The times-news. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1927-current, 1934-07-30
NEWSPAPERS OPINION
BUSINESS MORALITY

The social machines set up by the present ad-
ministration will break down unless they are in
snred by men who in their hearts catch larger
vision than the hard driving profit motives of the
mast More than that the men in the street must
develop a capacity to envsion cooperative OBJ
iective and to be willing to pay the price for it.
'sTbe social discipline can be given very def
mite machinery but after ALL, the really important
thing is the spirit pervading the whole effort"
This is the language of Secretary Wallace and
il is the language of fact and sound reasoning.
Business and industry in America must become
moral while they are being remoulded. One couiu
almost say that they must become more generally
civilized.
In the business methods of minority in Amer
ica very vicious minority it is, too, and one OF
prominence and influence in all too many cases.
the Jungle has not been left very far in the dis
lance. ... . '... ..
The law of the survival of the fttest, the weap-
ons of the tooth and the claw, the barbara sabre
thrusting and swash4buckling of the unretned past
the wholly materialistic concept of business which
alone glorifes the acquisitve instinct, enthrones
the profit motive and makes of gold god-all
of this is too much the rule of the counting-room
and the market place.
And 1t the elimination or CHe cohaueiiiiS VI
this method and motive in our economic structure
that Secretary Wallace is talking about when ne
SAYS that no matter how perfect the machinery
Of reform may be made, until the spirit within is
recast the breakdown will be perpetuated.
Confessing, of course, that much of these
ancient brutalities have been purged from modern
business idealism and purposes, the old instances
of competitive cut-throatism yet abound even
though, perhaps, veneered with the glamorous of
more high-minded pretense.
In our recollection one of the eminent of Amer
icas business leaders, with his attention called to
the rights of the public well-being in the manipu
lation of his own enterprise, shouted the slogan
which may all too well have sprung from the heart
of the mind of American business, "the public be
damned
But it is not enough now that business merely
quit the jungle and civilize itself. 1t must be made
deeply and permanently moral.
Life at it's highest, no matter in what area, So
cal or industrial or individual, is impelled not by
internal but by moral motives. Liberty at it's finest
is a matter of internal control and not of lack of
external restraints.
America went to pot in 1929, not so much be-
cause of financial and economic dislocations as
personal integrity and personal Righteousness had
been 1outed Self-discipne and self-control, COM
panion names of immortality, had been tossed out
and all were caught in a common debauchery of
a pagan and barbarc scramble for goods and
profits and material grandeur, regardless of the
morality of the method or the fairness of the fight.
1t is more than pretty phrase that where
America broke was not in the exchanges nor the
counting but in its utter absence of moral
restraint and personal quality of life.
Aristotle, profoundly wise in his day, is no less
authoritative at this hour, in laying down the die
tum that the body and mind of man are the chariot
horses, but that the inner will of is the driver.
New Nationalisms, New Freedoms, New Deals,
new laws, new regulations, new democracies, new
education, new religion-nothing will avail
in providing for America permanently safe root
structure for a contented and prosperous civiza-
ton that is not impelled by high moralistic i'm
pulse. .t..
And that springs not from Congress nor Legis-
lature nor city hall nor court house. 1t comes
from regenerations that occur within the personal
purposes and determination of lfe.-The Charlotte
Observer. t.'