Problems of the Age

Problems of the Age Dealing with Religious, Social and Economic Questions and their Solution. A Study for the Quorums and Classes of the Melchizedek Priesthood

By Doctor Joseph M. Tanner

XXXIV— Business Life — Credit System. Is there no end to credit? One hundred and twenty billion! That is the present indebtedness of the nations at war. The actual gold reserves which back up these obligations are insignificantly small. Running in debt is a simple thing. Weall know what debt means. Its shifting processes make and unmake men by hundreds of thousands annually. Debts weaken, too often, the moral status of man. They embitter him, convert him into a pessimist, and often drive him to court anarchy openly or secretly; more often secretly. How much anarchy there is in the world can hardly be surmised. It is only when violence manifests itself and gains the upper hand that its great re- cruits pour in. The shifting of financial advantages from one country to another operates to depress individuals as it does nations. Money is one of the most powerful agents in the world. Its disinte- grating spirit spells all sorts of ruin, worse in this age than any other because there is more dependence upon it. What a money mart Syria was in the days of Croesus! How the proud Phoenicians gathered the treasures of the world in their ports on the Mediterranean! In Spain money talked to all the world. Money in all ages spelled ruin. What will it spell in ours? Conditions are different; that is true, but the mod- ern financial woild is more sensitive to its disturbance than the ancient or medieval. Money which is so much coveted is dangerous alike to the nations that get it as well as to those that lose it, for the one that has lends to the one that needs, and money scarcity is felt everywhere. We have learned already how a disturbance in the money market affects every class of business, how depositors rush to the bank and draw out their mil- lions. Great money disturbances are certain to come, and it will tax the wisdom of the world more than it ever has in the past. We may look for crises.

— Shifting the Money Market. The money centre of the world has been shifted from London to New York, and England is therefore sure to feel the pinch of the loss of its monetary standing. This is the picture drawn by the great paper, the London Statist:

"The main cause, of course, of the trouble in which we find ourselves is the refusal of governments of all parties to prepare, though they were fully and clearly warned by the enemy himself. But we must add that the government was to some extent misled by the London bankers, who, for a quarter of a century previously, had refused, in spite of all warnings and all pressure brought to bear upon them, to increase adequately their reserves. The main cause, however, of the predicament in which we now find ourselves, is

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that we, the public of all classes and all conditions, have allowed the idle rich and the mere talking professional classes to monopolize the government of the empire. Consequently, we must frankly ad- mit that a good deal of the discredit rests upon the great public itself. Will they waken up at last, and recognize that men who cannot dress themselves of a morning without the help of ser- vants, cannot be expected to do anything that entails a little trou- ble, however simple it may be, and that gentlemen whose business in life is to talk and to interpret an uninterpretable law, are not likely to be good guides in the days of danger and distress."

— Dangers of Chaos. It may be that we have very few men in Congress who are unable to dress themselves mornings, but we have a good ma- jority of talking professionals whose business training quite unfits them for the grave responsibility of financial legislation beyond getting appro- priations. The raids on our national treasury are often scandalous. The business men of the United States have withheld themselves from polit- ical life, and employed their talents in private enterprise. The United States will require its most competent men when it faces the payment of twenty billions and much more. Capital is a most capricious thing and holds in its keeping the employment of millions of men and women whose daily bread depends upon the working machinery of our industrial life. This machinery will become more sensitive as the big future financial problems confront us. Any displacement or break-up would lead to the most disastrous results. But if we are to become the financial centre of the world shall we not have plenty of money for mistakes and extrava- gance? The trouble is that we are likely to lose our hold on what we get. The nations of Europe will enter into a fierce competition for the recapture of it. Government operation must be on a scale heretofore unknown to us. If we deal as wastefully with billions as we one; dealt with millions, and graft is not replaced by more conservative and honorable methods, the results may prove most disastrous.

— End of Great Fortunes. In an interview with William Guggenheim, published in McClure's for October, he is reported as saying: "I believe the end of this war will mark the end of huge fortunes. After Mr. Rockefeller, it is likely the world will never again see an accumulation of a thousand million dollars in the hands of one per- son. War is making us accustomed to profit control. More and more people are asking, 'Why should anybody get more than a certain rea- sonable profit out of any enterprise?' As a matter of fact, why should they?" Of the incentive to work, he further remarked: "All men, whether poor or rich, need some encouragement, some stimulation of ambition to make them put forth their best efforts, but remember, it is not to accumulate further millions indefinitely that rich men work. As soon as a man has fifty or sixty thousand a year to spend, he has about all that money can give him. What he wants after that is power. He continues to work for the joy he gets in the exercise of power. In the future our able rich men will find joy in power by associating themselves with the government, for gov- ernment is power." The last sentence is a forecast of our government as a great business agency in the operation of railroads, telegraph lines, steamships, telephones, and other public utilities. How will it work out on the question of capital and labor? The government will derive its power from labor and it will be also the capitalist. Such a condition is anomalous, and its workings no man

