The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923, June 16, 1905, Page 2, Image 2
-'mc tu - 2 -ran i(s-wpt tv "' m not if it be because I shall soon leave this earth and the rays that are already reaching me from below the horizon have disturbed my sight, but I believe our world is about to begin to realize the words, 'Love one another without, however, heing concerned whether a man or a God uttered them. The spiritual movement which one recog nizes on all sides, and which so many naive and amljitious men expect to be able to direct, will r.e absolutely humanitarian. Mankind, which does nothing moderately, is about to be seized with a frenzy, a madness of love. This will not, of course, happen smoothly or all at once; it will involve misunderstandings even sanguinary ones perchance so trained and so accustomed have we been to hatred, even by those, sometimes, whose mission was to teach us to love one another. But it is evident that this great law of brotherhood must be accomplished some day, and I am con vinced that the time is commencing when our de sire for its accomplishment will become irre sistible." Since Dumas thus discerned the early rays of the morning hundreds of books have been writ ten upon the same theme, and thousands have imparted to others a gleam of the truth that has warmed their own hearts. And no one, perhaps, has contributed more largely to the awakening than the great philosopher of Russia, whose con fidence in the law of love is so great that he is willing to- trust it unarmed and undefended to conquer the armies of the world. Love, Tolstoy thinks, needs not even sling or pebble to over come the Goliath of evil. Who is wise enough to mark by metes and bounds the limits of this awakening? The meth ods employed today in business are not always Christian they are sometimes not only unchris tian but inhuman. Those who conscientiously attempt to apply the law of love in their dealings with others must, with increasing emphasis, con demn every form of acquisition which does not rest upon a service commensurate with the re ward. Leaving out gifts and inheritances, there is no true basis for the calculation of compensa tion except that which would enable each indi vidual to draw "from society In exact proportion as he contributes to society. A gift can only be defended as payment for service already rendered, or payment in advance for service to be rendered, and the same is true of an inheritance. "Whatever statute law may say, the moral law imposes an obligation which no one can conscientiously ignore and that law requires that much shall be given by those who receive much. In saying that compensation should be in proportion to service, I do not mean to say that this law defines all of the individual's obligations. While it is the duty of the government to see to it that each member of society shall receive from society in proportion as he contributes to its wel fare, there is over and beyond this a moral ob ligation on the part of each one to regard him self as a steward. To illustrate: The man who with his muscle or his brain can render a service to society ten times as valuable as another man's service should receive a reward ten times as great as the other, but this does not mean that he can uso that reward, when received, according to his fancy. While the state may give him a quit-claim deed to his compensation, he must still consider his relation to those less fortunate, and, from his abundance assist, as far as possible, thosoj who are in need. These two laws do not conflict. They are rather parallel laws, one guid ing within the sphere of state activity, the other controlling in the sphere which liej outside. It is sufficient at this time to note the effect of the application of the first law the law of re wards. It will lead each individual to scrutinize his own conducl in order that he may himself con form to this law, not asking how far he can trangress the law without violating a statute but anxious to avoid even "the appearance of evil;" and, second, it will lead each individual to so discharge the responsibilitiesxof citizenship as to make statute law conform, as nearly as wisdom can deviso, to this basic principle. Of the two tho individual duty Is not only the primary one but tho more powerful one. Just as more evil Is restrained today by conscience than by legis lation, so in the awakening to which we look for ward tho application of moral principles to indus try and to commerce will have a more potent in- fluenco than any written regulations that may be prescribed by state or national authority. Take the case of speculation, It has been found difficult (although it is not impossible) to so frame a law as to exclude gambling upon the market or stock exchange without disturbing , legitimats transactions; but no one can confuse In his own mind the difference between buying wheat or oats or corn because he has Immediate , need for thorn or is In position to store them for The Commoner. future use, and the purchase for speculative pur poses of grain which he does not expect to re ceive, or the sale for speculative purposes of grain which he does not expect to deliver. And yet it is the ignoring of this distinction that has caused the undermining of so many characters, the ruin of so many fortunes, and the wreck of so many lives. In like manner the individual, when his ideals lead him to measure life by the contribu tion which he makes to the sum of human good rather than by the money which he can collect, finds no difficulty in distinguishing between a purchase of stocks or bonds for investment and marginal trading, which is but another name for betting on the market fluctuations. It is now a difficult thing to so adjust the tax laws as to make each one bear his fair share of the burdens of the government, and to so administer the law as to reduce inequality in tax ation to a minimum, but the individual who not only follows his conscience but seeks to enlighten it, will neither bribe legislators into the enactment of unequal laws nor corrupt the assessor for the purpose of securing an unfair exemption No bill of discovery or ferret-like investigation can un cover as much property as the conscience can find. It would be difficult to overestimate the amount of injustice which would be corrected by a tax system, or a combination of tax systems, which would compel each, citizen to contribute to the support of the government in proportion to the benefits received by him from the govern ment, and the conscience leads the way in the attempt to devise, as well as in the attempt to enforce, such systems. At the risic of irritating those who have so frequently (not to say exultantly) buried the money question, it may without impropriety be suggested that even in the selection of a finan cial system and in the enactment of monetary laws conscience is a better guide than a self interest which ignores the rights of others. Whether a rising dollar is better for the man with money and fixed investments, or whether a fall ing dollar is good for the debtor, ought to be subordinated to the question, "What system will best preserve the parity between money and property, and reduce to a minimum the fluctua tions, not merely of the metals as compared with each other, but of