The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1922-05-19

erty causes crime with few. They
say the girl who sells her wom-
anhood does it because she hasn't
any money to live on. There may be
few of EN-, but | want to tell you
nine out of ten of them don't do it.
You can ascribe their cussedness to
! any economical basis. You've got to
look to a different source
There is no doubt but that being
without a job is a mighty severe
strain on a mans morality. All
things being equal, it ought to be cas-
Ter for a man on living income to
be good than it is for a fellow that
hasn't, and l believe 1t, too. And
yet, every day some fellow with a
magnificent income and a palatial
home locks the doors of his business
and uses his prosperity as a toboggan
slide into all sorts of immortality and
sin and indulgence.
/ If abject poverty tends to eat away
the foundations of ones moral powers,
( there seems to be a sort of acid in
money and in prosperity that rots the
! Foundation, too, just as much, if not
more, than the other in the world.
/ Now, take the home. With all the
moral Influences, every copy of the
morning paper adds to the sickening
list of men and women who violate
sacred things and they sin against
themselves and humanity ard their
children and-they crush their homes.
Every day the outer wall of the home
/ fails to protect some man and hold
him true, or some woman and hold her
! true-it goes down!
! Patriotism Cannot
Do Everything
These things are god, but they don't
hold all Of us in the world. Patriot
isnl-in times of war, patriotism does
insoire small men to great and noble
deeds, and yet in times of peace, when
the smell of gun powder is not in the
air, and when the rattle of the drums
is still, men find it easier to fail in
their duty and in a thousand and one
ways by low ideals, by dishonest prac
tees. They commit treason against
their country-oh, there are more Ben
edict Arnolds than the pages of his
tory have ever recorded, and they are
not all named Benedict Arnolds
either!
i Every day patriotism breaks dowr
for somebody, and the love of theil
, country fails to hold them true.
i Now, | want to close and pay a WORD
of tribute to that one inner wall, gen
uine Christian character, which viii
. hold when all of these others are
broken down If every man and every
, woman in the United States were g
genuine Christian, then we could dis
. pense with the outer wall of legisla
J ton, for it is because the principles
:, of Christianity are not accepted anC
lived out that we need police, that we
need sheriffs, that we need jails, tina
we need electric chairs, that we neeC
, penitentiaries, Blackwell's Island
If every man and woman lived {
: Christian life, you wouldn't need an!
iails, there wouldn't be any thieves
Z Nobody would kill or steal. If every
| body was a Christian, you wouldn'
need tit is because the principle!
of Christianity are not liver out tina
we need it.
Religion Must
Be Safeguarded
i So, when a man strikes against re
ligion, he is advocating theft and mur
| der and outrage. He is an enemy t,
his country. l have no respect 70
that man or woman that will stand VI
and fight against religion. l haven
a scintilla for you, and if | knew l ha,
| I'd hunt it out and throw it away.
| If every man and woman in Amer
| lea was a genuine Christian, thougl
| we lacked the wall of education i
would be found that the ignorance O
| the man who is Christian would no
be as fruitful a seed for crime and sil
as the ignorance of the man that i
not a Christian. In other words, tn
J man who is Christian and is ignoran