The Evil in Modernism

The Evil in Modernism By Dr. Elmer G. Peterson, President of Utah Agricultural College (O INCE Mr. Morgan, some years ago, testified that character was Sn) the greatest collateral, it has become more generally recognized that our ultimate security depends more upon our integrity than upon tangible assets. We all are interested in a most important way not only in the output of our mines, factories and farms as representing the fluid wealth of our communities; we are even more interested in the development of personal and social moral quality. The mounting statistics of crime are not more significant than the loosening of those moral restraints which cannot always be desig- nated legally as crime, but which stimulate and lead up to crime itself. The attempt to explain these manifestations of our new attitude as an expression of industrialization following our essen- tially agricultural life does in part explain, but does not condone. Morals in these important ways do not change. A just man thinks today as did a just man a thousand years ago. Honesty does not change. Neither does charity or love. Lust is lust always and greed is always greed. The president of the United States has recently given us an engineer's judgment that we are suffering not from a flurry of crime, but from a "subsidence of our foundations." When an engineer uses this term he uses the most terrifying designation at his com- mand. For foundations to subside is for all to be in jeopardy. President Hoover, let it be remembered, is among the least poetic of our presidents. He speaks from the blue prints and specifications when he says that life and property are less safe in America than in any other place in the civilized world. We are properly proud of our civilization. Since Galileo in the sixteenth century went up to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa and dropped his weights in order to demonstrate the law of falling bodies and of motion and to deny the validity of ancient records which had guided the thinking of civilized mankind for hundreds of years, we have advanced very far in our conquest of the forces of nature. Our ancestors, ignorant of the nature and operation of natural law, were held down in dread of these forces and as a result engaged in monstrous social and personal practices because of superstition and fear. We have emerged from this period into the period of free thinking unhampered by false authority. It is most interesting to note how progress has proceeded along different

888 IMPROVEMENT ERA sepl.. 1929 lines in essential harmony, although at different times. While Copernicus, Galileo and Newton were establishing the foundations of modern science and discrediting the accepted scientific authority of their time, Luther, "the father of Protestant civilization," and Voltaire were breaking away from the religious authority of Rome, and England was setting up the beginnings of free government by destroying the authority of kings. All these great movements were expressions of the passion of people for freedom, the most priceless of our human inheritances. A Morally Reliant Citizenship BUT freedom, priceless as it is, has given way in recent years in important places in civilization to autocracy because the abuses of freedom have become too burdensome for the people to bear. Italy, probably the best example, has been resurrected from what appeared to be certain disaster by abandoning the free institutions which, it is important to remember, were born 714 years ago, when the barons of England forced King John, on June 15, 1215, to sign Magna Charta, the original charter of all our modern liberties. We may well ask in America if we are not approaching a time when we too shall be forced to resort to new methods to curb the in- creasingly intolerable disrespect for law and the abuse of freedom which manifests itself in every walk of life. We will not, I think, in America agree that our institutions based upon Magna Charta and embodied in our Constitution and Declaration of Independence shall ever be abridged. We shall prefer to regulate our freedom rather than abandon it. This means that we must build up, by processes of education, an informed citizenship and a morally reliant citizenship sufficient voluntarily to deny itself liberties which lead to disorder. And this is no small task. It may be profitable to analyze for a few minutes some of the aspects of our life because along with its virtues there are many defects in our civilization which it would be unwise, indeed need- lessly foolish, not to recognize. This is the age of science. "Tested thought" rules the civilized portion of the world as completely as our ancestors a thousand years ago depended upon signs and portents or the word of authority to guide them. Civilized humanity, as has been so completely shown in recent writings, is dedicated to science because "science is getting for us the things we need." It is ridding our children of diphtheria and dozens of other diseases, either directly by injection of a curative substance or indirectly by prevention; it is through machinery pro- ducing in mass an abundance of food and clothing within the reach of all; through processes of preservation and by means of transporta-

