BANCROFT 
 LIBRARY 
 
 :BRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 CALIFORNIA 
 

 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 Joseph M. Tanner 
 
 Preface 
 
 I am asked to write on some of the vital problems of the age. At the 
 outset I anticipate a criticism that many of the chapters of this book will be 
 considered pessimistic. Problems are problems because they have two sides, 
 and because they presuppose, in our social and economic systems, a need 
 of reformation; they are problems also because they carry certain dangers 
 with them. If this were an age of optimism we should have few or no prob- 
 lems for discussion. 
 
 About the only real optimism which we can safely entertain is the op- 
 timism of hope that things somehow and sometime will come out all right. 
 It is our chief duty at present, however, to pursue remedies to thwart evils 
 which every thoughtful person must realize are threatening the social and ec- 
 onomic systems of the world. 
 
 War has its evils but war is also a revelation of a multitude of existing 
 evils that have brought it about. We are, therefore, on the threshold of a 
 period of reconstruction. As a people we believe sincerely that the wisdom 
 of this world is insufficient to meet the great demands of the future. Here- 
 after the world must take God into their confidence and consider seriously 
 the revelations which he has given for our guidance. Only a very few of 
 these reevlations are referred to in this book because of the limitations put 
 upon it. 
 
 The contents of these chapters are not exhaustive. They are rather in- 
 tended as a basis for the discussion of present conditions of life which con- 
 stitute a problem for all thinking men. The classes for whom these chap- 
 ters are intended will have, therefore, from their own experience and read- 
 ing, abundant illustrations to supplement that which the author has written. 
 The problems contained in these discussions are the living issues; they are 
 very serious issues that confront us. 
 
 Furthermore, we live in an age when the most serious troubles confront 
 us, and as a people we may well begin the work of reconstruction that has 
 been prepared for us by revelation. It is time to set our houses in order 
 and prepare for the colossal work which peace will bring to us as a people 
 and to the world at large. 
 
 If I have drawn a dark picture of many aspects of the world today, I rest 
 in the consolation that nothing has been said in this book which, in my 
 thoughts, is not justified by the revelations which God has given through 
 the Prophet Joseph Smith to the world. The revelations in the book of Doc- 
 trine and Covenants truly give us the most serious warnings of God's judg- 
 ments which are to come, and "come quickly," he has told us. If there are 
 those who think I have been excessively pessimistic, let them reed the 
 words of God contained in the revelations printed in the Doctrine and Cov- 
 enants. They are my best defense. 7. M. Tanner. 
 
 I. An Interpretation of the War 
 
 Definition The great conflict now raging in Europe represents two 
 great classes of wars. There are national wars, or what we might term the 
 ordinary war, and there are world-dominion wars. The latter take place onlj 
 
 *Note. From the Improvement Era, beginning January, 1918. 
 
2 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 at great intervals; they mark the end of the old and the beginning of a new 
 regime ; they represent individual and national ambition for world-wide 
 dominion. Such wars are represented in the overthrow of the civilization 
 in the ancient nations inhabiting the valley of the Mesopotamia and the 
 banks of the Nile. Alexander wept, it is said, because there were no other 
 worlds to conquer. "In that day to be a Roman was greater than a king." 
 Rome, at the zenith of her career as conqueror of nations, began her down- 
 fall. Napoleon dreamed dreams, and today Germany is struggling for world 
 supremacy. The lesson that God is the ruler of this world has never been 
 learned. From ancient times, ambitions to overtop the heavens have been 
 thwarted amidst confusion and decay. 
 
 The Decadence of the Old and the Birth of the New. The fact that 
 nations come and go is not so important as ihe changes in civilization. The 
 process of disintegration goes on rapidly while from beneath a new order 
 of things is springing up. The old regime was as blind to its fading glory 
 as it was to the eternal truth of God's omnipotence. We come thus to speak 
 of Egyptian, Greek, and Roman civilizations, each supplanting the other in 
 the order named. These changes have been a part of the progress of the 
 world from the earliest times. At these periodical changes in civilization, 
 some distant and "contemptible" power has come into the new life of the 
 world as a dominating factor. Such world-dominion wars have not only 
 become characterized by the unexpected which happened in them, but by 
 the unexpected results that grew out of them. The great war now on has 
 been noted for the sudden appearance of the unexpected, and according to 
 past epochs of history, we may reasonably expect that its effects will be the 
 unexpected changes and conditions of the new life which will follow. The 
 ground beneath our feet is giving way, and we must support ourselves by a 
 new and different hold upon the shifting conditions of another civilization. 
 
 The Fading Glories. In all these past break-ups in civilization, men 
 have deceived themselves by their prattle about imperishable glories. They 
 professed to believe that their age had fastened itself upon the life of the 
 world forever. The fading processes became obscure to them, not because 
 they were not visible, but because men were blind. Today we see but do not 
 comprehend a form of blindness. The world is therefore full of surprises 
 for which we are not prepared. Under such conditions men cannot com- 
 prehend a change because the end and the beginning are not abrupt, but 
 the one grows gradually out of the other. The key to the mystery of it all 
 is locked up in the word "unexpected." If we would form some idea of 
 the unexpected things that await us, we must count the unexpected things 
 that have happened. The sure sign of the new age is "surprise." 
 
 After the Breakup. What will happen after the disintegrating processes 
 have done their work? That is God's mystery, a part of his revelations. It 
 will be the new glory of another age. As time goes on, it will become a 
 field for speculation. Economists will stand amid the ruins of their the- 
 ories, and explain by "if's" why they were not everlastingly right. Politi- 
 cians will grope in the dark. The business world will begin the work of 
 readjustment. Community life will take on a new aspect. Customs, man- 
 ners, and methods will be changed to suit the needs of the new life. 
 
 Changes may not be rapid. In the past they have appeared gradually as 
 generation after generation passed on. This, however, is an electric age, 
 and who can gay that the new life may not come with the speed which is 
 drawing the world to its new destiny. Life at such a crisis is bewildering, 
 but it is interesting, it is even comforting because it reveals some divine pur- 
 pose which calls for a new hope and a profounder faith. 
 
 Is Disintegration Anarchy? Leading minds of England are in a world 
 of doubt. Lloyd George has recently appointed a commission to examine 
 industrial unrest. The president of the Corpus Christi College of Oxford 
 does not believe that a revolution can be averted e ^n to the end of the 
 present war. In this country Andrew D. White sees the coming of anarchy. 
 "Whether the change will be a simple disintegration or anarchy depends 
 upon the question of violence. Violence comes from hatred and hatred is 
 inflamed by hunger. Will famine follow war? It has often been its com- 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 3 
 
 panion. Brooks Adams, in his Theory of Social Revolution, says: "Now, 
 although the optimist contends that since men cannot foresee the future, 
 worry about the future is futile, and that everything, in the best possible of 
 worlds, is inevitably for the best. I think it clear that within recent years 
 an uneasy suspicion has come into being that the principle of authority has 
 been dangerously impaired, and that the social system, if it is to cohere, 
 must be reorganized. If capital insists upon continuing to exercise sov- 
 ereign powers, without accepting responsibility for a trust, the revolt against 
 the existing order must probably continue, and the revolt can only be dealt 
 with by physical force." 
 
 Government is always representative, whether it be democratic or mo- 
 narchial; but it represents the dominating force of the age and community. 
 It will hardly be gainsaid that the greater force in our country today is 
 capital, and that our government is primarily capitalistic, just as in Ger- 
 many the government is militaristic, because the greatest force in that coun- 
 try is military power. 
 
 We have ceased to look to the Government at Washington as our sole 
 protector. In the city of New York the lives of millions are dependent not 
 upon Congress or upon the president of the United States, but upon the 
 great transportation companies that hourly transport the daily bread of the 
 people. If it be said that state and federal governments may control these 
 transportation companies, it will be admitted that capital is after all the 
 primary power, and the government's only secondary. Some captains of 
 industry have set up a divine right to rule as the stewards of the people's 
 needs. What Mr. Adams here writes was given out before the war. The 
 war emphasizes the weaknesses, vices, and dangers of our national life. As 
 the evils of governments become more pronounced, they invite all opposing 
 forces in opposition to them, and hence we see the menace of capital and 
 labor to the present standards of life. 
 
 New Problems. As a result of the present world catastrophe a new 
 order of life will come into being, old institutions will give way to new 
 organizations brought forward to meet the demands of the new ag3. Our 
 social, industrial, and religious life must undergo pronounced changes in 
 the reconstruction of a new age. 
 
 It is not easy to establish a new order of things without some prepar 
 tion, some experience. Has God permitted this debacle to come into th. 
 world without some revelation of the needs of the new life to which people 
 will be subjected? Is there no one to point the way, no institution given 
 to some delegated authority as a guide to the life of the new world? The 
 crumbling processes are already felt, but an easy-going world has not yet 
 become serious enough to think of substitutions. It will be the aim of the 
 writer to point out in the chapters to follow some of the important and 
 already established methods of dealing with the new age, revealed methods 
 that have already found their way into the daily lives of comparatively 
 small communities, but yet suited for the largest of human aggregations. 
 The world is being thrown into a vast cauldron, the melting pot of human 
 institutions. What the moulding processes will be it is not easy to deter- 
 mine, but out of the incoherent mass of activities will come a new earth, 
 if not a new heaven. One may readily believe that this is God's day, that he 
 is speaking through those calamities which the world is bringing upon itself. 
 The history of the past proves that more than once it has been easier for the 
 voice of God to penetrate the world through the roar of cannon and the 
 shrieks of famine than through the vices, oppressions, and luxuries of life. 
 Out of great calamities have been born many divine institutions that brought 
 alleviation from the sorrows of life. Too bad, one may say, that we must 
 suffer so much that we may learn so little, learn what we might know and 
 practice if only our lives were turned to the will and purposes of God; but 
 we have our free agencies, the freest of all human institutions. It is not 
 agencies that make us free, but the truth which is learned only in obedience 
 to divine purposes. We have not the strength to say "not my will, but 
 thine be done." What we vainly imagine is the strength of our will is the 
 weakness of our selfishness and vain ambitions. 
 
4 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 Revealed Causes. The peace of the world is God-ordained and God-sus- 
 tained. If men will not acknowledge God in all things, and prefer the exer- 
 cise of their free agencies, desires, and lusts, they may have their own way 
 that they may try themselves and test divine truth. Such a test lies before 
 us. In a revelation of God to Joseph Smith, the Lord says, Doc. and Cov. 
 1:31-35. 
 
 "And he that repents not, from him shall be taken even the light which 
 he has received, for my Spirit shall not always strive with man, saith the 
 Lord of Hosts. And again, verily I say unto you, O inhabitants of the 
 earth, I the Lord am willing to make these things known unto all flesh. 
 For I am no respector of persons, and will that all men should know that 
 the day speedily cometh; the hour is not yet, but is nigh at hand, when 
 peace shall be taken from the earth, and the devil shall have power over 
 his own dominion." 
 
 Again, Doc. and Cov. 101:8: 
 
 "In the day of their peace they esteemed lightly my counsel; but in the 
 day of their trouble, of necessity they feel after me." 
 
 See also Doc. and Cov. 43:33 and all of section 87. 
 
 // The Ashes of the World's Conflagration 
 
 The Elements of Destruction. When the ashes of the great conflagra- 
 tion are removed, they will reveal the elements that burned so fircely and 
 destructively during the conflict. They will contain the same elements that 
 have been the moving factors in the world's great upheavals of the past 
 hatred, ambition, pride, vice, luxury, idleness, and infidelity. These sins have 
 worked themselves into the lives of nations, by the contagious influence of 
 the individuals composing the social structure of civilization. There de- 
 velops a national spirit, a national instinct that we are compelled to yield 
 to for the so-called national good. When national disintegration sets in, 
 society is compelled anew to build up a new life out of the new spirit which 
 has always followed the overthrow of a passing civilization. Greece and 
 Rome could not conceive that their civilizations were unstable and incom- 
 plete, that they must pass away in order that a higher and better life might 
 take their place. We may see the place where others stand, but it is diffi- 
 cult to look at ourselves while moving forward in the course of human 
 events. 
 
 Hatred. A passing examination of the destructive forces of the present 
 age will better help us to appreciate how the old must be substituted by the 
 new, how the mistakes of the past must be avoided, if we are to build with 
 any degree of permanence for the future. 
 
 The most deadly force in the powers of destruction is hatred, the cause 
 of nearly all calamities to national and individual life. Wherever this de- 
 structive force manifests itself there will be found grave dangers to our peace 
 and progress. It provokes wars and wrecks all the social institutions in- 
 tended for man's preservation and happiness. When there is an alliance 
 of hatreds, armed conflict is virtually inevitable. Present world combina- 
 tions furnish a striking illustration. For decades England, France, Russia 
 and Japan were, through jealousy and hatred, on the brink of war or actu- 
 ally engaged in war. There gradually arose a still greater hatred, filled by 
 evil ambitions. Germany drove these nations by hatred and autocratic 
 contempt for others into one another's arms. They not only became allied 
 powers, but they brought with them an alliance of hatred with which Ger- 
 many must now reckon. These alliances are not merely political or mili- 
 tary maneuvers, they are deep-seated, ingrained hatreds as deadly as they 
 are universal. What created these cruel hatreds? Thy are the outgrowth 
 of social vices and individual sins. Nothing makes man so great a hater 
 as sinful conduct. 
 
 Ambition. A tolerably good definition of modern ambitions is to get 
 something that does not rightfully belong to one. The word itself has fal- 
 fen greatly into disuse in recent years. It is sometimes referred to as the 
 sin by which the angels fell. But the old spirit of ambition is still present, 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 5 
 
 clothed in modern raiment. Nowadays we speak more of ideals, purposes, 
 aims, etc., in life. We are less satisfied with a humble station in which we 
 may be useful. Utility is an old style brand that makes our wares hard to 
 sell. People are not so much concerned about what useful thing they are 
 doing as they are about the place they occupy a standing. They foolishly 
 imagine that a standing lifts them out of obscurity. To get a standing they 
 must jostle and crowd one another. Then ambition begins its ignoble 
 ascent. There is plenty of vacant space in this world, but nations and in* 
 dividuals would sooner step on some one's toes than move aside. Such a 
 treading process sooner or later ends in conflict, with its growing hatreds. 
 
 Pride. Pride, the insiduous poison of the imagination, has blinded the 
 world to the calamities awaiting it. The nations are boasting of their 
 glories, all the while ignoring the fundamental virtues which make emlur- 
 ance and growth possible. Some Germans talk of the superman as superior 
 to God. Why not? God to them is the combined effect of the forces of 
 nature. Man is bringing these forces, and therefore God, more and more 
 under his command. But the Germans act out the arrogant insolence of 
 their pride more than they speak it. Let the traveler stop to think. Did he 
 ever witness in any other country of Europe such a display of vain pride 
 as the Prussian officers manifest on the streets of Berlin? Yet the whole 
 world is filled with pride. It is not a national characteristic. However, 
 in Germany, vain boastings helped to bring on a war. 
 
 Vice. The self-satisfaction of pride leads people to exclaim, "Why not 
 let good enough alone?" The old contention to support royalty that "the 
 king can do no wrong" has its counterpart in the masses who vainly imagine 
 they "can do no wrong." If the false assumption cost monarchy its throne, 
 it will be none the less dangerous to the whole of mankind. Our boastful 
 "crowning age of glory" is not working out to our satisfaction. We are 
 compelled to stop by the great highways of life to witness the possible base- 
 ness of human nature. No, not human nature, depraved nature. Men are 
 no fairer to their fellow-men than they are to their God. If God is excluded 
 from the counsels of the nations, his mercy and love will not be felt in the 
 conduct of men. Vice begins in the heart, or with the motives, if you pre- 
 fer, and answers the call of self-indulgence. The prosperity of the times, 
 a luxurious age, is more than man can endure. It not only satisfies old 
 appetites, but it creates new ones. Our impatience with every form of re- 
 straint gives evidence of the decadence of the tims. 
 
 Luxury. We speak of our luxuries as if they were the special favors 
 of God. We even measure our success by them. Luxuries are not only 
 evidences of our national decline, they are potent causes of the domestic 
 struggles awaiting us. Awaiting us? War is only one phase of the great 
 break-up. The glare of the heavens reveals the sorrows of revolutions and 
 anarchy to come. There is going on in the world today the growth of a 
 class hatred that stifles every hopeful breath. The cleavage between the 
 rich and the poor is not only wider, but is deeper. To this pronounced 
 danger to the security of our social institutions the newspapers in their 
 social columns are lending the most efficient aid. They picture the display 
 of wealth and its wicked extravagance. They write up "my lady's $25,000 
 cat house." Banquets in honor of favorite dogs are pictured by artists in 
 glowing colors. Wealth not only seeks but demands display. To outdo, 
 to outshine, is the motto of the age. Fortunately, all of the poor do not 
 read these human follies depicted in our newspapers. The submerged nine- 
 tenths are i.ot told of them, and poverty, disappointment and reverses make 
 the contrast all the more difficult to bear. Such a condition of life simply 
 amasses a hatred which awaits only a spark of hunger to touch off. Neither 
 this country nor Europe could endure a famine; law and social order would 
 be cast to the winds. 
 
 Idleness. Idleness is the mother of discontent, whether it be the idle- 
 ness of the poor or the idleness of the rich. Idleness has become fashion- 
 able in all kinds of amusements. It is a pleasure-seeking age, but it will be 
 a calamity-finding age. And who is to blame for these dangers which threaten 
 our existence? These evil forces are the companions of our higher civiliza- 
 
6 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 tion. They are sweeping on with an irresistible power of destruction. Is it 
 fate? No. We have simply allowed the momentum to get beyond our con- 
 trol. Like ancient Israel, we can at most simply "wait upon the Lord" who 
 "hath spoken in the righteousness of his anger." Why speak of the inevit- 
 able? Why dwell upon the sorrows that await mankind? In them we have 
 a duty to perform. A period of reconstruction will follow. Men in sorrow 
 and contrition will listen. God will deliver them a message, as he has 
 delivered messages in the past. 
 
 Infidelity. Can even a democracy, if Godless, exist? Infidelity is more 
 than a simple disbelief in God and in religious institutions. If history is 
 pronounced upon any one question, it is the companionship of infidelity 
 and vice. It was so in ancient Greece and Rome when pagan gods were 
 overthrown. In the French revolution the unity of the two forces was very 
 marked. Deny it as man may, it is characteristic of men to throw off re- 
 sponsibility with the profession of infidelity. Can justice be reached through 
 purely intellectual processes. Without religion conscience is merely an in- 
 tellectual quality. When President Wilson declared that "the world must 
 be made safe for democracy," the Governor of Massachusetts added that 
 "democracy must be made safe for the world." The safety of dem- 
 ocracy has been taken too much for granted. There have been unsafe dem- 
 ocracies, democracies which have fallen into decay. They are not invulner- 
 able, not incorruptible. Some years ago when Herbert Spencer visited the 
 United States, he was asked if he did not think education would correct cer- 
 tain flagrant evils in our great commonwealth. He immediately answered, 
 "No. It is a question of morals and not education." Morals are more pro- 
 nounced in religion than in any other social functoin of life. Religion and 
 morals are today interdependent in all civilized nations. The growing in- 
 difference tj religious life throughout the civilized world portend no good 
 to our present social and political institutions, whose endurance has already 
 been thrown into the balance of our changing civilization. Is not all this 
 merely pessimism? I wish it were; and yet, if the decadent old is to be 
 supplanted by a better and holier new, why should we not be optimistic 
 about divine purposes? 
 
 We err if we imagine that war is making the world better and is there- 
 fore the end of the old and the beginning of the new. It simply empha- 
 sizes the evils which brought it on. Internal revolutions, which have al- 
 ready begun to becloud the horizon of our present civilized condition, warn 
 us that there is going to be a general overthrow, and we need not be sur- 
 prised to discover about us the debris of the past. 
 
 A Call to Repentance. For more than eighty years the elders of the 
 Church have been calling the world to repentance, and obedience to the gos- 
 pel of Jesus Christ, and declaring the coming of such calamities as are now 
 visiting the earth. To escape such a visitation the Saints are required to 
 gather to the Zion of God the pure in heart. A prophecy of Joseph Smith, 
 in 1831, reads: 
 
 "For after today cometh the burning; this is spoken after the manner of 
 :he Lord; for verily I say, that all the proud and they that do wickedly 
 shall be as stubble; and I will burn them up, for I am the Lord of hosts; 
 and I will not spare any that remain in Babylon." 
 
 Ill The Worlds Leveling Processes 
 
 Individualities. The fact that men enjoy separate and indpendent 
 agencies, that to every man is given an individuality, presupposes, of course, 
 a striking difference in men's capabilities. Again, men are born into differ- 
 ent environments which in themselves offer a multitude of opportunities 
 by which men make progress in the financial and intellectual world. These 
 environments we sometimes call the accidents of birth; but we may never 
 know to what extent the distribution of the spirits of God in this world is 
 the result of divine agency. 
 
 Men also move from place to place. They are thrown into different 
 environments by reason of their activities, and these again tell either ad- 
 vantageously or disadvantageously their future welfare. But even where 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 7 
 
 men do not move about from one locality to another so as to change their 
 environments, it often happens that an inrush of population makes a differ- 
 ence in their opportunities. It is easy, therefore, to understand that we are 
 not exclusively the architects of our own fortune, that we are creatures of 
 circumstances of environment of birth as well as creatures of different capa- 
 bilities. 
 
 Luck. Man is ever prone to figure out causes for certain effects which 
 come under his observation. Whenever it lends color to his superiority, 
 he is quick to discard every reason for his advanced place in the world 
 except that of his sheer ability. Such reasoning, of course, is in a large 
 measure the result of individual pride. But is there, we ask, such a thing 
 as luck? Luck has come to be a rather unsatisfactory word; but if it is 
 said that luck consists of those agencies over which we oureslves have no 
 control, it must be said that there is such a thing as luck, decidedly so. 
 But it is impossible to say just what chance lias to do with the individual 
 fortunes or misfortunes of men. It is true that some have the spirit of fore- 
 sight; they can see what is likely to happen; they figure on probabilities, 
 and of course take their chances, although they may have been so very care- 
 ful in their estimates that they really have few chances to take. For example: 
 A man has a small tract of land in a small town, or near a small town. He 
 has no reason in the world to believe that in such a place land values are 
 likely to be very great. His land can be made useful to him in a small 
 way, and he decides to keep it. While he is performing the individual 
 duties of his life, unconscious of what is going on in some great city, a 
 board of directors meets in a distant city, and votes on a railroad policy 
 that is sure to make the town in which the man lives a very populous one. 
 The railroad policy is carried out, thousands of people rush into the place, 
 land values rise rapidly, and the result is a personal fortune for the man 
 who had nothing whatever to do with the railroad policy which made him 
 rich, and who even knew nothing about it. Was it the man's foresight, or 
 was it a circumstance over which he had no control? Call it a good 
 chance, or call it luck, whichever you care to do, the fact remains that be- 
 tween that man and his neighbor, who formerly were comparatively on 
 equal terms in their material standing, there is constantly arising a great 
 financial inequality. 
 
 Rising Values. As a rule land values, if the land has a certain degree 
 of production in it, are what we might call stable values in ordinary times, 
 but in extraordinary times, rising values. There are those who will remem- 
 ber that in early days the people among the Latter-day Saints were warned 
 against parting with their land. Their attention was called to these rising 
 values which men of wisdom and more perfect insight foresaw, and the peo- 
 ple were given an opportunity to take it, which with rare exceptions they 
 threw away. 
 
 Thrift. As men differ in other qualities of life, so they differ in thrift. 
 Some are economical, and have the power and industry to earn much more 
 than others, and the difference in thrift, of course, always creates a difference 
 in wealth. Some of these differences which men enjoy are the results of their 
 superior wisdom, and they therefore reap a rich financial reward for those 
 principles of progress which we call thrift. Indeed, we speak of them at 
 virtues. But all the superior advantages which certain men enjoy in a ma- 
 terial way over their fellow men are not advantages which have accrued 
 to them as a result of their wisdom or of their virtues. Many of them 
 have come accidentally, so far as human provision can give us the power 
 to discern. Whatever the causes of these differences may be, in time they 
 often become very painful. They are a source, very often, of great injustice, 
 of sorrow, of human suffering. They entail misery, at times, upon untold 
 generations, and the differences would continue to increase the miseries of 
 humanity, if there were not some leveling process by which they could be 
 destroyed. 
 
 Laws of Moses. When God undertook, through Moses, to establish a 
 national life, he gave laws for correcting the inequalities that produce 
 wrongs to social life. He established the Sabbatical year and the year of 
 
8 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 Jubilee. Every seventh year men were compelled to forego certain advan- 
 tages: they were compelled to release slaves whom they had bought; they 
 had to return land which they had obtained. They had to forgive men their 
 debts, and thus, by the frequent application of this law, the wrongs that 
 grew out of the inequalities could not become so intense; frequent correc- 
 tions made the sufferings much less; and above all, it had a tendency to 
 preserve, in a large degree, the brotherhood of man. 
 
 The Law Disregarded. The law that God gave to ancient Israel was not 
 always respected. In time it was forgotten. Even the book containing it 
 was lost, and the people went on under the wrongs of inequalities until the 
 severer leveling processes were brought upon them. Surrounding nations 
 broke in upon them, robbed them and plundered them, and when such cor- 
 rections did not suffice, the Israelites were carried away into bondage, and 
 the entire people reduced to a condition of abject servitude. The differences 
 and the wrongs that grew out of them made a new beginning in life neces- 
 sary. But the leveling processes that come as a result of punishment are so 
 much more terrible; they are so severe, that sometimes whole nations are 
 practically wiped out of existence. To correct the inequalities of condi- 
 tions in life, war sometimes has its terrible work to do. Revolutions break 
 out, and anarchy prevails. History teaches us that as a rule immorality 
 increases with the increase of inequality with the divergence between the 
 rich and the poor. 
 
 Inequalities Created by War. Witness the prodigious revenue required 
 for war and the taxes needed to supply them. Many believe that the rich 
 will be practically taxed out of existence. Will they? Or will they in time 
 be able to shift, by all sorts of contrivances, the burden of taxation upon the 
 general public. Income taxes upon great corporations and monopolies are 
 too often made a part of running expenses, and the public pays the bill. 
 Men easily conceal themselves behind corporations and practice extortions 
 they could not carry on as individuals. Men at the battle fronts may feel 
 the equalizing procsses that come through comradeship, but in civil life 
 huge fortunes are created because of war conditions. Those who fight will 
 feel the pinch of finance after the war. The pinch will be severe, and those 
 who suffer will sense keenly the financial differences which others have 
 reaped at their expense. Those who have met the dangers and borne the bur- 
 den of war in its most dreadful aspects will clamor for some leveling pro- 
 cess. Selfishness will obliterate the highest patriotic motives, and men must 
 suffer from unjust discriminations. How much will they suffer? No human 
 means has ever been devised for financial equality. Money will still be an 
 unjust power, so great it may be as to provoke revolutions and create 
 anarchy. 
 
 Need of Religion. Religion must come to the relief of the unfortunate 
 if serious trouble is escaped. To add to the difficulty and danger there 
 will be an army of dependents, many of whom will avoid the divinely-ap- 
 pointed duty of toil. It will be the old condition of unworthy poor and 
 oppressive rich. A revelation in 1831 portrays the unhappy lives of both 
 classes, Doc. and Cov. 56:16,17. 
 
 IV. The Spirit of Destruction 
 
 Toil. The gospel teaches that wealth should be held in stewardship 
 for the benefit of God's children. It is perhaps one of the most difficult 
 duties man has to perform when he undertakes to overcome his selfishness, 
 when in the possession of the material gains of life. There is a real and 
 quite universal disposition to make ourselves secure against want, to provide 
 for the future, and lastly to feel ourselves removed from the necessity of 
 anxiety and work. From the days of Adam man in general has been put 
 under the pressure of toil. To earn his bread by the sweat of his brow 
 was the fiat that went forth to man from the garden of Eden. To make the 
 conquests in life more toilsome the earth was cursed by weeds and pests that 
 never left him secure in the knowledge that he would always reap the har- 
 vest he had planned. He needed hope and faith. He was not to be left in 
 a state of self-satisfaction. 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 9 
 
 The earth had to be redeemed, not only in the end, but continually, 
 by the labor and faith of her children. Redemption is not merely a final 
 act. It is a continuous struggle for conquest and restoration. We are made 
 redeemers by the life-long effort to conquer day by day the difficulties that 
 beset us. It is a delusion that men suffer from when they imagine they 
 may be redeemed by some act of contrition and repentance in the final 
 stages of their existence. We have a mission to conquer not alone the 
 soil and animal life but the forces of nature which abound in wealth for the 
 happiness and blessing of mankind. The wealth of these conquests surpasses 
 the fondest hopes of a selfish imagination. Man has found a means of 
 amassing fortunes through the revelations of science and invention. These 
 fortunes have become prodigious, but along with them increased poverty and 
 suffering. In our day, and for a number of years past, we have been com- 
 pelled to witness the feeding of school children at public expense because 
 their bodies were not sufficiently nourished to support the brain. Chari- 
 table institutions have multiplied greatly since the wealth of modern dis- 
 covery has been poured in upon the human family. Luxury and waste have 
 gone hand in hand with the increase of means provided by a benevolent 
 Providence for the comfort of his children. 
 
 Luxury. A few years ago men saw the accumulation of capital in such 
 enormous quantities that they were sure money would go begging and in- 
 terest whose burden rested heavily upon them, would be lowered to a mini- 
 mum. But luxury has always kept pace with production. The automobile 
 came into vogue and capital was swallowed in a new pleasure. Usury was 
 a curse upon the people of God in olden times, and through all the ages 
 since it has lain heavily upon the world at large. The sinful conditions of 
 waste were potent causes in the destruction of nations in the past. One of 
 the most conspicuous nations of the world was ancient Rome, whose citizens 
 vied with each other in the extravagances they were able to display. The 
 sad story of the fall of ancient Rome contains the evidences of debauchery 
 which waste brought upon her people. Waste is a grievous sin, destructive 
 alike to nations and individauls. Men cannot violate the law of steward- 
 ship without bringing upon themselves the penalty of heaven. A wealthy 
 man lived, in one of the parables of the Savior, who had filled his barn, se- 
 cured himself against privation, and so could "eat, drink, and be merry." 
 Such a man Christ characterized as a fool. "This night thy soul shall be 
 required of thee," and all men die when they escape responsibility to their 
 fellow men and to God. Job was a perfect man and a wealthy man, but he 
 was a just steward. "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away." He lived 
 to* praise God and was filled with gratitude, a quality of heart that every 
 rich man should possess. 
 
 Has the world amassed wealth in the spirit of stewardship? If for 
 selfish purposes men possess the earth, and waste the products of the labor 
 of man, they prepare themselevs for a spiritual death which means calamity 
 to the human race. We may possess but we may not waste. Waste means 
 luxury, idleness, and sin. It is a plague let loose upon mankind. All the 
 world dominion wars which have destroyed nations have been the leveling 
 processes by which God punished the waste, extravagances and injustices of 
 his children. There is no more dangerous symptom in the diagnosis of 
 national and individual life than the spirit of waste, the mother of extrava- 
 gance and sin. 
 
 Nor is waste a sin only amongst the rich; it is a habit alike of the poor 
 whose ambitions are to ape the rich. Extravagance lays waste not only the 
 material substance of man, but it destroys his physical, spiritual, and in- 
 tellectual well-being. The moral waste becomes an irreparable loss to the 
 world. It invites strife, contention, and war. Behold the holocaust of war, 
 and ponder the destruction it is bringing to life and property. A statement 
 of the world's losses through war is so forcefully put by the Berliner Tage- 
 blatt that I quote it at length, from its publication of August 25, 1917: 
 
 War and waste. "War loans, $87,000,000,000; loss in dead and 
 
 wounded, 24,000,000 men; killed, 7,000,000 men; loss through decrease 
 
 in birth rate in all belligerent countries, 9,000,000. 
 
10 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 "Gold production of the world during the last 500 years amounted 
 to $15,000,000,000, or less than one fifth of the cost of the awful world 
 war. In five-dollar gold pieces, the $87,000,000,000 raised in war loans 
 would form a belt that could be wound around the earth nine times. 
 The funeral cortege of the 7,000,000 killed would reach from Paris to 
 Vladivostok, if one hearse followed another. 
 
 "When the war began the combined public debt of the European 
 states was a little over $25,000,000,000, and now it is over $112,000,000,- 
 000. The British merchant fleet in 1914 represented a value of about 
 $950,000,000. That is less than the annual interest England now has to 
 pay for her war debt. Before tbe war Germany exported goods to 
 British colonies to the amount of $113,000,000 a year. By cutting off this 
 export, England can eventually reimburse herself for her losses, but 
 this will take more than 200 years. 
 
 "Germany, with the amount spent by her for the war, could have 
 . bought all the cotton fields, copper mines, and the whole petroleum in- 
 dustry of the United States and still would have had several billion dol- 
 lars left over. 
 
 "Russia, with her war expenses, might have covered her immense 
 territories with a net of railways as close as that of Belgium and France, 
 whose losses in men are larger than the entire population of Alsace- 
 Lorraine, could have bought all the Portuguese and Dutch colonies with 
 the money she sacrificed for the war. 
 
 "With the enormous wealth destroyed by the war, Europe might 
 have made a paradise on earth instead of a howling wilderness. There 
 is no doubt the awful struggle would have been avoided if the nations 
 had had any idea of its enormity when it started." 
 
 A little coterie of men at Potsdam, Germany, on July 5, 1914, lit the 
 torch that set the world in flames. The fire is still raging and no man seeth 
 the end of its destruction. The war is making an army of millionaires, 
 and new conditions of wealth will arise that are likely to complicate the 
 troubles that are sure to arise between capital and labor. Selfishness will 
 probably keep pace with the new conditions. As a consequence, envy and 
 disappointment among the masses mrfy ripen into hatreds that in turn will 
 be destructive to the domestic peace of the nations. The rich will have 
 resting upon them a fearful responsibility because in their power will be the 
 stability of society and the contentment of labor. Luxury and waste will 
 create dangers to the stability of nations. 
 
 If the ambition of wealth is the display of it, men will bury their talents, 
 and the burial of many talents is a greater sin than the burial of one. Com- 
 plications and dangers are plain enough to see, but who can forecast a rem- 
 edy? There are millions given to institutions, often to honor a name or 
 satisfy an ambition. The needs of humanity are too frequently overlooked. 
 
 Ambition for Power. Money strives for power. Newspapers, magazines, 
 instituions of learning, and vast industries have their compelling force upon 
 public opinion, because they are largely the creations of the rich. For the 
 past fifty years there has grown up in Germany a so-called "Junker" class, 
 as ambitious as it has been rich. Its wealth was turned to selfish and 
 national aggrandizement. It educated the masses to believe in war. By 
 its great publications and influence the whole national life was lured into 
 false hopes. It not only dragged its own nation into war, but brought war 
 upon nearly all the world. Wealth has there and in other lands be- 
 come the most destructive element in the social and economic life of man- 
 kind. 
 
 Noble Examples. The conservation of wealth entails a sacred duty on 
 the part of those who possess it. There has always been a dangerous fallacy 
 among men that their money is their own and they may do with it what 
 they like. The idea of stewardship has been foreign to their own minds. 
 There has never in all history been a law that could beneficially regulate it. 
 It has been a part of the exercise of the free agency of man. God gave a 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 11 
 
 law of control and distribution to ancient Israel, but its provisions were 
 shamefully disregarded, and his people paid the penalty in poverty and sor- 
 row. Christ exalted the poor from their lowly estate, or would have done 
 so, had they accepted his teachings. He made the way plain. His spirit 
 was a guide to rich and poor alike. The loss of that spirit has meant in- 
 dividual and national bankruptcy. The burning question of the world today 
 is the recovery of the loss of God's favor among his children. Will it be 
 possible for them to recover the blessing, the birthright they have so 
 frivolously bartered away. They are just as much mistaken about the value 
 of wealth as Esau was about his mess of pottage. In the end Esau gave 
 a "loud cry." It was the cry of despair. We have in Abraham a beautiful 
 example of a man of wealth. When the Assyrians carried off the inhabitants 
 of the cities of the plain, together with their flocks and herds, he was sat- 
 isfied to take back in his campaign against them the booty they had carried 
 off. He restored it to its owners, and would have no reward for himself. 
 His unaffected acts of charity, and unselfishness in the distribution of land 
 with Lot make him an ideal with respect to the stewardship of his posses- 
 sions. Of the things of this world he had plenty, but the ambition of his 
 life was not to keep what he had and to jtet more. He was constantly crav- 
 ing the favor of Jehovah. He would have children, and he had none, not- 
 withstanding God's promises to him. He saw in them a blessing. 
 
 How the world is turned around today ! What Abraham would treasure, 
 the world today esteems lightly; what Abraham would esteem lightly the 
 world is seeking in a spirit of madness. 
 
 The Saints of God in this dispensation have been and are warned against 
 the dangers of worldly gain. Has it become a passion with any of them? 
 Do those who have acquired an abundance of wealth regard it in the spirit 
 of a stewardship? Do they feel that it lays upon them a heavy responsi- 
 Hlity? Do any of them sense the dangers of luxury, extravagance, and 
 waste? Do the faithful, by their pronounced disapproval, discountenance 
 everywhere manifestations of wasteful pride and vain ambitions? 
 