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can foresee, except the endless controversy and bitterness that will be sure to arise out of it. It, like a hundred other problems, will be a new one, charged heavily for good or evil. The important thing to remember is that such future conditions, to bring peace, must be based upon a high state of morality and religion. As things now stand in the world, the new age will be subject to explosive violence of the most destructive kind. Is there nothing but danger in the world, nothing but violence to hope for? Look about you and see. Is it not an age of explosives, an age of destruction? If present conditions keep on long we shall witness more destruction in the war now going on than has been wit- nessed in all the wars from the beginning of time down to the year 1914. But will not wealth insure us? Wealth is not a preservation of any kind. It is laden with danger. The greatest wealth of all time has demonstrated how horribly destructive it can be, destructive in both life and property. We say it is the "sinews of war." It is likewise the death-rattle of war.

Rivalry. —What will be the position of the United States financially after the war? Read further from the London Statist: "In every direction competitors are growing up. But there are two who are specially dangerous. First our kinsman across the Atlan- tic. They are considerably more than twice as numerous as we are in these islands. They are among the very best business men the world holds today. And they are in possession of soil which is capa- ble of maintaining five times the population it has at present. They have therefore illimitable room to spread and to multiply, and they have resources which, with the exception of China, no other country possesses Under any circumstances, therefore, they would distance us in the long run. As it is, three short years of war have suddenly deprived us of our financial primacy, and threaten to land us in a posi- tion in which we shall be dependent upon the lending powers of others, and incapable of lending ourselves." "The second really formidable competitor is Japan. Her people are far less numerous than our American kinsmen, and her soil is in no sense equal to theirs. On the other hand, she has a wide territory now, and she has a people as capable as perhaps any country upon earth. Her trade is growing at a rapid rate, her credit is rising sur- prisingly well; and above all and as a proof of all, she has been able to lend to Russia, to France, and to ourselves, while she has supplied Russia with a very large proportion of the munitions which have en- abled Russia to make such fight as she has made up to the present. There is no scarcity, then, of competent communities to take our place."

Dangers of Money. —Money is, and always has been, the firebrand of war. Two things are necessary for a conflagration: one, proximitv; the other, competition. American and Japanese possessions are interlaced. Both nations are proud and avaricious. Can they maintain peace between themselves? We have witnessed Japan's sensitiveness over her people in our Pacific States, and we have felt her resentment when our country sent to China the innocent hope that the Chinese might settle peacefully thei* difficulties. Both countries will be rich and equipped for any emergencies. The latent dangers between them cannot be concealed. Japan has estab- lished a sort of Monroe Doctrine with respect to China; but unlike us, she interfered with the government and resources of China in a way we would not think of doing in South America. There are now serious dif- ficulties between us, difficulties which the war is postponing. Later they must be adjusted. Besides, China is the coming country for the exploitation of trade. Two money powers, two financial

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centers, are already staring each other in the face. Neither is exhausted or likely to be exhausted by the present war. The heavens, the earth, and the sea are filled with explosives. Whenever explosives have been piled up, something or sonn body has tuched them off. They are not very comforting to contemplation nor to personal relation. You say such pictures are very, very dark. Very well, then, you draw a bright one. The trenches are not all in France. Capital and labor are entrenched, the forces of evil everywhere are entrenched. It is a world of antagonisms. The money markets of the world are face to face in the trenches. Mam- mon aspires to unrighteous dominion. Men take desperate chances to get money, and so do the nations. There is a national life moved by the same motives that actuate individuals. We shall be proud to see the money center of the world transferred to our own great financial metropolis. Ninety per cent of all the trouble in the world has its root in money. It creates, wherever it is abundant, social, moral, and business trouble. And it is the one thing almost uni- versally craved, notwithstanding its evil associates. Is there no hope? Yes, there is one hope, and only one, and that is that some day God will bring light to this old earth as he did to its creation.

Revelation.—"And all things shall be in commotion; and surely men's hearts shall fail them; for fear shall come upon all people" (Doc. and Cov. 88:91; Read also Sees. 70 and 72, Doc. and Cov.)