Sept.. 1929 THE EVIL IN MODERNISM 889 tion from regions of plenty to regions of want, it is eliminating famine; it is establishing control over pests and animal diseases and floods, thus measurably eliminating the disasters which make up a larger part of the record of human struggle. Science is transporting us with amazing speed as we do our work over the surface of the earth, over the seas, and in the air. It is bringing music and in- formation to our firesides by radio. The application of science to industry has raised the so-called standard of living to a level unheard of before in world history. Particularly in America but measurably also in northern Europe and in other regions such as Canada, Australia and similar areas, which have been most influenced by modern civilization, the working man is receiving a comparatively high wage, and has the opportunity, for the first time in the history of the world, of giving his children food, clothing, education and recreation. In America common laborers today frequently live much better than princes of old as far as material comfort is concerned. Mr. Hoover in his "bread and butter" speech at Newark, N. J., last fall brought out the fact that American labor, skilled and un- skilled, receives in "bread and butter" values, expressable of course in other values, from about double to eight times as much as labor in other civilized countries. This is but one expression of the very great benefits accruing from American freedom, inventive genius, initiative, natural resources, free and general education, and a public opinion and conscience untrammeled by national hatreds and by decadent social customs. The wealth of America expressing itself in roads, automobiles, home plumbing, refrigeration apparatus, and other home conveniences and in per capita consumption of necessities and luxuries, in general in a material standard of living, so far transcends all other countries as to be considered almost miraculous. Change in Economic Practices INDEED the problem of American industry has come to be, how to dispose of the surplus wealth and production. Factories and farms are producing more than we can consume. This over- production is all in all one of the most astounding developments of history. We are trying to meet the situation by developing install- ment buying, shorter hours and fewer days of labor a week. Some of the important old economic practices, if not indeed what we thought were principles, are threatened ,with nullification. We are told by one of the greatest industrial leaders that, "No one who ever amounted to anything ever saved money." Economics is forc- ing employers to give and give. They are being forced to charge as small a profit as possible and pay as high a wage as possible; twenty- five years ago they proposed just the opposite. "Get wealth into

890 IMPROVEMENT ERA Sep,.. 19Z9 the hands of consumers!" is the distress cry of American industry. Are we not being ushered by processes of trade into a millennium where it will be "better to give than to receive" and where we will "take no thought for raiment?" Before we know it we may, in utter self-defense, be doing unto others as we would that others should do unto us. The kingdom of heaven may be in the offing. So as a result of all this we have become worshipers of science and the investment today in education and research mounts into the hundreds of millions each year as we try to extend the field of knowledge and thus reap further rewards for ourselves. But along with anti-toxin, automobiles, highways, aeroplanes, radio, educational institutions, abundant food and clothing, li- braries, parks, and leisure time, we hear with irritating frequency of banditry, corruption in public office, bootlegging, growing addiction to narcotics and other drugs, low-grade contemporary literature and music, a stage almost devoid of virtue, an almost total absence of really great art, a flood of movie productions, barring a few admir- able exceptions,, fearfully sterile of thought or beauty, news stands which fester with diseased material, vulgar or stupid or both almost beyond belief, increasing divorce, lowering birth rate, companionate marriage, a coarsening of the relationship between men and women, open advocacy of experimental selection of mates on the ground of satisfaction of lust, and a general breakdown of sex restraint, a restraint which is admittedly the foundation of the family and the home. To Elevate Business AND business itself which is the altar at which America and the civilized world are coming to worship is not free from con- cern. Ethical business is undoubtedly a "civilizing process" but there is current complaint that too large a portion of business is still unethical. We are striving through civic clubs and similar organiza- tions to elevate business. The motives represented in these ac- tivities are most worthy, superficial as much of the activity is, be- cause they represent or at least try to represent organized mercantile conscience. Individual initiative on the part of good men in the aggregate of course far transcends these organized efforts. Yet, in spite of such efforts, there is a strong opinion that fakery and in- justice still play a large part in modern business. We have seen corruption displayed in big business through recent investigations. Undoubtedly for one culprit exposed there are a hundred who escape detection. And a lesser but very pernicious manifestation of evil shows itself in our advertisements. Read any popular magazine. Drugs of doubtful value, at most only semi-reputable remedies, various