 Revelation to Joseph Smith, 1831. Behold, I, the Lord, in the beginning 
 blessed the waters, but in the last days, by the mouth of my servant John, I 
 fcursed the waters; 
 
 "Wherefore, the days will come that no flesh will be safe upon the 
 Ivaters." Doc. and Cov. 61:14-15. 
 
 "For all flesh is corrupted before me; and the powers of darkness pre- 
 tail upon the earth, among the children of men, in the presence of all the 
 hosts of heaven, 
 
 "Which causeth silence to reign, and all eternity is pained, and the an- 
 gels are waiting the great command to reap down the earth, to gather the 
 lares that they may be burned; and behold, the enemy is combined." Doc. 
 Ind Cov. 38:11-12. 
 
 V. Religion and the War 
 
 Fear. There was a very general belief throughout the world that the 
 Jvar would bring a new devotion to religion. Observations of ministers and 
 kiembers of the Y. M. C. A. do not bear out such an expectation. "Fear 
 bf the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." It was not the fear of the Lord 
 lo much as it was fear of consequences on the battlefield that in the be- 
 ginning awakened a movement toward prayer. It is said soon to have died 
 out. Interviews with French soldiers indicate a sort of philosophy about 
 life and death that bordered somewhat on fatalism. It was called the 
 philosophy of good cheer, a sort of reconciliation to whatever might happen. 
 It was French optimism put into aphorisms. The Christian World Pulpit, 
 of July 25, 1917, contains a sermon on the subject of fatalism by George 
 Lawrence, in which he says: 
 
 "A soldier said to me in a dugout in the trenches, 'If I am born to 
 be drowned, I shall not be shot.' The subject under discussion was 
 fatalism. It is because I recognize the subtle danger of this doctrine 
 
12 PROBLFMS OF THE AGE 
 
 that I venture to combat it. Under its influence, soldiers have been 
 known to invite danger, run unnecessary risks, and even to play with 
 the chances of death. They believed, until they were hit, the bullet 
 intended for them had not yet left the munition factory. You can readily 
 understand what havoc a doctrine like this can work. It is criminal to 
 tell soldiers going to France that their death on the battlefield is de- 
 creed for them by fate. It undermines their security in themselves, 
 destroys their self-confidence, and renders them unfit for the proper dis- 
 charge of their duties. I wish to convince you there is no such thing as 
 fate. Our destinies are not controlled, nor our death decreed by it If 
 they are we must then excuse the ruthless submarine murders, the bar- 
 barities, and horrible atrocities of the enemy." 
 
 Much has been written of the Russian predisposition to fatalism. It is 
 doubtful whether the British have a really crystallized belief on the subject. 
 It is rather an abandonment to despair, perhaps an effort to meet a danger- 
 ous situation in a spirit of indifference. Whatever you call it, it represents 
 the antipode of true religion. It is worthy of notice that in this extremity 
 the scales tip away from religion. The thoughts and feelings of such have 
 in the past been schooled away from a working belief in God. Such an 
 abandonment, or fatalism, if you choose to call it such, reveals a total lack 
 of conviction about the most important thing in the world. Religious con- 
 victions at the front would be rather an effect of the previous beliefs and 
 practices than the sentiments which the war would create. That, as a rule, 
 has been the history of religion in war. War itself does not have a very 
 moralizing effect on soldiers. It invites too many vices, and is surrounded 
 by too many temptations and evil influences. It tests human life in its 
 weakest places, and it is the scene of too many horrors. There will of 
 course be those whose early training and habits are conducive to a prayerful 
 attitude in the presence of eternity. Such wars usually indicate a decadent 
 period in the life of nations. The enormous number of rejects clearly 
 prove a physical and moral deterioration. That, too, is the belief of those 
 who have given the matter study and attention. Rev. Elmer F. Clark of the 
 Y M. C. A. discusses the question of the church in England and France. 
 Speaking of England, he says in the Literary Digest, Sept. 8, 1917: 
 
 Conditions at the Front. "She has the most evangelical type of re- 
 ligion in Europe and has long been proud of her Sabbath-keeping 
 scrupulosity anil her religion generally. In the first four months of 
 the war all signs pointed to the fact that the church's expectation was 
 to be abundantly fulfilled. The) people flocked to the churches, resorted 
 to prayer, and gnve all evidences of a quickening religious life. In these 
 months it appear td that a great religious revival was imminent. 
 
 "But this ei;ly religious awakening was founded in fear, and fear 
 is a motive that cannot long support an intelligent faith. ' * * To- 
 day the average person traveling through Europe would certainly see no 
 signs of renewed interest in things religious, and even the specialist who 
 investigates intensely and studies all known signs and evidences, will 
 discover but few. In London and Paris, as well as in all other towns 
 and cities I have visited, vice is as rampant as ever, the general popula- 
 tion are as little concerned with eternal matters, and the church faces 
 the same problems of sin and indifference. 
 
 "In France there are encouraging signs, but in England there are 
 none. Those signs in France appear here and there in the fact that the 
 Roman Catholic Church is adopting a more modern attitude and pre- 
 senting a more vital and evangelistic message. 
 
 "What about prayer? People never prayed so much as they did 
 at the beginning of hostilities. Yet what did their prayers avail? The 
 war went right on, and men were killed just the same. And there was 
 no distinction. The son of the man who prayed for the boy's safety 
 night and day was killed as quickly as the son of the man who recog- 
 nized no God to whom one might pray. The prayers were not answered 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 13 
 
 in the least. What, then, was the good of prayers, and where was God? 
 Perhaps there is no God after all. 
 
 "This doubt and uncertainty affected many people, from the clergy- 
 man to the Tommy." 
 
 Importuning God in a perilous hour is an almost universal human trait. 
 But what is the actuating spirit? Too often it is fear and not love. What 
 a different prayer from that of Christ in the garden of Gethsemane: 
 
 "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away from me: 
 nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt." 
 
 Such a prayer is not fatalism; it is a sweet resignation to the will of 
 God. The false premise of it all is that death is a calamity. Who shall say 
 it may not be after all a divine favor? Death is not the end, but it is 
 the aim of all life. The time and manner may not be the important thing 
 about death. We are dealing with divine purposes which are largely hidden 
 from the world. The important thing about death is that we are prepared to 
 go, that on the other side we may give a good account of our stewardship 
 here. 
 
 Nature God. Then there is that other vital question, what kind of God 
 are we imploring? There is nothing in the world very clear about the God 
 of nature not the God of nature but the nature-god. The soldier sees man 
 making great headway into the realm of such a God. That makes the hu- 
 man a super-man a little above the nature-god. 
 
 Disintegration. Mr H. G. Wells a celebrated English writer, discusses 
 The God of the New Age. Mr. Wells would do away with church edifices, 
 as well as rituals and creeds. Ex-President Roosevelt takes issue in the fol- 
 lowing number, October, 1917, of the Ladies Home Journal. I quote: 
 
 "It is perfectly true that occasional individuals or families may have 
 nothing to do with church or with religious practices and observances, 
 and yet maintain the highest standard of spirituality and of ethical ob- 
 ligation. 
 
 "But this does not affect the case of the world as it now is, any 
 more than exceptional men and women under exceptional conditions 
 have disregarded the marriage tie without harm to themselves interferes 
 with the larger fact that such disregard if at all common means the 
 complete moral disintegration of the body politic. * * * Therefore, 
 on Sunday go to church. Yes, I know all the excuses; I know that 
 one can worship the Creator and dedicate oneself to a good living in a 
 grove of trees, or by a running brook, or in one's own house, just as 
 well as in church. But I also know, as a matter of cold fact, that the 
 average man does not thus worship or thus dedicate himself. If he stays 
 away from church he does not spend his time in good works or in 
 lofty meditation." 
 
 Mr. Wells sees a general breaking away from the world creeds. He 
 sees that the world will need something different after the war a new re- 
 ligion. But will the world accept Mr. Wells' new theories? Really there is 
 nothing new about them. It is the old story that man can worship any way, 
 anywhere he pleases. Authority in religion, especially in the protestant 
 world, is breaking down if it is not entirely gone. Reconstructing old re- 
 ligious practices and theories will not answer in the future. In the new 
 world to come there must be a new revelation. When the new conditions 
 of worship come, it will be because God's Spirit moves the hearts of men 
 and shows them the way of his will. Will sobriety come after the war, will 
 men give heed to religious thought and living? If not, the end of sorrow 
 will not come at the end of the war. It begins to look as if the grinding 
 process would go on. There is something to hope for from the war. Its 
 end must come in the not far distant future. 
 
 If it has no sobering effect upon the religious life of the world it will 
 be because of the hardness of men's hearts, because the voices of anguish and 
 despair have not penetrated them. Humility is one of the corner stones of 
 
14 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 religion. Will war bring humility? To whom? Not to the victors. They 
 will exalt themselves in their own pride. With them God will be on the 
 side of the heaviest artillery. 
 
 Hatreds of War. When men fight they are not usually in a mood to 
 pray. Too often their suffering brings hatred. They are not like Job. In 
 their agony they are ready to curse God and die. Their deaths are not 
 saint-like not offered up in the spirit of sacrifice. From all human ex- 
 perience and from history, it may as a general rule be said that war destroys 
 religion. There will of course be exceptions, and men may go to battle 
 from the loftiest motives and a holy cause. Wars have their well-defined 
 history; indeed, history is made up chiefly of wars. As we look back upon 
 it, we need not doubt that in most of them there has been a "handwriting on 
 the wall." There is reason to pray before the battle, and those who do so 
 will not be left without the spirit of prayer, which may be of more value to 
 them than life or death. The blessings come to those who earn them, and 
 they may be earned in war as they are earned in peace. 
 
 Revelation. 
 
 "And this gospel shall be preached unto every nation, and kindred, 
 and tongue, and people. 
 
 "And the servants of God shall go forth, saying, with a loud voice, Fear 
 God and give glory to him, for the hour of his judgment is come." Doc. 
 andCov. 103:37, 38. 
 
 VI. Conservation of Life 
 
 Life's Mission. As a definition of the purposes of all life, we may say 
 that its mission is to live, produce its kind, and die. There is nothing in 
 such a definition to explain a multitude of attributes and peculiarities of 
 human life; but out of the three duties, to live, to produce our kind, and to 
 die, may develop the secondary functions of our being. Our duty to live is 
 what in this chapter we may term the "conservation of life." Whatever robs 
 us of our vital powers, our ability to live, takes from us so much of our des- 
 ignated mission in the world. We have no right to assume that it is all 
 right if we continue indifferent to our existence, for our existence is tied up 
 with the existence of others. We are part of an organized life. We belong 
 to a class of social beings who have a united mission in the world, that can 
 be accomplished in keeping with the Divine purposes only as we protect 
 our bodies and fit them for a sound and long life th,e life allotted to man. 
 
 The Interdependence of Life. There is a relationship in all living 
 things that is frequently overlooked when our duty to life in different as- 
 pects is considered. Man in the Garden of Eden was commanded to till 
 the earth. In other words, he was to promote life both in the animal and in 
 the vegetable kingdoms. That was a part of his duty, and that duty is just 
 as pronounced today as it was then. In order that our lives may become as 
 full and as complete as God intended them, we must strive to bring our- 
 selves in harmony with all life, not merely with the life of human beings. 
 The man who cultivates a blade of grass, who promotes life in its simplest 
 form in the vegetable kingdom, promotes likewise his own life. He makes 
 his own life better than the man who stands aloof, who says, "It is not my 
 business to cultivate the soil; it is not my business to encourage growth, 
 except within my own body." And although the shepherd, the peasant, 
 have in all ages stood at the bottom of the social scale, they have had about 
 them qualities of endurance that have made them survive through all con- 
 ditions of social life. 
 
 "A sturdy peasantry, a country's pride, 
 When once destroyed, can never be revived." 
 
 Life a Religious Duty. The Latter-day Saints, in settling the valleys of 
 the mountains, were called to a rural life. Their earliest teachings por- 
 trayed superior advantages of man's intimate communication with nature, 
 that was both to live and help live; and therefore, he was instructed in the 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 15 
 
 religion of good farming, of progressive animal industry He was building 
 up a new communion of life. Because the sermons of those days took on 
 the practical character of men's daily life, they were ridiculed as being de- 
 void of spirituality, whereas man's spiritual powers are enriched by his 
 association with nature, by his companionship with those forms of life 
 which God created in the beginning for his sustenance. 
 
 Our Duties under a More Complex Life. As we have progressed in a 
 material way, there has grown up among us a large so-called middle-class, 
 men whose duties keep them from the intimate association with nature 
 which they formerly enjoyed. The new life, however, does not relieve them 
 of the duties that belong to our duties in the world. It is always a helpful 
 sign when merchants, mechanics, manufacturers, feel a love for the soil, plan 
 the growth of living things, and look to the soil for an enjoyment that so- 
 ciety does not give. We nave perverted our lives through social ambitions, 
 when we should have striven to become producers, and thus take part in the 
 conservation of life. 
 
 Conservation of life here does not mean simply that we are to save oar 
 own bodies, that we are to make them strong and healthy merely; while it 
 does include these duties, it has a higher meaning, a meaning of a Celestial 
 character. If we may farm on a large scale, well and good. If circum- 
 stances prevent it, we may raise a garden or work in an orchard; but no 
 matter how humble our circumstances in life, we are never so poor that 
 there may not be a charm of life about our home, and the cascade of 
 flowers that hangs about the window. There is something in the growth of 
 living things that makes for higher morality and greater worldly efficiency. 
 So we are called to promote life in some form, and he who feels merely the 
 sensation of his own living without enjoying the touch of life that God 
 has given about him can never be the highest conservator of human progress. 
 
 Our Children's Lives. It is our duty not alone to conserve our own 
 lives but to conserve the lives of our children; to bring them into touch 
 with nature; to interest them in the myriad forms of life about them, to 
 watch it, to follow it, to enjoy it, and to utilize it. Such habits in child life 
 detract from the constant temptation to become self-absorbed. This self- 
 absorption has much to do in leading our young people away from the 
 higher ideals of the world. This self-absorption creates selfishness, selfish- 
 ness makes our youth unhappy, robs them of faith and destroys their lives. 
 It is a real hindrance to the progress of youth to rob it of an association 
 with nature. A horse means more to a boy than something to ride or lo 
 drive. It means a new interest; it means companionship of God's life mani- 
 fested in the creation of animals 
 
 What a beautiful thing it is to read the account of the Creation con- 
 tained i the first chapter of Genesis! How beautiful it is to imagine such 
 a period in the world when all that exists helps and sustains human life is 
 brought into being. If such living things were a part of God's unbounded 
 interest in man, it is the duty of man to keep himself in touch with the 
 things that were created for his joy and needs in life. 
 
 Our Girls. There is no greater mistake made than the all too common 
 belief that there must be a complete separation between our girls and the 
 soil. Woman's mission in life is more intimate with the functions of birth 
 than that of man. She should feel the inspiration, the strength, and the value 
 that come to humanity from all the living things of God's creation. There is 
 no fancy work so beautiful as the flower. The burdens of the farm are not 
 hers to carry, but there is the garden, the flower beds, the living animals 
 and things about home that should enter into woman's conceptions of 
 broader and better life. To her education the companionship of the vege- 
 table and animal world belongs. It should not be forgotten that there come 
 to us in life great benefits through a spirit of inspiration. We may not de- 
 fine it, we may not trace its workings, we may not measure its values, but 
 it helps us. It enlarges our visions of life. It is the breath of life that we 
 need today. God is changing things in this world of ours. Women are 
 breaking away from the stifling atmosphere of a dusty past; they work on 
 
16 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 the farm, they are harrowing in the garden, they are taking upon themselves 
 the duties that belong to the broader world from which they have been too 
 long removed. In the earlier days of our history in Utah, women felt and 
 loved the- touch of nature. They felt the inspiration of all life about them. 
 They sometimes went to the field, more frequently to the garden, and la- 
 bored among the domestic animals that contributed to the support of the 
 home. For this they were ridiculed by the magazines and papers of the 
 world. They were held up as slaves; they were cartooned. But their con- 
 ceptions of life were sound. Their examples of industry and out-door 
 life have won out, and the world has come to realize that what was in their 
 hearts to do was the God-ordained end of human happiness to conserve life. 
 A false modesty and false social conceptions drove them from the simpler 
 and plainer duties of their life into the maukish ways of an artificial world 
 about them. The war is now demonstrating the truth of woman's place in 
 the living world, a place for which she contended in the earlier days of 
 our colonization in the valleys of the mountains. 
 
 Vll.A Real Danger to the Middle Class 
 
 Growth. In general terms the middle class may be said to occupy a 
 position somewhere along the line between the producer and consumer. 
 They consist of distributors, such as merchants and other agencies who 
 take from the producer and hand to the consumer, and in turn become a 
 part of the class of consumers. Within the bounds of their legitimate call- 
 ing they are benefactors to all industrial life. They are common carriers 
 and distributors that make it possible for all the world to enjoy the prod- 
 ucts created or grown in every part of the earth. Modern commerce is a 
 comparatively new field of human endeavor. It has for centuries been a 
 sparsely occupied field. It has grown rapidly within the past few decades, 
 and is therefore today full of adventure and of reward. It has called for 
 men of superior talents, and has invited them from all ranks of life. Like 
 other new fields of enterprise, it has been both novel and remunerative. 
 There is no field of exploit so fascinating and paying as that of humanity. 
 Out of it myriads of fortunes have been accumulated, and it is the most 
 attractive of all adventures. The result is that millions have flocked to it, 
 and incurred the danger of tipping one end of the balance board into the 
 stream. At times very large numbers of them may be carried down stream 
 or drowned. Nothing seems more certain at the present juncture of human 
 life than that the middle class, so called, is altogether beyond the needs of 
 industrial life, and that its massed formation will make it all the better tar- 
 get for the new machine guns that are sure to be turned on it by the pres- 
 ent and coming changes in organized industry. 
 
 The same inequality in industrial life has more than once in the history 
 of mankind proved disastrous to national well-being. Examine for a mo- 
 ment the present movement of life into the great cities, where men and 
 women find employment in occupations that are emphemeral, that is, 
 in those whose chief business it is to produce luxuries and amuseme ts not 
 necessary for the support of mankind. Take as examples automobiles, 
 movies, and every conceivable form of amusement. Profitable they may be 
 in prosperous times, but such employemnt is the first to go down in every 
 industrial crisis. Luxuries must go. The pinch of the rising cost of living, 
 and the dangers of financial panics may at any time reduce millions to a 
 state of starvation. The panics of the future will not be what those of the 
 past have been. Food and clothing are higher, and the numbers of those 
 outside productive life are so much greater, that a serious disturbance in 
 the industrial world would create a social havoc wholly unknown o history. 
 The siren of false business principles is luring thousands into the danger 
 zone. What is not done by adventurous business methods to entice men 
 and women away from safe conditions of existence, is done by our state 
 and national legislative bodies that are creating boards and commissions 
 galore to meet the demands of those who are chiefly exploiters of human- 
 ity. It would be a hopeless task to tabulate the appendages to the industrial 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 17 
 
 life of our nation. When men cannot find legislative aid they organize clubs 
 and societies that are today really becoming a burden to the producer and 
 consumer. It is sometimes called a "speculative life." It is speculative, for 
 no one can even guess the dangers it carries with it. 
 
 Ethical Conditions. Aside from its dangers, there are ethical reasons 
 why such a life is disturbing to the welfare of society Nothing does more 
 to create discontent and disappointment than speculation. Those who fail 
 despair and make for anarchy. Those who succeed, plunge into extrava- 
 gances which in turn lead to physical and moral destruction. The spirit of 
 our modern world is largely that of the gambler. "I'm going to take my 
 chances" is the announcement before a leap into the unknown regions of 
 disaster whichever way the chances go. No man can afford to take Chances 
 that have more temptation to vice than he can endure. To fully one-half 
 which thus take chances there comes the misery of envy and despair. 
 
 Satisfaction in Production. There is not the satisfaction in speculation 
 that there is in production. The gains of contentment in the latter are im- 
 measurably greater than they are in the former. The mental anxiety over 
 the outcome of production and markets when judicious labor is expended, is 
 incomparably preferable to the anxiety of a pure game of chance. There 
 is a solid satisfaction in the thought that you have helped others that is not 
 found in the all-too-prevalent fact that you have "done" others. 
 
 He who raises enough grain to feed a hundred others besides his own 
 family, contributes really as much to his own happiness as he does to the 
 welfare of society. Such is the ethical side of productive life. 
 
 Physical Enjoyment. Nothing need be said of physical enjoyment. I 
 know a man who said that the happiest experience of his life was when he 
 sat by the warm fire of a friend's home in Sterling, Canada, after days of 
 great activity and exposure with sheep, when the thermometer registered 
 often 30 degrees below zero. It was the pleasure that comes from the re- 
 bound of physical activity and hardship to rest and comfort. Rob man of 
 physical rest and recuperation by a life of physical ease and indulgence, and 
 you rob him of the ability to enjoy the blessings .of his existence. A world 
 upside down is sure to be snagged. 
 
 Warnings. How do we know that the middle class is upsetting the bal- 
 ance of a safe social and industrial condition? We have symptoms enough 
 to warn us of the disease. There is the higher cost of living, there is an in- 
 crease of vices which an over-crowded middle class always produces, and 
 lastly, we have the disease itself in the most violent form. War has always 
 been the selfish determination of one or more nations of the world to ex- 
 ploit humanity. The soldiers of Europe are the mo. c t numerous of all its 
 middle classes. 
 
 The worst aspect of this class is its drift away from religion. It may 
 not be universal, but it is general. There is less religion in the city than on 
 the farm; there is less religion in speculation than there is in the factory. 
 Work is an essential part of religion, even physical work. That explains 
 why among the Latter-day Saints men of affairs are chosen to so many places 
 of ecclesiastical offices. Members of the Twelve are given opportunity, after 
 their spiritual labors, to recuperate in some form of activity. They urge an 
 active, not a restful, life. Mental action is not sufficient to obtain the best 
 results, and many Church authorities engage in out-door life in one form or 
 another. "Home industry" has been the keynote of life and labor among the 
 Saints, and they have been warned frequently against the evils and dangers 
 that follow those who shirk toil. 
 
 From Producer to Consumer. What are the dangers to the middle class 
 in the United States today? There is now on foot a movement which is 
 rapidly increasing; it is the slogan, "From the producer direct to the con- 
 sumer." Its dangers to the distributors of the middle class are minimized 
 by those it is most likely to affect. It began by the enactment of the parcel 
 post system, which for some unaccountable reason did not make a monopoly 
 of it. The government could handle all the business cheaper and more ef- 
 fectively than it now handles the part of it which the express companies 
 
IS PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 have been allowed to retain. There is certain to be a strong movement in 
 favor of the government's exclusive control and an extension of the system 
 that will make the government the greatest business institution in the 
 United States. There is further a restive spirit against overloading the 
 
 Sroducer and consumer with any heavier demand from the middle class, 
 mil recently the producer felt most the weight of this load. Men and 
 women were leaving the farm for city life, not factory life, and labor be- 
 came a menacing problem. The increase by our agricultural colleges of 
 men whose business it has become to tell the farmer how to do rather than 
 to do themselves, is a striking illustration of a tendency to ally education 
 with the middle man rather than with the producer. Indeed, that is the 
 tendency of all our education. It is making that class of society most 
 popular. In the factories, the work is done largely by foreigners. The 
 recruits to the industrial life of the nation are not supported by the ideals 
 and aims of modern education in the United States as they should be. Years 
 of experience in education convinced the writer that nearly all educational 
 tilks were about ideals, aims, and ambitions, rather than about work, duty, 
 and industrial life. The professional side of education has almost oblit- 
 erated its industrial side, notwithstanding that we putter a little with manual 
 training. The enticing influence of education is leading the great army of 
 school men into city life. How large an army of this middle class the pro- 
 ducer and consumer can support is of course a question, but that the load 
 is sure to bring a break-down, no thoughtful person can deny. A newspaper 
 in Lethbridge, Canada, published an account of a man who bought a barrel 
 of apples in which he found the following card: "I sold this barrel of 
 apples for 90c; what did you pay?" The purchaser paid $5.75. The high 
 cost of living is the most vital issue in the world today. What has caused 
 it? The most potent of all causes has been the unparalleled increase of the 
 middle class and the corresponding decrease of producers, especially in agri- 
 culture, animal husbandry, and fruit growing. To add to the danger of the 
 situation, there is a growing antagonism toward those who have imposed 
 themselves by various agencies upon both the producer and the consumer. 
 Government intervention has resulted, and it is not likely to be wholly va- 
 cated after the war. 
 
 Dangers of Anarchy. The middle class has heretofore been a great 
 bulwark against anarchy. It has usually been well fed and cared for. Let 
 us suppose a violent suppression of this class through famine or a financial 
 collapse something easily imagined. Famine and its consequent sufferings 
 know no law. This preponderating class is growing, therefore, dangerously 
 large. It cannot be easily provided for, and any movement to disperse it 
 would be deeply resented. How can such a large mass be provided for in 
 case of a dispersion? Other forms of life would be distasteful, and what- 
 ever forced them away from their present pursuits would engender hatred 
 of a most violent form. Hatred is the stuff from which wars and anarchy 
 are made. Men are often the creatures of circumstances over which they 
 have no control. The world has ceased to be merely drifting: it is at sea, 
 and without a safeguard, or rudder. Confusion has laid its perilous hands 
 upon the political and social life of the world. President Wilson has said 
 that "the world must be made safe for democracy;" and Governor McCall 
 of Massachusetts has added that "democracy must be made safe for the 
 world.** Can there be a godless democracy? The world long will be 
 forced to seek a solution of conditions that are so full of danger and dis- 
 aster to the welfare and happiness of mankind. All sorts of remedies will 
 be sought; but outside of religion, they will never be found. 
 
 Revelation "Behold, I sent you out to testify and warn the people, and 
 L. becometh every man who hath been warned, to warn his neighbor" (Doc. 
 and Cov. 88:81). 
 
 VIII Value of Child Life. 
 
 Purity of the Race. There is nothing in the crumbling processes of our 
 modern civilization more menacing to our future welfare and happiness than 
 the curtailment of child life. Thoughtful men and women begin already te 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 19 
 
 appreciate the dangers which beset us from this source. They are making 
 every effort to conserve human life, bnt at best they are dealing only with 
 remedies, and are not grappling with the dangers at the seat of this world- 
 wide disease. Public men are appealing to the men and women of the world 
 to spare the nations of Christendom the calamity of self-extinction. Of all 
 questions which beset mankind today, there is not one whose ramifications 
 go into every phase of life like that of child-birth. Neither is it a matter 
 of will, for we are solemnly wanted that evil conditions have so crept into 
 the lives of our youth that the absence of child life cannot be avoided. 
 
 The Revelation of Evils The determination which a very large class 
 of the people of the world have manifested against any farther increase of 
 child life reveals a multitude of evils that are a danger to the morals of the 
 world. There is now going on throughout the United States a campaign 
 among women against the so-called "double standard," by which is meant 
 that men may be forgiven the excesses of youth, that their sins may be 
 winked at, and that they may be permitted to assume the solemn duties of 
 husband, and it may be, of father. When the women were charged with 
 wilful barrenness, they were quick to retort, in perhaps most instances, that 
 the charge was false, and refused to permit the accusation to be laid at 
 their door. They began then a campaign in the legislatures of the different 
 states of the Union to compel men, through doctors' certificates, to estab- 
 lish their fitness for married life. While they have had some measure of 
 success, as a rule their campaign has not been successful. 
 
 A Dangerous Situation. If it be true, as is frequently charged by med- 
 ical science through certain publications, that the question of parentage with 
 a large percentage of our men is not at all a question of willingness, bnt one 
 of ability: when the young manhood of our nation reaches such a state of 
 degradation, the revelation is most appalling, and the hope of the future 
 posterity is indeed small. Again, it is declared that in a large number of 
 instances the danger of birth is more alarming than its absence, because 
 so many children are born into the world with physical inheritances that 
 wholly unfit them for the responsibilities of life. It is the sacred right of 
 children to be born physically, mentally, and morally right. If the vices of 
 the fathers entail upon our children the dangers and sufferings of sin, every 
 effort should be made to eradicate them. The double standard is said to 
 be the fixed rule in life, but it is not true among Latter-day Saints. Upon 
 men there is put the same accountability as that which rests upon women. 
 If, indeed, there is a difference, it stands against the man, whose mission in 
 life is to protect by every means the daughters of Eve. 
 
 National Calamities. Already France has reached a stage where the 
 death rate is in excess of the birth rate. In Germany publicists are sound- 
 ing a note of warning against conditions which threaten there to become as 
 menacing as they are in France. The present war is much more likely to 
 increase this menace to the race than it is to improve it. Even though fu- 
 ture wars may not be immediate, and the peace of the world may not be 
 threatened for generations, child-bearing will be refused on the ground 
 that parents do not care to produce "fodder for the cannon" of those who 
 are ambitious for war. There have been serious economic objections against 
 child-life, and now new objections will be furnished by the destruction of 
 the youth, the strongest and best in the manhood of nations. 
 
 Value of Children. What is likely to be the result of this menace to 
 our national life? In the first place, the birth of a million children has in 
 it more potential value than all the billions of dollars that come from our 
 fields, and we might include in that all the wealth that comes in a single 
 year from our mines. We have never fully realized the value of an increas- 
 ing population. If our population begins rapidly to decrease, our workshops 
 will be empty, our railroads will be without patronage. The doors of our 
 factories will be closed; and what will be more trouble, there will be a stag- 
 nant condition of life dial forebodes decay and destruction. A decreasing 
 population is a sure sign of increasing decay. The spirit of abandonment 
 is the spirit o.' defeat. Men lose their courage, women their fortitude, 
 
20 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 and they settle down in a spirit of the fatalist, whose demoralizing life is 
 reflected too much among Asiatics, in whom there is no ambition to advance- 
 ment. Fruthermore, by the abandonment of children, our lives are cut in 
 two, so far as our ambitions and struggles to promote ourselves in life go. 
 Men forty-five and fifty are in the zenith of their power. At that age they 
 arj able to take a survey of practically all that they have to hope for in 
 life. At that age their ambition comes generally to a standstill. If there 
 are no children to whom their ambitions may be transferred, they are with- 
 out hope. 
 
 Australia allows by law $25.00 to the mother of every child born to her 
 without making inquiry into its parental origin. Other countries make pro- 
 visions for the expenses of child-birth because they have learned the value 
 of child life. The United States has in the past been supplied with popu- 
 lation largely by immigration; and yet different states make provisions for 
 the expenses of childhood. 
 
 Ruskin beautifully declares that "There is no wealth but life life, in- 
 cluding all its powers of love, of joy, and of admiration. That country is 
 richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human be- 
 ings; that man is richest, who, having perfected the functions of h's own 
 life to the utmost, has also the widest helpful influences, both personal and 
 by means of his possessions, over the lives of others." The wealth that comes 
 from the veins of human life is purple. It is not the yellow of gold, a dross 
 in comparison. 
 
 After the War, that ever-recurring phrase, human life will be more val- 
 uable than ever. How little value the nations have put upon childbirth ! 
 It is the old story of a buried talent, which the calamities of war is taking 
 away from us. It is the taking away of even that which we have. Are the 
 Latter-day Saints becoming tinctured with the fatal philosophy that they 
 cannot afford life? Do they argue the "higher cost"? If so, they, too, may 
 experience the "taking away." Whatever is a talent we ought not to bury; 
 but the world is the grave-yard of buried talents. "But," it is asked, "what 
 is the remedy for the "higher cost?" Faith. If we lose faith in God we shall 
 also lose faith in his creations and in his law. The pressure, we say, is 
 awful, but all life is born and continues under pressure. We are not safe 
 without pressure; it is the law of our being. Escape from it does not bring 
 relief. The trouble is not that God has placed upon us a load too heavy to 
 bear, but we have wasted the strength that would make the burden light. 
 Child-bearing makes a woman strong, wilful barrenness makes ber weak. The 
 latter weakens her will and robs her of her faith. The man who bears an 
 empty case carries an emptv life. "The strenuous life" makes men and 
 women strong in purpose and valiant for the right. The objector further 
 reasons that a fact is a fact, that "it is a condition, not a theory which con- 
 fronts us." But facts are miserable things if borne of false theories. Con- 
 ditions fade in the light of faith and hope. We do not see our way through 
 life, not even through a da^ of twenty-four hours, for part of it is given 
 to darkness. The birth of children brings faith to the home. They come 
 from a divine presence, and bring with them a love for things divine. 
 "Blessed is he who hath his quiver full." 
 
 Revelation. "Now, I the Lord, am not well pleased with the inhabit- 
 ants cf Zion, for there are idlers among them; and their children are grow- 
 ing up in wickedness; they also seek not the riches of eternity, but their 
 eyes are full of greediness" (Doc. and Cov. 68:31). 
 
 IX Co-operation 
 
 Counsels of Brigham Young. Within the memory of many now living, 
 it may be recalled that a strenuous effort was made in Utah to induce the 
 people to conduct their business by co-operative methods. The writer 
 once heard Brigham Young say to the people of Provo that the day would 
 come when they would discover the fallacy of all their arguments in favor 
 of competition, when the competitive methods about which people talked 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 21 
 
 so much would be a burden to them. He declared that one distributive 
 business of any kind was enough for the community; that the more the 
 stores, the higher the prices would be; and that it was in the interest of the 
 people to have as many as possible in some productive labor. His efforts 
 were thwarted in time, partly by the insistence of large numbers who were 
 d termined to become merchants, and men of business in other pursuits, 
 and partly by the miscarriage of many co-operative institutions. There 
 was a clamor for the correction of these miscarriages in co-operation by 
 competitive methods, rather than by the application of improved methods. 
 In time small stores sprang up in all the communities. A half dozen or 
 more stores took up the work of distribution where one might have 
 sufficed. All these systems of business had to exist. For a time, no doubt, 
 there was strenuous competition; but eventually, merchants found it more 
 profitable to put their heavy burden upon the community at large than to 
 carry it themselves. If they were to exist, they must come to some sort of 
 understanding. Gradually they formed business men's associations, where 
 they regulated prices. Whenever a new man entered their ranks, there was 
 but one or two courses to pursue. Either one of them must drop out, or 
 prices must be raised to support them all. In bad times there were fail- 
 ures, but to protect themselves against failure it was necessary to raise prices 
 again. 
 
 There can be no doubt that constantly rising prices were due in part 
 to the growing and necessary cost of distribution. 
 
 Today there is a widespread discontent against the rising costs of 
 living, and a considerable amount of suffering as a consequence. For a 
 time the burden of these excessive costs fell upon the producer. Goods 
 had to be bought as cheaply as possible, and they were cheap because 
 production was large, in consequence of a considerable preponderance of 
 farmers and manufacturers. Cheap production meant cheap labor, and 
 men soon found that they could earn more in the ranks of those who dis- 
 tributed than in those of the producer. Labor unions began to force prices 
 of labor up in manufacturing centers, but there were no unions among 
 farmers. That meant that the higher prices for labor in the cities took men 
 away from the farms. Farm products and live stock suffered. Wheat 
 growing on a commercial scale began in later years to contract, as the 
 prices for labor on the farm made large wheat farms unprofitable. Farmers 
 soon began to reason that a general movement to raise less was more 
 profitable, for the less raised, the higher the prices. There began an almost 
 universal cry for mixed farming. That meant stockraising and dairying; 
 it also meant less wheat. The higher cost of wheat is not merely a result 
 of the war. Nor is the recent decline in amount of wheat raised due en- 
 tirely to adverse conditions, such as draught and wheat insects. 
 
 Commercial System. Speculators have combined to force down prices 
 at harvest time and to raise them when the wheat was bought up. Loans 
 were all on short-time notes on which bankers could enforce payment. 
 **'ay up," they said; "we will renew the loan." I have known stock buyers 
 to co to a bank and make arrangements with the manager to buy a certain 
 man's livestock. What the manager was to get out of the transaction could, 
 of course, not be known. He telephoned the stockman that his note was 
 due and must be paid. "But I have not yet sold, I have plenty of feed to 
 keep my stock over for months; and besides, prices are down just now," 
 came the reply from the stockman. The manager informed him that there 
 was a buyer in town, and that he must sell. There was no alternative, and 
 the buyer secured a cheap bunch of stock. Such methods, of course, in 
 time resulted in loss of business to the bank by a restriction of business, 
 or by the transfer of it to another bank, which did not make conditions 
 much better. By combination they keep a uniform rate of interest and 
 competition among them is practically unknown. The live stock was 
 cheaper, but the packers' products remained the same. 
 
 Illustrations. Alberta is one of the best barley countries in the world. 
 From this feed, millions of hogs could be fattened and yet today there are 
 
22 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 comparatively few hogs fattened for market in the Province. In 1914 the 
 farmers were under full swing in the production of hogs. It was a dry 
 year and feed was high, but hundreds of thousands of hogs were fitted for 
 market. When they are ready they must be sold, as it would be a loss 
 to hold them longer. The packers saw their opportunity to get them "dirt" 
 cheap. They dropped prices to four cents a pound. That was an enormous 
 loss to farmers, but they had to sell. They were disgusted, but they "took 
 their medicine" and unloaded, breeding-stock and all. The packers sent an 
 agent out to beg the farmers not to sell their brood sows, but to no purpose. 
 They were done with a business whose control was in the hands of a few 
 men who might ruin the fanners whenever they saw fit. The business was 
 practically killed. It will be slow to revive. Did the packers bring down 
 their products? Not a cent. Their fortunes are mounting into the millions. 
 Yet their agents pull long and painful faces when they tell of the great 
 chances they are taking, and how their company "lost last year." The 
 shrinkage in production is bringing prices to a higher level, and the con- 
 sumer must suffer with the producer. 
 