XXXV— The Negro Question — Its Origin. The Civil War did not end the negro question. The free- ing of that race from the bonds of servitude brought about one of the most destructive and hate-engendering wars that the world has ever known, and gave rise to what is known in politics as the solid South. During all of the period of reconstruction the animostities between members of Congress from the north and south were often wholly beyond control, and disputa- tions on the floors of the Senate and House sometimes led to physical en- counters. Economic conditions in the early history of the United States were responsible for the transportation of hundreds of thousands of black men from their home in Africa to the land of freedom and to conditions wholly unlike those to which the black race was inured. It was no fault of that unfortunate people that they came in contact with the Anglo- Saxon race. They were creatures of the slave trade carried on generally by the Arabs in Africa and were the victims of a slavery that is often por- trayed as in most instances heart-rending. Liberty is a very precious boon. The lowest of races prize it. The freedom of speech, the right to move about as one sees fit, is one of the boons of government for which the world has been struggling for many centuries. The Prophet Joseph foresaw the war which the negro question would bring about, and his prophetic utterances are historically familiar to all

the Saiuts. He would have solved the question by the purchase of the Era, Dec, negro's freedom. Such, however, was not permitted to be (See 1917, p. 170). The question of whether or not the negro should be free was a burning question between two important sections of our country— the

North and the South. It was not simply a question of compensation. It

was a question of arguments, of long standing disputations, and of hatreds division between that had grown out of political conditions in view of the passed human the North and the South. It was one of those forces that had whose adjustment by any visible means, and it led to a most fearful war,

36 IMPROVEMENT ERA consequences in our national hatred have been felt for more than a gen- eration.

— Effects of Emancipation. One extreme often follows another. The negroes were lifted out of a condition of servitude and placed not only into a new world of social and financial freedom, but were given all the political rights which belonged to the white race. They were grossly in- competent, they were unsuited for self-government, and above all, they had proven no capacity for rule in a government such as ours was. That was no fault of theirs, unless it may be said that it was a race incapacity. There has been a world of discussion as to whether it was a wise thing, politically or economically or socially to do. The question has been thrashed out for upwards of fifty years on the floors of Congress. How- ever, it is an acknowledged fact, at times it brought the people of the North and the South to the verge of armed forces. Unhappily, the ques- tion is not solved in our own day and there are prospects of future trou- bles which give anxiety to the best, most thoughtful minds of our age. The question will not down. It confronts us in numerous ways, and all the time there is a world of hatred growing out of the differences between the black and the white races. Hatreds in time bear fruitage. They have their evil consequences to future generations. They are a part of our in- heritance, and thus we go on accumulating, year after year, the most dan- gerous explosives to our social, economic, and governmental life. Even now the last echoes of an awful tragedy between the negroes and the whites at St. Louis has not died away. Our government is, at this writing, carrying on the trial of colored soldiers who in Texas made a raid upon one of the cities and killed a number of inhabitants. Wherever the ne- groes find themselves at any advantage whatever they are quick to resent the wrongs which they believe, and which they have been taught to be- lieve, have been piled upon them for generations. We have frequent ac- counts of the burning of negroes at the stake. Many of that unfortunate race have been led in ignorance to commit outrages upon whites outrages— that are not entirely unknown to the white race —but there is a psycholog- ical barrier between the two. What is done by the one is unspeakably more horrible than that committed by the other, and the ethnological barriers be- tween the two have no prospect of breaking down. — Intermarriage. All practices of intermarriage have brought the off- spring of the two races completely on the side of the colored man, and even when this intermarriage is carried on for a number of generations, eliminating almost entirely the color of the skin, the so-called "taint of the blood" is there. The gulf between them is impassable. — The Irrepressible Conflict. For a long time the people of the North, out of the zeal of the Civil War, were the advocates of negro rights. They resented through the press what they considered the unjust treatment of the black man and his failure to receive the political recognition that was rightfully due him. The negro question was the absorbing question of the South. More and more it is invading the North. Into all the large cities large numbers have migrated, only to be compelled to occupy cer- tain districts isolated for their habitation. In the North it is also becom- ing an industrial question. The black man is not invited into the great labor unions; as a rule he is excluded from a large number of employ- ments; he is often discriminated against in the schools. The ideals, there- fore, which certain northern people erected with respect to their unfortu- nate colored brethren of the south, have not been successfully carried out. They are not today, so far as human interest can aid, capable of any sat- isfactory realization.