Sept., 1929 THE EVIL IN MODERNISM 891 pastes and other forms of toilet preparations whose values are grossly misrepresented, misrepresented foods, mouth washes ridicu- lously exploited, tobacco, drinks, stomach reducers, and obviously absurd educational proposals, to mention only a few of the com- modities and devices which fill our magazines, stare us in the face. At almost every turn of the highway we are confronted with utterly false exposition of the virtue of cigarettes. Often such advertise- ments try to accomplish their objects by an inference colorfully illustrating what they know would be impossible to say frankly without arousing indignation. Many of them are an offense to common honesty. Every intelligent smoker of cigarettes must be embarrassed by the guilty feeling that he is a party to the cigarette propaganda. To be sure there are many notices about such neces- sities as automobiles, reliable foods, machinery, building equipment and clothing, many of these, however, containing obvious mis- statements directly or inferentially misrepresenting the commodity in comparison with competitor articles. There is of course a recog- nized element of unconscious humor in these statements and as a result we do not take them too seriously. But one wonders if it is necessary, in order to sell a soap, to try to convince the public that it produces a good complexion or a mouth wash that its antiseptic qualities eliminate mouth and stomach odors, neither of which is at all true. Yet millions of dollars each year are spent in trying to perpetrate these and similar deceits. It is surprising to note the number of notices which relate to needless, superficial or vicious pro- ducts, catering to ignorance, false appetite, habit or vanity. Many are misleading, unethical or fraudulent. Run the scale on your radio some night and try to determine the proportion which has merit. It will be surprisingly low. There are a few genuine presentations such as the Damrosch orchestra and interpretations, some excellent sermons and addresses, and of course there is a good lot of dependable subject matter. But the bulk of the material is obviously for a very coarse appetite and much of it particularly obtrusive advertising. The other night, un- awares, we tuned in, a mixed company of us, on a disrobing scene in an artist's studio. The sex notes of alarm and the loud ecstatic breathing of the participants carried very clearly over the air. The Good Still Predominates LET it be admitted and emphasized that with all the evil which critics and pessimists may search out in the operations of modern business, it is unbelievable that the evil transcends the good. We have, furthermore, year by year the opportunity to educate our- selves out of the use of the inferior or worthless and thus eliminate

892 IMPROVEMENT ERA Sept.. 1 9 29 it by selecting the superior both in goods and in processes. One cure for such evil is perfect freedom to express itself. What is emphasized here is that there is a large admixture of evil in the probably larger good which civilization is bringing us. While we have produced an advanced mechanical civilization, we have fallen far behind in the development of a culture to correspond. An American magazine states: "What idea can the unfortunate young people of today have of ancient polish and refinement? So extensive is the deterioration of society, so deleterious the conse- quences of abounding established system, that even the well in- tentioned know not how to conduct themsleves. Our manners have been left to choke themselves with their own wild growth till they have shot into the exuberance of rudeness." This is not a quotation from a current number of the mag- azine; it is a statement published in the North American Review in its first issue of May, 1815. It may appear at first that our outcry is needless; past generations have been criticized the same as ours, and they have come through their so-called depravity triumphantly. But have they? The quotation of 1815 merely suggests that our prob- lems are not new and that change has always alarmed us. Wisely so, because change may be good or bad and each generation must select the good if it can. The process of "going to the devil" has apparently been a never-ending one. It is not necessary to be a believer in a dismal future for the race to believe that the wastage in human material is and always has been tragically great. And "going to the devil" has unfortunately actually been a rather large part of the activity of every generation; and emphatically so of our own because our own has greater facilities for reaching that destination quickly. We can go there by automobile or aeroplane today while our ancestors had to walk or be pulled slowly by ox-team or horses. The breakdown in social and personal standards and the meas- ure of evil which is in business may be over-emphasized by the ob- servers who are writing of it. The difficulties which we encounter in international relations, often revealing hypocrisy and deceit on the most monumental scale, may be but an expression of human weakness indicating the status1 of our progress and not so much, as many believe, of national wickedness. It must, however, be ad- mitted, no matter how we seek to minimize these symptoms, that there are many causes for grave apprehension. Science Destroys Kingcraft and Priestcraft SCIENCE cannot be held guilty of causing this visitation of fraud, this riot in the name of freedom. Science may only be properly

S'i"- »*» THE EVIL IN MODERNISM 893 associated with these conditions on the ground that science destroyed the authority which previously had been assumed by kings and priests and thereby released men's minds from obedience to any outer authority. The story of this connection between the development of science and education and the destruction of kingcraft and priest- craft is a, long story and has been detailed for us many times. It may be sufficient to say, what is now so generally under- stood that these twin evils always fought science and education because the business of kings and priests was to think for the people and not allow the people to think for themselves. For that reason they fought freedom. The development of freedom and the result- ant development of education and science inevitably ended the rule of king and priest. When science revealed that blessings could be secured by men through their own efforts and research, men abandoned kings and priests. It is probably all working out as it was planned, and the world will arrive at its great destiny in due time in spite of these obstruc- tions. In the meantime we are justified in refusing to join in the worship of modernism as it expresses itself in, evil. It is defensible to believe that there is more downright good in the world today than ever before and at the same time object to including in this benediction the host of demagogues preaching that it is all progress which we witness today, or the intellectuals whose souls are burnt out by vanity, or the mere money changers who clutter up the temple of modern life and science with their cheap wares and offend with their loud shouting — prostitutes debasing the great processes of economics to the ends of greed. There are great business men among us, so great indeed that they will go down in history, some of them, with the major statesmen, prophets, scientists and poets. These men are helping greatly in making over modern life for us. They are sanctifying business because of their very great sincerity. And every community has its valiant little quota of upright men who in the aggregate make up the real army of the Lord, fighting each day an honest battle more significant than any Hastings or Waterloo or Marne. But while still so large a group of camp followers are trailing after the army of progress, let us recognize them as such. The measure of degeneracy which we now have reached in- dicates that our civilization like a dread serpent is turning upon itself and sinking its fangs into its own writhing body. The World War is rather complete evidence of this; the international jealousy which exists eleven years after the war, in spite of the noble efforts expressed in recent treaties, is evidence that the nations merely await another opportunity to test their power. These treaties when you come to think of it should greatly embarrass us; they say among other things

