y
each community for itself in the light of its own special needs and
point of evolution. To-day we hold many things to be wrong that were
done by our forefathers with clear consciences, and on the other
hand we now believe that many things are right that were held by our
forefathers to be wrong. There was a time when slavery did not offend
the most delicate conscience, and if we go still further back, we shall
reach a time when theft was almost the only crime recognized and when
wholesale murder was a virtue. Every age had its own standards, and it
would be absurd to argue that an act was wrong if it received the
sanction of the whole community. It was the communal conscience that
determined all problems of right or wrong, and it is still the communal
conscience that gives us our definitions of morality and honesty. Here,
in my opinion, is where a great part of our trouble arises. The communal
conscience has changed, and some things regarded right and proper twenty
years ago are frowned upon to-day. But business methods tend to become
rigid and inelastic, and a sudden evolution of the public conscience
leaves them in the rear. Then comes a sudden recognition of the
disparity, and laws are passed to prevent the practices that formerly
went unchallenged. Usually these laws are passed in a hurry and by
politicians who have no clear grasp of the problem. As a result the laws
are ineffective. That is to say, business, clinging conservatively to
its familiar ways, finds a plan to continue those ways in spite of the
laws passed to prevent them and then public opinion, finding no relief,
is angered,--not at the breaking of a law, but because the law itself
was ill-designed and ineffective. In other words, public opinion has
failed in its effort to force the individual to set aside his own
interests for what public opinion considers to be the interests of the
community. Public opinion in this country is not a steady and persisting
force, as it is in some older communities. It moves spasmodically and
after long periods of quiescence and usually under some stress of
excitement, which prevents deliberation and therefore effectiveness. Law
being more unwieldy than conditions, naturally lags behind them, and
what we have to recognize is a change in conditions and in laws and not
an outbreak of lawlessness. Another evil result from the impetuous way
in which we make laws is that they are not enforced because they are not
in harmony wi