nature that the solicitor general attributes
the mniady of time. II 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,
both ideal and a potent spirit The con-
ception of work a degrading servitude to be
done with reluctance and grudging inefficiency,
seems to be the ideal of millions of men of all
Glasses and in all countries"
The great enigma. then which this situation
propousds to us. and which, like the riddle of
the Sphinx, will solve be destroyed" is this
"Hns the increase in the potential of human pow
er through thermodynamics been accomplished by
corresponding increase in the potential of human
Character Then Mr.. Beck goes to say:
"a mass morality has been substituted for In
dyldual morality. and group morality generally In
tensifes the vices more than the virtues of man
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 paiIiatives for the evils which
/ have discussed. To rekindle in men the love oil
work for works sake and the spirit of discipline
which the lost sense of human solidarity once in
splred would do much to solve the problem, fol
work is the greatest moral force In the world
II we of this generation only recognize thai
the evil exists, then the situation is not past rem
edy.
az have faith In the inextlnguishable spark o.
the Divine which is In the human soul and which
our complex mechanical civilization has not ex
fiugushed. OF this the World war was In itsei
proof All the horrible resources of mechan
les and chemistry were utilized to coerce tht
human soul and aIl proved Intellectual"
AS everyone knows law-abidlng citizens In
number of big American cities have been driver
by conditions to organize aw-enforcement com
1nttees--a fnct which would seem to corroborat'
Mr. Peck. Denver Is the latest city to feel the ne
cessIty of snch an organization The indictmen
against the city administration is mildly expressed
by Mrs Mabel Stearns Noble executive secretar-
Of the woman's Cooperative league, who puts
thus:
Drunkenness immortality and gambling are ou