the measure of value as com pared with that which it is to measure." Even imperialism is not beyond the sphere" of conscience. Our relations with the Filipino are not so different from our relations with each other as to compel us to invent a new theory of govern ment, or to apply principles antagonistic to the conceptions of government which prevail at home. The man who has a selfish interest to serve may delude himself with the belief that he can mingle philanthrophy and five per cent and still be en tirely fair, but the man who conscientiously tries to obey the commandment "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," never confuses the doctrine of sacrifice for others with the doctrine that leads us to saprifice others for ourselves. Not only do nations sometimes permit commercialism to out weigh conscience, but even a church may some times put the advancement of its particular form of worship before the propagation of Christian principles; and for this sin an enlightened con science offers a more effective remedy than legisla tion can furnish. But just now our nation is dealing with cer tain domestic problems in which the quickening of the individual conscience must play an import ant part. We are passing through strange times Some men who on Simday betake themselves to church, join in religious exercises, and listen to the interpretation of the Scriptures, spend the remaining days of the week in reaping where they have not sown, in organizing schemes for the swindling of their fellows, in debauching voters city councils, legislatures, and government offi cials, and in extorting unearned tribute from those who are compelled to deal with them. On Sun day they partake of tho bread which symbolizes the broken body of the Man of Galilee, and of the wine that symbolizes the shedding of His blood, while during the week they cruelly break ' hinniLhveS ft VlGir fell0WS dBd innocent blood by methods more refined, but not less de structive, than the methods of the murderer. h nl MarWuJm' in "a Poem "The Man with the Hoe," presents interrogatories that have pricked the consciences of thousands, and toda? many, when they contemplate some brutalized specimen of the race, are asking themselves as they never did before: wubwves as "Who made him dead to rapture and despair A thing that grieves not and that never hopes?" And even those who have not actively participat ed in the wrong-doing recognize that to them also is addressed the poet's question- --- ' .VOLUME 5, NUMBER 22 ' "How will you ever straighten up this shair. Touch it again with immortality; ' Give back the upward looking and 'the light' Rebuild in it the music and the dream'" Municipal ownership will remove much of th temptation that has filled our city go eminent with boodling and compelled the people to ml high prices for the use of their own property but even municipal ownership can not go as far as the conscience can in restoring honesty In city government and in eliminating graft. The president has recommended legislation which will place railroad rate-making under the supervision of public officers. Success to his efforts in this direction! But the necessity lor conscience becomes the greater in proportion as the temptations to wrongdoing increase (and ' temptations increase as greater power is placed in the hands of officials), and while we seek to make rates reasonable and to prevent those forms of discrimination which can be, detected, we may well hope for the advent of a business conscience which will make railroad managers spurn as wrong the -issue of fictitious stock, and regard as immoral the running of a railroad with an eye single to the advancement of their own personal and pecuniary interests. The trust question is receiving an increasing share of public attention, but no legislation, how ever stringent, can prove so powerful a protection to the public as a conscience which will lead its possessor to look upon the private monopolies which now infest the industrial highways as he looks upon the thief who lurks by the roadside and pounces upon the hapless traveler who passes by. And who can distinguish a moral difference between the conduct of the man who, comfortably seated in a richly furnished office, exacts an un reasonable price for a necessary of life merely because monopoly enables him to extort that price, and the conduct of the brigand who, at the muz zle of a revolver, demands your money or your life? In no question now before the country is the conscience destined to play a more important part than in the labor question. Does the em ployer give to his employe a fair share of the joint product? Does the employe render to the employer the service that is due? These two questions embrace all that lies between the capi talist and the laborer. Had conscience done its work well there would- be little need of labor laws. It is a sad commentary upon, tho blind selfish ness of man that laws must be enacted to pro tect children from excessive toil; to limit tho hours of labor; to require safety appliances and ir. other ways io protect the health, limb, and life of those who earn their bread in the sweat of the face. Nothing short of sympathy, founded upon love and directed by conscience, can close the gulf between the paymaster and the wage earner. One of the most hopeful signs recently noted is the protest made by a number of the Congre gational ministers against the acceptance of le Rockefeller contribution to the work of foreign missions. Attention has been called to the fact that this protest was commended more heartily by the secular than by the religious papers. While this may at first seem surprising, it must be remembered that the editors of newspapers are human, and that it is a human frailty to criticize more readily those with whom we are not inti mately connected than those who are near to us. Iz is not unaccountable, therefore, that the papers which have no direct responsibility for the ad vancement of religious .ork should have been more prompt to point out objections to the re ceiving of such a donation. ' It must be remem bered also .that the ministers and the editors of the church papers are so zealous for the ad vancement of religious work that they are some times liable to allow the end to justify the means more so than those less anxious for the ex tension of Christian work. But making all pos sible allowance for zeal, it is to be regretted that in the Rockefeller controversy the religious papers have set up a Jower ethical standard than many of the papers entirely non-religious in character. The protest, however, points to a grown, revolt against the business methods which are not only defying all moral law but in some In stances ignoring the requirements of statute law. It is evident that a powerful movement is at work when men active .a the advancement 01 every form of Christian work will prefer to risK a pause in the work rather than see the churcn enter into an unholy alliance, with commercialism. It is not only an illustration of the effect of con science on conduct, but it is an evidence of a growing. faith in the efficacy of an appeal to con science. There was a time not many years ac when Mr. Rockefeller's contributions were gW"'y received and no questions asked. If the recem - -, "V