 Co-operation. What's the remedy? That's a question. It is certainly 
 not competition. Is it co-operation? Perhaps so, but it will be an enforced 
 co-operation by the Province regulating the business through provincial or 
 nunicipal agencies. The important co-operation may be between the pro- 
 ducer and consumer through the agencies of the state. Market slumps in 
 the products of the farm and ranch are the bane of life in these industries. 
 A monopoly in them is impossible, as in certain manufacturing products, 
 where combination is comparatively easy. As a war measure, price-fixing 
 has been established in the interests of the producer and consumer. The 
 principle will not likely end with the war. Conditions have greatly changed 
 within the past few years, and what has been found to be in the interest 
 of the people, the people will insist shall continue. 
 
 Denmark is the most highly organized country in the world in her 
 agricultural and live stock industries. Co-operative methods there are 
 fostered and practiced by the government. The fixation of prices is there 
 considered absolutely necessary to the country's success. A few years ago 
 the Hollanders controlled largely the English market in butter and cheese. 
 They were driven from that market by the Danes, whose co-operative method 
 of buying and selling made it impossible for Hollanders longer to hold 
 what they had gained. The Danes so standardized their products through 
 government regulation that the chances of the Hollanders' winning back 
 what they Tiad lost is quite unlikely. They naturally turned to Germany 
 for a new market. To keep up a maximum of production, it was necessary 
 to stabilize prices. A careful study of market conditions is made, and the 
 price fixed by law. Any one within the country who does not sell at the 
 established prices is fined heavily. 
 
 Dangers. When the pinch is felt in the United States, as it is at present 
 felt in some European countries, our government will intervene by law to 
 stabilize certain industries which need fixed prices, in the interest of the 
 consumer. Farmers and ranchers are becoming more independent, and will 
 doubtless hold their products for a considerable length of time to secure 
 what they consider a fair remuneration. They must demand more if they 
 are to meet the higher cost of maintaining expenses on the farm and ranch. 
 The United States has reached a place where it will require all the wheat 
 raised in normal years to feed its own population. The loss of population 
 to Europe will undoubtedly lessen consumption there, but laborers will 
 be fewer and there will be also an increased demand for labor to rehabilitate 
 all the countries of Europe after the war. Foreign trade will be sought in 
 order to win back the losses in gold. Manufacture will increase rapidly 
 and consume more labor. New complications will arise, whose adjustment 
 cannot easily be foreseen. The intervention of government in all industrial 
 life will be very different from what it has ever been, and a multitude of 
 problems will arise to tax the new industrial age. Co-operation will come 
 more and more into practice, and with the new changes there will come a 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 23 
 
 great danger to the so-called middle classes, who are likely to be scattered 
 into various industrial pursuits. 
 
 After all, it is a question of brotherhood. That is fundamental in 
 b siness life as it is in religious life. Co-operation fosters brotherhood, 
 competition endangers it. Every phase of life brings us face to face with 
 the very thing the world needs most religion. 
 
 Revelation. "It is wisdom in me; therefore, a commandment I give 
 unto you, that ye organize yourselves and appoint every man his steward* 
 ship. 
 
 "That every man may give an account unto me of his stewardship which 
 is appointed unto him; 
 
 "Therefore if a man take of the abundance which I have made, and 
 impart not his portion, according to the law of my gospel, unto the poor 
 and the needy, he shall, with the wicked, lift up his eyes in hell, being in 
 torment" (Doc. and Cov. 104:11,12,18). 
 
 X Extravagance 
 
 Luxury Rampant. There is serious danger ahead, greater than that 
 which the world is now confronting, from the extravagance of war, for of 
 all forms of extravagance, war is the worst. Nations are wasting life by the 
 millions and property by the billions. Minor extravagances lead to major 
 ones. We may not think of war as a result of extravagance, but indirectly 
 it is. Waste and greed are twin brothers. To spend becomes a passion. 
 People love to buy, not always because they are in need, but because shop- 
 ping is a pleasant pastime. Of course, bills must be paid, money must be 
 had, honorably if possible, but it must be had. 
 
 Are we living beyond our means? Are we borrowing to support luxury 
 and waste? Do we eat too much? Do we eat food that is costly when 
 cheaper and simpler food would do as well, perhaps better? It is tome- 
 times said that France could live on what the United States throws away. 
 Dr. Rurtherford, one of the most eminent authorities on food in the world, 
 recently said at a meeting in Calgary, as reported in the Herald of that city, 
 September 20, 1917: 
 
 "No one would know Canada was at war, except for the wounded 
 soldiers on the streets. When one sees extravagance and waste con- 
 stantly going on; buying of motor cars and silly raiment; oceans of 
 gasoline used up, one begins to wonder what kind of a people we are, 
 after all. We will have to help the mother country. It seems about 
 time we woke up and took a tighter hold of our belts. 
 
 "Food has been shut off from Russia, Roumania and Bulgaria, 
 while Australia and India are too far away to be of much use. The 
 requirements of the allies is 450,000,000 bushels, while the amount 
 available for export is 30,000,000. 
 
 "There is a decrease in meat producing in the world. There are 
 28,080,000 less cattle in the countries of the allies since the war began 
 and 54,050,000 less sheep and 32,050,000 fewer number of hogs. Dur- 
 ing the year ending June 30, 1916, the United States exported 1,339,- 
 193,000 pounds of meat, as compared with the average amount before 
 the war of 493,848,000 pounds. 
 
 "There are two phases, one the conservation of food, and the other 
 the elimination of food. The waste of food in the garbage pails and so 
 on in the United States is estimated by their food controller to be 
 700.000.000 pounds, while the waste of good food in Canada, according 
 to Food Controller Hanna, is 50,000,000 pounds. We must take a dif- 
 ferent course from that which we have followed in the past. We must 
 do something to make a change of heart in the people of Canada. We 
 can regulate public eating houses, but we cannot go into the kitchens 
 of private people, and they must be appealed to in the right way." 
 
 The garbage pail is, after all, a small item in our waste when com- 
 pared with a mass of luxuries that people could live easily without. We 
 
24 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 invent more extravagances than we do useful machinery. It is often 
 said that making business out of pleasure is more profitable than that 
 which comes from the necessities of life. 
 
 Brother's Keeper. "We don't care; it is our money, and we shall 
 spend it as we like." Nothing is more sinister in this age than the 
 example of those who have wholly divorced themselves from all thought of 
 duty and helpfulness to others. The most sinful phase of waste is that it 
 puts a burden upon others. We are all creatures of imitation, and the imi- 
 tation that most influences us is toward that which leads to extravagance. 
 Every man and woman is under a responsibility for the burden he puts upon 
 others by setting a pace in extravagance which they cannot follow. "Can I 
 afford it?" is perhaps the last thing a man should ask himself. "Should I 
 afford it?" makes him his brother's keeper. Too many of the rich not only 
 affo-d it, but they flaunt it. To them there is a way of reckoning if they 
 escape the day. Into their children's lives they instil a false and poisonous 
 atmosphere. Often they ruin their own health and that of those whom 
 they should protect. Extravgaance is one of the cursing sins of the age. It 
 breeds envy, creates jealousy, leads to poverty and destroys the happiness 
 of millions. Our public buildings are loaded with mortgages, our banks are 
 full of notes. Yet we go on as if there were no days set apart for liquidation. 
 
 Fashions. No nation's bill for fashions has ever been presented. It 
 would stagger the imagination. Beneath this load of extravagance millions 
 of backs are bending. "What of it? One may as well be out of the world 
 as out of fashion." Very well, it is taking millions out of the world and 
 wjunding millions more. It is the pride which comes before the fall. The 
 papers are full of it. Here is an item from the Chicago Tribune of Sep- 
 tember 2, 1917: 
 
 Where the eggs go 200,000,000 a year are used by barbers and 
 50,000,000 by women hair-dressers. Banish the egg shampoo for the 
 period of the war, and save 250,000,000 eggs a year. There are 300,000 
 barbers in America. They will average more than two eggs a day." 
 
 Could something else be used? Nothing will do that is not extravagant. 
 The costly things of life are craved simply because they are costly. 
 
 Common observation, to say nothing of experience, will teach us the 
 evils of waste. In the home they may be in little things. What makes the 
 situation worse is that extravagance becomes a habit which in turn becomes 
 an inheritance. Will there ever be an accounting? What if famine comes? 
 How ill fit we shall be for emergencies of individual and national reverses! 
 "Oh, well, the world has always been so," and the world has also had its 
 days of reckoning. Have we lost our vision? Can we not see the impend- 
 ing dangers? We are standing with our faces to the wall. There are dan- 
 gers, but as we see them they look a long way off. Many would be as blind 
 if they were near. A London correspondent writes: 
 
 "I find the streets full of cheery faces, the theatre crowded with 
 pleasure seekers, and everywhere the accents of an uplifting hope." 
 
 "Uplifting hope!" For what, for whom? "May as well be cheerful 
 and hopeful as sad." We need not be either, but ought to be sober. Human 
 suffering is past expression, human lives are going out by millions, and 
 sorrow reddens the world as never before. It is all so "hopefully uplifting." 
 Men are at war to redeem the world from a ruthless foe. The gay and ex- 
 travagant care just about as much for the work of redemption on the battle- 
 field as the masses in Jerusalem cared for the redemption of Christ. 
 
 Penalties. All excesses pay their penalties. The law of compensation 
 makes it so. Extravagance does not simply drift. It is always in a hurry 
 its friction wears life away into a premature grave. The later life which 
 follows one of gaiety and splendor is discolored by the disappointment which 
 vanity always brings. Is there no hope for a simple and sober ending? It 
 is the foliage of life which most delights us, even though the foliage leaves 
 no place for the fruit to grow. 
 
 Individual extravagance is but one phase of an insistent evil. In public 
 life there is a similar tendency to waste. Senator Aldrich, a distinguished 
 political economist is declared to have stated that approximately one-half of 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 25 
 
 the public money appropriated by Congress was extravagantly wasted. State 
 legislatures, as well as Congress, make appropriations that a frugal system of 
 administration in federal and state institutions do not really require. Log- 
 rolling is the favorite method in most legislative bodies. Local appropria- 
 .ns are the measure of local patriotism. They are too often beyond legiti- 
 mate needs. No private business could be run successfully by such wasteful 
 methods as characterize our legislation. The "pork barrel" of Congressional 
 fame has long been a federal scandal. Organized revolts against it are inef- 
 fectual. Our natural resources have been squandered shamefully. We are 
 living for today with no thought of tomorrow. Talk of famine and suffering 
 awaken little response in our national and individual lives. Wrapped in 
 s If-content, we go our way, indifferent to all danger. 
 
 Nor is the extravagance in our material lives our only vice. We are 
 wasteful of our physical energies. Men of simple and frugal lives do not 
 hesitate to work far beyond the limits of the strength of their bodies. They 
 are guilty of excessively long hours. They are ambitious to achieve certain 
 aims which they reach only at the waste of physical and mental energy. 
 The spirit of extravagance is manifest in all world activities. It means a 
 break-down in our universal system of waste. Conservation is the catch- 
 word of the age, but it is more than a catch-word. We are all involved in an 
 excessive struggle for accomplishments. 
 
 Thoughts and Feelings. Extravagances in material things creates extrav- 
 agance in thought and feeling. Our mental concepts become exaggerated, 
 and the vision of life perverted. Our ideas of the world are overdrawn. 
 We cease to see things as they are, and consequently are led into false 
 methods of reasoning. There is a proper enjoyment of the riches of the 
 world, and there is a hope that comes within realization when moderation 
 is practiced. The world needs, in these fateful hours, a return to conserva- 
 tive living. Extremes follow one another. When we pass beyond the limits 
 of our powers, the return to normal conditions produces disappointment and 
 suffering. It is in order to bring the "old fogy" into fashion again, the 
 man who fears the dangers of extremes would keep within the bounds of 
 his ability to recover himself. Individual extravagance carries with it the 
 burden of debt and leads to bankrcptcy. It creates national and state extrav- 
 agance, that sometimes causes them to repudiate their obligations. The 
 spirit of moderation, on the other hand, enables men in extreme emergencies 
 to recover themselves. It carries with it the blessings of its own rward. Fur- 
 thermore, waste begets heedlessness and makes men indifferent to correction 
 or warning. Witness today the signal which the leading and thoughtful men 
 of the nation are holding aloft to the people. They do not heed them; 
 they are rushing headlong into a world of troubles that might be avoided 
 were they not intoxicated by the spirit of excess. They will not know the 
 truth, until the bitter realization of it brings home to them the partial, if 
 not the full penally of their folly. For years the Saints have been warned. 
 Even before the war, coming calamities were foreseen, and the people were 
 admonished to "set their houses in order" against the day of God's judg- 
 ments. 
 
 Revelation. "For it is expedient that I, the Lord, should make every 
 man accountable, as stewards over earthly blessings, which I have made and 
 proposed for my creatures" (Doc. and Cov. 104:13). 
 
 XI Inequalities a Besetting Sin of Present Day Life 
 Marvelous and miltiplied opportunities for the acquisition of wealth 
 give rise to social differences which today threaten the stability of every 
 so-called civilized nation of the world. Inequalities create envy, envy be- 
 gets hatred, and hatred entails in its pathway the spirit of destruction. Men 
 do not always, in the superior advantages which they enjoy, exercise a wise 
 stewardship. If those who enjoy superior advantages of wealth would so 
 use their property as to benefit others and give others an opportunity like- 
 wise to increase their holdings, the difference in wealth would not be so 
 dangerous, so destructive. But there has always been a strong tendency in 
 man towards vanity and false pride that seduced men into the belief that 
 
26 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 because they were richer they were likewise better than their fellow men. 
 Such vanity has given rise to exhibitions of frivolity and excesses that were 
 hard for the poorer classes to witness and endure. 
 
 There is now going on within the United States, and indeed through- 
 out the world, but more particularly in the United States, a propaganda of 
 pride that may have much to do in this country in creating a revolution, 
 if not down-right anarchy. Our newspapers, and more particularly the Sun- 
 day editions, are filled with social notes and advertisements which cater to 
 the vanity and extravagance of those who enjoy more money than most of 
 their fellow creatures. 
 
 Society Life. The newspapers are thus giving their powerful support 
 to an increase of hatred on the part of the poor towards the rich. Much of 
 this advertising is harmless. It is of an innocent personal character that 
 touches in a small way the vanity of those who enjoy so-called "newspaper 
 publicity." Some of this newspaper notoriety is excessively dangerous to 
 the peace of society and the stability of government institutions. When 
 people are poor, and perhaps suffering from deprivations and want, they do 
 not look with much toleration upon the follies of the rich. Some time ago 
 a lady paraded in the newspapers of New York the fact that she had built 
 a $25,000 house as a home for her favorite cats. Society women of wealth 
 had social gatherings in honor of some dog, and thus their vanity in parad- 
 ing before the public such wanton extravagances is giving rise to criticism, 
 and to class hatred. 
 
 A Dog Cemetery. The New York Times of August 19th gives a photo- 
 graphic and written review of a dog cemetery in Westchester county, in 
 which there are more than two thousand graves. The writer says of this 
 cemetery that "on a pleasant summer day there were not fewer than 100 
 visitors, and that as many as fifteen automobiles would be at the entrance 
 at a time. There has been no saving of expense in the monuments placed 
 over some of the graves; several have cost $2,500; and including the price 
 paid for the plot and other expenses, the total individual expense is fre- 
 quently as much as $3,000 and $4,000. Arrangements were recently made 
 for a mausoleum ten feet square to be erected, at a cost of $10,000. The 
 lowest priced dog is $10, the highest $250." 
 
 The advertisement of such wasteful extravagances at a time when this 
 country is at war, and when thousands and thousands of its sons may per- 
 haps be thrown into great excavations and simply covered with dirt, is likely 
 to give rise to feelings of bitterness. 
 
 Social Functions and Dress. The modern world is also given to undue 
 extravagance in the matter of its social life, which means excess in dress, in 
 flowers, perfumes, and other wasteful manifestations of wealth. We witness 
 now in Russia the overthrow of a dynasty which has brought upon itself 
 the hatred of the people because of its wastefulness and consequent weak- 
 ness. The people of that country have insisted on knowing something of the 
 daily habits of the Czar and Czarina, and their courtiers. We are informed 
 that the Czarina spent $25,000 a year in perfumes. 
 
 A Poor Defense. Those who would justify these extravagances contend 
 that such numerous expenditures give employment to the men who raise 
 flowers and to those whose labor contributes to the vanity of wealth. There 
 are things in this world which we call the necessaries of life; there are 
 others which we call luxuries. People perhaps would not object so much 
 to the display of luxuries and vanity if they had enough of the necessaries 
 of life. But when they suffer from an actual want of food; when they are 
 cold in their homes and poorly clad, the exhibition of luxuries whose ex- 
 istence has no other excuse than that of vanity, they grow discontented, and 
 class spirit springs up, and intense hatreds result. 
 
 Classification of Society. The classification of society is contrary to 
 the spirit of Christ and his teachings. Social classification destroys the 
 brotherhood of man and when classification is built upon influences in 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 27 
 
 wealth, it results in social enmities that became very bitter. They destroy 
 the peace of mind and the peace of the world. There is a spirit in all life; 
 there is the spirit of the individual; there is the spirit of the community; 
 and there is the spirit of the nation. As a result of these differences we 
 have individual strife, we have community quarrels, and national wars. 
 What we are witnessing today is in large meausure the result of an at- 
 tempted classification by which one nation would make itself superior, and 
 therefore offensive, to all other nations. Vanity is not merely a harmless 
 sentiment of the human kind. Vanity carries with it an ambition not sim- 
 ply an ambition to be better than others, but an ambition to domineer over 
 others. It creates an indifference to other people's suffering, and thus en- 
 mity between man and man grows. 
 
 The Corrections. The abuses of class distinction manifest themselves 
 in the grossest injustices of man to man. They become oppressive and hu- 
 man life suffers very greatly from them. As a rule, the process of correction 
 of these wrongs has been by means of wars, famines, pestilences, and such 
 calamities as have reduced the world to a common physical equality. There 
 is, however, a means of correction a peaceful means. Such peaceful mean? 
 are found in the teachings of the gospel. The religious institutions of the 
 Latter-day Saints are all intended to establish a feeling of brotherhood, a 
 spirit of humility and a condition that makes for brotherly love and uni- 
 versal good-will. If men and women performed their duties in the Church 
 as they are prescribed for them, social classes would be quite impossible. 
 Those who flaunt their social life before the public, who strive for class 
 distinction, as a rule are not those who are laboring faithfully in some of 
 the religious organizations of the ward to which they belong. It was no- 
 toriously the work of the ministry of Christ and his disciples to establish 
 social equality; for social inequality, if it is not always a cause of certain 
 immoralities, is certainly in danger of creating them. Whatever poisons the 
 human mind in its relationship to the children of God begets conditions that 
 in time become highly immoral. 
 
 Revelation. "Nevertheless, in your temporal things you shall be equal, 
 and this not grudgingly, otherwise the abundance of the manifestations of 
 the Spirit shall be withheld" (Doc. and Cov. 70:14). 
 
 XII. The Future of the Holy Land 
 
 Conquest of the Holy Land. One of the great changes which present 
 conditions are likely to bring about is the restoration of the Holy Land. 
 The British army is on its border to the South and fighting near Gaza. It 
 has been there for some months without making any headway. It may per- 
 haps be postponing a further drive in order to build a railway to bring up 
 supplies from Port Said in Egypt, and it may be that the abandonment of a 
 further drive in Macedonia is the result of a plan to shift the troops to the 
 Palestine front. The collapse of Russia suspended all movements in Asia, 
 but there seems to be a set determination not to abandon the advance on 
 Palestine. The whole Christian world is looking with joyful anticipation 
 to the day when the soil of that country shall be free from the blight of 
 Turkish rule. To the Latter-day Saints the day of its restoration is a divine 
 promise. An invading army would not need to fight its way up through the 
 mountains of Judea. It could pursue its course along the Mediterranean 
 litoral through the valley of the Sharon to Ml. Carmel, and then around the 
 Bay of Acre, thus following the route taken by the Crusaders. From the 
 Bay of Acre it could cross the valley of the Esdraelon, down into the val- 
 ley of the Jordan, and make a retreat of the Turks across the Jordan east- 
 ward necessary. What would happen to Palestine, once it was wrested from 
 the Mohammedans? To whom would it belong? Russian ambitions to take 
 it have not disappeared. No other country has any ambition for its pos- 
 session. Great Britain would prefer to see it a buffer state to Egypt. The 
 efforts already made by the Jews to reclaim it would make them the logical 
 
28 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 candidates for its possession. It is said that there are already about 100,000 
 Jews in this country. They have about 15,000 engaged in agricultural pur- 
 suits. The Zionist movement has been accumulating strength for a number 
 of years. No extensive efforts have been made because of the opposition of 
 the Turkish government to the settlement of that people in the land. The 
 great uncertainty of what the Turks would do has made a pronounced move- 
 ment unpopular among leading Jews of wealth. 
 
 A Waste Country. The country lies in a state of waste, and its recla- 
 mation would be the work of pioneers. It is a desert. The great inflow of 
 wealth which would be possible would lead to its rapid recovery. It is pri- 
 marily a problem of irrigation which would make the land blossom as the 
 rose. Today the colonists there are raising green grapes, almonds, and 
 oranges. Grapes are grown in the valley of the Sharon without irrigation. 
 They are of superior quality and have a good market. A grape grower once 
 told me that if he could get half a cent a pound for his crop in the field 
 he would do well. The Sharon valley is cultivated only in spots. Irrigation 
 can be carried on only on a very limited scale. The mountains of Judea 
 have been denuded of their forests, and the streams as a consequence have 
 dried up. Reforestation would be one of the first things undertaken in the 
 reclamation of the land. That would require years in the mountains, but 
 the valleys under irrigation would respond rapidly to all vegetable growth. 
 
 Water systems could be quickly established, and the valleys made 
 habitable. There are two great valleys in Palestine, the Jordan and the 
 Sharon. The former could be redeemed by an irrigation system from the 
 sea of Galilee. If the waters of that sea should be found too brackish, water 
 might be brought from the Mountains of Moab, east, of the river. Small 
 streams run from them into the Jordan. There are numerous reservoir 
 sites where water might be impounded and brought by pipe line across the 
 Jordan on to the highest points of the valley. It is an excessively hot dis- 
 trict, the hottest of the whole land ; but not worse than Egypt. Near by are 
 the mountains of Judea, to which the people might go after the harvest 
 season. Semi-tropical fruits would grow there in abundance. It might also 
 be made one of the finest winter resorts in the world. 
 
 Opportunities. It would no doubt be the ambition of the Jews to se- 
 cure the great table lands of the Moab where there are fine pastures and 
 abundant opportunities for growing grain. The Dead sea would doubtless 
 become a favorable bathing resort. Its water are about the same density 
 as those of the Great Salt Lake. The Jordan Valley might be made, without 
 very great expense, a paradise, and no doubt there would be opened from 
 New York a direct steamship line for Jafa, the seaport leading up to Je- 
 rusalem. Jerusalem, as it exists today, would have to be completely razed 
 to the ground, except, of course, the most sacred places. Reservoirs and 
 pumping systems could be installed to supply the city with water. The val- 
 ley of the Sharon is much larger than the Jordan. In the south it is fully 
 forty or fifty miles wide. The first work in redeeming its waste land would 
 be a system of reservoirs. There are some artesian wells. The underground 
 water is near the surface, and now pumped by means of cattle for the orange 
 groves. An excellent place for electric plants would be the Jordan valley. 
 Electricity might easily be carried over the low mountains of Judea to the 
 Sharon valley, and water pumping systems established there much as they 
 are in parts of Arizona. 
 
 The Present Worth. Palestine is, if we except Arabia, the most worth- 
 less part of the Turkish empire, from an economic point of view. Few peo- 
 ple could exist there were it not for a place of pilgrimage. In the past, men 
 undertaking to exploit foreign countries, have had their attention called to 
 the wonderful possibilities of the Holy Land. Some have invested there 
 without accomplishing their objects. Its inducements are many, but the 
 Turks have discouraged all enterprises in the country. If the wealth of the 
 Jews were poured into it, it would undoubtedly become one of the most 
 beautiful and attractive spots of earth. They have a race pride that would 
 induce them to make the land of their forefathers as near a paradise as pos- 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 29 
 
 sible. Already about $25,000,000 has been expended by the agricultural pop- 
 ulation. 
 
 Present Conditions. The commercial prospects of the country will be 
 greatly enhanced by the construction of railroads connecting Europe, Asia, 
 and Africa. Already there has been constructed a railroad most of the way 
 between Constantinople and Bagdad by the Germans. It runs much to the 
 north of the Holy Land. Out from it branch lines have been constructed. 
 The one running to Damascus is connected by the Haifa road in the nor- 
 thern part of Palestine on the Mediterranean. It opens the rich valley of 
 the Easdraelon, and connects it with the uplands of Moab. A railway runs 
 up from Jafa to Jerusalem for the accommodation of the pilgrims. Just 
 before the outbreak of the war another road was begun, going down from 
 Jerusalem to Port Said, where it would connect with the line running to 
 Cairo. The English were carrying out the plan of Rhodes to construct a 
 line from Cairo to Capetown; but the Germans objected to a right-of-way 
 over their territory in East Africa. They saw its strategic value to the 
 English, and planning a war of conquest many years ago, they determined 
 to balk the plans of Great Britain in the construction of this through road 
 which would have connected also Jerusalem with Capetown. 
 
 The commerce of Palestine on the Mediterranean has been greatly 
 handicapped from lack of suitable harbors. There are really only two, one 
 at Jafa, the other in the Bay of Acre at Haifa. At both, the ships must 
 anchor a considerable distance from the shore and send their merchandise 
 and passengers by small boats. Large and expensive piers would be 
 necessary to overcome this difficulty. Such improvements the Turks have 
 been unable to make, and then the inland traffic did not justify it. 
 
 Jews Now in Palestine. The Jews are really adepts in the use of me- 
 chanical tools, and have a monopoly of the carpentry and cabinet work of 
 the country. 
 
 More than four fifths of the Jews now in Palestine practically live from 
 the alms sent them by their richer brethren in foreign lands. They are 
 there from religious motives. Some have taken money with them sufficient 
 to eke out an existence. They were always in a poverty-striken condition. 
 Their condition now must be pitiful. They are greatly given to lamenta- 
 tions, and seem to have an idea that Jehovah will aid them through the ex- 
 ercise of their prayers and suffering. In the future they would really be a 
 bar to the material development of the country. Those who first began 
 agricultural life in Palestine were at a disadvantage because of the habits 
 of life in the countries from which they came. They greatly exaggerated 
 their ability to make money out of the Fellaheen or native laborers. The 
 aspect of the early Jewish colonies was not a very thrifty one. So far as 
 known, there is no coal or iron in the country to justify the hope of manu- 
 facture there. Fruits, grain, and live stock would provide the chief employ- 
 ments. 
 
 Jewish children learn easily and readily to adapt themselves to new 
 environments and a variety of work and study. One has been led to won- 
 der what the language of the country would be. Fully twenty languages 
 are spoken in Jerusalem. But what language will the Jews adopt? They 
 come from different nations of the earth. Most of them speak Yiddish, "a 
 spoiled German." Here is what Mossinsohn has to say on the subject of 
 schools in the Holy Land: 
 
 "With the growth of the population and its approximation to hu- 
 man life, the need for public education began to make itself felt, and 
 the Zionist organization undertook the establishment and support of 
 a complete system of public and high schools, in which the language 
 of the instruction is Hebrew. Every Jewish settlement was 
 provided with a kindergarten and elementary schools, and high 
 schools were established. Hebrew thus became a living tongue 
 once more. Even in America, Yiddish-speaking parents have 
 found it necessary to master Hebrew in order that they may 
 
30 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 be able to keep in spiritual touch with their children. Only in 
 Palestine the parents, loving the new old-tongue, are mastering 
 it as completely as the children for whom it is the only language 
 the language of play, of study, of romance, of ambition, of life itself. 
 Before the war there were plans for a Jewish university. We now have 
 the curious innovation of the Hebrew language printed above shops 
 and business places of Arabs and other nationalities. The Arab is 
 the principal language of Palestine today. There are very few Turks 
 in the country. They are the government officials. How much of the 
 modern Hebrew the ancient Jews would understand is questionable. 
 It is certain that modern Hebrew will have to incorporate a large 
 number of words from foreign languages to meet the progress of life 
 in art and science. The Jews learn foreign languages rapidly. In 
 their scattered condition they have been compelled to speak a variety 
 of tongues so that their children have inherited a linguistic genius." 
 
 A general Jewish movement to the Holy Land would have a marked 
 social and business effect on many leading nations of the world. It is not 
 easy to compute the enormous control exercised by this race in the United 
 States. Clothing, railroads, and manufactures are rapidly falling into their 
 control. Their genius for trade is known the world over. They are with- 
 out doubt the most tenacious race in the world today. What other people 
 could have withstood the shifting conditions of life as they have withstood 
 them? They are truly a "peculiar people." 
 
 Since the above was written Jerusalem has fallen into the hands of the 
 British (See Improvement Era, January, 1918, pp. 254, 259). 
 
 Revelation. "And this I have told you concerning Jerusalem, and when 
 the day shall come, shall a remnant be scattered among all nations; 
 
 "But they shall be gathered again, but they shall remain until the times 
 of the Gentiles be fulfilled. 
 
 "And in that day shall be heard of wars and rumors of wars, and the 
 whole earth shall be in commotion, and men's hearts shall fail them, and 
 they shall say that Christ delayeth his coming until the end of the earth. 
 
 "And the love of men shall wax cold, and iniquity shall abound" (Doc. 
 and Cov. 45:24-27). 
 
 Key to John's Revelation. What is to be understood by the two wit- 
 nesses, in the eleventh chapter of Revelation? A. They are two prophets 
 that are to be raised up to the Jewish nation in the last days, at the time 
 of the restoration, and to prophesy to the Jews, after they are gathered, and 
 build the city of Jerusalem, in the land of their fathers (Doc. and Cov. 
 77:15). 
 
 XIII. The Reaction of War Weapons on Civil Life 
 
 History. It has sometimes been estimated that the destruction to human 
 life through the invention of gunpowder has been greater in peace than in 
 war. Certain it is that the implements and forces of human destruction 
 which war invents and perfects have always been a striking menace to so- 
 cial life in times of peace. 
 
 War engenders a spirit of reckless hatred which manifests itself long 
 after the battle-fields are silent. Men, during wars of long duration, become 
 accustomed to its horrors. They look upon death with a spirit of indiffer- 
 ence. Battle-fields become the source of desperation and a reckless despair. 
 The wrongs, the sufferings of war make men often willing to continue its 
 horrors when the struggle has ceased. Often, too, the contest of wars brings 
 about such conditions of unhappiness, of want and misery that men become 
 free-booters and plunderers because, they argue, society is dealing unjustly 
 with them. The present war has developed, to a marvelous state of effici- 
 ency, two engines of human destruction with which the world may here- 
 after be compelled to combat. They are the airplane and the submarine. 
 
 Possibilities. It does not require a very vivid imagination to picture 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 31 
 
 what the airplane might do in its lawless course of plundering and human 
 destruction. If the hatred of the battlefield is supplanted by social hatreds, 
 it is not difficult to imagine that an unlawful career by aviators may be de- 
 veloped in such a way as to threaten social destruction. It is already dif- 
 ficult to police the land in the cities and counties of our country. Murders, 
 thefts, and wholesale robberies have been altogether too common in times 
 of peace. Our industrial machinery is a most complicated affair, and it is 
 so highly wrought that any destruction of it or any disturbance even in its 
 workings may cause vast losses to property and great human destruction. 
 
 Let us take, for example, from among the vast number of aviators whom 
 we shall train, the few that may become desperate and unscrupulous in the 
 exercise of the powers at their command. It will be conceded that the op- 
 portunities of escape from criminal action will find in the airplane the 
 greatest possible aid. Its mechanism has become so perfected that the air 
 craft may be able to carry a considerable load of plunder. In comparison 
 with it, the automobile, which has been used for all sorts of depredations, 
 is insignificant. The great future danger, however, of the aircrafts, will 
 be more in the direction of social warfare. The relations of capital and 
 labor are growing daily more alarming. When it reaches a certain point, 
 it becomes an explosive, and manifests itself in all sorts of violence. Great 
 manufacturing plants and property of all kinds might be suddenly destroyed 
 by dropping bombs from the aerial regions. We are compelled, therefore, 
 to ask ourselves some very serious questions. Shall we be able efficiently 
 to police the upper regions? If not, what protection shall be enjoyed 
 against the dangers that the airplanes have the power to bring about in 
 times of peace? 
 
 Coming Events. It may be said that the suggestions here condemned 
 are mere possibilities. But possibilities usually shape themselves on to a 
 working basis. First men conceive the possibility of some scheme, even 
 though it be malevolent; then conditions arise to make the possible the 
 probable; the next step is the reality. The old Scotch Bard very truth- 
 fully and historically says that "Coming events cast their shadows before." 
 
 In past ages the world in times of peace has been made to suffer from 
 free-booters whose piracy on the oceans has made man and money their 
 prey in the illegal warfare which they have waged upon the oceans. History 
 records the reign of terror instituted upon the oceans by such characters as 
 Edward England, Fortunatus Wright, and Captain Kidd. These buccaneers 
 were the terror of the Middle Ages. Civilization was advanced, and they 
 were driven from their criminal life, and the seas made safe from their 
 depredations. They ceased only when civilized powers were able, by united 
 effort, to drive them away from their unlawful careers. 
 
 The civilized nations have invented a new danger. It will have to be 
 fought in the future as the old dangers were fought and destroyed in the 
 past. We know something, if only a little, of the wonderful advancement 
 of the under-sea boats, and the havoc they have wrought in times of war. 
 They are now so constructed that they are like a modern ship, and have 
 from 800 to 1,000 tons displacement; the largest measure from 213 to 230 
 feet in length; they are driven by enormous engines of 7,000 and 8,000 
 horse-power, and carry great 19%-inch torpedoes. If they are made to 
 withstand the attacks made upon them in the war, what a wonderful power 
 they will have for destruction in times of peace! 
 
 Illustration. That one may know that the contemplation of dangers 
 here enumerated is giving rise to serious speculations, I quote somewhat at 
 length from the Calgary Herald, November 10, 1917: 
 
 "While German submarine commanders are testing and discover- 
 ing the virtually unlimited possibilities of the U-boat, there are indi- 
 cations that the groundwork is being laid for a period of piracy after 
 the war. Surely, these commanders are glimpsing the ease with which 
 they could prey upon the world's shipping and make rich hauls in 
 gold and merchandise. 
 
32 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 "I maintain that it would be very simple for a German submarine 
 commander privately to carry on piracy for a considerable period 
 without knowledge of his government. It must be remembered that 
 the crew on a submarine craft is necessarily very small. That makes 
 but few to share a secret. By appealing to their cupidity and their 
 already well-developed spirit of lawlessness, a submarine commander 
 would have little difficulty in winning over his crew to a scheme to 
 enrich themselves at the expense of the world's shipping. 
 
 "Let us say, for example, that a submarine commander learns of 
 the sailing of an American steamship to England with a cargo of gold. 
 How simple it would be for the submarine to attack that ship at some 
 favorable point on the ocean and make a getaway with a large portion 
 of the specie. How could it be possible to trace the pirates? I think 
 you will agree it would be difficult. 
 
 "Then, again, there are the submarine commanders who will likely 
 break away from their government and boldly enter the game of 
 piracy. For instance, when a U-boat does not return to its govern- 
 ment base, officials of the government will likely conjecture that the 
 craft has been lost at sea. The missing U-boat can select a base on 
 some isolated island or coast and operate for a considerable period 
 without discovery. After two or three good hauls the commander 
 and crew could well afford to sink the craft to the bed of the ocean, 
 divide the booty and scatter to far lands and live forever in plenty. 
 
 "Although these are only conjectures, they are likely to be real- 
 ized in the near future in a manner that is caluculated to jolt civiliza- 
 tion. It will be a great boon to the civilized world if American genius 
 in the near future discovers an antidote for the U-boat." 
 
 Deadly Gases. Among other dangerous inventions of the present war, 
 the production of deadly gases for military purposes may be made in times 
 of peace a source of human destruction which the hatreds of the present 
 war are likely to encourage. Where secrecy in crime is required, the 
 poisonous gases may have the most baneful effects. It is easy to imagine 
 that in times of strikes, manufacturing plants may be made wholly useless 
 from the dangers which these gases would create when secretly circulated 
 throughout the buildings. It is the testimony of history that crime has 
 been fostered by means of those devices which war has created. What gases 
 may do is perhaps best explained by Howard J. Allen. Writing for the 
 New York Tribune from Paris, he says, in the issue of that paper of 
 October 7, 1917: 
 
 "Of all the unspeakable cruelties of this war the gas is probably 
 the most inhuman manifestation. Both sides are using it with growing 
 efficiency. You never know when you are to encounter it in some 
 terrible and heretofore unknown form. 
 
 "One new wrinkle invented by the Germans is called 'mustard gas' 
 by our soldiers. While it cannot get behind the mask, it is so strong 
 that it permeates the clothing. Whenever a man's body becomes 
 moist from perspiration or rain the gas attacks him and burns off 
 his skin. 
 
