The American issue. [volume] (Westerville, Ohio) 1912-19??, 1931-06-01

''Where was Moses when the light went
out?" was the refrain of song popular
two Decades ago. It suggests quest which
Is being very widely and earnestly pur-
sued at the present moment
Just now when SO many lights in the
financial world seem Pickering out, every
body is calling for Moses to lead us
somewhere, nobody knows just where, but
to lead us out. Big business, little business,
church organizations, missionary societies,
reform groups, great cities, the multi
millionaire, the little home owner, the
manipulators of the stock and grain
markets, as we'll as the innocent bystand-
ers, even great and mighty Uncle Sam
himself, all and several are looking for
Moses to lead us out of the present dark
ness and terror, into a morning dawn of
light and hope and security.
But the quest is in vain. The kind of
Moses they are looking for will never be
found For the real Moses did not lead the
children of Israel out of trouble. He led
them temporarily into a greater trouble;
into the hot and parching sands of the
desert wilderness of Sinai. It was so much
worse than their previous experience that
they rose up against him on more than
one occasion and demanded that he take
them back again to the leeks, the onions,
the garlic and the feshpotS of Egypt. But
he neUer took then, back
Of course, they forgot, as people now
do when they talk about the good, old
pre-prohibitlon days, when as member
of the present Illinois legislature pro-
claimed in a bombastic speech, "they had
good beer and no crime They forgot
what Egypt really meant to them, place
of slavery and no hope and failed to in
terpret the existing difficulties as the prob
lens incident to progress tolOard pernla-
7,ent liberty
What Moses taught his people was de-
pendence upon God and dependence upon
themselves Out of mob of slaves he
created a nation of freemen, and the peo-
pie who ran away from the sons of Anak,
regarding themselves as grasshoppers in
the sight of those giants, subsequently
overthrow those same giants and all the
rest of the nations that terrified them and
swept The Promised Land clear of the
Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites,
HiviteS and Jebusites. But during the
wilderness wanderings it was olsoayS
Moses a01lO 1DGS to blame. When there was
no meat, they cried out against Moses.
When there was no water, they blamed
Moses foS. their predicament. When there
was no bread, it was their leadership that
was at fault. And there we're instructions
by which they proposed to overthrow and
destroy their providential leadership, and
in thoughtless stupidity trek back towards
Egypt and slavery or forward to the will
derness under the leadership of false gods.
So, after ALL this matter of shouting
against leadership in times OF depression
is nothing ne10. In this June, 1881, num-
Der of the Nations Business, Merle
Thorpe, writing about the annual conven-
ton of the United States chamber of
commerce, and discussing the financial
situation, has this to say, There is no
novelty in this complaining about the
leadership and stewardship of business.
Every depression brings flock of impli-
cations that somebody-an influential
group, or the industrial system, or the
monetary system, or the capitalistic sys-
tenn, or some other mysterious source of
power-is responsible. Most of this COM
ment comes from those who advocate rad
ical changes in the existing order" And
he quotes President Coolidge, as follows:
Neither the state nor the federal gov
eminent can supply the information and
wisdom necessary to direct the business
activity of the nation. =. The expert