The Economic Phase. —The negro question is therefore becoming

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more and more an economic one, and it is doubtful if the North will be any better able to solve the problem than the people of the South have been. In such antagonisms there is always more or less injustice. Views necessarily become extreme, and extreme convictions lead to unjust results and violent antagonisms. These antagonisms are growing. The problem looms up on all sides. Violence is done to the black man, sometimes by the black man to the white man. Growing hatreds can mean nothing less than growing violence. Violence begets war, and there are not a few who sincerely believe that as soon as the negro feels himself competent to strike, he will strike in the most dangerous manner. We are bring- ing him into our armies. We are drilling him to fight. We call upon him to offer his life in any war to which his country may be a party. He fought, and fought valiantly, in the war against Spain, and will be found by the thousands in the ranks of the American army now in or moving to France. The question is full of pathos. What shall be done? What can be done? In the days of Noah, the daughters of man were fair to look upon and the children of God married them. This led to the flood. A mixture of races at that time, as we understand from our religious doctrines, be- tween the dark and the white races, led to the destruction of the human race. We do not believe in the mixture of these two races. All experi- ence forbids it. Our religious teachings give us fundamental reasons for the differences which should be maintained. The movement of the negro is now growing rapidly from the farms which he has cultivated to the large cities in which he is becoming an important factor. In the North he enjoys his political franchise. He may exercise it in such a way as to compel at least some measure of political respect; but that franchise freely exercised in the North, carries with it dangers that may lead to violence even among those who have been the most professed friends of the negro. In the South the views of the repre- sentatives of this race are irreconcilable.

— Conflicting Views. I quote here from an address of Senator Jas. K. Vardaman, from Mississippi: "But the door of hope might have remained closed so far as the progress of the negro was to make for himself was concerned. He has never created for himself any civilization. He has never risen above the government of a club. He has never written a language. His achievements in architecture are limited to the thatched-roofed hut or a hole in the ground. No monuments have been builded by him to body forth and perpetuate in the memory of posterity the virtues of his ancestors. "For countless ages he has looked upon the rolling sea and never dreamed of a sail. In truth, he has never progressed, save and except when under the influence and absolute control of a superior race. His opportunities have been great. The negro helped to build the tem- ples of Rameses, he polished the columns of Karnak, he toiled at the hundred-gated Thebes, he was touched by the tides of civilization that swept across the Eastern Hemisphere in the forenoon of the ages, and yet it made no more impression upon him as a race than a drop of wa- ter on the oily back of a duck. He is living in Africa todav, in the land where he sprang, indigenous, in substantially the same condi- tion, occupying the same rude hut, governed by the same club, wor- shiping the same fetish that he did when the Pharaohs ruled in Egypt. He has never had any civilization except that which has been incul- cated by a superior race. And it is a lamentable fact that his civiliza- tion lasts only so long as he is in the hands of the white man who in-

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culcates it. When left to himself he has universally gone back to the barbarism of the jungle. "Let us consider his condition in Haiti. It will throw a flood of light upon our own American problem. The negro acquired control of this island more than 100 years ago. Thomas Jefferson said: 'This will test the negro's capacity for self-government.' "With his usual prescience and foresight, Jefferson predicted failure. But he said: 'Let him try it. We will help him.' "Haiti was at that time the gem of the Antilles. The most mag- nificent cane fields, coffee plantations, and fruit groves graced the landscape of that delightful little island. Now shift the scene. Look at Haiti today, after 100 years of negro rule. After 100 years of as- — sistance by the white man assistance with money, with example, pre- cept, and all of those superior virtues which characterized the civiliza- tion of the white race, what do we find there today? Sir Spencer St. John, who represented the English government at Port au Prince for twenty years, wrote a book entitled, Haiti, or Black Republic. When this English officer first visited Haiti he looked with compassion upon the black man. He thought he had been denied an equal chance in the race of life. He thought he had been the victim of slavery that the elements of manhood had been stifled by such oppression as some of the distinguished senators on this floor in this debate have called attention to as having been practiced in the Southern States of America. Yes; he thought 'the negro was a sunburned Yankee, who had not been given a square deal.' "Sir Spencer St. John remained as the representative of his gov- ernment at the court of the black republic for twenty years. He made a close study of the question. He informed himself as to the racial peculiarities of the negro, and his testimony to the world is that the negro is incapable of self-government. He is incapable of sustaining a civilization all his own. Further, he says: " 'After an experience of 100 years, Haiti has proved a failure. There is no semblance of civil government there, except in the sea- ports, which are dominated by whites and mulattoes.'