 "The British have made a gas the purpose of which is to compel 
 the enemy to remove his mask. It is a powerful emetic gas. It afflicts 
 the Germans with nausea, so that they cannot keep their mouths 
 covered. If they uncover their faces for six seconds the amount of 
 inhalation is fatal. They die at once, or, as is sometimes the case, 
 twenty-four hours later from heart disease. We are told that the 
 Germans declare the use of this gas unfair on the part of the British. 
 Men laugh when they tell it." 
 
 Revelation. "Mine indignation is soon to be poured out without meas- 
 ure upon all nations, and this I will do when the cup of their iniquity is 
 full" (Doc. and Cov. 101:11). 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 33 
 
 XIV Intemperance 
 
 Prohibition. Temperance is more than a code of laws which we call 
 prohibition. It is a duty we owe to our God, our families; a duty to be- 
 come our brothers' keepers. The world has become greatly alarmed over 
 the degeneracy of manhood and over the increased allurements to woman- 
 hood through drink. The banker found it an insidious enemy. The manu- 
 facturer bewailed the inefficiency of those who through drink obstructed 
 his progress. It became more and more a great economic question. 
 Through it the stability of business life was broken. As long as it had 
 apparently no other evil than the destruction of the home, the hunger of 
 children, the broken hearts of wives and mothers, the world tolerated it 
 beyond belief. It was a sordid world .and material gains outweighed 
 spiritual values. 
 
 Once it touched business and laid its hands violently upon commercial 
 life men of affairs rose up in antagonism to it, and yet all the arguments 
 of dollars and cents were weak compared with the destruction it wrought 
 in the moral and spiritual life of the world. The argument of business 
 was that drink cost the United States six billion dollars every year. Men 
 of science declared that two drinks a day would slow down the energy of 
 the brain from eight to twenty per cent. 
 
 Increase of Vice. We have introduced prohibition in many of the 
 states of the Union. Will that produce temperance? It will help, but it 
 will take time. There will be arguments against it, and statistics brought 
 to prove the arguments and to prove the prosperity of the nations by what 
 people can afford for drink. The following comes from the New York Sun 
 of September 5, 1917: 
 
 "Despite the high cost of living the people of the United States 
 consumed 26,000,000 gallons more of distilled spirits in the fiscal year 
 ending June 30th last than in the year before. 
 
 "They needed for their comfort 879,180,583 more cigars and 9,440,- 
 000,000 more cigarettes the latter increase being ascribed by the un- 
 gallant internal revenue bureau to the increase of cigarette smoking 
 among women. We refuse to accept the explanation. 
 
 "Chewing and smoking consumption increased by 28,500,000 
 pounds. Snuff, where it is used, went up 2,200,000 pounds. 
 
 "Washington officials point to this record of increasing expendi- 
 tures for luxuries as an evidence of great prosperity. Perhaps it is. 
 But it is a poor promise for future prosperity. The spectacle of a 
 nation clamorous against the increased price of food and of every 
 necessary of life increasing its annual expenditures for liquor and 
 tobacco by millions is not very inspiriting." 
 
 Downward Movement. Nothing proves more strikingly the rapid slide 
 downward which the social life of our nation is taking. Can it be stopped? 
 What can stop it? Such a showing illustrates the fallacy of merely apply- 
 ing a legal remedy, and then awaiting complacently the coming millennium. 
 Law is not the great remedy for vice. Law hits more forcefully at crimes 
 the grosser crimes along whose mountain sides lie the rolling hills 01 
 vice. But law can help. And it must be helped, or it will fail. It is 
 perhaps one of the greatest objections to law that it lures men into the 
 belief that nothing more is needed of them. Let the law take its course, 
 is the fallacy of self-contented failure. Law requires, when it deals with 
 vice, the aid of public opinion and individual effort. It is sustained effort 
 that carries great reforms on to victory. It is to him who endures to the 
 end. One of the greatest dangers in the prohibition movement of the world 
 today is the false argument of a victory won. Victory is not won, it is 
 merely a promise. To make laws successful in questions of vice (I make a 
 clear distinction between vice and crime), there must not only be a strong, 
 
34 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 but a lasting public will. Any reaction invites defeat. Why does law 
 against vice often fail so lamentably? The masses are prone to one vice or 
 another. Men will excuse their own and tolerate kindred vices. Crimes 
 are more loathsome, and are the practices of the comparatively few. In 
 matters of vice it will not do to watch and wait. 
 
 Kindred Vices. It may be well to note that vices are multiplying. Our 
 forefathers would be appalled today at the sight of the great brood of 
 vices which were wholly unknown in their day. They had evils to be sure, 
 plenty of them, all they could endure. Vice has its fashions and many of 
 them change annually; it is the fashion of fashions to change. It is not 
 primarily a question of art with fashion. When it wins a certain following, 
 il marches on to universality. Vice is in a high degree a fashion, not in its 
 dress, but in its kinship to dress. Dress and vice in all ages have had 
 striking resemblances. It was so in ancient times. Fashion, drink, and 
 sexual sin have always been the three graces of the underworld. 
 
 It is difficult to single out one vice and push it away from all its rela- 
 tions of cousins, aunts, and nieces. Sooner or later they will meet. Liquor 
 is simply one of many vices. It is hard to banish when its pals are allowed 
 to stay. To make prohibition fulfil its mission there must come into action 
 a concerted movement against the kindred evils of the one it seeks to 
 abolish. Temperance is what the world needs to correct the monstrous 
 evil of drink. It is temperance in thought and action; temperance in high 
 and low places; temperance in language and motives; temperance in fashion 
 and pleasure; temperance in all the walks of daily life. It is reported of 
 President Smith that when he was once asked his attitude on prohibition 
 that he declared himself for temperance, that which corrects a multitude of 
 evils, and prevents drink. Without temperance, prohibition must fight 
 single handed. Drink is the companion of hilarity, frivolity, lacivious dress 
 and immorality. The battle to victory must be along the whole line. If 
 one only is attacked and driven back the others begin a flanking movement 
 that lead sooner or later to the defeat of those who rush on to the attack 
 of the enemy in one place. We hope and pray that prohibition may be a 
 complete antidote for the evil of drink; but it must be supported by the 
 spirit of temperance. The card table, the pool room, and excessive pleasures 
 are all companions of drink. When drink is ordered out, her devoted 
 friends will by sinister ways invite her return. We warn, we admonish and 
 expound the doctrine of temperance. The tide of a dissipated age is rolling 
 up against us. Shall we brace and hold ourselves against it; or shall we 
 yield and falsely comfort ourselves that it is moving shoreward; that we 
 must go with the tide; that it is folly to move against it; that in Rome we 
 must do as Rome does? There was in that ancient capital a body of de- 
 voted and despised people, the early Christians, that did not do as Rome 
 did. But they paid the penalty, the cynic says. Suffering was not a penalty; 
 it developed in them the power of redemption. Their good works survived, 
 and out of them a new world sprang up, a new civilization was born, a new 
 promise fulfilled. But other tides of life came in the recurring events of 
 the nations. The old dies and the new is born. There is always a struggle 
 between life and death. Intemperance has always been a potent sign of 
 decay. It stalks in the world today; it is everywhere; it knocks at the door 
 of the Saints, and would delight them with the sweet intonations of its 
 voice. Temperance, that is the key-note of safety. 
 
 Dangers of Excesses. Rivalry is the spirit of the age. Rivalry means 
 excess; excess, intemperance. Who can have the best time is the ambition 
 of youth. Seekers after a good time vie with one another in dress, in social 
 pastimes, and in all kinds of physical excesses. We are reminded that we 
 eat too much, as well as drink too much, that we eat the wrong kind of 
 food, that we are extravagant beyond all reason. Men build big houses 
 which they do not need; they waste time and money in joy rides; and they 
 seek opportunity to display wealth that does not really belong to them. 
 Debt is the fashion of the age. It is overwhelming the permanency of com- 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE . 35 
 
 
 
 mercial life. Everywhere in life the laws of temperance are violated, if not 
 positively outraged. He who stands for temperance is a benefactor to his 
 people and his race. 
 
 As Rome Does. And what is the argument in favor of all this life of 
 intemperance? It is the old fallacy of "living in Rome." Tides are always 
 shattered at the shore; the break waters of life do not fall down from 
 heaven to stop the rolling tide. They are made foot by foot, inch by inch. 
 Little by little the forces of resistance are built up. We may not destroy 
 the tide, but we may break, if we will, much of the power of its destruction. 
 Here a man and there a woman braced in force against the evils of the day 
 may dissipate many of them. As resistance grows, evils scatter. They may 
 go on, but every fracture in them lessens the power of their destruction. 
 The priesthood, for whom these words are written, stand to the front as a 
 resisting force to the evils of the age. 
 
 Remedy. An eminent U. S. Senator was asked if the treatment he 
 received at the Battle Creek Sanitarium had helped him. He replied that 
 it had; but that a "Mormon" might have told him all that he got there in 
 three words "Word of Wisdom" (Read Sec. 89, Doc. and Cov.) 
 
 XV A Pleasure Loving Age 
 
 Pleasure and Joy. Shall we have pleasure? What is pleasure? It is; 
 the one thing the age is striving for. Toward it men and women in all 
 lands are bending their energies and for it they are consuming their wealth. 
 But pleasure is neither joy, nor happiness. The latter words may be used 
 interchangeably. The Book of Mormon teaches that "Man is that he may 
 have joy." Pleasure is an experience, chiefly one of selfishness. It is also 
 physical and administers to the sensations of the body. It is intoxicating 
 to the mind and produces the dizziness of hilarious pastimes. But what is 
 joy? "It is the rebound of sorrow," says Straghan. "Blessed are they that 
 mourn, for they shall be comforted." Comfort is joy. If we read what 
 gave joy to the holy men and women of the Bible we shall get perhaps the 
 best interpretation of it. But pleasure is not happiness. It may be well 
 to keep that distinction, paradoxical as it may seem. It is often said that 
 those who pursue pleasure never find it. They may find pleasure but not 
 joy. Do we want pleasure, do we need it? Undoubtedly, there are whole- 
 some pleasures, physical, intellectual, and spiritual. They are such as 
 come from a healthy state of our being. They are never an aim in them- 
 selves. They are scattered along the way of life, and are experiences that 
 come from wholesome living. Is happiness the rebound of sorrow? We 
 have a beautiful example in Sarah, who through a long life sorrowed for 
 children. "My heart," she said, "exulteth in the Lord." The Hebrew poet 
 sings the praises felt by the sorrowing exiles after their long years of 
 separation from their beloved country, 
 
 "When the Lord brought home again the captives of Zion. 
 
 We were like them that dream, 
 
 Then was our mouth filled with laughter, 
 
 And our tongue with melody." 
 
 Joy expresses itself nowhere better than in manifestations of gratitude. 
 It praises God in an exultant spirit. In Nehemiah the Jews were told that 
 "the joy of the Lord is your strength." What a sorrow hangs over the 
 world today! Will it bring comfort to those who mourn? 
 
 There is no happiness without work. It is work that brings to the 
 human soul the satisfaction of a great reward. It is not so much the satis- 
 faction of a material reward as it is the ability to enjoy what God has 
 provided for us. Work brings fatigue which makes sleep, food and rest 
 so enjoyable. 
 

 36 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 If we are drifting away from the God ordained duties of life we curtail 
 our joy whatever the momentary pleasures may be. A pleasure loving 
 world becomes sensational. Its ideals are misshapen, and distortion dis- 
 turbs seriously all the functions of life. The conscience is deadened; the 
 organs of the body give pain. The rebound from excessive pleasure is pain. 
 
 Temptations of Pleasure. Pleasure lends itself to temptations that in 
 turn lead to pleasures that are iniquitous. It greatly disturbs the serious 
 nature of man, and unfits him for the higher duties of life. There is no 
 age set apart for pleasure. To the young it is a snare and robs the soul 
 of youth of its preparation for the struggles of life. It weakens the young 
 in the presence of responsibilities. Bodily strength gives way in the midst 
 of it. 
 
 Has God, in his infinite mercy, called a halt upon the frivolities of 
 human life by throwing it into the whirl of a destructive war? The young 
 manhood of our nation is in a process of decay. The great majority, we are 
 told, are not fit for service. We are marshaling our young into training 
 camps that they may be finished by strenuous exercise for service. It is 
 possible that the great army of unfits shall be left to perish by its own 
 hands. Can some means not be found for regeneration? What a dismal 
 outlook confronts the world. Self-destruction and war threaten the world 
 with annihilation. Is universal destruction decreed? In the midst of it 
 all the excessive worldly pleasures go on. Men and women refuse to be- 
 come serious minded. There is no stop to "hear and hush" to the roar of 
 cannon. Out of the harrowing scenes of the battlefield writers seek to feed 
 the morbid curiosity of millions who have no thought of consequences. 
 
 Fashions. Fashions are displayed through public print for an age that 
 is more absorbed in the fancies of the world than in its sobriety. "Sugges- 
 tive" dress enamours the public eye. The spirit of the world is "eat, drink 
 and be merry, for tomorrow we die." The headlong rush into earthly 
 pleasures foredooms the world to its own destruction. 
 
 As I write, I take up the London Times of August 17, and in the 
 Fashions column there appears the following: 
 
 "A very dull old rose velvet looked well in a little dress trimmed 
 with brown fur and a touch of old gold embroidery. For evening 
 wear some are rather bright when black and black-and-white are set 
 on one side, but black and black-and-white models abound. Fine 
 pale rose taffetas, delicately embroidered in silver, with puffy short 
 sleeves in white tulle sprinkled with silver, make a youthful dance 
 dress, and a regular Court dress was in torquoise blue velvet and tulle. 
 But the black satin, black messeline, black net and black velvet dresses 
 with jet trimmings, were more frequent. The embroidery at a certain 
 house is extraordinarily fine and eighteenth century in style. No 
 coarse woolen embroidery is to be seen, but delicate silk and thread 
 and silver and gold work on silks, satins, and messelines, and fine 
 serge." 
 
 This is England in war, England in distress. It reads like a page from 
 Ancient Rome, when women were doing their full share to bring a 
 universal destruction of the Empire. The fashions and follies of the age 
 suffer little restraint in the presence of calamities which threaten even social 
 existence. Pleasure will not surrender its indulgences, however grave the 
 situation. 
 
 Rivalry. Excessive social pleasures are sources of jealousy, envy and 
 quarrelsome relations among the young. They do much to destroy the cor- 
 diality that should exist in social life. They break up young couples in 
 courtship and bring dissension in the home. They beget a selfish spirit 
 that is destructive of useful service in all the walks of life. The thought 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 37 
 
 beneath a pleasure loving age is what others do for me, not what service I 
 may render to others. Pleasure breeds discontent and ingratitude. Social 
 disruptions and bickerings grow out of it. When sacrifices come, as they 
 must come to the lives of all, they are borne with impatience and hatreds. 
 There can be no ultimate satisfaction in a pleasure loving life, which 
 creates disappointment rather than joy. First comes envy of others, then 
 hatred of them, and more deadly still, hatred of one's self. Such a life 
 poisons the soul, warps the judgment, and embitters the hearts of men and 
 women. It leads to quarrels in the home, and often ends in divorce. What: 
 is perhaps the most serious result of a life given to pleasure is the destruc- 
 tion in mature years and in old age of the peace and satisfaction which 
 advancing years must have if life is to become tolerable. In the end 
 pleasure strives for social distinction, and the advancing generation finds 
 itself thrust aside by the new. More and more the devotees of pleasure 
 learn that the fruits of their efforts and ambition are bitter; their attitude 
 to life is one of regret and sorrow. 
 
 Pleasure and Learning. Disappointment and emptiness teach pleasure 
 nothing. When excessive it cannot learn, for it is self-absorbed. It enters 
 into school life and robs the young of that application which they need so 
 much for their intellectual advancement. It robs boys and girls of their 
 efficiency, and leaves them the victims of an unreal world. They lose the 
 power which enables them to resist temptation and it creates habits of 
 life that often lead to despair. 
 
 On the other hand, happiness has a well-founded reason for its exist- 
 ence. It represents the fruit of right living. It is the reward of truth, 
 service and devotion. Those who see nothing in their lives for which they 
 may hope for happiness try worldly pleasures as a substitute. There is no 
 way of drowning sorrow by a plunge into the whirl of a pleasure loving 
 age. "Drowning sorrow" is the philosophy of despair. How shall this 
 world-wide evil that is destroying usefulness and happiness be corrected? 
 
 The spirit of duty and responsibility is the antidote for the idolatrous 
 pleasure of the age. Sometimes our young people are heard to complain 
 that they have too many organizations in the Church. Night after night 
 some meeting makes its demands for them. There are home preparations 
 to absorb their leisure hours. To them duty sometimes grows irksome and 
 some escape the responsibilities which the Church puts upon all who will 
 work. To escape responsibility is to court failure. To shirk a duty is to 
 enter a temptation. A life of responsibility and duty is full of all the 
 good things which God has in store for his children. A life of pleasure is 
 full of emptiness. If the temptations of life with the long train of evils 
 growing out of them are to be withstood, a great effort must be made to 
 correct the excessive love for pleasure which is a besetting sin of the 
 present age. 
 
 "But it is not given that one man should possess that which is above an- 
 other, wherefore the world lieth in sin" (Doc. and Cov. 49:20). 
 
 "And inasmuch as ye do these things with thanksgiving, with cheerful 
 hearts and countenances; not with much laughter, for this is sin, but with 
 a glad heart and a cheerful countenance * * * * the fulness of the 
 earth is yours" (Doc. and Cov. 59:15,16). 
 
 XVI Financial Respectability 
 
 Definition. What is financial respectability? It is demanded and must 
 be defined. Each has, perhaps, his own interpretation, though he may be 
 actuated very greatly by public opinion and his social business life. Prac- 
 tically, it consists of a man's business activities, what he does, and is not 
 always governed by what his balance would be if he were forced into 
 liquidation. Appearances, however, he must maintain. Should he have an 
 auto, should his home life be based upon some good round sum of money 
 for a residence, and is it necessary to know now much he owes? 
 
38 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 Credits. One thing is certain, however. Our credit system is enlarging 
 by leaps and bounds. It touches almost every man in business life. The 
 farmers owe their billions. Also the merchant. All are dependent upon 
 our banking system and their credit at the bank is of course an important 
 asset. 
 
 Financial respectability, however, is setting higher and higher yearly its 
 social standards. It brings along in its train envy, jealousy, and often 
 bickerings. National jealousy and rivalry had much to do with the present 
 war. If such rivalry is dangerous to the nation at large, it is also dangerous 
 to the individual. Should a panic follow the present period of expansion 
 and extravagance it would be more ruinous than anything which the world 
 has ever heretofore experienced. A post-war panic is quite a probability. 
 It will be a miracle if we escape it, and now while times are good and 
 money plentiful is a good time to establish ourselves for coming events. 
 
 Methods. The problems which today affect us are the methods of 
 financial gain. The advice of the father to the son, if it ever holds good, 
 holds good now more than ever: "Get money. Get it honestly, if you can, 
 but get money." In such an age as we now have it is almost possible to do 
 business, to launch an enterprise, without capital; and that means, of course, 
 in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, credit. There are some aspects, how- 
 ever, of the financial fever from which we are suffering that deeply concern 
 the Latter-day Saints. It should be stated that the credit system is in itself 
 dangerous. Men start by borrowing for the needs of their business. Money 
 at hand then leads them into extravagance. They take bounds and are 
 unable to recover themselves and there are literally millions throughout the 
 United States over whose financial head the sword of Damacles hangs. 
 
 Psychology of Business. We have also what might be called the psy- 
 chology of business. This consists of a certain training and a certain in- 
 stinct by which men are not only able to judge others, but by which they 
 are able, by their persuasions, to convince. In other words, people are 
 often literally talked out of their money. People's peculiarities are played 
 upon. Advantages are taken of their frame of mind and enthusiasm is 
 promoted by a class who understand the method of its creation. In this 
 condition of business life exaggerations, if not right down falsehoods, are 
 growing altogether too common. 
 
 A man in Salt Lake City was called into an office some time ago by a 
 gentleman who had a wonderful invention to show his friend. It was a 
 railroad signal apparatus which, according to his representation, every 
 railroad in the country was anxious to get hold of. The agent was very 
 enthusiastic, pleasing in his demeanor, and convincing in the tones of his 
 voice. He boldly declared that he would guarantee his friend that inside 
 of six months he could double his money. 
 
 The man from the street was not without some experience. He said he 
 thought he would take a block of that stock and the agent was then, of 
 course, anxious to know how many thousand dollars he wanted. He could 
 have any amount. But his friend said, "I would like to know who the 
 guarantors are to be, whether they are able to respond to the guarantee 
 in case your representations do not prove true." Of course, that ended the 
 effort. The agent's declarations of guarantee were given for psychological 
 effect. They were not to be taken literally. 
 
 Today we have all sorts of promoters, especially in the organization of 
 corporations. They exploit the people, sell many thousand dollars worth of 
 stock, and too often it turns out that the whole business was only a psycho- 
 logical enterprise. 
 
 Mining Exploitations. Perhaps one of the most fertile fields of exploi- 
 tation is to be found in mining stocks. I quote from Collier's editorials, 
 edited by Mark Sullivan: 
 
 "Have you bought mining stocks? Sell them. Offer them back to 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 39 
 
 the man who sold them. Offer them at the same price. Offer them 
 at ten per cent less. Offer them at twenty per cent less. This will 
 accomplish your own disillusionment, and save you money, for you 
 might have bought more. It will also effect exposure to the person 
 who sold you the stock. Are you thinking of buying shares in Poodle- 
 dog Inflated or Hoptoad Jump Along? Don't. And this "don't" is 
 without qualification of any kind. To women chiefly, wives of hus- 
 bands of the high wage-earning class, this paragraph is commended. 
 Not that it is their folly we inveigh against. They are the ones who 
 know the value of savings, and they may be in time to save a fatuous 
 husband from an act of inexcusable folly. 
 
 "If you are tempted by the full-page advertisements published by 
 the newspaper partners of mining swindlers, don't! If some acquaint- 
 ance is urging you to buy shares, he either profits by the sale or is 
 himself deceived. Daniel Guggenheim is the greatest miner in the 
 world. He and his six brothers own mines that aggregate a billion 
 dollars. That family knows more about mines than most of the rest 
 of the world combined. The other day Mr. Guggenheim uttered a 
 solemn warning against "the flimsy character of the mining stocks 
 now finding a ready market." "One in three hundred," he said, "is a 
 conservative estimate of the proportion of prospects that eventually 
 fulfil their promise." Within a week after he uttered that warning 
 Mr. Guggenheim made public announcement that he had himself been 
 caught. He had bought a famous and widely-talked-of mine; and 
 when he discovered he had been deceived, he backed out of the trap 
 at a cash loss of $2,500,000." 
 
 Facts that Read Like Fairy Stories. That which gives zest to the 
 psychology of business is the wonderful stories that agents have about the 
 marvelous gains of men who have entered into various classes of enterprise. 
 Some of them read like fairy stories. It is often said that more gold and 
 silver are expended in the quest for gold and silver mines than is taken 
 out of them. 
 
 As a rule, corporations are not satisfactory unless a man has some 
 voice in their guidance. The mere love for gain becomes very sordid when 
 with it there is no intelligent direction of the means by which it is obtained. 
 In large corporations the ordinary stockholder has nothing to say. He may 
 be squeezed out in time. Some of these companies are bona fide and have 
 a pride in promoting the interest of their stockholders. On the other hand, 
 there is a multitude of them that exploit the public by one means or 
 another, get control of the stock, take its profits sometimes by enormous 
 salaries which are paid to its manager and directors. They regulate the 
 dividends in their own interest. Such are often the dangers of new cor- 
 porate bodies and it is, of course, always safer to invest in well established 
 companies. I quote again from Collier's: 
 
 "It has been estimated that a man who, in the early nineties, sub 
 scribed to one share of stock in Mr. James J. Hill's Great Northern 
 Railway and has kept it ever since, has made in the intervening fifteen 
 years, in cash dividends and 'privileges', a profit of over nine hundred 
 per cent. The best that could have been done by a workman on Mr. 
 Hill's railroad, who put his earnings in a savings bank for the same 
 period, would be less than one hundred per cent. Mr. Forrest F. Dry- 
 den, a son of the President of the Prudential Insurance Company, 
 stated under oath that one of the owners of that company who, in the 
 late seventies, paid in, in cash, $2,200, had made a profit, twenty-five 
 years later, of $327,163.60. The rate of profit in this case is 14,800 
 per cent a rate which must seem colossal to the policy-holder who 
 has taken advantage of the savings feature of that company and 
 bought an endowment policy. For the policy-holder has never re- 
 ceived as much as four per cent." 
 
40 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 Talents Sacrificed for Financial Gain. The present glamour of financial 
 standing in the world is leading many of our young people away from 
 those careers in life which their talents best fit them to pursue. Today very 
 many of the very best teachers we have in the Church and State are leaving 
 the school room because of "financial inducement." Our political system 
 does not repay our highest and best talent. Many of our young men would 
 make most competent physicians and surgeons, attorneys, agriculturists, 
 and stock men, and thus benefit the world by reason of their superior pro- 
 ductive powers. They do not respond to their inborn qualities of life. 
 The love of money compels them to bury their God-given talents. Again 
 from Collier's: 
 
 "Recently a young and successful banker withdrew from his firm 
 to accept an appointment as an assistant in a department in our oldest 
 university. The banking career, of course, would have been vastly 
 more remunerative in money. Moreover, the bank was a family insti- 
 tution, and there was every inclination of pride and tradition against 
 leaving it. It strikes us as a fine thing to have done. Possibly we 
 would all be better off if business in this country were less remunera- 
 tive as compared with other careers. If business did not offer a re- 
 ward so vastly greater in money, young men choosing their careers 
 would feel more free to follow their natural talents toward the arts or 
 toward other careers. One of the most successful bankers in the 
 United States would have been a very great musician if he had felt 
 free to follow his tastes. In spite of the disparity of the money re- 
 wards, more and more men are realizing that money is not to be 
 weighed against what President Eliot once called 'the durable satisfac- 
 tions of life.' Among these durable satisfactions, congeniality of work 
 is one of the most important." 
 
 It is unfortunately true that men have lost much of the spirit of stew- 
 ardship. They do not hold in trust as those responsible to God for 
 beneficent use of means at their command, and there are direct tempta- 
 tions in financial enterprise that are too severe for many to overcome. 
 
 Revelations. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, wo be unto him that lieth 
 to deceive, because he supposeth that another lieth to deceive, for such are 
 not exempt from the justice of God" (Doc. and Cov. 10:28). 
 
 "And again, I will give unto you a pattern in all things, that ye may 
 not be deceived, for Satan is abroad in the land, and he goeth forth de- 
 ceiving the nations" (Doc. and Cov. 52:14). 
 
 XVII Survival of the Fittest 
 
 A Fallacy. Much has been written and said about the survival of the 
 fittest, as though men were an exact counterpart of nature, even in the 
 exercise of his free agency. It is doubtful, even in the animal and the 
 vegetable world, whether it is true that the fittest always survive, because 
 life is subject to such a variety of conditions that what is the fittest depends 
 after all upon a multitude of conditions so complex that we cannot say 
 really that anything living will survive. In the case of man it is really 
 less true, because man has his locomotion and agency, so that he may 
 change his conditions and place himself from time to time in such environ- 
 ments as make for his advantage or disadvantage in the world. 
 
 A Simple Example. Some time ago the writer, who has been occupied 
 in the sheep industry for some time, during a severe storm at the lambing 
 season, undertook so to place his sheep as to suffer the smallest possible 
 loss. The older and larger ones were placed where they were compelled to 
 take the brunt of the storm, in the hope that they had vitality enough to 
 withstand it. The weaker and younger ones were given a securer place 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 41 
 
 within the sheds, and thus the lambs were prepared at night within for the 
 storm that was raging without. In the morning the oldest and strongest 
 had suffered the greatest loss. Among the weakest only one or two died. 
 The survival here was not a question of the fittest. It was a question of 
 environment, of human protection. The survival of the fittest presupposes 
 equalities of opportunities, of environments, of conditions that do not exist 
 in either animal or human life. And so, if we speak of the survival of the 
 fittest, we are bound to make so many explanations, so many exceptions, 
 that the rule becomes practically worthless as a working principle. 
 
 Survival of the Fittest in War. There is just now going on in the world 
 a war of unparalleled human destruction. It is pointed to as an illustra- 
 tion, as a pitiful evidence that the best in our national life is sacrificed, and 
 that the world, after the war, will be made up of those less fitted to assume 
 family, social, and national responsibilities. It is doubtful, even in the case 
 of war, that the fittest are killed off because the best of our physical man- 
 hood is called into the conflict. 
 
 A Definition of the Fittest. Who can really say what the fittest in life 
 is? Usually the statement is made from the standpoint of our physical 
 being. Let us take an example: Two young men entering manhood possess 
 different physical qualifications at the same age of life. One is powerful, 
 has known no sickness from his infancy, and in his body the functions of 
 life are healthy and strong. The other has been somewhat frail; he has 
 started life handicapped by pain, suffering, and imperfect conditions of his 
 body. He has, however, been compelled to take care of himself. He has 
 been cautious in his diet, in his habits, and strong in his moral attitude to 
 life. There is no question about which of the two the world would con- 
 sider the fitter. The former may plunge into excesses, may feel contempt 
 for human weakness, and be indifferent to moral rectitude. But he starts 
 out with great physical powers. In time they are sure to be undermined. 
 His life becomes sinful and his "children's teeth are on edge because the 
 father hath eaten sour grapes." How shall human wisdom determine whiclr 
 is the fitter of the two when the one that was handicapped at the beginning 
 leads an exemplary life and makes good what he lacked at the beginning, 
 and his children perhaps inherit the blessings of a correct living that has 
 made him in the long race of life the more successful of the two? 
 
 Inheritance under the Rule. We take the ground that our birth is not 
 our beginning. We come into the world with certain inheritances, and 
 though we come into the world often poorly equipped, yet we come with 
 a moral inheritance that puts us on the upward grade, and we may ascend 
 by force of correct living in the physical scale of well-being. The whole 
 matter, however, is so complex that it is difficult to say who are and who 
 are not the fittest. 
 
 But the theory is bad from the fact that the word is taken to apply to 
 our physical well-being, coupled with our intellectual attainments. These 
 two parts of our natures are held up as the most important things in life. 
 As a matter of fact, they are both highly dependent upon our moral natures. 
 It may be that our intellectuality will persist for two or three generations 
 in spite of weakened moral natures, but in the end morality must win over 
 both the intellectual and the physical life of man. 
 
 Bad Effect of the Theory. The theory of the survival of the fittest is an 
 effect as well as a cause. It is the effect of swollen pride, of the belief of 
 certain classes of people in the world that the superior advantages which 
 they enjoy are the result of their superior natures and greater abilities, 
 whereas they may have been the result largely of environment. The theory 
 is bad because it is applied chiefly to our physical lives, as though our 
 physical well-being were the most momentous question of a man's conduct 
 in the world. It is so easy to undermine our physical lives, to make them 
 abortive and ruinous not only to ourselves, but to our posterity, that physical 
 
42 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 values are after all not so important as we too often imagine. A man may 
 be physically fit today and physically ruined tomorrow, because behind him 
 and about him there was no moral rectitude to support the physical ad- 
 vantages which he enjoyed. 
 
 The theory is also bad because it permits men to drift; it robs them of 
 that effort which men in their weakness feel that they must put forward. 
 
 The Battle of Life. "The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the 
 strong, but to him that endureth to the end." Such is the teaching of our 
 religion, which is striving constantly so to fortify man's moral nature as 
 to make man a self-improved being. Such doctrine presupposes human 
 weakness and the inclination of human beings to sinful lives. Such a re- 
 ligion aims to establish character in mind, something that will endure 
 from one generation to another, something upon which posterity may build 
 an enduring structure. 
 
 The followers of Christ were frequently the blind, the lame, and the 
 halt. He sarcastically reminds his critics that those who are well have no 
 need of a physician. Those who had survived, as the fittest, might die in 
 their own conceit. And what became of those pharisaical people in Christ's 
 time vrho boasted of their superiority? They passed away, while the fol- 
 lowers of Christ survived and brought down through their generations to us 
 something of the character and quality of a Christian life. Which were the 
 fittest? That is a question of divine judgment. Let us ask our descendants, 
 our children and our children's children, and their children after them. 
 We do not stand for ourselves so much as we stand for future generations. 
 
 The Calling of the Saints. The calling of the Latter-day Saints is that 
 of a .chosen people. Their important mission is not simply the physical 
 advantages of a single generation; their mission is that of procreation, the 
 duty to give to the world the best in physical manhood and womanhood, not 
 simply something that shall survive. We are not trusting to our survival; 
 we are planning for the triumph of that right living that shall give to our 
 descendants a higher and better life than that which we possess. Survival 
 is a bad conception of our place in the world. It is growth, progress, all in 
 the direction of the fulfilment of a mission to be God's chosen people. 
 
 XVUIThe New Education 
 
 Crumbling of Our Old Educational Systems. Will our modern system 
 of education be also shot to pieces? While the great guns on the battle- 
 fields are tearing up the earth in the most terrible manner, the forces behind 
 them are at work everywhere in our social structure. Great wars make 
 great changes, and there are ample evidences that new educational demands 
 will soon be made upon all the nations of the earth. If changes come there 
 must be a breaking up of our modern system. What is wrong with it will 
 be revealed in the great emergencies that confront the world today. They 
 are testing out the fortress of man for new responsibilities. We must think 
 of education in the making and stability of man, and in his preparedness 
 for the emergencies and rapid changes that are overtaking the world today. 
 What have we found wanting in our present world demand for the high 
 level of efficiency? First of all we are reminded that we are physically 
 unfit. We must, according to present estimates, examine 2,500,000 men to 
 raise an army of 500,000. It did not require a war to bring home to us the 
 fact that there has been for a loug time a deterioration in our physical man- 
 hood. Not long since we had forced upon our notice that there was a 
 great increase in the death of men along about the ages of from 45 to 50. 
 It speaks of a race rapidly run. 
 
 Physical Side of Education. The city is gathering into its great mael- 
 strom of vice an ever increasing percentage of youth who seek employment 
 of a genial nature, employment as free from physical toil as possible. Vice, 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 43 
 
 impure atmospheric conditions, and ease, are making great inroads into the 
 physical powers of life. It is the business of education to give the proper 
 direction to life. Our educators seem to think that if they give a young 
 man a start he will keep on going. Do they help him to move along the 
 road of his permanent well-being, or do they simply give him a vision of 
 things that he may think about or talk about without doing them? Educa- 
 tors are forever focusing the eyes of the youth upon the pages of a book, 
 till they not only force an ever increasing number to wear glasses, but 
 actually force them more and more to see by the vision of others. 
 
 Evils of Our Present System. Not long since I picked up a so-called 
 curricula of studies for our public schools. It contained thirteen subjects 
 to be taught to children under fourteen years of age. What a lot of super- 
 ficial dabblers our schools must turn out in an age of intensive application! 
 If you object, you are told that the law makes it so. Who made the law? 
 It was put through by our legislators. But who told our legislators it was 
 what we really needed? A bill was deferentially put into their hands by 
 some committee of school men. Who are these school men? They are 
 those who have studied books during all the years of their youth, and in 
 manhood went back to teach from the same books with which they had been 
 educated. The people have grown to think that what our educators recom- 
 mend must be for the best good of our children. It is just as if we started 
 out to make all our children school teachers. Only a few become such, and 
 the great masses of them are thrown out into the struggle of life after they 
 had been fitted not for what they really have to do, but for the things they 
 rarely think about after they leave the school room. If we further object, 
 we are sagely counseled that the real mission of education is culture, an 
 intellectual refinement. 
 
 Culture. Some years ago a number of young men knocked at the doors 
 of Harvard University for admittance. They were duly referred to a dean 
 who would pass upon their entrance. In assigning the young men to their 
 work, one of them asked about some "cultural" subject. The dean was 
 unsympathetic, and told them plainly what he thought of culture. He was a 
 man of affairs who had been in active life and knew something of what men 
 really needed in a partical world. To emphasize his point he related the 
 following story of two farmers. "These men," said he, "had met one day 
 at a partition fence between their farms to talk. One addressing the other, 
 asked John what culture was; 'these people going up to Arlington for a 
 summer outing are always talking about culture. They say, he's cultured, 
 she's cultured, and oh my, how I do love culture! What do they mean?' 
 'Well, you know what wheat culture and potato culture is, don't you?' came 
 the prompt reply. 'If you take out the wheat and the potatoes, then you 
 have culture.' " 
 
 The story had a very pronounced effect. Some effort has been made 
 along the line of industrial training in recent years, but there has been a 
 constant opposition to any suggestion that such a training should bear any 
 relationship to a trade-school. In agricultural training, men fit themselves, 
 more frequently for a position in private or governmental employment 
 rather than for the farm, thus keeping theory and practice as far apart as 
 possible. 
 