894 IMPROVEMENT ERA •.. 1929 that murder is disavowed as a national process. That we should find it necessary to say this solemnly in a treaty is evidence enough that our international standards are those of the wolf. This avowal by the nations is equivalent to asking a private citizen to forego burglary or personal assault as a recognized process of citizenship. In international affairs in practice we completely deny the reality and the potency of spiritual law. The biological sciences and chemistry which have taught us to be healthy, by revealing the secrets of physiology and of foods, have at the same time taught us to be sterile. Deliberate sterility by the so-called superior people is resulting in the world being peopled with the off-spring of the so- called inferior. The automobile has become the most effective instrument of vice criminals have ever had. Our command of the very sciences which produced curative and preventive medicine and surgery and gave us a mastery in manufacturing and transportation, is preparing poisonous gas, liquid fire, war machines for use in the air, and possibly physical and chemical forces even more terribly destructive, and will, if some unforeseen transformation does not take place, effect the suicide of our civilization. Civilization Victim of an Old Disease TC* DUC ATIONAL institutions are not immune from the wither- *- ing effects of this new propaganda. It is not uncommon to hear expressions from educators in advocacy of doctrines which cannot be designated as other than evil. Such degeneration which manifests itself in the world often indeed parades as advanced thought. It parades as the new freedom in advocacy of indulgence in any form necessary in achieving what is called "self-expression." Strip these practices of the adornment of modern knowledge and they are as Sodom or Babylon or Rome. In these respects civilization is merely becoming the victim of an old disease; it is not subscribing to a higher ideal. This expression of modernism scorns the idea of God except as a vague and impersonal force to whom or which we owe no allegiance. Prayer is considered by very many an indefensible manifestation or superstition. Only the rational and scientific are considered good form. We seem to be in the clutches of a huge Cyclops of science of our own creation which threatens to crush the art, the poetry and the religion out of us. In this age of precision instruments and methods we tend to discredit or ignore what cannot be measured or in some way tested. The length and width of disease organisms is now known to a micron and their action on our bodies meas- ured in terms of temperature, pulse and blood count; the effect of the movement of the electron has been seen and meas-

s*pt.. 1929 THE EVIL IN MODERNISM 895 ured; our intelligence is tested and put down as a definite figure on a scale running from brilliance to stupidity; the test tube measures and pictures the nature of chemical reactions in terms of colors, odors, crystals, nature of filtrate and residue, and a variety of other definitely determinable reactions; the Petri dish pictures microscopic life for us in definite colonial form. Our weight should be so many pounds if our height is so many inches and our age so many years. The barometer, thermometer and speedometer tell us without guessing of pressure, temperature and speed. Our obedience to them is implicit; if something went wrong with our thermometer and it registered summer heat in the winter, our fidelity would prompt us to discard our coats and walk out blithely in straw hats and light linen. We have almost convinced ourselves that we are not sick unless one or more of the multitude of tests reveals it, no matter how we suffer. It is all good unless we decide that that which cannot be measured does not exist. So far we have no instru- ments or formulas to measure or express courage, fear, faith, tensity, hope, devotion, sacrifice, charity and love. And these do exist although they are beyond the reach of calipers. These indeed are the greater essentials of human life. No Scientific Means of Finding God A ND we have no telescopes, microscopes, spectroscopes, microm- *^- eters, Binet tests or chemical analyses to find God. We do not know how far we are from the discovery of anything even approach- ing the real essence or nature of life. In spite of our monstrous conceit and vanity, we know as little of the nature of life "as the insect knows of the printed page across which it walks." To plan our personal and social actions including our morals entirely on the basis of our "tested" knowledge is therefore the most outrageous stupidity. Yet that is exactly what is being attempted. Charity indeed is now organized and with philanthropy has become big business, not, however, without serious question as to its effective- ness. And witness, for instance, the attempt to put sex, procreation and love among the "things" which should be measured out. Women are becoming merchandise, garbed and painted for sale, the methods varying little from the advertisements of the body lines and duco on cars shown in our display rooms. We seek to control the maternal instinct of a peasant woman, in the name falsely of a higher standard of living which means frequently only a greater measure of indulgence, as we measure out vitamines and calories for her family. Such scientific vanity would have denied to the father and mother of Steinmetz the right to have borne the deformed son whose life has added glory to the name or man. Recently we have