On the other hand, W. E. B. DuBois, an eminent leader of the colored race, speaking of the results of the prejudice which held down the people of his race, writes as follows:

"No matter how well trained a negro may be, or how fitted for work of any kind, he cannot in the ordinary course of competition hope to be much more than a menial servant. "He cannot get clerical or supervisory work to do save in excep- tional cases. "He cannot teach save in a few of the remaining negro schools. "He cannot become a mechanic except for small transient jobs, and cannot join a trades union. "A negro woman has but three careers open to her in this city: domestic service, sewing, or married life. "As to keeping work: "The negro suffers in competition more severely than white men. "Change in fashion is causing him to be replaced by whites in the better paid positions of domestic service. "Whim and accident will cause him to lose a hard-earned place more quickly than the same things would affect a white man. "Being few in number compared with the whites the crime or care- lessness of a few of his race is easily imputed to all, and the reputa- tion of the good, industrious, and reliable suffer thereby. "Because negro workmen may not often work side by side with

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white workmen, the individual black workman is rated not by his own efficiency, but by the efficiency of a whole group of black fellow workmen which may often be low. "Because of these difficulties, which virtually increase competition in his case, he is forced to take lower wages for the same work than white workmen. "Men are used to seeing negroes in inferior positions; when therefore, by any chance a negro gets in a better position, most men immediately conclude that he is not fitted for it, even before he has a chance to show his fitness." "If, therefore, he set up a store, men will not patronize him. "As to his expenditure: 'The comparative smallness of the patronage of the negro, and the dislike of other customers, make it usual to increase the charges or difficulties in certain directions in which a negro must spend money. "He must pay more house rent for worse houses than most white people pay. "He is sometimes liable to insult or reluctant service in some res- taurants, hotels, and stores, at public resorts, theaters, and places of recreation, and at nearly all barber shops. "As to his children: "The negro finds it extremely difficult to rear children in such an atmosphere and not have them either cringing or impudent: if he impresses upon them patience with their lot, they may grow up satis- fied with their condition; if he inspires them with ambition to rise, they may grow up to despise their own people, hate the whites, and become embittered with the world. "His children are discriminated against, often in public schools. "They are advised when seeking employment to become waiters and maids. "They are liable to species of insult and temptation peculiarly trying to children. "As to social intercourse: "In all the walks of life the negro is liable to meet some ob- jection to his presence or some discourteous treatment; and the ties of friendship or memory seldom are strong enough to hold across the color line. "If an invitation is issued to the public for any occasion, the negro can never know whether he would be welcomed or not; if he goes he is liable to have his feelings hurt and get into unpleasant altercation; if he stays away he is blamed for indifference. "If he meet a lifelong white friend on the street, he is in a dilem- ma; if he does not greet the friend he is put down as boorish and impolite; if he does greet the friend he is liable to be flatly snubbed. "If by chance he is introduced to a white woman or -man, he ex- pects to be ignored on the next meeting, and usually is. "White friends may call on him, but he is scarcely expected to call on them, save for strictly business matters. "If he gain the affections of a white woman and marry her, he may invariably expect that slurs will be thrown on her reputation and on his, and that both his and her race will shun their company. "When he dies he cannot be buried beside white corpses. "Any one of these things happening now and then would not be remarkable or call for especial comment; but when one group of people suffer all these little differences of treatment and discrimina- tions and insults continually, the result is either discouragement, or bitterness, or oversensitiveness, or recklessness. And a people feeling thus cannot do their best."

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The present war will make a heavier demand for the kind of labor the colored man is fitted to do. Thousands will migrate from the south and take employment surrendered by the call to arms. The whites will return, and there can be no doubt that they will endeavor to crowd the negro back. Will they be able to do it? The negro question is full of ugly possibilities.

— Negro Excluded from Exercise of Government in Churches. The negro race in the . Church are excluded from its government through the priest- hood. "Now this king [Pharaoh] of Egypt was a descendant from the loins of Ham, and was a partaker of the blood of the Canaanites by birth. "From this descendant sprang all the Egyptians, and thus the blood of the Canaanites was preserved in the land. Pharaoh being a righteous man, established his kingdom and judged his people wisely and justly all his days, seeking earnestly to imitate that order established by the fathers in the first generations, in the days of the first patriarchal reign, even in the reign of Adam, and also of Noah his father, who blessed him with the bless- ings of the earth, and with the blessings of wisdom, but cursed him as per- taining to the priesthood" (Book of Abraham 1:21,22,26).

© Underzvood & Underwood, New York