 A Suggestion. A change is certain to come. It would be hazardous to 
 prophesy just what that change will be. It is not unlikely that at some 
 future time we may witness a school something on the following plan: Let 
 us imagine a school on a 10,000 acre tract of land divided into lots of from 
 five to twenty acres each. These lots might be set apart for the growth of 
 wheat, alfalfa, fruit, sugar beets and a variety of other farm and orchard 
 products. In the center of the farm could be located administration and 
 school buildings. About the farm could be located houses for the boys and 
 barns for live stock. Here each boy, upon entering the school, would be 
 assigned to a lot according to the class of industry preferred by him and 
 
44 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 his parents. Under a skilful teacher he would begin his work at the school 
 farm in such a practical way as to make him master of the kind of work 
 he had chosen. If he raised beets a certain share would be turned over 
 to him as a remuneration, and the balance kept by the school for its 
 support. During a number of successive years he would change from one 
 lot to another and thus acquire special knowledge in fruit raising, animal 
 industry, or farming. Certain hours of the day he might receive class 
 instruction from seed time to harvest along the lines of his professional 
 work. In winter the school room would be open to him where, during 
 certain hours of the day, he would enjoy scholastic and manual training. 
 Such a school might be confined to summer work and the boy return to 
 his home for the regular school, provided always that manual training be 
 a compulsory part of his education. His physical upkeep would thus be 
 assured, and the artificial training in a gymnasium would be eliminated. 
 
 A Change Needed. Another reformation that is likely to come is the 
 introduction of men of affairs into the preparation of our school curricula. 
 They should not be left entirely to school teachers. Such a body of men 
 might well act as a sifting committee in all work to be submitteed to the leg- 
 islature, and to be adopted by school superintendents for the use of schools. 
 We must educate into life, not away from it. Too much time is given to 
 books and too little to the practical side of our natures. From the age of 
 twelve, half the training should be on a school farm and only half the time 
 in the school rooms. Life in action should be the aim of all our education. 
 
 Our young people enter the public school at the age of six. At about 
 fifteen they pass into the high school, and at about twenty into the university, 
 where they remain till they are twenty-four. Then, if they want a pro- 
 fessional training, they take four or five years abroad. At thirty they take 
 up the real work of life. They really begin life too late. The business or 
 economic side of life has been wholly neglected. As they naturally become 
 leaders of thought they are poorly equipped for the practical leadership of 
 those whom they greatly influence. Our peculiar system of state education 
 eliminates religious instruction which is after all the basis of moral force. 
 Education is not simply a business that has to do with the intellectual side 
 of life. To supplement our imperfect methods, the Latter-day Saints have 
 introduced the religion class movement where children after regular school 
 hours may receive instruction in religion and morals. There is a new 
 awakening to the fact that our youth are deficient in spiritual insight. All 
 the God-given attributes of man's life must be cultivated if he is to fulfil 
 the law of his creation. 
 
 It is further a fact that our schools are making dangerous inroad into 
 the nervous energy of our young people. Whether nervous energy is lack- 
 ing in them, or whether the call upon their energy is too great, the fact re- 
 mains the same. Our educational system grinds all children alike through 
 the same mill, because the system has become a machine that must work at 
 a given speed. 
 
 Revelation of God to Joseph Smith. "That whoso having knowledge, 
 have I not commanded to repent?" (Doc. and Cov. 29:49). 
 
 It is devoutly to be wished that some of our educators having knowl- 
 edge would repent. 
 
 "And truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and 
 as they are to come" (Doc. and Cov. 93:24). 
 
 The words are put in italics by the writer to accent the value of the 
 knowledge of things. We prattle too much about ideals that have little 
 reality in them. The slogan of our educators is ambition for those intellec- 
 tual refinements which relate more to the speculative side of life, than to the 
 useful and practical. 
 
 "And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life 
 through his diligence and obedince than anothr he will have so much the 
 advantage in the world to come" (Doc. and Cov. 130:19). 
 
 We believe in the eternal value of things, a knowledge we may take 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 45 
 
 with us to another world, a world in which we shall work, and not sit and 
 fold our hands and sing forever. "Faith without works is dead," so is knowl- 
 edge. 
 
 XIX. The Home 
 
 Abandonment. Of all the old fashioned homes of the past generation 
 it would be interesting to know what percentage is left, homes devoted to 
 domestic industry and child life. Even the difference would not be so start- 
 ling as the present movement to vacate home life. Word comes to us 
 through public print, which is confirmed by individual observation, that in 
 the great cities of the world the beautiful homes of the well-to-do along 
 charming boulevards are empty because their inmates have abandoned them 
 for hotel life. They were already devoid of child life, whose pleasures 
 would have made them interesting as well as habitable. The Latter-day 
 Saints, whose religious duty makes home life an obligation as well as a joy, 
 little realize what the abandonment of the home means to the world at large. 
 They hardly sense the change of this part of our social structure. World 
 temptations will come to them with such striking force that many of them 
 may find them quite overpowering. Against this and other insidious changes 
 that the new age is bringing, they must brace themselves as if for a con- 
 flict in which they may lose. Too many will not believe the dangers till 
 the jolt of a breakdown jars them by its destruction to their senses. 
 
 God Speaks. A great struggle is on in the world, and our troubles 
 will not end with the war. There are more terrible dangers ahead of us. 
 Why do we not proclaim these dangers from the house tops? Why do we 
 not tell the people at home what it all means? Do we not instinctively feel 
 by the spirit that has instilled itself into our lives for nearly a century that 
 the day of which God hath spoken is near. Why do we not speak aloud, 
 and not move in silence in the presence of such catastrophes as are threat- 
 ening the whole world? It is because we feel that God has the platform, 
 that it becomes us to remain silent in the midst of his great judgments 
 which the world has insisted on bringing upon itself. In the din of social 
 uproar and confusion the world could not, would not, stop to listen, would 
 not heed his voice when he had spoken. "Let the sin be upon us and our 
 children" were the sentiments of those who defied God and crucified the 
 Savior. 
 
 We need not feel surprised that in the raging conflict of social destruc- 
 tion one of the earliest of God ordained institutions for the perpetuation 
 of life and happiness the home should be threatened with annihilation 
 in the great upheavals of the age. Is it all pessimism and despair when we 
 draw in such dark coloring a world threatened and going to ruin? History 
 and life teach us that only an infinitesimal part of sin is revealed to the pub- 
 lic eye. If what we see is full of evil, what must be the secret, hidden con- 
 ditions of life. If what we see annoys us, how would we feel if God per- 
 mitted us to see it all. We are wholly incompetent to judge, but we may 
 listen and speak of the things which God has declared. We have eyes to 
 see and ears to hear the things that are flagrant. One of the great dangers to 
 the home is the deterioration of the body. What is the evidence of com- 
 petent witnesses in the courts of public opinion? Listen to the evidence of 
 one of America's greatest physicians, Dr. Howard: "Wom-n don't take ca're 
 of themselves in regard to the changes of weather. They don't get proper 
 food. They overeat, and nowadays more and more of them overdrink and 
 over smoke." 
 
 Some one has said that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, 
 but this is much more true of women. The box of candy is one of the most 
 acceptable strangles of courtship. 
 
 Effects of Home Abandonment. Take any of the big restaurants; who 
 fill them? They are crowded with women at the lunch hour. Crowded 
 
46 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 with the same sex at 4 p. m. for tea and sweetmeats. At the dinner hour 
 and again after the theatre the restaurants are crowded again. There are 
 now men with the women. We compare what is eaten in these places of 
 mixed patronage with what is eaten in places exclusively patronized by men, 
 and we'll find proof of the contention that it is the women who overeat, 
 and overeat heavy, indigestible food. 
 
 "This over indulgence, I believe, is one of the grave evils of the day, 
 at any rate, here in America. It is bad for the present generation, and bad 
 for the coming generation. We molly-coddle our women too much. We 
 have let them live too long in a steam heated atmosphere. 
 
 "Some may object that I am putting undue emphasis upon the physical. 
 But these objectors must remember that mental and moral man gets his 
 strength and efficiency only from the physical man. Nature has no use for 
 sickness. And remember that the greatest struggle for existence that the 
 world has ever seen is going to begin when Verdun has passed into history. 
 'If women could acquire the physical strength and could be disciplined 
 (make note of that) and could be disciplined they would dominate the 
 earth. I believe it would be easier for them to acquire the necessary 
 strength than for them to subject themselves to the necessary discipline." 
 
 From such an indictment it is easy to believe that women are in not 
 much better position to maintain a salutary home life than men. From al- 
 most every angle at which we look at home life there are to be seen serious 
 symptoms of its decay. 
 
 Nowadays so many children are born out of the home, and left en- 
 tirely to the care of mothers, that the element of mental life is constantly 
 decreasing. The unmarried mother is not a disturbing factor here, as it is 
 in many European countries. However, there is a growing disinclination 
 everywhere to hold girls to the same accountability as there was a few 
 years back. Today the unmarried mother is becoming more and more a 
 pioblem to society. From the Chicago Sunday Herald of August 26, 1917, 
 I quote the following: "The unmarried mother can scarcely be said to have 
 won the approval of the modern world, but at least she is not greeted with 
 the fury accorded her predecessors." 
 
 Illegitimacy. Dr. Werner of Columbia University recalls the fact that 
 before the present war there were born in Germany 177,000 illegitimate 
 children annually ; in France, 80,000 ; in England, 38,000 ; in Sweden, 18,000 ; 
 in little Norway, 5,000. In American cities the illegitimate birthrate is said 
 to be about 3 percent of the total, but this is counterbalanced by the high 
 divorce rate of one divorce to every twelve marriages. 
 
 "Illegitimacy is now not only widespread, but a general effort is 
 being made to eliminate the disgrace which attaches to the unmarried 
 mother and to her child." 
 
 "The Norwegian law of 1915, which aimed at giving every legit- 
 imate child two legal parents, inspired the recent Illinois attempt to 
 deal with the situation. During 1913 France repealed the hard Na- 
 poleonic edict, which forbade all investigation into the paternity of 
 children born out of wedlock. 
 
 "The same social feeling itself in the abolition of the Austrian 
 law, through which illegitimate children were excluded from family 
 and relationship rights. The Muttershutz movement in Germany, 
 and in Scandinavia, attempted in various legal ways to accomplish a 
 similar end. The modern world is intent upon lessening the hardships 
 which unmarried mothers so long endured." 
 
 The cruelties which aroused the protests of the men who saw the 
 American revolution were, however, but a heritage of a more terrible 
 time. Simple decapitation was considered a merciful punishment. Unmar- 
 ried mothers were sometimes condemned to die on a bed of thorns. If 
 the mother killed her child she was buried alive or drowned in a sack. If 
 the child lived she had to undergo a humiliating church penance. 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 47 
 
 Finally the world was aroused, and gradually the most savage forms of 
 punishment were relinquished. The old laws were repealed, and toward the 
 beginning of the nineteenth century homes of refuge and maternity houses 
 began to appear in Europe testifying to the gradual approach of what we 
 hope is a humane civilization. In parts of Europe today the government 
 provides by law for the limitation of children by what is called a homeless 
 process. Austria was not mentioned in the table above given, but it is said 
 by public journalists that fully forty percent of its children are illegitimate. 
 New York has recently been wrestling with the question of child birth con- 
 trol. A prominent woman was sent to prison because of her propaganda on 
 that subject. The doctors had the question before them for discussion and 
 were divided on it. 
 
 In modern cities the movement from homes to apartment houses has 
 increased very rapidly within the past decade. Restaurants have greatly 
 multiplied because of the increasing number of women to whom housekeep- 
 ing has become an unbearable drudgery. Domestic science taught in our 
 schools is not able to stay the movement "'away from the home." All these 
 conditions are merely symptoms of a disease which is consuming home life. 
 The situation is becoming so serious that thoughtful men are beginning to 
 ask, "Is the home doomed?" 
 
 Dangers Outside the Home. The sex instinct is a dominating force in 
 all social life. It does not decrease and there is positive evidence that it is 
 growing stronger. Will its legitimate exercise be confined as it properly 
 should be to the home? If the home should go how shall this instinct be 
 regulated? Will it be regulated at all? Will its exercise go on while men 
 and women occupy separate homes? It begins to look as if illegitimate 
 childbirth would not only be protected but encouraged as an effort to save 
 the race. Would it be a less serious evil than race suicide? Approach the 
 subject from any side and its perplexities increase. It seems idle to talk of 
 any other form of marriage than monogamy. How could men be induced 
 to marry more than one woman when they refuse the responsibility of one 
 wife? It is a characteristic of the age to shirk responsibility. Men laugh 
 at the thought of "a duty to marry." In the eastern cities marriage by men 
 before they have reached the age of 40 or 50 is very unpopular. We are 
 told that men often marry late as a last resort. Such marriages too often 
 mean childless homes. Women resent the charge that they are responsible 
 for race suicide. They stoutly affirm that motherhood is after all the dearest 
 thing to a woman's heart. Against the dangers here described the Latter- 
 day Saints are employing every means. Something must be done to save 
 mankind from its own destruction. The destruction of 12,000,000 men to 
 Europe in the war, compared with the destruction of the race through 
 avoidable disease and prevention of life, is not so startling. When the two 
 p ocesses are combined it is not difficult to forecast the doom of the home. 
 The evils of present conditions are not so menacing to the present generation 
 ati they will be to the succeeding ones. However, the world will experience 
 in the immediate future a crisis of world sorrows and losses that will bring 
 home to it universal calamities. There is too much of a French king's con- 
 solation that things "will last our day." Today we are confronted with the 
 most wicked indifference to future generations. We seem to care absolutely 
 nothing about the future. The sense of duty is being lost to the human 
 race. How can the world hope to escape punishment for the sins of its 
 own age? 
 
 Home a Burden. Complaint is often made through public print that 
 there is a growing calousness on the part of parents toward their children. 
 They appear too often willing to part with them rather than with social 
 pleasures with which children interfere. I pick up, as I write, the Chicago 
 Sunday Tribune of August 26, 1917: "The Miller family Wants to get rid of 
 their baby," says the paper. "Two weeks ago the parents applied to the 
 court for leave to place their child for adoption, giving as a reason that 
 they were unable to care for him, and also wanted to go to their home in 
 
48 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 Wausau, Wis. Mr. Miller said he is the son of a dentist in Wausau. He is 
 employed in the wholesale establishment of Marshall Field & Co., at $12.00 
 a week." They were severely reprimanded and decided to keep their child. 
 Such conduct is a question of pleasure versus the home. What is the love for 
 home life? The testimony is quite general that it is vanishing. 
 
 XX. Woman's World 
 
 Alarming Changes. There is in rapid progress the creation of a new 
 world for women. It has not been brought entirely by the war. Her 
 grievances date back many years, for she has long felt certain inequalities 
 with men which she has been striving for decades to overcome. The war 
 has helped her into a wider circle of employment, but she heretofore has 
 been extending her activities in new fields, and the farther she has gone 
 the greater demands she has made for improved opportunties. The po- 
 sition she plans for the future will not be won without strong resistance. 
 In political life she sees a means to a higher aim than office. It is in the 
 industrial world where she feels an unjust discrimination and a wrong. 
 Politics might help her, but it will not remove the evil she seeks to cure. 
 Political opportunities do not furnish a world at all large enough for her 
 activities. They may help her, that is all. There are two chief obstructions 
 to her industrial progress. One is public sentiment; the other her own sex. 
 For centuries there has been thrown about her an exclusiveness which con- 
 fined her services mostly to the home. In European countries, where she is 
 employed more in outdoor life she is confined to the family circle. Grad- 
 ually, in the nineteenth century she began factory life, then store life, sep- 
 arating herself more and more from domestic pursuits. In each industrial 
 step she has been met by the objection that she was out of her sphere. In 
 each step, too, she has met temptations that have undoubtedly told against 
 her moral well-being. Public sentiment would balk today at women street 
 car conductors, motormen, hotel porters and all forms of employment that 
 bring her into indiscriminate contact with men. The law might not prohibit 
 her, but she would lack the support of the public sentiment which would 
 assist her in claiming the same remuneration as men. Then there are pa- 
 rental objections, and disfavor of friends and relatives. Public pressure 
 has been too great for her, however willing she may be. A fundamental 
 power in all our social institutions is public sentiment. Many things might 
 be done, and some would perhaps be done, were it not for social disfavor. 
 Such prejudice has been built up for centuries and it is not easily thrown 
 down, even when all reason for its continuation ceases to exist. Such 
 sentiment has of course its good and bad sides. It is more powerful than 
 law, indeed, it is often the principal source of law. It may also be more 
 severe than law, and somtimes it is cruel, but always more or less a tyrant. 
 
 It is against this sentiment that women are battling today. To their aid 
 a great war has come, and one of the things it will do is t:- turn topsy-turvy 
 a great mass of public opinion. "We shall change our minds about things" 
 is one of the common expressions of conversation and of public journals. 
 How and where will it let women work? Will it let her don male attire 
 and doff her own? The women of ancient Israel were taught that it was an 
 abomination for women to dress as men, and the world ever since has said 
 to that doctrine, Amen! Great changes are taking place in Europe with 
 respect to employment and dress. These changes will find their way across 
 the ocean to our own country; but public opinion here will be more stub- 
 born than it is there. 
 
 Another thing which will change sentiment in this country will be the 
 franchise of women. Their battle is on now with such a determination that 
 its long resistance seems unlikely. Their political influence will reach all 
 industrial life in such a manner as to sweep away distinction hitherto exist- 
 ing in wages and in all kinds of employment for women. Competition of a 
 violent character is sure to arise between men and women. Men with fam- 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 49 
 
 ilies will be at a disadvantage. They cannot work on a scale of wages that 
 women will accept if they need to do so in order to win places occupied 
 by men. Then we may expect a new thing in the world sex hatred. In- 
 deed, its appearance is already manifest in parts of Europe today. What 
 a serious world we are coming to! Maybe the curious thing after all is 
 that we ourselves cannot be attuned to the new life. At any rate the present 
 transformation of things is interesting. But the changes may come along 
 slow enough for us to adjust ourselves to them as time goes on. We are in 
 a period of reconstruction when the new is taking the place of the old. It 
 is all wonderful. We can hardly believe ourselves in the contemplation that 
 the new order is forcing upon us. 
 
 Sex Competition. A second obstacle to the demands of woman is the 
 opposition that her own sex will force upon her. Women must stand by their 
 husbands and oppose their sisters in a movement calculated to rob husbands 
 of their employment. Equal pay for equal work has the ring of eternal jus- 
 tice. But what is justice? Child life is needed, it must be encouraged if the 
 nation is to exist. Men and women must have some assistance if they are to 
 be the greatest of all benefactors to their country.. They cannot compete with 
 the childless. Will the state take over the expenses of child life? Children 
 must be reared in homes. A parental love demands that, and the theory of 
 some socialists that state institutions should be established for the support 
 of children is idle in the face of one of the strongest instincts of nature. 
 
 There is an ever widening chasm between the present and the past 
 generation. The older looks askance at the liberty and forwardness of the 
 younger. The younger is working a revolution in the propriety and fitness 
 of things. The women of this generation are looking at life from a new 
 angle. New ambitions have come to them, and they are talking "careers." 
 They mean to break away from the old order of things and set new stand- 
 ards of life. Will these standards be for the better or for the worse? We 
 all shake our heads at times. The old fashioned mother in the home, the 
 mother whose ambition was in the home, is still our ideal. We scarcely 
 stop to think that the home may become a thing of the past, is indeed in 
 an ever widening circle becoming so now. The unmarried and the child- 
 less have no homes as we have known them. Those of limited families 
 are drifting from home life. They must think as men think, and live as 
 men live. Will the new freedom to them mean a license to do what men 
 do? Will the double standard pass away, and the moral plane of woman 
 fall to that of man? Can the two sexes be alike in so many respects and not 
 be in danger of being alike in all respects? In the past responsibility for 
 immoral conduct has rested more heavily upon woman. She is learning to 
 evade what was once the insignia of her shame. Remove from her fear of 
 consequences, and will not the dangers for her be as great as they are 
 for man? 
 
 Intellectual Ascendency. The intellectual differences between the pres- 
 ent generation of women and the past can perhaps never be abridged. Will 
 the moral and physical difference in time break down? Is the intellect 
 in the ascendency? If so, what will be its power over the other attributes 
 of woman? Harriet Orne, in the Independent of September 1, 1917, writes: 
 
 "My emotions belong to the world of my mother, but my mind 
 lives in a new world which she has never entered, perhaps would not 
 enter if she could. It is the world which my experience has made 
 for me, an intellectual world where those ideas rule which have had 
 the most force in the world during my life time and have been a part 
 of my education. Between my mother's intellectual world and my 
 own a gulf is fixed, and we look across wistfully at one another and 
 strive tactfully to protect each other from our own opinions. 
 
 "I believe that the gap between the thinking of the women of my 
 mother's generation, and the thinking of the women of my own gen- 
 eration is a greater gap than has existed between any two other gener- 
 ations of women in the history that we know." 
 
50 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 What will the competition of women mean to men? At present they 
 are equipping themselves intellectually better than men. They are more 
 steadfast as students and have fewer evil habits that sap the physical and 
 mental life of man. What of the physical differences between them? The 
 women of this generation in the activities of the home show more per- 
 sistency and endurance than men. Here is a testimonial from Pierre Hamp 
 on the work of French women in the munition factories: 
 
 "Between the sewing machine or the typewriter key and the me- 
 chanic's lathe there is no very great distance; there is more fatigue in 
 making clothes on a sewing machine for troops than in turning a 75 
 mm. gun on a lathe one meter long. To pass the inside border of the 
 hem exactly under the needle requires about the same attention as to 
 follow with one's eye the working of the tool while calibrating the 
 weapon. 
 
 "Woman could easily pass directly from her previous tasks to this 
 treatment of steel in the workshops, for she had been spending herself 
 before in more exhausting work. No great effort is required of her 
 in metal turning. She has soon come to excel at it, and is as efficient 
 as man and often more so. In a workshop for making shell cases one 
 woman succeeded in a fortnight in attaining the average rate of pro- 
 duction at piece work rates. She asked if she would be paid for all 
 she made, irrespective of their number. This privilege was given, 
 and in six weeks she reached a scale of production twice as great as 
 that of men. 
 
 "It was formerly thought that woman's care could not be trusted 
 when very exact measurements had to be made, but the eyes of an 
 embroiderer are sharper than those of a man, and machines for mak- 
 ing light artillery presented few difficulties for her." 
 
 Women and War. What about woman as a fighter? Biologists say, 
 "The female of the species is deadlier than the male." Now that women 
 squads in Great Britain are undergoing intense military training, and many 
 of the women of this country are so given to military excitement, one is 
 compelled to ask what may not yet be done by women if the war continues 
 much longer. In Prussia a woman's battalion has been formed and has 
 seen active service. The famous New York physician, Dr. Hammond, in a 
 recent interview in the Times has this to say about woman and war: 
 
 "At present there is no question that woman represents the undis- 
 ciplined sex. That is particularly so in this country. Women have 
 been allowed too much ease and luxury and pleasure without any of 
 the sobering responsibility that goes with world making." 
 
 "Don't you, Doctor, consider the task of child bearing and rearing 
 as great and sobering a responsibility as any borne by the average 
 male?" 
 
 "I certainly do. Aside from the contribution to the State, it is the 
 best thing a woman can do for her own well-being, both moral and 
 physical. A woman is not fully a woman until she has borne a child. 
 But child-bearing is going out of fashion, especially here in America. 
 And it is with an acceptation of this condition that I speak." 
 
 "Where women have acquired economic strength, financial inde- 
 pendence, there is undoubtedly a disposition to break away from 
 the discipline of established decencies. It may be that women are 
 innately anarchistic, and that they must be held in leash by eco- 
 nomic dependence, and possess a physical strength less than that of 
 the dominant male; but I would like to see the experiment made of 
 subjecting them to the iron discipline of military life. 
 
 "Of course, there could be no segregation of regiments according 
 to sex. Women, if they are to be any real use to their country as 
 soldiers, and if they are to get any real benefit themselves from the 
 training, would have to play their part shoulder to shoulder with the 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 51 
 
 men. I have no doubt this would result in colossal license for a time; 
 but there is no doubt that the problem would work out its own solu- 
 tion. I have no doubt of the enduring morality of the world. All 
 change means disruption and chaos for a time; and then the true 
 equilibrium is found. I, for one, would be perfectly willing to put the 
 world's morality to the test, crucial, I admit of sending mixed regi- 
 ments of men and women." 
 
 These are truly grave problems of life in woman's world. The steps 
 sometimes from the suggestive to the possible, from the possible to the 
 probable, and probable to the reality, are not only short but rapid. Who 
 does not venture a prediction? 
 
 Remedy. What will happen after the breakdown of marriage in our 
 social life? A period of reconstruction will follow. Marriage must of 
 course be reinstated. Without it there can be for us no heaven or no earth. 
 An awful punishment is already at hand because the world has thrown off 
 the responsibility to such an extent of this divine requirement. 
 
 Read Sec. 49:15,16,17, Doc. and Cov. 
 
 XXI Dependent Mothers 
 
 A Serious Problem. One of the big economic problems of the future 
 will be the fostering care of widows with children to care for. In our own 
 country thirty states have made provision by law for the support of children 
 whose mothers were not able to care for them. These enactments were 
 passed without regard to the war. When it is over, it is easy to imagine 
 the great burden which such unsupported children will cast upon the na- 
 tions of the earth. I may include in those mentioned the great numbers 
 who are and will be born out of wedlock. Children are a great asset to 
 the world, but aside from economic considerations, there will be involved 
 the question of humanity. When the war broke out there was a wave of 
 immorality that resulted in many thousands of so-called war babies. The 
 untold number of children dependent on the state for support may well 
 approximate many million. It was a great step the world took when it was 
 decided that children were entitled to an education by the state. The 
 question of the value of an education to the state is subordinate to the 
 question of life itself to the state. The burden will be enormous, and it is 
 likely through divorce and illegitimacy, to grow beyond our wildest imag- 
 ination. What we know of taxation will be incomparable with what we have 
 yet to learn. It may reach the breaking point, and result in great social 
 disorder. It is so serious already that thoughtful men are preparing our 
 minds for what is certain to be a crucial ordeal. For years there will be 
 no escape from the load we shall have to carry. It is of course easy to 
 imagine that attempts will be made to avoid it by the practice of race 
 suicide. But could the world deliberately destroy itself? The spirit of 
 self-destruction is rife in war. Is there no remedy? We are in a state of 
 intolerable darkness. It is earier to wonder than it is to know what the 
 world will do. There has always been in the past some redeeming power 
 against universal destruction. A world practically without religion is on 
 trial. 
 
 A Fatherless Home. A new world problem also arises. How can chil- 
 dren be reared without father? Is the father a necessary factor in the 
 home, independent of the material support he gives? Judge Niel of Chi- 
 cago, who is now in London in the interest of his propaganda for the statf 
 support of fatherless children, and who for years past has been the leading 
 advocate of this doctrine in the United States, has this to say, according 
 to the New York Sunday Sun of September 9, 1917: 
 
 "Where the mother is trained in mothercraft, as in some states, 
 and given sufficient support so that she can buy food, clothes and 
 
52 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 shelter, and keep her children in health, a far smaller number of 
 youngsters get into the juvenile courts than in the case where a 
 father of inferior grade is around. The presence of a father is not 
 necessary to the successful rearing of a child. The disadvantages of 
 fathers probably are the result principally of the low wage system, 
 but as things are, fathers usually fuss and make general nuisances 
 of themselves about the house. 
 
 "Careful study has shown that homes under the mothers' pen- 
 sion system, in which no father appears at all, are better than those 
 in which low wage fathers are present daily. 
 
 "This tends toward the natural condition, because most women 
 would rather be respectably married mothers rearing children than 
 unmarried operatives in a factory or employes of an office. If nor- 
 mal women are given the opportunity of being wives and independent 
 mothers, this will decrease also the prostitution problem, for, speak- 
 ing generally, there never is a prostitution problem in the psychology 
 of any woman till her mother instincts have been outraged. That 
 is something worthy of much thought. The world is now confronted 
 with the problem of raising great masses of children without the 
 supervision of fathers. It is entirely new, but on the success of its 
 solution will depend the race in Europe and perhaps in America 
 twenty years from now. If the state sees that mothers have an 
 opportunity of properly rearing their own children, the killing off 
 of the men which has occurred during this war will be comparatively 
 of slight importance, for twenty years from now the nation will be 
 made up of the children of today, not of the men who would have 
 lived in peace, but instead died in war." 
 
 State pensions for all mothers under the changed conditions will cer- 
 tainly give encouragement for an unnumbered mass of illegitimate children. 
 
 Will men who must bear the major portion of this load consent to it? 
 Will they set up a distinction between the unmarried mother and the mother 
 who has been through a divorcement; between the mother whose husband 
 has died and the mother who has deliberately sought motherhood in re- 
 sponse to the maternal instinct with which she is endowed? 
 
 Will the fathers of the children of these unmarried mothers be dragged 
 into the court and forced by law to support their children? It might be 
 easier and cheaper for the state to support the children than to multiply 
 the courts and other agencies to enforce their support. The whole thing 
 is a whirligig, which ever way we look at it. Before legislatures consent to 
 such a wholesale draft upon the public treasury, they may yield, for eco- 
 nomic reasons, to a growing demand for education in the art of birth con- 
 trol. Birth control would claim the best of arguments. Our moral intui- 
 tions and religious standards are breaking down from the sheer weight of 
 economic necessity. It's all a labyrinth. God no doubt has a way out for 
 his children, but they are at sea. 
 
 Illegitimate Children. Illegitimate children are multiplying, so are the 
 children of divorces. Is there a great difference between those who see an 
 easy way out and those who get in wrong? The great encouragement for 
 the birth of all classes will be the need of an increased population. 
 
 Judge Niel further says: 
 
 "Germany is caring for all illegitimate children and looking after 
 the mothers as well as during and after birth. An official statement says 
 that three million such children now are being cared for by the state. 
 Neither in the case of legitimate or in that of illegitimiate are the 
 mothers allowed to work for a considerable period before and after 
 the birth of a child. 
 
 "In Australia every mother, married or unmarried, who gives birth 
 to a living child gets 5, or about twenty-five dollars; whether she be 
 married or unmarried, rich or poor. Manitoba has just passed a 
 mothers' pension law. 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 53 
 
 "To me these millions of children who must be reared without 
 financial aid from fathers obviously present the biggest problem that 
 the world has ever seen. Britain, France, Italy, Russia, Germany, Aus- 
 tria, and perhaps America will find themselves unable to continue by 
 the old methods and still survive as nations. If the widows and 
 orphans of this war are permitted to struggle unaided through their 
 lives and to be degenerated by inevitable poverty, decades of progress 
 will be lost thereby." 
 
 The computation of the present load upon the state is not the end of 
 the solution. Myriads of widows and unmarried mothers will go on having 
 children. The mother instinct will grow by what it feeds upon. Tfie 
 dimensions are beyond calculation. It means chaos. Order will have to 
 be evolved from it. Sane methods and correct principles will have to be 
 seriously worked out. 
 
 The Religious Side. Another danger arises in the midst of it all. Will 
 men marry? Why assume a responsibility they can let the state carry? 
 What will become of the whole marriage system? The undertaking will 
 have serious dangers for the state. The state argument breaks down. The 
 whole question is not political; it is not economic fundamentally. It is 
 religious. Is the world ready for religion? There are numerous examples 
 in history of religious break-downs. The sorrowful thing of it all is that 
 the restoration of religion is one of the last phases of regeneration. Think 
 of what we have yet to pass through between the fall of the old and the 
 birth of the new! The world must certainly travail in pain. 
 
 The World's Burden. The situation is not improved by the light- 
 minded manner in which the subject is treated by those who make a jest 
 of it all. It is not a passing world mood. It will grow into the fulness of a 
 world calamity. Its weight will repress every part of our physical, moral, 
 and intellectual natures. No class will escape it. The rich will stare at 
 bankruptcy and the poor will groan. Wounded men by the millions will 
 also become a load upon the state. The world has never seen anything 
 like it. There will be great masses of children who have neither father 
 nor mother. War brings diseases, and the severe strain of mothers now in 
 munition plants and in other works requiring the most strenuous life will 
 break down from the excessive strain put upon them. Women's nerves will 
 give way till hundreds of thousands of them will die. The nations will 
 have a heavy load to carry in the support of children who have neither 
 father nor mother. Then there will arise another problem, the question of 
 employment. Before children are ready to assume the independent status 
 of manhood, there will be a long period when their labors must be under 
 some sort of guidance and control. Who will employ them? The state? 
 Can private enterprise be depended upon to absorb such labor? Much of 
 the labor nowadays is transient, a few weeks or months here, and a few 
 months there. It would be dangerous to turn out so many thousands into 
 what really represents tramp life. 
 
 Indifference. "We should solve these things when we come to them,** 
 the indifferent may say. But there are many things we ought not to come to. 
 Britain left the matter of war till she came to it. It resulted in wholesale 
 slaughter of human life. Sometimes the "leaving of things'* is the worst 
 phase of the difficulty. It is all confusion madly confounded. Neither may 
 men in such an age be indifferent to impending calamities. A message has 
 been revealed, and great effort put forth to deliver it. It has been scantily 
 received. 
 
 If this miscellaneous child life is thrown helpless and uncared for upon 
 the world, what physical and moral dangers must come to it! If demorali- 
 zation comes to it, it will impregnate all child life. The state will suffer, 
 and society deteriorate. "Where is wisdom?" asked a noble ancient. Hu- 
 man wisdom is in the scales. Will it be found wanting? There was once 
 a handwriting on the wall. There is again, and its interpretation has already 
 been given. 
 
54 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 Revelation. "And the time cometh speedily that great things are to be 
 shown forth unto the children of men; 
 
 "But without faith shall not anything be shown forth except desolation 
 upon Babylon, the same which has made all nations drink of the wine of 
 the wrath of her fornication. 
 
 "And there are none that doeth good, except those who are ready to 
 receive the fulness of my gospel which I have sent forth unto this generation. 
 
 "Wherefore, I have called upon the weak things of the world, those who 
 are unlearned and despised, to thresh the nations by the power of my Spirit" 
 (Doc. and Cov. 35:11-13). 
 
 XXII Sexual Life 
 
 Its Importance in Life. One of the burning questions of the age, and 
 at the same time one of the consuming evils, is the life-long story of man's 
 sexual life. It protrudes in all the great historical events of the world, and 
 now that there are in that life such alarming dangers to the happiness and 
 continuity of the race, men and women have thrown off all disguise of 
 modesty, and speak on the subject with a frankness that would have seemed 
 shocking a generation back. 
 
 Sexual life is fundamental in our family and social existence. One of 
 the difficulties respecting it arises from the fact that we have come to view it 
 from an entirely false point of view. We speak of it sometimes as a "carnal 
 life," as a sort of necessary evil, as a fallen condition of which we ought to 
 be ashamed and for which we apologize, and as a sin which we lay at the 
 door of Adam and Eve. And why this shame, this apology? It is no doubt 
 because that life has been the most shamefully abused and most ignorantly 
 approached of all the conditions of our worldly existence. 
 
 Duty. God implanted in all life the powers of procreation, and all life 
 has a three-fold duty: of birth, reproduction, and death. These are the 
 general laws of our existence. Concerning the duty of reproduction, he 
 made to Adam and Eve the announcement of the law that man should not 
 live alone, that he should multiply and replenish the earth. 
 
 Man, then, in his mortal condition, became a creator by reason of the 
 sexual powers with which God had endowed him. He became in turn like 
 his Creator finite, it is true, yet he made a beginning to the powers of his 
 creation, which must grow in perfection as man grows in attainments. 
 
 Blessings. God called Abraham forth from the valley of the Mesopota- 
 mia. The great object of that call was to make him the progenitor of a cho- 
 sen people through whom the Messiah was to come. With that call there 
 came a promise, which Abraham held choice above all other promises: that 
 his children should be as numerous as the stars of the heaven or the sands 
 of the seashore. Love is the first fruits of man's creative powers. I hardly 
 need point to the Old Testament for evidence respecting the law of purity 
 and the purposes of God. God taught it to Moses on the Tables of the Law; 
 Christ preached it to his followers; he denounced his enemies because of 
 their adulterous lives. Their fall from purity made it impossible for them 
 to comprehend or follow him. 
 
 Relationship of Sexual Life and the Spirit of God. Let us come down 
 to conditions and experiences of our own times; men go forth into the 
 world as misionaries to expound divine laws, to preach repentance, and to 
 warn. From their words, faith is implanted in the hearts of men. Those 
 who are seeking divine truth are susceptible to the influences of these mis- 
 sionaries. The purity of their lives gives effectiveness to their testimonies. 
 On the other hand, digression from the law of purity robs them of their 
 spiritual life, and often severs the relationship in them between the human 
 and the divine. Men who digress from the higher mission of sexual life lose 
 faith, grow in profanity, until it suits their conscience best to believe that 
 there is no God, except the laws of nature, towards which they feel no very 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 55 
 
 great responsibility. When the law of sexual life has been transgressed 
 through sin, men and women suffer the loss of divine love. The sexual life 
 is God-ordained, in the animal, vegetable, and human world. Its mission is 
 the mission of life and progress. It carries with it joy and blessings, within 
 its legitimate exercise. The exalted nature of this life, however, makes it a 
 source of temptation, and the depravity of its sinful course is as debasing as 
 its legitimate exercise is exalting. 
 
 Exercise. It is a hidden life, and therefore susceptible to all the 
 greater dangers. It is a universal life, and therefore within universal re- 
 quirements; but it is said that many of the failures of that life are not the 
 result of man's preference or decision; they belong rather to the misfortunes 
 of life, to disappointments, and impossibilities. But what is the attitude of 
 all men toward such a life? Is it one of humble acknowledgment, or one 
 of indifference and pronounced contempt? Into every man's and woman's 
 life God has implanted sexual desires which have a legitimate mission that 
 may be faithfully performed, rejected, or abused. It is a life that God in- 
 tended should be filled in a legitimate manner, which he has pointed out to 
 his children. 
 