896 IMPROVEMENT ERA Sept.. 1929 witnessed the spectacle of a cock-sure biologist attempting to subject a major state university and the ideals of the people it represented to formula. This young university president quickly discovered that the people who had built the university and who demanded that it conform to their standard had emotions, racial ideals, instincts and religious conceptions, whether true or false, which they refused to have measured and tested by what they thought were imperfect methods. A New Testament Civilization WHAT can be done to keep men and women, and particularly our youth, from deadly modern poisons as we give them the food of modern science? No one can answer this question com- pletely. Anyone may attempt to answer. It seems to me that we need a revival of ancient religious devotion. I do not mean a return to the rule of the priest whose power it took hundreds of bloody years to destroy. I mean a belief in God as a directing and essentially a personal force working of course through law. A great case can be made in favor of the proposition that the good in our civilization is essentially a result of Christianity. I am, therefore, speaking of God in terms of the interpretation in the New Testament. Ours is a New Testament civilization. It requires too much credulity to ex- pect the average person to establish loyalty to a power, merely, or a mechanism, or a formula. This average person is utterly lost in his efforts to associate himself with any degree of satisfaction and therefore ultimately with any loyalty or sense of responsibility to a God as law only. He can have high and proper respect for, let us say, gravity. "Force equals mass times acceleration," is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, deductions, ever made by the mind of man. This Second Law of Newton is the physical foundation of our civilization. But the ordinary man will admit his inability to establish loyalty to gravity or the formula F. equals M. A. It is in another dimension of emotion. We think of such laws as forces to be taken advantage of and in no sense as occasioning affection or devotion. One of the great hallucinations of our times is the belief in the animal nature of man, consciously or unconsciously correlated with our theory as to the origin of man. This doctrine of animalism if accepted tends to lower our conscience to the level of the beast. Evolution of course is a fact or rather a tremendous concourse of facts; that man is a brute is not a fact. The attempt physically, chemically qr biologically to mechanize the universe or to animalize the human race has not as yet succeeded. Job of old is represented as trying to explain some" of the problems of life; the glory of the

spf- l9Z9 THE EVIL IN MODERNISM 897 record of Job is his final acknowledgment that he not only cannot know but finds joy in leaving to God what still is God's. So, many of the little minds we call great but which after all are quite small would do well not to misunderstand the purposes of the flesh. Progress has never come except as it is coming to us. We are not to be ushered into a millennium unless we are worthy of it and deliberately choose it; indeed, possibly unless we create it ourselves. God and evil always come together. We can select either. Our task is to distinguish one from the other. Evil is most dangerous when it appears as something else. If it went about with its own scarlet mark upon it we would avoid it. It appears frequently in the garb of respectability, even intellectuality. Its fangs are hidden behind a gracious smile. Yet to know evil and to fight it is our second duty and privilege. The first is to love the truth. Prospective Tobacco Legislation On June 10, the United States senate received a shock. Senator Smoot introduced a bill to amend the Food and Drug Act of June 30, 1906, by extending its provisions to tobacco and to tobacco products. He said he introduced the bill because "the manufacture and sale of tobacco products are matters that affect the public health and welfare of millions of our population;" that "various drug products are contained in tobacco;" and that "false and deceptive statements made through advertising media in the interest of tobacco products should be brought under government regulation." In introducing his bill the senator delivered a scathing address in which he charges the tobacconists with indulging in "an orgy of buncombe, quackery, and downright falsehood and fraud to create a vast woman and child market for their products." The No-Tobacco League prints the senator's address in full in the July issue of The No-Tobacco Journal. It has also organized a nationwide cam- paign to get individuals and groups of people in all the states to petition congress to pass the bill. Anyone interested in having a part in the campaign in this matter, so vital to the "public health and welfare of millions of the population," can obtain copies of the senator's address and suggested form of petition by writing to the No-Tobacco League, Box 578. Indianapolis, Indiana, and enclosing five cents tor postage.