 The Fall. We do not regret the Fall, for through it came the oppor- 
 tunities of Christ's redemption, which means immortality through the res- 
 urrection, and eternal life through the gift of God. The question of our 
 sexual life is the burning question of the age, but with it there comes the 
 further question as to how the oncoming generation shall be taught to view 
 and appreciate it. Shall fathers, mothers, and friends speak with frankness? 
 Too much frankness may be harmful. Shall we make its teaching more 
 general, and shall the knowledge of our sexual life be made more familiar 
 to the rising generation? There is such a thin veil between its exalting and 
 its sinful effects that the thoughts of those whom we may teach may dwell 
 upon the evil side of it. "The knowledge of evil tempteth to its commis- 
 sion," says Canon Farrar. The great war has revealed to us evil conditions 
 in sexual life of which we have never dreamed. The revelations of what has 
 been the secret lives of those in service and those unfit for service is but one 
 phase of the evils of that life. They may be as poignant and as afflicting 
 in the home as they are in the army. There can be little doubt that the 
 evils of divorce, and the hatreds which spring up between men and women 
 in the home are due in a large measure to the evil relationships there which 
 are after all indirect revelations of excessive and perhaps debasing sexual 
 lives. God alone knows; he must be, therefore, the Judge of our universe, 
 and now that he is speaking in the thundrous tones of war, famine and 
 pestilence, shall we not stand awed in the presence of those calamities which 
 .are rapidly spreading over the world? 
 
 Duty to Teach. We often leave our children to gain their first im- 
 pressions of sexual life from street urchins and those whose vulgarities make 
 them bold in presenting that life more from a debasing than an uplifting 
 point of view. The first knowledge of sexual life should come from parents 
 who may create in their children exalting views about it. 
 
 Desires, thoughts and feelings may be carnal. If man "follows after his 
 carnal desires, he must fall and incur the vengeance of a just God upon 
 him" (Doc. and Cov. 3:4). 
 
 XXIII Divorce 
 
 Growth of Divorce. Easy and frequent divorce has become in the 
 United States a scandalous condition. The state has always considered itself 
 a third party to a marriage, and has therefore insisted that both marriage 
 and divorce must be subject to the regulations of the law. While divorce 
 can effect only by legal proceedings, the grounds for divorce have been so 
 elastic, and judges so willing that unhappy marriages should be dissolved, 
 that the daily grind of divorces in the United States has grown to enormous 
 proportions, said Jtp be one out of twelve marriages. 
 
56 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 There has been a wide divergence of opinion throughout the world on 
 the subject. Religious organizations have considered it a sacrament of the 
 church and have undertaken to regulate it by a religious ban upon those 
 who were divorced uncier certain conditions. They forbade remarriage and 
 punished religiously those who disregarded church requirements. The 
 churches, however, have become less and less an important factor in the 
 matter of divorce. The question is one of growing difficulty, owing to the 
 increased disinclination to marry. Where divorce is difficult, marriage is 
 restricted, and even where marriage exists wives and husbands live apart 
 without any intention to marry again. Such a condition leads of course to 
 gross immorality. Sexual relations and the love growing out of them are 
 dominating factors in human life. What was intended to be a blessing, be- 
 comes a curse through the misuse of passion. How to control a God-or- 
 dained instinct in its proper exercise has been a most troublesome question 
 from the dawn of history. There is of course only one proper channel of 
 regulation, and that is marriage. Even marriage is no protection against the 
 shocking abuses of human passion, and it often becomes a license rather 
 than a right to be sacredly treated. Law cannot reach the most violent 
 abuse of virtue in marriage relations; neither can it force man and wife to 
 live together when they become obnoxious to each other. It can at best say 
 that they shall not be divorced and that they shall not marry others. In 
 England there has long been a partial divorce from "bed and table," but 
 while such a law may prevent either from marrying, it does not really rem- 
 edy a great social wrong. 
 
 Unwillingness to Marry. There is now an evil taking root in our social 
 life more alarming than divorce, and that is the unwillingness of men to 
 marry. It is estimated that fully one half of the men in the United States 
 between 21 and 45 are unmarried. Late marriages are quite generally advo- 
 cated, that is, late marriages for men. That fact gives rise to the so-called 
 double standard that requires the strictest virtue in women and allows the 
 greatest laxity in men. One of our metropolitan papers recently set up a 
 justification for this standard by the argument that when a woman is untrue 
 to her husband, he becomes intolerable to her and that she no longer loves 
 him, while the opposite is true of man. 
 
 Divorce is evaded in some countries by whal is called in Germany wild 
 marriage. Men and women under this system simply live together. If they 
 have children they style themselves husband and wife, and the children, who 
 often know nothing of their parents' status, address them as father and 
 mother. The excuse of such a practice is of course the plea that divorce is 
 impossible. Such a practice further admits of a great deal of shifting of men 
 and women from one to another. The fact that women have lived with 
 other men before marriage, and even where they have children, does not 
 carry the same weight of objection in Germany that it does in other coun- 
 tries. 
 
 
 
 Partial Divorce. The evils above described are not the result of the 
 ease or difficulty with which divorces may be procured. They are the result 
 of immoral natures which the conscience is unable to correct. In the ab- 
 sence of positive religious convictions, the conscience becomes a very elastic 
 thing. 
 
 It may be said that the trend of modern state requirements is in the di- 
 rection of easier divorces. How far the laxity in matters of divorce can be 
 carried without breaking down the present marriage system it is diffcult to 
 say. There is a breaking point, however, in marriage where the state may 
 become a party to it. At any rate the state may become an indifferent 
 spectator. The Chicago Sunday Tribune, of August 26, 1917, prints the fol- 
 lowing from London: 
 
 "That there are from 250,000 to 300,000 persons in Great Britain 
 legally separated yet not divorced, is one of the statements in the 
 report of the royal commission which has lately been investigating 
 the divorce problem. 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 57 
 
 "This, moreover, is only a beginning. Other multitudes of men 
 and women who have been married continue not only married but 
 without even legal authority, to live apart, although they do not and 
 could not live together. Probably this second classification is larger 
 than the first. 
 
 "However greatly both husband and wife may wish it, they cannot 
 be divorced unless there has been adultery on the wife's part, or 
 adultery and also cruelty, on the husbancTs part." [Another in- 
 stance of the double standard.] 
 
 "Even advocates of easier divorce in some cases fear that this 
 measure would make it too easy. But the people who have investi- 
 gated do not. They describe fearfully immoral conditions widely 
 existent because of the present difficulties of getting divorce. Immor- 
 ality, illegitimacy, disease and a fearful number of cases of bigamy are 
 numerated. Husband and wife legally bound to each other, yet le- 
 gally separated, forced to lives of celibacy, lose all moral standards. 
 The fact that they are commonly poor makes the results yet worse." 
 
 Wije Trading. Wife trading is another divorce evil which easy separa- 
 tion encourages, and yet it is not so baneful to society as the conditions 
 described in Great Britain. Now and then such trading is given in the 
 public print, and generally given in such humorous vein that the matter is 
 treated as a joke rather than as a warning. A large public sentiment is in- 
 different to it. As I write the following appears in a New York paper from 
 Havre, Montana, of August 26, the date on which the conditions in Great 
 Britain are described: 
 
 "Usually when a man falls in love with another man's wife 
 there's a shooting affray. And again, when a woman gets to liking 
 another woman's husband better than her own, there's the deuce to 
 pay. But not so here! When Mrs. T., a wife of a prominent Havre 
 lawyer, felt she loved the husband of Mrs. J. better than her own 
 mate, she didn't hide the matter. Nor did Mrs. J. when she fell in 
 love with Mr. T. Nor did Mr. T. when he took a liking to Mrs. J. 
 Nor did Mr. J. when he became fonder of Mrs. T. than of his own 
 wife. They all went to Boulder Hot Springs, obtained a divorce, 
 and then by marriage made the trade complete. These neighbors each 
 had a boy and a girl. After the trade one took the two boys and the 
 other the two girls, and all parties were pleased with the new ar- 
 rangements." 
 
 "May they live happily ever afterward, almost any one will hope," is 
 the closing sentence of this article. 
 
 Dangers of Childless Lives. Such inroads made into family life are 
 aided greatly by the absence of children in the home. It is an abortive 
 attempt to substitute the pleasures of life for the God-ordained laws of our 
 being. Some years ago a commission of eminent physicians met in Con- 
 stantinople to make an investigation into the moral conditions of the Turks. 
 The writer asked one of these physicians why such conditions as he de- 
 scribed among the married women of France prevailed. "It is one of the 
 simplest laws of nature," he replied. "When a man marries he usually 
 makes a harlot out of his wife by the prevention of offspring. It is an easy 
 step from harlotry of the home to promiscuous harlotry. A man by such 
 a course sows the seeds of a deadly suspicion in his own mind, and reap* 
 the harvest of marital despair. He robs himself of contentment and do- 
 mestic happiness and pays the penalty nature has in store for him." 
 
 Secret Evils. An external survey of married life and of the causes which 
 led to divorce is at most only superficial. The grosser evils belong to the 
 secrets of the home, they are a part of the immoral nature of man. The 
 patent remedies of the world today do not reach the seat of the disease. The 
 true remedy lies in the return of man \Q the true worship of God, a wor- 
 
58 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 ship in which he feels a direct responsibility to his Maker. The most sacred 
 rights of woman have been overthrown. They are not economic or political, 
 they are domestic, and yet she pursues political and social remedies that do 
 not solve the question of her happiness. Her fundamental, indispensable 
 rights to happiness are found in wifehood, motherhood, and perfect freedom 
 in the control of her body. Indecency in married life may not be so baneful 
 as promiscuous sexual intercourse, yet it lays the foundation of a great 
 multitude of divorces. 
 
 "Why marry at all?" is the soliloquy of millions of men who point to 
 divorce and marital unhappiness as an excuse. The source of our present 
 conditions must be sought in our own secret internal life. We can hardly 
 say like the prophet of old: "Search me, oh God!" We do not need di- 
 vine investigation. We have enough self-revelation to make us better if only 
 we had the will and the faith necessary to bring us back into the paths 
 which lead us to humility and righteousness. Increasing divorce is one of 
 the strongest evidences of our departure from the way set by divine will. 
 
 After the war, when our present social, economic, and political insti- 
 tutions will witness a vast disintegration, there may come to the world a 
 higher standard of justice and faith. Much of the old must pass, for it is 
 already in a state of decay. There is scarcely a condition of life that the 
 war does not touch in some vital manner. From it will come a period of 
 reconstruction, a period every thoughtful man should study. 
 
 Law of God. "The man is not without the woman in the Lord, neither 
 the woman without the man." In marriage is to be found the highest 
 estate of man or woman. Divorces are permitted by the Church though 
 they are greatly deplored. (Doc. and Cov. 42:22,23; 49:15; 83:2; 132:18-20; 
 I Cor. 11:11,12.) 
 
 XXV Race Suicide 
 
 Theory. This subject is apparently as old as the human race. It has 
 rested in the past as it rests in the present, upon the relative conditions of 
 production and consumption. Theoretically, and argumentatively, it may 
 be said that if the normal increase of human life went on without decimina- 
 tion by war or disease, the world would find it difficult to produce from 
 all its known agencies the amount required for the sustenance of the human 
 race. 
 
 There are, however, a number of forces in operation which are con- 
 stantly tending toward the restriction of life. These forces or agencies have 
 been counted upon to keep a normal balance without man's interference 
 viciously with the laws of life. Whatever may be our theory about God's 
 purposes in the world and the conduct of nations toward one another, it is 
 certain that social forces are constantly acting in restraint of life and toward 
 the destruction of life. These social conditions represent man's agency, his 
 rebellion against the laws of God, his intelligence, and his fall from the 
 highest state of his creation. We need not attribute wars to God. Neither 
 need we assign to him the causes of pestilence, famine and all sorts of dis- 
 eases. It is a common world in which we live, and nature is so regulated 
 since the Creation that it is constantly working off waste or fetid matter 
 and taking on new life. It is doing so with the human family. It is true 
 we cannot reach satisfactory conclusions about the origin or even the jus- 
 tice, from a finite point of view, of all these unfavorable conditions to 
 our existence. 
 
 The question, then, of race suicide from the beginning is largely a 
 question of whether man shall use violent and artificial means to add to 
 the limitations or destruction of life. Shall he not rather leave the question 
 of the earth' population to those conditions, those calamities and destruc- 
 tions which of themselves from all time have been sufficient to keep a nor- 
 mal balance between the needs and the production of the world's animals 
 and man? 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 59 
 
 Methods. A little more than a century ago a writer by the name of 
 Malthus took up the question of the world's population, and in an academic 
 way sought to prove that some restraint must be put by man himself upon 
 life in order to prevent the world from the fate of sure starvation if the 
 human family were permitted to go on and people the earth more rapidly 
 than it was able to provide for the people's sustenance. In the case of race 
 suicide, as in the case of numerous other instances, men have set up arti- 
 ficial means in the place of those which in the nature of things belong to 
 social life and the laws of nature. What would happen to this world of 
 ours were the ideals of the Malthusian theory to prevail? But that is really 
 beside the mark. The judgments of God have a very distinct place in the 
 annals of history, and then there is the further fact that men have brought 
 down upon them destruction by reason of their own retrograding movements. 
 
 Ancient Practices. Let us see how the ancient world undertook in its 
 crude and cruel manner what in these days we are seeking to do by more 
 refined means. Here it may be well to remark that what we call civilization 
 is not always progress. Civilization too often has within it refined means 
 of accomplishing ends that were sought in the barbarous ages by more cruel 
 and inhuman methods. In the early stages of history race suicide was ac- 
 complished both through religious and economic purposes. The early in- 
 habitants of Asia had a practice of offering up their first-born in order to 
 propitiate their idolatrous gods. When the Israelites had settled in the Land 
 of Promise, they found a people there who were practicing human sacrifice. 
 In the days of Israel's glory which shone about the throne of Solomon, the 
 God Moloch was set up in the Valley of the Hinnon, just below the City of 
 David on the west, and there infants were offered in the fiery furnace of 
 this heathen god. Among the tribes of Australia and the islands of the 
 South Pacific there grew up a practice of burying children alive because 
 they were wanted by parents or relatives that were waiting for them on the 
 other side. 
 
 Again various tribes that were nomadic in character often destroyed 
 their children because in moving from place to place they could not care 
 for them. These human sacrifices were generally performed by the men, 
 but in some of the lowest tribes the mothers joined in this hideous religious 
 rite. Along the west coast of Africa, out of the control of the English, chil- 
 dren were destroyed by mothers, and there was a belief among the Kaffir 
 population of South Africa that unless they laid a lump of earth upon the 
 mouths of their children and thus produced death, the parents would lose 
 their strength. 
 
 Madagascar was also noted for its infanticides. There were certain so- 
 called unlucky days. Children born on such days were put to death as unfit 
 to live. If a child cried at its birth, it was unlucky and death for it was 
 preferable to life. In South America there existed in earlier times the prac- 
 tice of burying children alive. The Guanos restricted their family to two 
 children. 
 
 In Takelaus or Line Islands the husband decided how many children 
 should live according to the amount of land which the head of the family 
 possessed. 
 
 It may be said that in the race suicide practice of the ancients there 
 always existed the belief that it was better to destroy the girls. In some 
 places the reasons given were religious but they were often economic, since 
 they were non-producers. And then there was the further reason that by 
 killing girl babies they help to keep an equilibrium between the males 
 and the females since many males would naturally be destroyed through the 
 incessant warfare of those uncivilized tribes. 
 
 When the English conquered India they found there the same disposi- 
 tion to practice race suicide. Wives were placed on the funeral pyres of 
 their dead husbands. Female children were drowned in the Ganges. 
 
 Illustrations. Behind these religious pretensions there was also un- 
 doubtedly an economic purpose and a desire on the part of the inhabitants 
 to shirk the responsibility which parentage brought upon them. 
 
60 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 "Infanticide, which until now has gone unpunished [says Dr. 
 Lauterer] is practiced especially in Pekin and Fuhkien. A large per 
 cent of female infants meet with an unnatural death because of their 
 parents' poverty or their niggardliness. The unfortunates are simply 
 cast into the nearest stream and the corpses left until the morning 
 when the government's wagon collects them, or they are exposed in 
 the open where, not being protected from the cold, they soon perish. 
 Lately a decree has been made to prohibit it." 
 
 "The Province of Fuhkien [says Douglas] is that in which this 
 crime most obtains. Inquiries show that in many districts as large a 
 portion as one-fourth of the female children born are destroyed at 
 birth. At Pekin, on the other hand, it cannot be said to exist at all. 
 But in this as in so many social offenses in China, the sword of the 
 law, which is alone capable of putting down crime, is allowed to 
 hang like a rusty weapon on the wall. It is true that occasionally 
 proclamations are issued in which heinousness of the evil is explained 
 with all the impressiveness that could be desired, but so long as nat- 
 ural affection finds no support from without it will continue, in China, 
 to yield the requirements of daily food." 
 
 "Modern writers on Japan lay stress on the affection of the Jap- 
 anese for their children, and yet 'during the famine of 1905 many girls 
 who had been sold by suffering parents were redeemed by the Chris- 
 tians.' This sacrifice of children to the welfare of the parents is trace- 
 able to the influence of Confucius. To the same source may be as- 
 cribed the fact that, though in ancient times the female sex was prom- 
 inent in Japan, after the introduction of Confucianism the Samurai 
 considered it beneath him to even converse with his wife and chil- 
 dren. 'Neither God nor the ladies inspired any enthusiasm in the 
 Samurai's heart,' says Professor Chamberlain. For is it not written 
 by the great moralist Karbara Ekken, in the Owna Dargaku, 'It was 
 the custom of the ancients, on the birth of a female child, to let it 
 lie on the floor for the space of three days. Even in this may be seen 
 the likening of the man to heaven and of the woman to earth." 
 
 "Ever since the beginning of that indefinite period which we call 
 'modern times' the birth of a child has always been an occasion for 
 rejoicing. To be sure, in Japan that joy was very much greater when 
 it was a boy baby; yet the Japanese have never displayed such intense 
 dislike to girl babies as have the Chinese. One great reason for this 
 was that the population of Japan was not so dense as it is in China. 
 It was easier to provide for children, and therefore there was no in- 
 centive to put girl babies out of the way. I am sorry to say that 
 very lately, since the Russo-Japanese war (1904-5), when the Japanese 
 people are almost crushed by the weight of taxes to provide money 
 with which to pay war expenses and to keep up army and navy, the 
 number of cases of female infanticide is increasing alarmingly." 
 
 Semitic Races. It may be well here in passing to note that the Israelites 
 and kindred races were not given as a rule to the practice of infanticide. 
 The offering of human life was forbidden them, and in lieu of a command 
 which God gave to Abraham to offer up his son Isaac, he provided for 
 Abraham a "ram in the thicket." The Israelites were commanded, according 
 to the law, to make sacrificial offerings of certain animals. The law of 
 sacrifice is as universal and as old as the race. It also has certain divine sup- 
 port. It was practiced by Abel and Cain and the law of sacrifice was typical 
 of that culminating sacrifice of God in which he offered his Son as a sacri- 
 ficial atonement for the sins of the world. 
 
 Man, however, in the practice of his sacrifices, has substituted his own 
 ideas and emotions for the purpose and plans of God, for the only true 
 order of sacrifice which God himself instituted, and which is also typical 
 of the thousand sacrifices we make of the flesh-in the processes of our earthly 
 progression. The infidel objections to the sacrifice of Jesus are founded 
 upon the practice of sacrifice in the heathen world. 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 61 
 
 XXV Race Suicide (Continued) 
 
 Factory System. In time the barbarous practice of the uncivilized na- 
 tions which fell under the rule of the white man were forbidden by their 
 modern rulers; but a new industrial age grew up in which economic con- 
 ditions changed. The civilization of the last century made provision for 
 the employment of child labor. They no longer sold children, but at the 
 same time parents were permitted to put out their children to apprentice- 
 ship which amounted to a partial sale, as they were subject to the control 
 and punishment of their masters. There was no longer a deliberate infanti- 
 cide but there was the creation of conditions that were extremely destructive 
 to infant life. The destruction still went on in a more refined way, indi- 
 rectly, it is true; but it was destruction nevertheless of human life. The 
 factory and apprenticeship systems prevailed through a number of decades 
 until their cruel methods were abolished by law. I quote from Payne: 
 
 "The children who were apprenticed out to the mill-owners were 
 fed on the coarsest kind of food and in the most disgusting way. 
 They slept by turns, in relays, in beds that were never aired, for one 
 set of children were turned into the beds as soon as another set had 
 been driven out to their long and filthy toil. Some tried to run away 
 and after that they were worked with chains around their ankles; 
 many died and the little graves were unmarked in a desolate spot lest 
 the number of the dead attract too much attention. 
 
 "Sixteen hours a day, six days a week, was no uncommon time for 
 children, and on Sunday they worked to clean the machine. 
 
 "In stench, in heated rooms, amid the constant whirling of a thou- 
 sand wheels, little fingers and little feet were kept in ceaseless action, 
 forced into unnatural activity by blows from the heavy hands and feet 
 of the merciless overlooker, and the infliction of bodily pain by in- 
 struments of punishment, invented by the sharpened ingenuity of in- 
 satiable selfishness. 
 
 "The agitation against these conditions led, in 1802, to an Act 
 being passed by the influence of Sir Robert Peel for the preservation 
 of the health and morals of apprentices and others employed in cot- 
 ton or other mills. 
 
 "The immediate cause of this was the fearful spread through the 
 factories in the Manchester district of epidemic diseases due to over- 
 work, scanty food, wretched clothing, long hours, bad ventilation, 
 among the working people and especially among the children. 
 
 "As far as reforming the conditions in which the children lived, 
 the Act, however, was a dead letter, and in a debate introduced by 
 Sir Robert Peel on June 6, 1815, one speaker, Horner, told of the sale 
 of a gang of children with the effects of a bankrupt. 
 
 " 'A still more atrocious instance,' continued the speaker, *had 
 been brought before the Court of King's Bench two years ago, when 
 a number of these boys apprenticed by a parish in London to one 
 manufacturer had been transferred (i. e., sold) to another and had 
 been found by some benevolent persons in a state of absolute fam- 
 ine.'" 
 
 In our own country the disregard of child life had become appalling. 
 There was the same temptation here that existed in England the temptation 
 to disregard both human life and human happiness by the sacrifice of chil- 
 dren upon the altar of Mammon. Even now reforms are agitated in the 
 interest of the children of the Southern States and the conditions of health 
 are not the most favorable in many of the larger manufacturing cities of 
 New England. 
 
 Childbirth Control. We have no sooner, however, brought about great 
 amelioration in the employment of children and stopped the inhuman sac- 
 rifice of their lives in the factory and apprenticeship systems that have pre- 
 
62 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 vailed too long on the Continent and in the United States, than we are 
 confronted by a new some say, a more refined system of race suicide the 
 prevention of childbirth. It is a part of the newest and latest in the civ- 
 ilized life of the world. Men shut their eyes to the consequences because 
 it has more to do with future generations than with the present. It has 
 not the cruel aspect of ancient infanticide, but it is intended, as we are told, 
 for economic reasons. The truth of the matter is, men and women are much 
 less concerned about social welfare than they are about their own selfish 
 advantages. 
 
 The present problem of race suicide has in it quite a number of factors. 
 There is first the practice of childbirth prevention under the slogan of 
 fewer and better children. The fallacy of this pretense has been demon- 
 strated by scientific inquiry into family life. Besides, Nature is known 
 everywhere to produce her best achievements under normal conditions. A 
 few years ago this practice had grown to an alarming extent in France where 
 deaths exceeded births. The same practice gradually grew in England and 
 in the United States, and latterly it has become even alarming to the Ger- 
 mans who are anxious for population and not very scrupulous about the 
 legitimacy of their children. It was the old, old story again the necessity 
 of crutailing, for the economic benefit of the world, the dangerous increase 
 to population. Had these nations that began the practice of race suicide 
 only recently awaited patiently coming events, they would have found their 
 nefarious system of race suicide entirely unnecessary, since the great war 
 has destroyed so much life and gives promise of continuing the destruction 
 through famine, pestilence and disease. At present it is the wholesale de- 
 struction of manhood which is likely to disturb very greatly the equilibrium 
 of the sexes. The processes, however, of destruction will not end with the 
 war whose hardships will draw heavily upon both female and male child life. 
 It is a little early, therefore, to speculate about what will be necessary in 
 view of this disturbed equilibrium. 
 
 Vice and Sterility. Another factor making for the curtailment of child 
 life is the rapid and alarming increase of sterility among all civilized 
 nations. This sterility has been brought about mostly through the vices, 
 which the present war, by one means or another, has uncovered. To the 
 positive moral vices which have helped to increase sterility, there may also 
 be added the vices which grow out of human indulgence, such as drink, 
 excessive food, fashions, and all sorts of pleasures. Indeed the whole 
 trend of modern life is away from the path of our divinely appointed re- 
 quirements. 
 
 The evils of an age which. begin in rivulets soon swell by commingling 
 into a torrent that becomes quite irresistible. There are specious arguments 
 set forth by those who point to the high cost of child life. There are 
 medical fees, drug bills, nurses, hospitals, and a host of overwhelming 
 burdens which parents declare themselves unable to bear. Many support 
 their practices on the economic distress which they feel from their fulfil- 
 ment of God's requirements. It is a serious problem. When evils multiply 
 in such a fashion they bring along with them a whole train of so-called 
 invincible arguments, arguments which pacify, excuse, then justify. 
 
 A great wave of exictement is now moving over the world on the 
 question of race suicide. Recently Mrs. Margaret Sanger was imprisoned 
 in New York because of her propaganda of child birth control. The doc- 
 tors of New York have held sessions upon its advisability. There is a 
 division of sentiment among them, though the great majority are con- 
 vinced that they must abide by the law, which some think ought to be 
 repealed. 
 
 Great movements for the preservation of child life, for the education 
 and training of children, have now the endorsement and assistance of 
 thousands of women, Mothers' Societies, many of them made up largely of 
 unmarried women well along in years. Many of these societies have their 
 members in the homes of mothers whose children require special attention, 
 but that is only a symptom. The real cause must be sought elsewhere. 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 63 
 
 I quote at length from Ex-President Roosevelt and Prof. Conklin of 
 Princeton, in the Metropolitan of October, 1917: 
 
 "Reforms are excellent, but if there is nobody to reform their 
 value becomes somewhat problematical. In order to make a man 
 into a better citizen we must first have the man. In order that there 
 shall be a 'fuller and better expressed life for the average woman,' 
 that average woman must be in actual existence. And the first neces- 
 sity in 'bringing up the child right' is to produce the child. 
 
 "Stated in the abstract, these propositions are of bromidic trite- 
 ness. But an astonishingly large number of persons, including a 
 lamentably large number who call themselves social reformers, either 
 are, or act as if they were, utterly blind to them when they try to 
 deal with life in the concrete. This is true of every group of persons 
 who treat Bernard Shaw seriously as a social reformer. It is true of 
 every group of reformers who discuss the home and the school, but 
 regard it as indelicate to lay stress on the fact that neither is worth 
 discussing unless there are children in sufficient numbers to make 
 the home and the school worth perpetuating. It is true of all blatant 
 sham reformers who, in the name of a new morality, preach the old, 
 old vice and self-indulgence which rotted out first the moral fiber and 
 then even the external greatness of Greece and Rome. It is true of 
 the possibly well-meaning but certainly silly persons who fail to see 
 that we merely enunciate a perfectly plain mathematical truth when 
 we say that the race will die out unless the average family contains 
 at least three children, and therefore that less than this number always 
 means that, whether because of their fault or their misfortune, the 
 parents are bearing less than their share of the common burdens, 
 and are rendering less than their proportion of patriotic service to the 
 nation. 44 
 Speaking of the graduates of Harvard and Yale, he further says: 
 
 "On the average, during the thirty years, the graduate who mar- 
 ried did so after he had left college eight years. About 78 per cent 
 married, roughly four-fifths. But over 20 per cent of the marriages 
 were childless. This leaves only three-fifths of the men of the class 
 who contracted fertile marriages, and who, therefore, if their stock 
 were to progress, had to make good the shortcomings of their fellows. 
 The average number of children per capita married graduate 
 was about 2.3, and shrank decade by decade. Taking the entire num- 
 ber of graduates the average number of children surviving was 1.55 
 per capita (of whom, of course, on the average, half are daughters). 
 This means, roughly, that in these thirty classes of Harvard and Yale 
 graduates, representing, of course, a high average of the energy, am- 
 bition and cultivation, and a reasonably high average of the wealth 
 of the land, every four fathers left behind them three sons. If this 
 ratio continues it will mean that 140 years hence a period as long 
 as that which divides us from the Declaration of Independence the 
 average college graduates of today will be represented in their de- 
 
 scendents by only three-tenths of their present number." 
 
 ************ 
 
 "In Massachusetts, for the twenty-five years ending in 1911, the 
 deaths among the native-born population exceeded the births by 
 270,000, whereas during the same period the births in families with 
 foreign-born parents exceeded the deaths by nearly 530,000. If this 
 process continues the work of perfecting the boasted common school 
 and college system of Massachusetts' native Americans will prove 
 about as useful as the labor of those worthy missionaries who on 
 different occasions have translated the Bible into the tongues of sav- 
 age races who thereupon died out." 
 
 Prof. Conklin writes: 
 
 "The cause for alarm is the declining birth rate in the best ele- 
 
64 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 ments of a population, while it continues to increase among the poorer 
 elements. The descendants of the Puritans and the Cavaliers, who 
 have raised the cry for 'fewer and better children,' are already dis- 
 appearing, and in a few centuries, at most, will have given place to 
 more fertile races of mankind. * * * if we had fewer luxuries we 
 could have, and could afford to have, more children. * * * "^ e 
 need not 'fewer and better children' but more children of the better 
 sort and fewer of the worse variety. There is great enthusiasm today 
 on the part of many childless reformers for negative eugenical meas- 
 ures. (They forget that) sterility is too easily acquired; what is not 
 so easily brought about is the fertility of the better lines. * * * 
 The chief motive for limiting the size of families is personal comfort 
 and pleasure rather than the welfare of the race. It is more im-; 
 portant for the welfare of the race that children with good inheritance 
 (in mind, body and will) should be brought into the world than that 
 parents should live easy lives and have no more children than they 
 can conveniently rear amid all the comforts of a luxury-loving age. 
 * * * Race preservation, not self-preservation, is the first law of 
 nature. Among the higher organisms, the strongest of all the instincts 
 are those connected with reproduction. The struggle to be free is 
 part of a great evolutionary movement, but the freedom must be a 
 sane one, which neither injures others nor eliminates posterity. (Any 
 movement which) demands freedom from marriage and reproduction 
 is suicidal." 
 
 The Latter-day Saints, in the simplicity of their faith, are perfectly 
 willing to trust the conditions of life and the purposes of God for the main- 
 tenance of an equilibrium between man's power of production and his 
 needs. History has shown abundantly that infanticide and race suicide 
 were never a necessity. The punishment which the world has invited upon 
 itself in the various ages has been sufficient to remove all fears of an over- 
 populated world. As a matter of fact, it is not a case of economic necessity. 
 The reasons are found through the perversion of God's laws and the ex- 
 cesses of life which selfish indulgence creates. They are with the old 
 prophets, they believe that children are the heritage of the Lord and 
 "blessed is he that has his quiver full." Their compensation comes to them 
 through the assured value of child life. With Jesus, they rejoice in the 
 words: "Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for 
 of such is the Kingdom of Heaven." 
 
 XXVI Music 
 
 History. It is from the historical and moral side that I approach this 
 subject, which is as old as the human race, and as diversified as human life. 
 Of all the arts and accomplishments given for the entertainment and 
 pleasure of man, none has been a greater source of pleasure. It exalts, 
 refines, ennobles, soothes, and heals the human heart. It also entices, 
 charms, and persuades the human soul to leave its moral anchorage and 
 enter the realms of dissipation and vice. Music, as it comes from instru- 
 ments, is an unspoken language, but saturated with every suggestion of 
 human thought and feeling. As an expression of the human emotions, it 
 has both a moral and a licentious aspect. It has been made more dangerous 
 to human life because it is usually unsuspected of any wrong. It may 
 beguile and seduce those who, in the beginning, could not be touched by 
 any other form of pleasure that entices to wrong-doing. 
 
 Dangers. I speak first of the dangers of music. The vibrations of our 
 inner life are set in motion by this royal pastime. It enters the domain of 
 our thoughts and feelings, mostly of our feelings. These it helps us to 
 conceal, but the vibrations of thought and feeling, once set in motion, carry 
 us on to action. From the earliest times, music has been the companion of 
 evil consorts. Its value has been fully known, not only in the dens of vice, 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 65 
 
 but in the palaces where excessive luxuries and insinuating corruptions find 
 a guilded home. The world has long known the evil of certain entertain- 
 ments. It has known the effects it has had in the baudy house, the bar- 
 room, and the promiscuous dancehall. Moral loving communities would 
 not tolerate for one moment in their homes the companionship of the lewd, 
 the frivolously gay, and the licentious devotees of the dance. They believe 
 they have abolished corrupting evils when they have drawn the line which 
 excludes the men and women who symbolize them. That is but one step: 
 the music that helps to beget a vitiated life they often admit without ques- 
 tion even to the inner sanctuaries of their homes. Who has not stopped to 
 listen, as he passed along the road, to some music in the home, to wonder 
 how such strains of immoral tones could be permitted there? The fact is, 
 people never suspect that there can be an immoral sound, when the truth is, 
 immoral sounds have helped from the beginning to beget immoral lives. 
 
 Oriental Vice. Some years ago, when the writer was in Egypt, he was 
 invited to witness some dance scenes that gave an illustration of the con- 
 tortions and immoral movements of the human body. These motions were 
 set to music, and he was told that men often resorted to these musical dem- 
 onstrations that they might enjoy all the more later on the vices into which 
 they were about to cast themselves. Along the quays of the great oriental 
 cities, where vice runs rampant, music acts as the siren which charms men 
 from their onward course in life to the sinful intonations of the dance hall 
 and evil resorts. There is a kindred between tone and motion: sound is 
 said to move along in waves; it has its rhythm. These waves create move- 
 ments, thoughts, and feelings that are in harmony with them. Strange that 
 every blessed thing which God revealed to man, Satan has been present to 
 deform; that what was intended for exaltation may be turned to debase- 
 ment, and after all, we have hardly suspected that such was true of music. 
 
 Emotions. We now have the rag-time, and the "Jazz" that may be wit- 
 nessed on the dancing floors of our resorts. The contortions of the body 
 give rise to contortions of the mind. One might easily imagine as he 
 looked on the ball-room scenes of some pleasure resort, that he had been 
 taken back to the voluptuary gardens of ancient times, and to the days of 
 Rome and Greece, when the Jazz, under another name, was corrupting, 
 undermining the social life of the nations who gave themselves up to its 
 indulgences. It is the old, old story that evil companions corrupt good 
 morals, and there is an evil companionship in music. 
 
 Exalting. But music exalts, it refines, ennobles, and charms with the 
 spirits of virtue the human soul. We have our music: we aim in the 
 early periods of life so to saturate our youth with the sweet, innocent strains 
 of the Sabbath school song that it will take possession of them, and leave 
 little room for the music whose vulgar tones would invite them into an 
 erring life. 
 
 The emotions of the soul are real. There is a rhythm in life; we re- 
 spond to the subtle influences that we cannot see, we cannot analyze, we 
 can only feel. If we would have a correct balance of life, and its elements 
 properly mixed within us, we should not exclude music any more than we 
 exclude prayer. It should be in our homes, to encourage and to fortify us. 
 Thus, we sing in the Sabbath schools songs that awaken our religious emo- 
 tions, our patriotism, our devotion, our worshipful thoughts. We sing, too, 
 in congregations, that the harmony in one soul may be the harmony in all. 
 Our children gather in concerts and enjoy the mutual helpfulness of con- 
 gregational songs. 
 
 It is not easy to define the line of cleavage between two forms of 
 music, but in a general way they must be distinguished. Nor is it always 
 a matter of art: perhaps a soul attuned to the worship of God might more 
 readily detect an improper coloring to music than the finest artist. The 
 hymns of John Wesley have had a marvelous influence upon the religious 
 emotions. The older generations will remember how fond our late Presi- 
 dent, Brigham Young, was of these devotional hymns. We have endeavored 
 
66 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 to make such a classification as would put our musical life on the moral 
 side of sound. 
 
 Jazz. There is perhaps no more sinful temptation among our young 
 people today than the insinuating sounds that come from the siren voice of 
 a license-loving age. The thoughtful world is just beginning to realize how 
 far the Jazz and kindred music is carrying us from the moorings of our 
 moral safety. I quote from a writer in the Chicago Herald, of November 4, 
 1917. There the celebrated violinist, Isador Berger, says: 
 
 "The white man took the negro's 'Jungle time' and 'ragged' it 
 unmercifully. It was a great success among people who preferred 
 not to consider the moral phases of the question. Clergymen and 
 social service forces over the country stormed against this kind of 
 music, calling it 'obscene, indecent, demoralizing, etc.,' but the world 
 that loved amusement for its own sake went on acclaiming 'jazz' 
 tunes as the acme of entertainment. 
 
 "But when America went into the war the song writers turned 
 to patriotic tunes. They began to turn out marching tunes in the 
 hope that the soldiers would seize upon one for their favorite and 
 make for its authors the amount of money which the British 'Tom- 
 mies' made for the writers of 'It's a Long, Long Way to Tipperary.' 
 
 "Cafes, tea dansants, dancing pavilions, are tingling now with 
 these stirring martial airs. Some of the old ragtime tunes still 'hang 
 on,' but half-heartedly, as though they knew it, like other soft, lux- 
 urious things, they must disappear before the strident note of war. 
 
 " 'War music arouses the best in man, while "jazz" music appeals 
 to the lowest elements in his nature,' says Louis Guyon, a dancing 
 master of Chicago who has won great prosperity for himself by re- 
 fusing to permit the modern dances to be performed on his mammoth 
 floor. 'I have always fought the "ragtime" dance as immoral, in- 
 decent and vulgar, and I have found that thousands of people still 
 felt that the old-time waltz, two-step and polka were totally different 
 from the "jazz" measures. 
 
 "'Marching tunes and martial music are written in a tempo that 
 does not lend itself to syncopation.' 
 
 "Legitimate music appeals to human feeling and soulful apprecia- 
 tion. It makes the mind 'dreamy' and imaginative. It does not 
 excite base thoughts. It may develop abstract love and the spirit of 
 sacrifice for a loved one, but it does not fan the flames of physical 
 passion as does the music which accompanies the one-step and the 
 fox trot. These qualities make it permanent and enduring, while the 
 'jazz' tunes are reliant upon qualities that make them valueless to- 
 morrow. Their fleeting nature is a proof of their deficiency in 
 meritorious characteristics. 
 
 "A great German painter, Alois Kolb, with the Teutonic artist's 
 love of the gross and grotesque, once painted a picture of profane 
 music which modern moralists insist describes the spirit of the 
 modern dance as it was before the sterner music began to crowd it 
 out. He pictured Satan playing a violin from the pedestal from 
 which the Sphinx, symbol of cruelty and lust, looked down upon a 
 maudlin world. 
 
 "Human beings made mad by the debased music of Satan danced 
 below in an orgy of indecency. At the bottom of the picture Kolb 
 placed the snake-haired head of Medusa, the mythical goddess one 
 sight of whom would turn a human being to stone. Medusa stood 
 for vice in the mind of the primitive man; the writhing reptiles that 
 were her hair symbolized the ghastliness and repulsion of crime, and 
 the ruination of the man who looked upon her personified the dead- 
 ening effect which familiarity with wickedness produces in the human 
 being." 
 
 Music has sometimes been classified according to the society it keeps 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE ACS 67 
 
 Even in ancient times this classification prevailed. Its appeal is directly to 
 the feelings, and it is perhaps true to say that it touches the passions more 
 strongly than even the spoken or written word. When such music is applied 
 to the dance, it brings to its aid the baser imaginations which give thoughts 
 and feelings of the most degenerate character. It is a powerful truth, and 
 >et we have scarcely begun to sense it, that there is an evil music to be 
 shunned, just as there is an evil companionship. 
 
 Qualities. The evils of debased music are more insidious because of 
 the almost universal indifference if not ignorance about the kinds of music. 
 Yet when we stop to think, there are as many kinds of music as there are 
 peculiar qualities and characteristics in individuals: we have music that 
 encourages frivolity. I once heard a musician say that "if I played long 
 such music I should become down-right lazy." Then there must be music 
 that induces idleness, just as there is music that creates excessive hilarity 
 and light mindedness. If we were as choice about the music which we 
 permit in our homes as we are about the character of the language used, 
 we should eliminate much of it that is positively evil. Music is a power 
 or a gift to man that was intended to delight, to exalt, to refine, and to 
 encourage. It is a part of the noblest traits of human life. But like many 
 other exalted states of being, it has found degeneracy with other degenerate 
 conditions of life. It is more dangerous because of its unsuspected and not 
 easily detected evil influences. 
 
 Latter-day Saints" Point of View. "If thou art merry, praise the Lord 
 with singing, with music, with dancing, and with a prayer of praise and 
 thanksgiving" (Doc. and Cov. 136:28). 
 
 This is part of a revelation given to Brigham Young in 1847. 
 
 Music and dancing associated with praise and prayer, make them 
 acceptable to God. 
 
 XXVII Dancing 
 
 Example of Russia. Of all the nations of Europe, Russia has been most 
 given to social and religious vagaries. Political activities were forbidden 
 and impiovements had little encouragement. The great masses of the peo- 
 ple are "mujiks" or peasants. They have been in intellectual darkness for 
 centuries, and therefore a prey to all kinds of delusions. Class distinction 
 has been persistent and most oppressive to the people at large. The dis- 
 tinction was really based upon work. There were those who worked, and 
 those who did not. Labor was a badge of inferiority. The rich aspired to 
 social distinction and the excessive pleasures which idle lives beget. Petro- 
 grad was notorious as a den of vice, and the ball-room was the center of 
 social ambitions. The ballet was never so popular in Paris as it was in the 
 Russian capital. It was full of scandal and the source of sex corruption. 
 
 When the revolution of 1905 broke down, writers were under as severe 
 a censorship as in the old regime. They turned their attention to fiction, 
 as lascivious as the unbridled social life and the ball room could make it. 
 The dance was often the center of the so-called Russian realism. It af- 
 forded an opportunity to play upon thoughts and feelings of those whose 
 daily lives were a round of pleasure and dissipation. The social novel with 
 its disgusting realism of life in Petrograd was remunerative and popular. 
 
 The Russian ballet dancers were famous the world over. Their move- 
 ments catered to the more sordid instincts of men and women. At one time 
 their vulgarities were too much for most of the European capitals, who 
 frowned upon them. In time they were imitated, and gained more and more 
 a world-wide reception. The degeneracy of the ball-room was nowhere 
 more striking than in the domain of the czar. The censorship did not per- 
 mit any more of its weird life to reach the outside world than could not 
 be prevented. I quote from the New York Sun of Sept. 9, 1917, dated Petro- 
 grad, Aug. 5 (by mail) : 
 
68 PROBLEMS OP THE AGE 
 
 "Ballet girls are being permitted to enter the learned profes- 
 sions. A special commission to prepare reforms in the former im- 
 perial, now state, theatres, has pronounced for the abolition of the 
 system under which the ballet pupil could never be anything but a 
 ballet dancer. 
 
 "At the age of nine years many girls entered the ballet school 
 of the Marlinsky Theater and spent their childhood learning to dance, 
 receiving scarcely any general education, and were ordered to go on 
 the ballet stage. If they refused, they were excluded from all except 
 the lowest occupations. They were further prevented from leaving the 
 country without special permit. The demand was so great that such a 
 barbarous system had to be inaugurated to keep up the supply." 
 
 Corruptions of the Dance. The revolution has broken down Russian 
 exclusiveness and revealed to the world what before was never half sus- 
 pected. Interest in the life and conditions of that country has rebounded 
 in the desire to know more about the country and its people. The papers 
 are full of revelations of its inner life. Psychologists and sociologists have 
 rushed to an explanation of causes and effects. They are enlightening the 
 world about the hidden things in the social and religious practices of its peo- 
 ple. In the mysteries of Russian degradation they have given prominence 
 to the dance. As an institution, it is as old as the world, and in ancient 
 and medieval times was closely associated with religion religion of the 
 kind which the Hebrews were forbidden to practice. 
 
 Here is what John D. Quackenbos, professor of psychology in Colum- 
 bia University, has to say in one of the New York dailies: 
 
 "There is nothing new about making a religious rite out of a las- 
 civious dance. It is palpably in accord with the bias of wanton hu- 
 man nature to give to the poetry of motion an unchaste rhythm and 
 to legitimize such action with the sanction of the gods. The records 
 of the ancient world teem with revolting narrations of dances in honor 
 of licentious love gods, cunningly calculated to excite the grosser pas- 
 sions, and commit the riotous zealots to ineffably unbridled baccha- 
 nalia. In such appeals to the sexual side of their nature men and 
 women were made to believe by interested priests that they were do- 
 ing the will of heaven. 
 
 "In course of time the lecherous dance lost its devotional charac- 
 ter. Loath to die its natural death, it revived in the epidemics known 
 as the dancing manias that swept over Europe in the Middle Ages in 
 periodic outbreaks of religious delusion. Thereafter the sensual dance 
 lost its devotional kinship, and found cloister in the bawdy-houses 
 and circles of ill-fame, whence, to the odium of Christian communi- 
 ties, it has been dragged of late years, to pollute society at large with 
 its lewd mazes and disgusting insinuations. The dancing mania of 
 the twentieth century, none the less dangerous because dissociated 
 from dogma, is the only religion of a host of addicts in this country." 
 
 The mania of the dance has usually been a symptom of social decay, and 
 has represented society at its worst. It has foretold the day of calamity in 
 more than one nation of the earth. Whether the dance represents the wor- 
 ship of some lascivious god idol, or is an object of devotion in itself, its 
 devotees suffer a moral loss to themselves, and bring numberless thousands 
 to the shrine at which they worship. 
 
 Not an Evil in Itself. Has the dance no proper place in social life? 
 Or is its abuse responsible for the sins which grow out of it? David danced 
 about the Ark of the Covenant while on its way to Jerusalem, to the disgust 
 of his wife it must be said. It is one of the most universal of all forms of 
 pleasure. It combines intimate companionship with the rythm of movement 
 and joyous sounds of music. David danced in a spirit jof divine joy. The 
 object of his dance was the expression he felt for a God-given achievement. 
 Undoubtedly such pleasure has its place in the mirth of social life. 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 69 
 
 Its Control. Its dangers, however, have been fully recognized by the 
 Latter-day Saints, who sought to control it in such a manner as to free it 
 from the excessive pleasures and temptations that might grow out of it. 
 Dances were opened by prayer, and the old and young mingled freely to- 
 gether. Any movements or attitudes indecorous were frowned upon, and a 
 spirit of gentility was cultivated as far as possible. We need not wonder 
 that the Saints have felt with some alarm the influence of its mania which 
 is now sweeping over the world. It is one of the most convincing indict* 
 meiits against the stability of society in this age. In places it amounts al- 
 most to a disease. The youth of the world today is under a heavy tribute 
 to it. It is literally enslaving millions. It is perhaps the best expression 
 of the irreligious condition of the world. Its addicts have lost respect for 
 the Sabbath, have lost the moral sense of duty, have surrendered themselves 
 to a life of mirth, and now worship at the shrine of pleasure. It is really 
 giving serious cause for alarm. It dictates to fashion, ignores health, and 
 fosters indecencies. Its abolition has never been accomplished, but today 
 it passes all control. 
 
 The ball room is responsible for the waste of untold millions; it teaches 
 frivolity and delights in extravagance; it is classifying society by its exclu- 
 sion of parents and the older members of the community; it snatches from 
 home life and its sanctity those who need* most its protection, and it oblit- 
 erates God in the thoughts and feelings of its devotees. 
 
 The dancing craze is more than a symptom; it is a disease. In the New 
 York Sun, Sept. 9, 1917, Jane Dixon writes: 
 
 "The toddle, friends, is New York's latest dance delirium. As yet 
 the delirium has not become epidemic. The germ of the toddle first 
 manifested itself in the brain of one G. H. B., official delineator of 
 the dance for the Isle of Manhattan. From the dome of this terpsi- 
 chorean demon the toddle germ rapidly spread to his feet, where it 
 manifested itself in all its violence, breaking forth in a movement half 
 way between a fat suburban gentleman running to catch the 5:55 and 
 a lazy 'possum that has just dined heavily on persimmons. Do not 
 think the toddle is Mr. W.'s only output. His is by no means a one- 
 track mind. He has invented a pretty little idea he calls, 'Hello, 
 pals.' Not a song, mind you; a dance. Hear him: * "Hello, pals" is 
 the successor of our "Paul Jones." It is a plain, unvarnished one- 
 step. But there is a plus sign after the one-step. Partners do the one- 
 step until a signal from the music is given, when they shake hands 
 and recite a little poem. It goes: 
 
 "* "Hello, pals, I'm glad to meet you; 
 Hello, pals, I'm glad to greet you." ' 
 
 Its Sacrifice to Mammon. How inspiring! From different parts of the 
 world come candidates for training to this famous dancing master, soon to 
 be a millionaire. The glare of his wealth attracts the ambition of the lesser 
 lights. They, too, see the glitter of gold, and there are millions today in 
 the dancing business. The dimension of this industrial life has grown into 
 enormous proportions. Dancing is the new spirit of the age. Our little ones 
 take to it with fresh delight. Parents who see these rare gifts pour their 
 gold into the pocket of the dancing artist and modistes in unstinted meas- 
 ure. We may object, but we hesitate. Parents are old-fashioned. Thev 
 want to do what is for the best. To deny children what they seriously want 
 is a social offense. If a decision is delayed, the dancing master, is brought to 
 the house. His persuasion is convincing. Maybe we are behind the times. 
 Social requirements are the meat and drink of the age. We dare not ostra- 
 cise our children. If we still hesitate, it is because we do not love these 
 monsters of cruelty! Who dares face the accusation? The pace is set and 
 we are going in full speed. 
 
 An Element of National Destruction. The dance has the respectability 
 of being the most ancient of customs. It was one of the strongest competi- 
 tors in the race for national ruin of the ancient empires of Mesopotamia, 
 
70 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 The literature of those ancient times is full of nauseating details of dance 
 debauchery. Those nations all went down when they had most to boast of; 
 when in the age of their greatest glory. "Eat, drink, and be merry" is the 
 siren of destruction. The current of modern life is tempestuous. Who can 
 withstand it? Is the picture overdrawn? Read what Max Muller, the great- 
 est of Oriental scholars and translators, says: He declares that had he not 
 made in his translations copious expurgations, he would have been prose- 
 cuted for circulating obscene literature. 
 
 Duty of the Church. Do the ball room and the Church have anything 
 in common? One represents the joyous side of life, the other religious. 
 The Church must have its guide and its guardian. The ball room is with- 
 out either unless, as among the Latter-day Saints, it comes within the regu- 
 lation of Church organizations. It is not easy outside of these organiza- 
 tions to control the excessive tempting pleasures of the dance. 
 
 From the Ball Room to Hell is the title of a book by one who pro- 
 fessed to know the dangers of the dance. The book created rome com- 
 ment at the time it was published. It has passed out of memory. The pas- 
 sions of pleasure rarely yield to reason. Are we yielding to what we know 
 to be a dangerous social condition? It is hard to withstand a constant pres- 
 sure. We grow tired and break, down very often. Society is honeycombed 
 to the center by all kinds of excesses, extravagances, delusions, impropri- 
 eties, vices, and shames. "A calamity howler" is no answer to the signal of 
 social dangers. The war is laying bare many of the world's shames which 
 before had been covered by artistic drapery. 
 
 Dancing is now a profession. Its devotees must be up-to-date. There 
 is money in every newly invented dance. Professionals have sprung up by 
 the thousands. New steps are the rage. Formerlv this form of pleasure was 
 conducted at night. Now it goes on day and night. Schools of instruction 
 are multiplying rapidly. It was once one of the cheapest of all pleasures; 
 now it is most expensive. Once it was a pastime for the entire community; 
 now children would be ashamed to see an attempt on the part of the parents 
 and elders to dance. It is creating a class distinction, always a source of 
 danger to social life. Shall the mania be suppressed? Can it be cured? 
 The disease is in the mind. It is vastly more difficult to cure mental dis- 
 eases than physical ones. The coming generation will be inheritors of the 
 dread disease. It is said that nothing today contributes more to race suicide 
 than the dance. The habits of youth are not easily broken off by married 
 life. Children are in the way, they are an obstacle which must be prevented. 
 Conversations in the home and in up-to-date society too often hinge upon the 
 discussions of the ball room. Criticisms and snobbery are rife. Ridicule 
 is encouraged. The serious side of life is barred. 
 
 Revelations. "Say nothing but repentance unto this generation. Keep 
 my commandments, and assist to bring forth my work, according to my 
 commandments, and you shall be blessed" (Doc. and Cov. 11:8). 
 
 "Do you believe in a personal devil?" That is often a question put by 
 even many of our own people. Where does the devilish spirit of an aban- 
 doned age come from? It is a disease of the mind, we are told. Just a dis- 
 ease that may be cured by some scientific treatment, we are told. It is not 
 popular to believe in a devil. What has God said about the devil? 
 
 "And it must needs be that the devil tempt the children of men, or they 
 could not be agents unto themselves, for if they never should have bitter 
 they could not know the sweet" (Doc. and Cov. 29:39. Read more of 
 same section). 
 
 XXVIII The Theater 
 
 License of the Stage. The theater is both a symptom and a cause. It 
 reevals social influences and the trend of modern life in a manner that is 
 not depicted and would not be tolerated elsewhere. Characters upon the 
 stage are permitted to say things and do things that society would not tol- 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 71 
 
 erate in any other place. The very fact that the revelations of immoral con- 
 duct are permitted on the stage accounts, in large part, for the vast num- 
 bers of its devotees. The stage is therefore symbolic a symbolism of in- 
 dulgence, freedom from' restraint, that are rapidly increasing, if we are com- 
 pelled to believe as authors assert, that the stage is taking on license beyond 
 all belief. It not only suggests and encourages immorality by the license 
 it takes, but it is often the covert foe to religion and social moderation. It 
 indulges in ridicule which is dangerous to sobriety by its cunning attacks 
 on many of our soundest and sanest social institutions. It is particularly 
 severe upon marriage; it destroys courtship, and often ridicules religion. 
 Society has become indifferent to the stage, whose excesses are explained 
 away if taken any notice of, by the statement that "we must take no notice 
 of it," because it is the stage. Its devotees are made up of all classes the 
 rich and the poor, the high and the low, churchmen and laymen; and from 
 all there comes the same hilarious laughter at indecent ridicule and immoral 
 suggestion. 
 
 The stage is also a cause: it excites feelings that would better remain 
 dormant. It offers plausible excuses for the most tragic failures of life, 
 and has its saving clauses in a philosophy that is as fatal to the welfare of 
 society as it is to the promotion of happiness. It has become a part of our 
 present-day world life. It is reflected more in our social intercourse than is 
 the Church; and as an educator of public sentiment, it has perhaps no su- 
 perior. 
 
 Present Conditions. Is the war making us serious-minded? Does the 
 presence of eternity on the battlefield incline men to a spirit of sacredness 
 and devotion? War is a human institution, and carries men along in the 
 trend of their past experiences. It emphasizes human life wherever it 
 touches it: by it the religious may be made more religious, the indifferent 
 more indifferent, the scoffer more scornful. The war in France had not been 
 long under way until amusements, chiefly the recreation of the theater, was 
 considered necessary for the encouragement and good cheer of the soldiers. 
 The theater was therefore transferred from the large cities to the front. I 
 copy from the New York Sun of October 28, 1917: 
 
 "The critics point out that while in the beginning things were dif- 
 ferent, in the last few months salaciousness has increased tremend- 
 ously, in these theatrical productions. This is not surprising. In 
 Paris, when the theaters were first reopened after the beginning of the 
 war, the plays were all on a high plane. It seemed as if only the 
 classic repertory was to be played and the preference was for Cor- 
 neille, and in Corneille's own theater they gave "Horace," where 
 patriotic sentiment is so admirably expressed. 
 
 "But when the war went on longer than the managers dreamed it 
 would longer than they wanted to prolong this truce of heroism and 
 chastity, to which they were willing to devote months, even a whole 
 season their patience came to an end. 
 
 "They began to revert to plays of the ante-war type. In a brief 
 time Paris had the same theater as existed before the war; the same 
 theater where the revues and many of the plays are filled with in- 
 uendo and vulgarity. It is likely that the theater at the front has in 
 some wise followed the example of the Paris stage. 
 
 "M. Beaunier, commenting on these conditions, writes: 
 
 *"I know the answer many people will make to this: that art 
 beautifies everything it touches. But this is not true in anv respect, 
 and often art is spoiled by what it touches. A cleverer argument 
 is: "It amuses them. Their life is not happy in the trenches and in 
 the camps. Are you going to quibble about their pleasure?" But it 
 doesn't amuse them if I can believe my correspondents. You mis- 
 judge them when you attribute so little delicacy to them. * * * 
 
 " 'This confusing of pornography and gaiety is one of the most 
 foolish errors of our day. It has done much to hurt the good reputa- 
 tion of France. Besides the strangers who came to Paris sought for 
 
72 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 it with an unhealthy curiosity and then despised us when they returned 
 home. This hypocrisy is well known. Real gayety is never nasty; it 
 is a sign of health; while pornography is a disease of the mind. 
 
 14 'We thought that the war had put an end to all these turpitudes. 
 We expected a change in the public mind, and in its habits, in its 
 frivolities a tonifying of its imagination. There is still hope." 
 
 Fallacy of Art. The trouble with the theater, as with all other sorts 
 of amusements, is that it is almost wholly dissociated from religious life. 
 When Brigham Young built the great theater in Salt Lake City (it was 
 great indeed at the time it was constructed) he intended that it should be 
 under the censorship of the Church. Dances and other forms of amuse- 
 ment were provided under a directorship intended to shut out the evils 
 and abuses to which all kinds of amusements are so easily subjected. Today 
 our Church organizations devote much of their working programs to the 
 betterment of our social life through safe and sane amusements. In the 
 larger cities, where a cosmopolitan spirit prevails, it ia more difficult to 
 blend the pleasures and religious influences of life. To separate them is to 
 increase the dangers of one at the expense of the other. 
 
 We are now met by the flagrant demand that things must be accepted and 
 approved, whatever immorality they may suggest, because they represent 
 art, as though art stood apart from human feelings, suggestions, inclinations, 
 and temptations. It is contended that the separation of real art, nude and 
 other immoral art, from the moral, wholesome influences of life, is simple 
 and easy to those who are strong-minded and have high powers of discrim- 
 ination; that it is only the weak and the unworthy that debase real true 
 art by any thought of vulgarity. Such advocates of art, like the advocates 
 of platonic love, are guilty of shams and false pretense: there is no direct 
 and precise cleavage in the thought, feelings, emotions, and temptations of 
 human life. They are so interwoven that a violence to any one of them 
 touches all of them. 
 
 Excesses. "Yea, all things which come of the earth, in the season 
 thereof, are made for the benefit and the use of man, both to please the 
 eye and gladden the heart; yea, for food and for raiment, for taste and for 
 smell, to strengthen the body and to enliven the soul. 
 
 "And it pleaseth God that he hath given these things unto man; for 
 unto this end they were made to be used with judgment, not to excess, 
 neither by extortion." 
 
 Revelation to Joseph Smith, 1831, Doc. and Cov. 59:18-20. 
 
 XXIX Heredity 
 
 Its Spiritual Origin. Much time has been devoted in various social 
 organizations throughout the Church to the discussion of heredity. It has 
 been a subject of debate and scientific research for centuries. Around it all 
 sorts of agreements and disagreements have been hurled, and there is today 
 no definite science of heredity. 
 
 The greatest announcement on this subject is to be found in the Book 
 of Genesis, where it deals with the confusion of tongues at the Tower of 
 Babel. The language of the people was confounded and they were scattered 
 abroad upon the earth. From that time on thev represented groups of 
 humanity, and in time races were formed out of these groups. This is the 
 greatest law, and perhaps the only commonly recognized law of heredity 
 in the world of thought today. Race heredity is well known; individual 
 heredity has never been agreed upon. While men inherit certain great 
 characteristics of their race, the same cannot be said of their inheritances 
 individually. 
 
 We believe in a spiritual existence which we enjoyed before the creation 
 of this earth, and that when bodies are given to us they become simply the 
 tabernacles of a prior living spirit, with certain essential qualities of 
 thought, feeling, and possibilities. With our primeval existence as a start- 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 73 
 
 ing point, our views of heredity must necessarily be very different from 
 those who look upon this world as the beginning of life. All those who 
 consider the body and spirit as contemporaneous, naturally trace the various 
 qualities and characteristics of life to an earthly parental origin, with the 
 result that thinkers and writers are in hopeless confusion about the law of 
 heredity. 
 
 We believe that the negroes constitute a group of inherited qualities, 
 not merely qualities of their earthly parents, but qualities which existed 
 in them before the earth was created. And so with the different races, 
 which express distinct race peculiarities. 
 
 The confusion of tongues, therefore, at the Tower of Babel was more 
 than the disruption of a national life and the defeat of an ambition: it was 
 the beginning of race distinction and race distribution upon the face of the 
 earth, a distribution that enabled each race to receive those spirits that 
 were characteristic of that particular group. It is equally true that we as 
 individuals represent qualities that have come to us through our primeval 
 existence. The question, however, of these individual inheritances is not 
 so evident as it is in the case of general race characteristics. From the 
 same parents a child is often born with those qualities of life which make 
 for higher and better manhood or womanhood, and later a child that has 
 characteristics of an opposite tendency. That difference is not explained 
 by merely temperamental changes in the parents or changes in environment 
 as has been abundantly proved in a wide range of experiments and observa- 
 tions. 
 
 Objections. Any effort, therefore, to fix a rule of inheritance has been 
 abortive. If we had a primeval existence, our qualities of being must 
 depend to a large extent upon that existence, and the law of justice would 
 seem to indicate that we were born into life with certain primeval inherit- 
 ances which we were entitled to enjoy in a mortal state. Let us take a 
 case for the advocates of a strict law of heredity: a good man marries a 
 good wife; they have good children, and their children's children are good; 
 and by superior efforts and improved environments they continue, as gen- 
 erations go on,. to grow into perfect conditions. These people, having good 
 children who create good environments, escape the burdens, cares, anxieties 
 and sorrows of those who have born to them children who become way- 
 ward. The good, who are able to carry a great burden, teach and practice 
 in the highest degree the law of correct living, and have little responsibility 
 as compared with those who are less qualified to assume the heavier bur- 
 dens of life. We should thus be compelled to reverse the teachings of 
 Christ, "Where much is given, much is expected," and we should fly in 
 the face of all social progress. 
 
 Illustrations. The doctrine of our primeval existence is fundamentally 
 one of religious belief. We believe 'that we were first created spiritually, 
 that we were literally, in our spiritual creation, the "sons and daughters of 
 God," that among those sons and daughters were Jesus Christ and Lucifer, 
 who were the very antipodes of each other. How would a believer in the 
 law of heredity explain from the standpoint of a pre-spiritual existence, the 
 differences between Christ and Satan? An eminent writer, Samuel George 
 Smith, in his book on Social Pathology, says: 
 
 "Children born of the same parents, reared under precisely the 
 same circumstances, differ very widely in character and conduct, so 
 that heredity and environment combined seem unequal to the task 
 of a complete explanation of the history of the individual. There is 
 no doubt that heredity and environment is each influential in forming 
 the individual, but in heredity there is as much room for variation as 
 there are numbers in the group considered, and in environment there 
 are such changing elements that no two individuals ever have pre- 
 cisely the same influences. There is a variant of organization which 
 makes each individual of the human race absolutely unique, and 
 without going into the metaphysics of personal choice or desire, there 
 
74 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 is an unmeasured and probably unmeasureable, variant in the attitude 
 of every individual toward his opportunity. The problems are not 
 easy of solution." 
 
 There is much force in the statement that "There is a variant of organi- 
 zation which makes each individual of the human race absolutely unique." 
 Such a statement goes far to support the doctrine we teach of our primeval 
 existence. The attempted rule of heredity is baffling even to itself. Dr. 
 Smith says: 
 
 "Every living individual who counts back ten generations may 
 have over a thousand grandparents. In the direct line of descent all 
 of them must be considered in the question of his inheritance, but the 
 thousand grandparents of a few generations back are completely lost 
 in the social group, and it is quite evident, apart from any special 
 theories, that whatever the inheritance of an individual may be, it is 
 pretty difficult to give it a scientific definition." 
 
 Some of the props upon which heredity is founded are knocked away 
 by the cold facts of history. One of the chief of these is the so-called "law 
 of environment." The Indians of the American continent have had perhaps 
 the best environment in the world. Archaelogy and the Book of Mormon 
 both confirm the fact that they have retrograded from a higher to a lower 
 stage of civilization. Environments did not create in them any progressive 
 advance to a civilized state. 
 
 Mendelism. Much discussion about heredity is based upon certain dis- 
 coveries in the vegetable world, the so-called laws of Mendel. Here, too, 
 from our point of view, we are compelled to make a broad distinction. 
 Even scientific writers are abandoning the argument that the same rules 
 apply to life in the animal and vegetable kingdoms as apply to the life of 
 man. It is true that all God created, if we take the account given in Gen- 
 esis, was created first spiritually. Between that spiritual creation and our 
 own, however, there is a wide difference. We are the direct creations of 
 God his children; he is our father, who is in Heaven. He is nowhere in 
 Scripture designated as the Father of animals and plants. Whatever may 
 have been the source o.f their spiritual creation, or the ultimate end of 
 plant and animal life, there is from the beginning a very distinct difference 
 between them and the human race. It is true that there are likenesses, but 
 there are essential differences that have never yet been bridged over. The 
 progress of animal and human life lie along essentially different courses of 
 progress. Much has been said about Mendel's experiments on peas and 
 on mice. He has shown that in them there is a certain dominance of 
 qualities; that one parent or the other may be transmitted. Quoting from 
 Smith again: 
 
 "Professor Bateson, one of the leading exponents of the doctrine 
 of Mendel, says that there is little evidence of the transmission of 
 abnormal characteristics, and he naively says that 'if in the simple 
 matter of color our population and their descendants followed rules 
 such as those which prevail in the color of the sweet pea, of the 
 mouse, and of the cat, the essential facts of Mendelism must long 
 ago have been part of the common property of human knowledge.' 
 This shows a dawning light upon the eyes of Professor Bateson, re- 
 vealing to him that the complex human animal cannot be expounded 
 in biological terms." 
 
 Family Groups. This law of Mendel has led to the promulgation of a 
 new theory or law, which is called Eugenics. Certain families of criminals 
 and families of superior abilities have been studied to demonstrate the cor- 
 rectness of Mendel's theory. I again quote from Dr. Smith: 
 
 "The first is the study of the Jukes by R. L. Dugdale. The 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 75 
 
 family in seventy-five years numbered twelve thousand persons. They 
 cost the state a million and a quarter of dollars in these seventy-five 
 years. They are all descended from one dissolute woman, Belle Juke. 
 Those who have not taken the trouble to read the book or to study 
 the problem regard this classical case as a definite proof that crime, 
 pauperism, and other evils are clearly of an hereditary nature. But 
 one of the most significant statements of Mr. Dugdale is, 'The ten- 
 dency of heredity is to produce an environment which perpetuates 
 that heredity,' or, to put it plainly, the trouble with this family was 
 that every generation of little Jukes was taken care of by depraved 
 
 Jukes." 
 
 ************ 
 
 "Dr. Lange of Denmark had given an illustration of degeneration 
 in families. He had found that 44 related families in twenty years 
 had sent no less than 77 patients to the insane asylum. In the same 
 families 358 serious neurophatic cases had appeared in one form or 
 another in a few generations, from which he argued the evil effect 
 of the first neurophatic woman, the founder of the breed. 
 
 "Further investigations revealed some strange facts about these 
 families, for in them there appeared besides the 77 insane persons, 
 an unusual proportion of gifted men and women. There were two 
 cabinet ministers, one foreign ambassador, three bishops, three gen- 
 erals, nine university professors, and a large number of public 
 officials, and no less than forty-four poets and artists, most of whom 
 were known throughout Denmark. In twenty-eight of these families 
 there were seventy-two individuals who secured very prominent posi- 
 tions through special intellectual ability." 
 
 Some of these cases appear to support the theory, but the exceptions 
 are too numerous to speak of the Mendel theory as a law. 
 
 Transmitted Qualities. Is the study of heredity profitable? Within 
 certain limits race qualities it has some justification. Scientific men, by 
 their writings, have thrown students of the subject into interminable con- 
 fusion. It is legitimate enough to approach the subject of heredity from 
 a standpoint merely of investigation. There are about its study many curious 
 conditions of life; they invite wonderment, even study, but they are not 
 so fixed or so agreed upon that we are justified in speaking of certain 
 transmitted conditions and tendencies as a law. At an earlier period in our 
 investigations on heredity, men undertook to explain the moral and social 
 life of nations by the law of heredity. They considered the law sufficiently 
 established to make it a satisfactory explanation of individual phenomena. 
 The view here taken by Dr. Smith is now quite generally admitted: 
 
 "It used to be taught that a number of diseases were transmitted 
 from generation to generation. It is now generally agreed that there 
 is no such thing as hereditary disease in any true sense. * * * 
 It is now agreed that certain diseases may be conveyed to the child 
 in its prenatal condition, or at the time of birth, and that is the only 
 fragment left of the doctrine of hereditary disease. On the other 
 hand, it is a well-known fact that tuberculosis in the parents, because 
 of its weakening effect, results frequently in an offspring that may 
 become feeble-minded or insane. This is a further illustration of 
 the general law that the chief bequest to the child of parenthood is 
 strength or weakness. 
 
 "As disease is not hereditary, so physical mutilations are not 
 transmitted. The Chinese foot needs to be compressed generation 
 after generation." 
 
 It is doubtful whether all that is known about laws of heredity can have 
 any particular educational value, more than that of curiosity which comes 
 from the study of related qualities in human life. 
 
 There are two very distinct powers that come with the birth of human 
 
76 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 life: they are the powers of acquisition and the powers of desire. We have 
 laid stress upon the importance of the former to the neglect of the latter. 
 We have been forced, through a false system of education, into the belief 
 and practice that happiness and future welfare are to be measured by our 
 acquisitions. What would often be more helpful to us is the education of 
 our necessities, what it is proper to desire and what we ought to avoid. 
 
 Operations of the Spirit of God. Of those who fear God the Lord in a 
 vision to Joseph Smith said: "For by my Spirit I will enlighten them, and 
 by my power I will make known unto them the secrets of my will; yea, 
 even those things which the eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor yet en- 
 tered into the heart of man" (Sec. 76:10, Doc. and Cov.). 
 
 The dangers of attempting to fix rules for our guidance by the theory 
 of heredity lies in the fact that as a matter of philosophy it can give us 
 nothing tangible about the operations of the Spirit of God. We may even 
 be born of the Spirit. In the nature of things much of our speculations 
 leave no room for the permanent influences which the Spirit of God has 
 on our lives. 
 
 XXX Eugenics 
 
 Experiments. We are just now forming eugenic clubs throughout the 
 country with the wise and beneficent purpose of elevating society and 
 establishing correct principles of parentage. In some places the advocacy 
 of eugenics is most enthusiastic and it is spoken of as the new and coming 
 science. Most extreme advantages are predicted for it and by many it is 
 regarded as a sort of salvation for many afflictions which torment human 
 society at the present time. It is sometimes known as Mendelism from 
 the fact that Mendel made certain experiments with sweet peas, with mice, 
 and with cats. He traced out certain laws of breeding which were repre- 
 sented by diagrams and from these discoveries of animal relationships the 
 question was propounded for human society and at once the question arose, 
 if the mating in the vegetable and animal world may produce such exact 
 results, why may it not have the same effect upon human beings? 
 
 Men and Mice. It may be easy in the same breath to speak of men and 
 mice, and the question would be much more simple perhaps if the laws 
 regulating mice were also applicable to men; but unfortunately they are 
 not, and whatever may be the difference in the physical development of the 
 two it is certain that the inborn differences between men and animals does 
 not permit us to bring both classes under the same laws of regeneration. 
 It should be stated at the outset that the fundamental difference in matters 
 of progeny between man and animal is to be found in the exercise of a 
 free agency, an important human law. This law does not prevail with 
 respect to animals and plants. They are still under a defined tutelage and 
 governed by laws that are universal, simple, direct. 
 
 It is said that we may proceed to the improvement in the breeding of 
 human beings as we do in the breeding of animals. We have developed in 
 the science of animal industry superior breeds which through Government 
 control we may register and call pure breeds. We have our pure bred 
 horses, hogs, sheep, chickens. Shall we have a pure bred man? The trouble 
 is we are not permitted to exercise any control over man in the matter of 
 mating. True, in certain governments of Europe there is a law of Royalty 
 which compels those of royal blood to marry within certain families. Of 
 that, however, later. 
 
 The free agency of man is nowhere considered more sacred than in 
 the matter of the selection of companionship. He is a being of multiplied 
 motives. He is governed by social surroundings, by ambition, by a variety 
 of characteristics, and these are governing features with him. He is moved 
 by the influence of beauty, wealth, social advantages, parental influences, 
 sometimes by the superior persuasive powers of the woman who would 
 exercise control over him. If we are to have a science out of eugenics that 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 77 
 
 is anything more than good advice, there must be some abridgment of the 
 free agency of man. 
 
 Religion Fundamental. One of the perhaps insurmountable troubles in 
 the way of extreme advocates of eugenics is the fact that religion, and not 
 intelligence and wealth, is fundamental in human life, and the basis of a 
 sound and lasting social life. As men grow in social advantages, in wealth 
 and intelligence, they are beset by increasing temptations, temptations that 
 lead them to such excesses as undermine their physical powers, and when 
 these give way the whole superstructure of economic and intellectual life 
 gives way. Thus we see nations rising and falling. We see social life in 
 its exalted and deepest conditions. If history is pronounced in one thing it 
 is the swing of the pendulum between the extremes of morality and im- 
 morality. 
 
 Spirituality, or if you please, real goodness, is not so self advertising 
 as intelligence or material wealth. By its very nature it is modest and 
 retiring. It is a quality that may be operated through many generations for 
 the uplift of human society. Those who advocate eugenics find it extremely 
 difficult to go back to those modest beginnings in order to find the proper 
 starting point. Indeed, how can they know? The heart of man belongs 
 to the revelations of God. The Lord said to Samuel, who was seeking 
 among the sons of Jesse for a king, that he did not look upon men with 
 the eyes of man. He knew their hearts. But how can finite beings know 
 these hidden conditions? 
 
 The uplift of the human race through proper mating must grow there- 
 fore from obscure, often hidden beginnings, through generations to a sound 
 and substantial life. Such changes are too microscopic for the men of 
 science. They cover too long a period for man's patient work. Indeed, 
 all of the investigators of eugenics show that they are concerned with two 
 extremes, the extremely intelligent and those who are extremely criminal; 
 and their investigations, even in these two classes, as I have shown else- 
 where, are not satisfactory. 
 
 Movements are now afoot to begin the investigation of the development 
 of genius in certain families. Investigators go back a few generations. They 
 cannot go far. They are tabulating their data and trying to demonstrate 
 to us as far as possible the infallibility of their doctrine. What families 
 are these? They are families often of genius, which science has proved 
 is not hereditary. Some are men of wealth, who are merely a part of a 
 new made rich. The advocates of this doctrine are extremely enthusiastic. 
 Their motives are all right, but extremists always carry with them the 
 danger of excess, and their conclusions should be received with many 
 reservations. If the extreme advocates of this science are permitted to 
 exercise a very general and a very strong influence over our social and 
 political life, they may endanger society as well as government. 
 
 Laws for the Unfit. The tide of eugenic science ran high in 1913. In 
 that year, North Dakota, Kansas, Wisconsin and Michigan, passed 
 c rtain eugenic laws for the sterilization of the unfit. The unfit in the 
 beginning was to include the insane and the habitual criminal, especially 
 the rapist. It is undesirable, of course, that they perpetuate their class, 
 but will the advocates of eugenics stop there? What they want to do is to 
 eliminate those who are unfit; but who are unfit? It is a serious question, 
 so serious that Oregon repealed her eugenic law on referendum. The 
 pioneers of legislation in this law were the states of Washington, Iowa, 
 Nevada and New York. Such advocates assume too much. They assume 
 that there is a distinct and well-defined science or law of heredity, a 
 science that has so many exceptions that great writers have come to re- 
 pudiate it as a fixed science whose investigations have no practical value. 
 
 Ambitions of Women. The women of our state are perhaps the most 
 enthusiastic advocates of eugenics. They are ambitious in parentage. With 
 them child life has a closer and deeper meaning than it has with men. They 
 insist often that it is their right to choose the future fathers of their chil- 
 
78 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 dren, but how? -What sort of regulation could be devised that would 
 permit any important class to make such selections? Of course, they would 
 be ambitious, but the comparatively few properly fit to meet that ambition 
 would practically exclude the masses. There is, as some writers point out, 
 a greater uniformity in high quality female life than there is among the 
 males. In the animal industry world, males for breeding purposes are se- 
 lected with great care and with such numerous limitations as to produce 
 only a few that are physically fit. France, in the matter of horses, has car- 
 ried this selection to a very high degree. In the female animal world the 
 rejections are much fewer, showing that in that class there is a distinct and 
 superior uniformity. How about the human world? In matters of mating 
 the high grade of uniformity shows a higher percentage of the females than 
 exists in the animal world. In other words the number of women fit for 
 superior womanhood is vastly in excess of the number of men. We need 
 not consider the reasons assigned from a physical point of view for this 
 superior and general uniformity. The proofs of the difference are apparent 
 to all among the most striking illustrations of social life. One of the 
 greatest causes for this difference lies perhaps in the so-called double 
 standards, standards which separate the physical, spiritual, and ultimtaely 
 intellectual lives of the two classes. The difference is vital. The condi- 
 tions that make for the double standard are ultimately destructive to the 
 aims that the advocates of eugenics have in view. 
 
 In addition, we should have ultimately pronounced class distinctions. 
 There would soon be the super-man and the super-woman, the high class 
 or the high-brow, and intellectuals of all sorts of classical distinctions, 
 which would bring in their train social disorder. We have had some strik- 
 ing illustrations. Royalty throughout Europe has asserted its claim to 
 superiority. Princes and princesses are brought up to be kings, queens, 
 empresses and other sorts of royalty. They have had the advantages of 
 wealth, of opportunity, of training. Has the Royal class made good? Is 
 the genius of the world inherited from among them? Are they the actual 
 rulers, and what generally do we think of the royal personages of Europe 
 in these trying and distressing hours? Some investigation of that class has 
 been made and in conclusion I quote from the writings of Fahlbeck, who 
 has what is considered an authoritative work upon Swedish nobility. Of 
 that class he says: 
 
 "It has been shown how caste marriages prevailing among them 
 produce a progressive degeneration, which manifests itself by frequent 
 celibacy, much delayed marriage of the male sex, the large and in- 
 creasing portion of sterile marriages, the small and decreasing fecund- 
 ity (now 15.4 per cent) always less than the death rate, the increasing 
 number of female births, the increasing mortality of youths under 20 
 years of age, the deaths of the children before that of the parents, 
 which gradually tends to cause the extinction of the stock. As a con- 
 sequence of that, 70 per cent of the original noble families are now 
 extinct, and notwithstanding the continual ennobling of bourgeois fam- 
 ilies, the number of noble families does not increase or very often de- 
 clines." 
 
 And Fahlbeck takes care to add that all this applies precisely to the 
 whole wealthy class, of which the nobility is only a fragment. 
 
 XXXI Back to the Land 
 
 Present Conditions. In another chapter I have called attention to the 
 excessive and dangerous growth of the so-called middle-class, or non- 
 producers. Conditions have favored their occupations, and financial pros- 
 perity has perhaps attended them more generously than it has the farmer. 
 The war. however, is bringing about a very realistic change: governments 
 that provide for the armies have been liberal buyers. They have fed the 
 soldiers better on the battlefields than the same men have been cared for in 
 times of peace. Such excessive Government demands naturally make 
 prices high. It should then be observed that a very large proportion of 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 79 
 
 every army is taken from the producing classes, especially from the farms, 
 where the vigor of manhood is perhaps more abundantly found. A large 
 army of farm men will lose their lives in battle or become cripples, and 
 thereby unfitted for farm life. It goes, therefore, without saying, that the 
 number of men qualified to conduct operations upon the farm will be 
 enormously decreased. In the civilized countries of the world there is no 
 place for the "mujik" or the "fellahin." Farm work has made rapid strides 
 in the direction of scientific practice and theory. 
 
 As a nation grows in years, it settles down to an inherited classification; 
 as with father, so with son. It will not be easy to tear men up from the 
 roots of their social and business inheritance and experiences and transform 
 them into a new and different life. It will require great suffering to bring 
 about such an exchange on any extensive scale. Such conditions mean the 
 continued burden of higher cost in living. 
 
 Want of Preparation. Our agricultural schools will not alleviate very 
 greatly such an unfortunate condition. They are based too extensively on 
 the rest of our school practice. We seem to forget that the most serious 
 thing about education is the habit which our modern school system fastens 
 upon our child life, the book habit. Our children learn to hear things, 
 and they learn to tell things, but only in rare cases do they acquire the 
 actual habit of doing things. If we acquire the wrong habit of life, what 
 we learn has little practical value, because the habits we have acquired 
 prevent us from putting our knowledge into practice. I have often heard 
 mothers say that though their daughters do not cook and do much house- 
 work, they know how to do it. They can make the best of bread, and in 
 fact do well any kind of housework. But there is after all a wide differ- 
 ence between acquiring the ability to do a thing and the habit of doing it. 
 Ability may be acquired in a very short time, whereas it takes years to 
 acquire a habit. It is not, therefore, so much a question of what this girl 
 can do, but her willingness, her contentment, her happiness, in other words, 
 her habit of doing it. 
 
 Value of Farm Life. The habits of our lives are more and more away 
 from the farm. Farmers send their children to school, and likewise change 
 the habits of their lives, so that the farm is now in a process of race suicide. 
 We may as well face an unpleasant truth, and confess a belief that the 
 occupation of the middle-man is really more respectable, and therefore 
 more desirable than work on the farm. The influence of dress is beyond 
 computation. The world of fashion lays its load even jipon the farm boy, 
 and persuades him to be a devotee of worldly fashion. Again, work on the 
 farm is more strenuous: it has its out-of-door life, its storms, blizzards, 
 cold, heat, and other things that make life often quite uncomfortable. In 
 contrast with these unpleasant conditions, young people usually manifest 
 preference for employment that takes them away from this important source 
 of production. 
 
 Are we really destroying farm life? If so, we are adding by so much 
 to the burdens which we now feel from the high cost of living. It is a 
 fallacy to suppose that in the civilized world there will be enough people in 
 the so-called lower strata of industrial life to do all the work needed on the 
 farm. The truth is that education is becoming universal. The same ideals 
 and aspirations are reaching the boys on the farm that affect the boys in 
 the so-called more refined occupations of city life. What does it mean? 
 The last ten years has taught us something of its meaning. The next ten years 
 will teach us vastly more. "O, well," it will be answered, "men will come to 
 the farm when there is more money in it." Such a statement is made in 
 blind ignorance of facts. In the first place, men will have to be trained 
 for the farms as they are for other occupations. If, through their habits 
 of life, the farm is uncongenial to them, they will work only half-heartedly. 
 
 Farm Education. What we need is a saner belief among people gen- 
 erally of what the farm stands for. Our vocational life today is guided in 
 
80 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 the vast majority of cases by financial considerations. It is not an uncom- 
 mon thing to see men leave the bent of their minds, turn from the gifts 
 with which God has liberally endowed them, to engage often in some un- 
 congenial pursuit, because "there's money in it." Can a world made up 
 almost wholly of Mammon endure? 
 
 By the sweat of his brow man was required to live; that was the in- 
 junction to Adam in the Garden of Eden. Those who evade it pay the 
 penalty, generally in physical deterioration. "How can you stand it?" said 
 an on-looker to a man drudging at his work in the dirt and mud. "I can 
 stand it," he replied, "because I am remunerated in the fullest degree by the 
 enjoyment of my food and sleep." Of course there is overwork: every 
 virtue offers some opportunity for abuse. We are learning through this war 
 something of the value of a vigorous manhood as an asset to national wealth 
 and events. Men and women who maintain proper physical valuations in 
 their lives, perform an important duty to themselves, but they perform one 
 equally great to their children, and their children's children after them. 
 "We owe our children an education." That is true, but there is a priority 
 lien upon their right to enjoy health and vigorous bodies, which nothing 
 promotes more than farm life. 
 
 Morals of the Farm. Our farm life has also great moral value. It af- 
 fords less time for idleness, with its attendant evils. There is more remove 
 from social evils. It brings men into intimate contact with the inexorable 
 laws of Nature, which he learns to respect more upon the farm than per- 
 haps anywhere else in the world. There he enjoys more than elsewhere the 
 double opportunity of self-examination and communion with his conscience 
 and the punishments which Nature inflicts, not only upon those who violate 
 her laws, but upon those who neglect them. "Back to the land" has also its 
 intellectual value, because physical and intellectual manhood and woman- 
 hood are kindred. Then we have come to study the whys and the where- 
 fores, and the processes of Nature. The farm offers abundant opportunities 
 for meditations, analogies, and those studious wonderments that help men 
 and women on to investigate and know the deeper truths of life. In city 
 life, in business life, men ponder too little, meditation is thrown to the 
 winds. Man's place in the universe, and his relationship to God take but 
 slight hold upon his life. There is a vast difference between making two 
 blades of grass grow where one grew before and making $2.00 where only 
 $1.00 was won before. The former process requires time, industry, patience, 
 hope, and faith. You cannot cheat Mother Nature. If you do, you will 
 raise a sickly spear of grass or none at all. Nature has her inexorable laws. 
 She demands an honorable compensation. Not so in business life: it is 
 much easier to cheat men than it is to swindle nature. The Latter-dav Saints, 
 under a guiding Providence, have been driven into industrial and farm life 
 in all their great movements from their homes in the East to the unredeemed 
 lands of the West. Agriculture was their first problem on entering the val- 
 leys of the mountains. They encourage it; they know its virtues and its 
 values. It would be strange indeed if the present movement awav from 
 the land did not touch them in vital parts; but fundamentally, they love to 
 till the soil, from a sense of duty as well as from a wish for gain. Many 
 will remember the ridicule that was piled upon them in days gone by be- 
 cause they talked water ditches and the best methods of farming, from the 
 pulpit. They knew their God-appointed task, and went about it in their 
 appointed ay. 
 
 The cry has gone, as a voice out of the wilderness, "Back to the Land." 
 But will the cry be more a wail of distress than a heartfelt desire to relieve 
 the burden of the world by lending a helping hand to that industry that 
 offers grave dangers by the neglect of it to the social and industrial happi- 
 ness of the world. 
 
 Revelation. "And, as I, the Lord, in the beginning cursed the land, 
 so in the last days have I blessed it, in its time, for the use of my Saints, 
 that they may partake the fatness thereof (Doc. and Cov. 61:17). 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 81 
 
 XXXII.Back to the Land (Continued) 
 
 Increase in Production. A great increase in production may be 
 achieved by the tillage of waste lands in different parts of the less civilized 
 countries, such as Russia and Turkey. But it is doubtful if these countries 
 will prove very attractive to a farming element that has grown up in the 
 enjoyment of higher civilization. 
 
 Great increase in production may also be brought about by the more 
 intensive cultivation of the soil. Agricultural writers point out, therefore, 
 the great future possibilities and the great inducements that may be counted 
 on to take men from the distributive and speculative centers of our com- 
 mercial life back to farming. There are, however, some very distinct ob- 
 stacles in the way of a return to the land. There are two sources by 
 which it may be obtained: first, through our system of Government gifts 
 by means of homesteads and pre-emptions. Lands are rising in value. 
 The war and even pre-war conditions have shown the great financial oppor- 
 tunities of farm life. Those who have struggled through many years of 
 want, and scarcity will appreciate and enjoy the rising values of farm 
 produce. They will cling more tenaciously to their lands, and lands will 
 not in time be so easily acquired. 
 
 Equipment. The equipment of a modern farm is not by any means 
 what it was twenty years ago. Whether a man uses horses or engines of 
 modern make, the equipment becomes extremely expensive. Farm machinery 
 is soaring in value, and the cost of equipping a modern farm runs into the 
 thousands. Then men must wait for returns sometimes one, two, or even 
 three years. 
 
 Live Stock. Live stock is becoming scarcer and more expensive; it is 
 estimated that since the war began there has been a decrease of the live 
 stock in Europe of something over 115,000,000 head, and this loss consists, 
 for the most part, in breeding stock. If these countries regain their past na- 
 tional prosperity in agriculture and livestock, the governments must come 
 to the assistance of the farmers. That will, of course, mean increased tax- 
 ation and the threatened break-up of social life that is sure to follow any 
 breakdowns among the governments of Europe. In this country it will be 
 more difficult for the government to finance individual farms. 
 
 After War Conditions. Some very important changes are taking place 
 during the present war that must have far-reaching consequences when peace 
 comes: those who have any familiarity with living conditions among the mil- 
 lions of toilers in Europe can readily underrtand how greatly their diet has 
 been improved by the governments which drafted them into war. It is esti- 
 mated by some that the soldier is eating at least five times as much meat as 
 he ate in private life. Some figure that the increase has been ten-fold. As 
 the war lasts into years, the meat-eating habit will grow upon the soldier; 
 his improved diet he will not easily surrender when peace comes, and it 
 must depend on his wage-earning capacity. He has learned during this war 
 that the government may do many things to ameliorate the stringent condi- 
 tions of peace life. With meat growing scarcer and the meat-eating habit 
 increasing, it is not difficult to foresee grave dangers to financial and social 
 order with the return of peace. 
 
 Live Stock. As a restriction upon any rapid increase in agriculture, 
 we are confronted by the fact that our horsepower has also decreased rap- 
 idly since the war began. Tractors, it is true, may take the place of this 
 old friend of the farm, but that means also an enormous increase in gasoline, 
 which is likely to be almost entirely consumed by trucks and pleasure autos. 
 The department of Washington has given out statistics upon our decrease 
 in horsepower throughout the United States. I quote as follows from the 
 New York Herald, Sunday, September 14, 1917: 
 
82 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 "Figures recently published bv the Department of Commerce at 
 Washington show that exports of horses in the last fiscal year aggre- 
 gated 278,674, as compared with 357,553 in 1916, and 289,340 in 1915. 
 Exports of mules during the same period were 65,788 in 1915, 111,915 
 In 1916, and 136,689 in 1917. Here is a total of 928,567 horses and 
 314,392 mules sent abroad in the three years ending last June, or a 
 total of 1,239,959 horses and mules. 
 
 "The period covered by the official figures goes back to 'the day' 
 of Germany's amazing attempt to repeat Bismarck's successful coup 
 de main of 1870, with the world instead of France alone as the ob- 
 jective. These revised government statistic^ thus fairly represent all 
 horses and mules sent to the war zone up to last July, since which 
 time the shipments are understood to have been comparatively light. 
 
 "The value of American war horses exported now exceeds a quar- 
 ter of a billion dollars. The government estimate is $197,103,009 for 
 horses and $63,497,309 for mules, making a total of $260,590,318. This 
 is an average of about $212 for horses and $201 for mules." 
 
 There is now also a very pronounced movement in favor of eating 
 horse-flesh. The use of horses for food in European countries has become 
 quite general. It enters particularly strongly in the production of a great 
 variety of sausages, and millions of pounds of horses are every year con- 
 sumed in European countries. In the United States there are probably five 
 million men who, during their lives in various nations of Europe, have ac- 
 quired the habit of eating horse-flesh. They declare that such meat has not 
 only a pleasing taste, but that it is also wholesome and is indeed preferred 
 by some even to beef or pork. These European immigrants would fre- 
 quently return to the diet of horse meat to which they were accustomed in 
 their native lands. Their wives and children will also eat it, and there is 
 going on today in the United States an agitation for the repeal of those 
 laws which exclude horse flesh as an article of food. 
 
 Land Values and Mortgages. I give below some figures showing the 
 enormous liabilities which farmers through the United States have incurred 
 by means of loans. In many instances they represent purchases and im- 
 provements, but no doubt in a large number of cases loans represent the 
 pressing needs of the farmers for running expenses, together with some 
 extravagances, of which they are no doubt guilty. The margin on an aver- 
 age between expenses and profits has not been very great. The success, how- 
 ever, of the farmers in elevating past conditions show that the industry of 
 agriculture is becoming more profitable. I quote from The Outlook of 
 September 26, 1917: 
 
 Value of American farms, $40,000,000,000. 
 
 Value of annual farm output in food and other raw materials, 
 $10,000,000,000. 
 
 Public investment in long-time loans (mortgages) on the $40,- 
 000,000,000 worth of farm property, $3,500,000,000. 
 
 Seasonal short-time credit granted by banks to farmers on the 
 security of the $10,000,000,000 harvest, $2,000,000,000. 
 
 Total agricultural credit, $5,500,000,000. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 Two hundred and twenty life insurance companies own $700,- 
 000,000 farm mortgages. 
 
 Eighteen thousand banks (State banks, trust companies and sav- 
 ings banks) own $750,000,000. 
 
 Private investors, estates, trustees, colleges, and other institutions, 
 both American and foreign, have $2,000,000,000 invested in these loans 
 on farm lands. Of this $2,000,000,000 about $500,000,000 has been sold 
 through the medium of the banks, while the remaining $1,500,000,000 
 has been arranged either through the agency of farm mortgage banking 
 houses or directly between lender and borrower. 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 83 
 
 Investment houses that have been in business for half a century, 
 lending money to farmers on the security of land under cultivation, 
 report that they have never lost a dollar of principal or interest for 
 any customer. 
 
 The insurance company having the largest investment in farm 
 mortgages ($100,000,000) states that it has never been able to discover 
 a more desirable channel in which to invest its funds. 
 
 Universities and other institutions that for many years have been 
 placing all or part of their endowment funds in farm mortgages report 
 that they have suffered no losses, and know of no safer way to obtain 
 their income. 
 
 The banks of one of the smaller Eastern states, that have invested 
 nearly fifty millions of their depositors' funds in Western mortgages, 
 have made but one loss in thousands of transactions extending over 
 many years. 
 
 A number of Canadian companies in business for forty years have 
 never failed to pay interest and principal to their clients. No Cana- 
 dian mortgage company has ever defaulted on a payment due to a 
 farm mortgage investor. 
 
 The best test of the soundness of farm mortgages as investments 
 is that hundreds of millions of dollars of them are held by our most 
 conservative institutions savings banks, trust companies, and life in- 
 surance companies. 
 
 ***** 
 
 The period of wildcat and careless farm mortgage flotation has 
 the same relation to the farm mortgage business today that the earlier 
 period of wildcat state banking has to present-day banking. Those 
 days are long since gone. There is no more possibility of the farm 
 mortgage business being undermined by unsound management than 
 there is of our banking system falling to pieces. Since the collapse 
 of those inflated companies a quarter of a century ago, no field of 
 investment in America has had so clean a record. But even through 
 the days of the farm mortgage company craze there were the houses 
 that continued to do business on conservative lines and are doing 
 business today with the enviable record of never having lost a dollar 
 for an investor. In what other field of investment could such a record 
 be found? 
 
 XXXIII. Fast Offerings 
 
 Law of Sacrifice. The law of sacrifice is one of the most universal of 
 God's laws. When ancient Israel put upon the altar the firstlings and the 
 best of their flocks and herds and saw the flesh consumed in smoke, they 
 would not be human if they did not feel some taint of selfishness and a 
 disposition to keep the best for their own use. In the days of their devotion 
 to God they were strictly honest in this divine requirement. In the days of 
 their transgressions, sacrifices were performed in a perfunctorv manner and 
 without any scrupulous efforts to perform exactly the requirements of God. 
 
 Emerson, in his "Law of Compensation," undertakes to show how well 
 balanced our gains and losses, our prosperity and reverses, our benefits and 
 adversities are. What a man gains in money he may lose in health. What 
 he gains in the financial world he may lose in self-respect. What he gains 
 in intrigue he may lose in friendship. All in all, among the inhabitants of 
 the earth, the unequal gaining qualities are not so great as might be sup- 
 posed. 
 
 Fasting. God requires of his people, for example, the observance of a 
 fast day once a month. For each person in the home a certain amount is 
 required as a fast offering, and when this law is properly observed it netB 
 a very considerable income for the support of the poor. True, people get 
 hungry, but it is in that state of physical want that their humility and sym- 
 
84 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 pathies are reached. It is in that state of physical want that they are com- 
 pelled to stop and think of those who are in actual need of food. 
 
 The satisfied man is not always a very grateful man. Neither is he a 
 sympathetic or generous hearted man. It would be calamitous to the human 
 family if people experienced only the feelings of satisfaction. In this active, 
 feverish age, men are asked to stop and think, weigh and consider. Once 
 a month fast day gives them a most excellent opportunity. 
 
 Prayer. God, in his requirements, as set forth in the Doctrine and Cov- 
 enants, has prescribed that along with fasting there should be observed the 
 practice of prayer. The two are naturally associated. Men may, when in a 
 state of hunger, think of their hunger, but they do not give themselves up 
 to the sins of self-satisfaction. Their physical condition reminds them that 
 whatever the obligations of life may be, there is a duty toward the poor 
 and toward God. 
 
 The Lord, in establishing the principle of fast offering, says that the 
 Saints should fast that their joy may be full. It is the fulfilment of a duty 
 in a quest for joy. The reaction from a day of fasting is one of apprecia- 
 tion and gratitude, and a sense of appreciation carries with it a very large 
 measure of joy. Men and women, therefore, are blessed in their lives and 
 their spirits and their contentment when they fulfil a duty from which they 
 may, if they will, receive some special blessing. 
 
 One of the troubles that people in this world suffer from is the dispo- 
 sition to be forgetful. They do not think of the poor, and when they do 
 not think of people much they care little for them. Then the rich oppress 
 the poor. Such would hardly be the case were they fasting and praying 
 for those who need their offering. Christ said, "The poor ye have with 
 you always." They are a part of every community, of every state, of every 
 nation. The manner of seeking alms for their support is very often annoy- 
 ing, nor is it always generously given. 
 
 Compensations. There are two compensations to fasting. One is its 
 bodily advantages; as a health-promoting practice, too much cannot be said 
 of it. On the other hand, it supplies an abundant need for those who are 
 poor. Let us say that in the United States there are a hundred million 
 people, that the fast offerings once a month average only 10 cents per 
 person throughout the whole country. That would mean $10,000,000 a month 
 or $120,000,000 a year. That is an enormous sum and would go far towards 
 alleviating the sufferings of those who were too poor to meet the needs of 
 their daily lives. 
 
 "Tie organization of the Church is such that when the fast offerings 
 in one ward or district are not all required by the members of that ward 
 they may be transferred directly to the Presiding Bishop of the Church, who 
 distributes them to those wards which need them more and have more poor 
 people in their midst. The General Bishop of the Church has an office 
 which might be properly called a clearing house for fast day contributions, 
 to the poor. 
 
 What Fast Offering Would Mean to United States. If the contribu- 
 tions were 15 cents a month per capita, they would mean $15,000,000 a 
 month, or $180,000,000 a year. It is a vast amount, but it would be both 
 given and saved, and no hardship whatever would be felt. 
 
 On fast day the meeting is given over to the audiences to bear testi- 
 monies, give expression to their gratitude and thankfulness to God for the 
 favors they enjoy. A spirit of dependence prevails. The congregation feel 
 the necessity of one another's love and support. The hunger which they 
 experience teaches them that God is the giver of life, that after all, to him 
 we owe our "daily bread." 
 
 Poverty General. There are those whom the Doctrine and Covenants 
 classes "unworthy poor" those who through idleness, delay and neglect are 
 themselves responsible for the unfortunate financial circumstances in which 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 85 
 
 they find themselves. There are millions of the human family with inferior 
 earning capacity, and it is not a very easy matter to determine who are the 
 deserving and who are the undeserving; but poverty is a condition that 
 should be ameliorated as far as possible by those who are in a position 
 to do so. It would be better to give some to the unworthy than to neglect 
 in fine discriminations those who are deserving. It should here be stated, 
 however, that poverty is not necessarily an evil. It exists the world over, 
 and some cases are due no doubt to unfavorable circumstances and condi- 
 tions over which people have no control. In a last analysis something may 
 be said in favor of the disiciplinary value of those who are not possessed 
 with much of this world's goods. When men and women border on want 
 they naturally feel a dependence that otherwise they do not experience. Pov- 
 erty may then be said, in some instances, to be a positive blessing, since it 
 prevents men and women from the indulgences of those evils which money 
 too frequently encourages. It is said that among 2,500,000 rejects for the 
 army in the recent drafts a large majority of them came from the families of 
 the rich and well-to-do. They have been running their race rapidly and 
 are unfitted therefore for military service. A recent suggestion has come 
 from the physicians of the country that notwithstanding their physical de- 
 ficiencies, they be drafted and taken into the training camps in order that 
 their manhood and physical ad\ancement may be greatly helped. This, 
 however, would bring upon our country a large expense for many that are 
 not needed and for the undeserving. 
 
 In the early periods of the Church men were required to consecrate the 
 property which they did not really need. This law of consecration brought 
 the people into a living condition of common brotherhood. 
 
 Frugality, superior intelligence, and industry, would soon, however, 
 create differences. The law respecting the poor was given by revelation to 
 the Prophet Joseph Smith. 
 
 Revelation. And thus, with the sword, and by bloodshed, the inhab- 
 itants of the earth shall mourn; and with famine, and plague, and earth- 
 quakes, and the thunder of heaven, and the fierce and vivid lightning also, 
 shall the inhabitants of the earth be made to feel the wrath, and indigna- 
 tion and chastening hand of an Almighty God, until the consumption de- 
 creed, hath made a full end of all nations" (Doc. and Cov. 87:6; 1:11-15). 
 
 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. We all 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 today the most powerful agent 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 
 
86 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 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 
 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 now deal 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?" 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 87 
 
 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 
 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, proximity; the 
 
88 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 % 
 
 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 their 
 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 
 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 somebody has touched 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 polities 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 Saints. He would have solved the question by the purchase of the 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 89 
 
 negro's freedom. Such, however, was not permitted to be (See Era, Dec., 
 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 
 that had grown out of political conditions in view of the division between 
 the North and the South. It was one of those forces that had passed human 
 adjustment by any visible means, and it led to a most fearful war, whose 
 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 nnfortn- 
 
90 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 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 
 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 today, 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 lagts only so long as he is in the hands of the white man who in- 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 91 
 
 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 
 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. 
 
92 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 "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." 
 
 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 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 93 
 
 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). 
 
 XXXVI Manhood 
 
 Immorality.- There is today no more crying evil than the violation of 
 physical manhood. For years the women of the United States have been 
 waging war against the double standard, a standard that permits certain 
 vices in men that are not to be tolerated in women. The present custom 
 among men to postpone marriage till late in life is fraught with dangers 
 and evil practices. As soon as the custom manifested itself there was a 
 growing suspicion that underneath there lurked a life of immorality. The 
 matter was not long left to suspicion. Certain infectious diseases were 
 found to be multiplying at a rapid rate. They were sapping the manhood 
 of the country and ruining the lives of countless women and children. The 
 secrecy of the evil was such that men were free from public condemna- 
 tion, and thus its spread became of such common disaster that a protest 
 was raised. The absence of children in the home was laid at the door of 
 the wife, and she was not infrequently accused of wilful barrenness, both 
 from the rostrum and in public print. This permitted the spread of a sin- 
 ful life by shifting wrongfully the burden of race suicide upon the woman. 
 That in time became unthinkable, as the nature of most women craves 
 motherhood. Gradually it was discovered that this rancorous disease of 
 manhood was making serious inroads into social life. Its effects became too 
 plainly visible to ignore. The women denied indignantly that the absence 
 of children in the home was due to them. Responsibility for it was due 
 generally to the fact that manhood had lost its most vital function, and where 
 it survived it was frequently attended by a variety of diseases, both in women 
 and in their children. The inheritance of sexual diseases became too plain 
 and widespread to ignore. It 'was a most vital question to the welfare of 
 society and the perpetuity of the race. It became so pronounced that a 
 campaign headed by thoughtful men and women was inaugurated. It was a 
 peril, they de> lared, to our national life. Diseases of 'various kinds were 
 directly traced to the violation of the law of chastity. 
 
 There are among others, three fundamental rights of all human beings: 
 the right to be well born, to produce their kind, and to die in the fulfilment 
 of life's mission. To die on the battlefield is a patriotic duty; often death 
 is the result of national transgressions. A man may well fulfil life's mission 
 by the sacrifice of his life to maintain the liberty of his country and pos- 
 terity. We may well conclude that death under such circumstances is not 
 a loss, not a calamity to him who suffers it. But death by diseases that are 
 traceable to sin is no part of the mission of man. It is a visitation often 
 of the sins of the parents upon the children to the third and fourth gen- 
 eration. To the guilty one there is attached a penalty that inflicts pain 
 and brings premature death. The most serious results come from the visita- 
 tion of a loathsome disease upon those who have a right to be well born. 
 It is not infrequently stated that the curtailment of birth is frequently due 
 to those who know what the dangers of bearing children would mean to 
 their offspring. Is that excusable? There is not much difference between 
 the wrong and the remedy. By preventing birth the world is inviting death. 
 It is executing its own judgment. But there seems to be no hesitation in 
 cutting short the human race. The same practices are still going on. The 
 
94 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 stoppage of life and the destruction of life go hand in hand. Indeed, the 
 former is justified by the existence of the latter. "No more fodder for 
 cannon" is the persistent cry. 
 
 Revelations of War. What, then, is the condition of the soldiers at 
 war? Statements come that the ravages of venerial disease at the front are 
 worse than the ravages of war. Some have gone so far as to declare that 
 there would be no more French race that herafter it would be mongrel. 
 The condition of our soldiers along the Mexican frontier has been likewise 
 dwelt upon by the profoundest regrets. I prefer to quote from Miss Jean- 
 ette Rankin, our congresswoman from Montana, who in the Chicago Sunday- 
 Herald of September 15, 1917, writes: 
 
 "Although deep interest has been shown in the problem of keep- 
 ing the soldiers in the new military cantonments free from the evils 
 of vice which so deplorably menaced the troops on the Mexican bor- 
 der last year, it is safe to say that the majority of the protests and 
 petitions for clean camps which have been expressed by women 
 throughout the country since war was declared have been based purely 
 on grounds of personal morality and health. The fact that young men 
 might be exposed to conditions that are physically and morally degen- 
 erating presented a problem of personal jeopardy to the young men 
 involved. 
 
 "These protests are meritorious in a high degree. But there is an- 
 other aspect of the problem, no more practical in its isgnificance, but 
 of more impersonal and more timely concern at this time than the 
 purely moral aspect of the problem. I refer to vice and its attend- 
 ant evils (moral and physical incapacity of victims) upon the fighting 
 strength of the army. 
 
 "It was said in the early spring that 750,000 soldiers in the allies' 
 armies have been incapacitated by a loathsome disease. Later reports 
 have put the number of inscapacitated at 900,000. It is said that 
 even the earth in the trenches is now impregnated with the dread 
 germ, and its ravages are continuing to affect significantly the strength 
 of the army." 
 
 The statement above given is in harmony with those coming from other 
 sources. Practically an army of a million men incapacitated! What of 
 those in the incipient and milder stages? War begets just such conditions. 
 The writer has heard soldiers of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 say that 
 immorality which war permits was a great incentive of many soldiers to 
 fight. They said that tacit understanding with officers gave encouragement 
 to immoral excesses. Some said that in the army they were almost uni- 
 versal. The suffering of the people of Belgium and northeastern France can 
 never be known in this life and in the hereafter only by an offended God. 
 The writer is pleading against the incapacity of the soldiers to fight. The 
 startling thing about it will be their incapacity to live. As fathers they 
 will be worse than a negligible quantity. To the millions killed must be 
 added the millions unfit for marriage. To the Latter-day Saints the moral 
 phase of the service in army life is vastly more appalling than the belligerent 
 phase of it. 
 
 The immoral conditions of army life in actual war is the revelation of 
 both conviction and practice in private life; it is also the revelation of a 
 sinful condition that permeates society. It yields less to moderation perhaps 
 than other sins. The world knows that there are moderate drinkers; but 
 sexual sin is an abandonment that is rarely curtailed. In it, life is at stake, 
 then society, then the home, and lastly posterity. Such sins make men and 
 women excessive, and in married life the laws of virtue are often outraged. 
 
 Agitation. One remarkable thing about it is the freedom with which 
 the subject is discussed by all classes. Modesty is not allowed to suppress 
 a fact so dangerous to all humanity. Another thing is very remarkable in 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 95 
 
 that the discussion is more pronounced among women whose antecedent 
 training was shrouded in reserve and modesty. They have become very 
 practical on the subject. They have learned the danger that lurks in mar- 
 ried life, which they are more and more distrusting. Men approach the sub- 
 ject less frequently. Other evils they discuss with remarkable ability and 
 frankness, the most destructive they are silent about. Why? Why should 
 men not speak up? Are they estopped from doing so? If such conditions ex- 
 ist as are depicted by Miss Rankin, there is no other danger to our liberties 
 and lives so menacing. It overtowers everything else. It is more destructive 
 than battle. Why should we be silent about it? Can we be patriotic to 
 our country and at the same time unpatriotic to God? Let it be said to the 
 credit of our government that it has placed greater safeguards around the 
 soldier camps than has ever before been known under similar circumstances. 
 
 Judgments. Statistical reports show that men between the ages of 
 45 and 50 are increasing the death rate of that class. Diminished powers 
 of resistance are inviting tuberculosis to an alarming extent. Army exam- 
 inations prove a rapid decline in manhood. It is the burning issue of the 
 age, We have put it off, treated it as an incident to social life. Now we 
 are forced to meet it face to face. It is an appropriate time to examine 
 ourselves and take stock of our physical and moral manhood. We have 
 been at no end of effort and expense to achieve mental accomplishments. To 
 them we have looked for our salvation from the corruption of the age. 
 They have not worked out satisfactorily. Is this the time to discuss the 
 evils of the age? Should we not wait till the business at hand is finished? 
 Will not the war be hindered by warnings against its accompanying evils? 
 Is judgment in order before the cause of the justice of war has been heard? 
 Nations have violated the political and economic rights of their neighbors. 
 Should we not wait till our foreign work is accomplished before taking 
 over domestic sorrows? President Smith sounded a warning note to our 
 young men. The great question with him was not so much the manner of 
 death, as our preparation to meet it, to meet the judgment which follows.* 
 I copy further from an editorial of The Independent, Sept. 22, 1917: 
 
 "War a Judgment Day" 
 
 " 'He is searching out the hearts of men before his judgment seat.' 
 So runs the noblest battle hymn of all the nations. Every great war 
 has been a judgment day, and this war is the great judgment day of 
 human history: nations and institutions; programs and efficiencies; 
 men and their deeds, are being weighed in the scales of fate, and 
 many are found wanting. 
 
 "The fool has been judged. The man who can't tell a red 
 light from a white one is as dangerous as any other train wrecker, 
 and will henceforth be so regarded. The coward and the slacker 
 have been judged. They expected to sneak through life as respec- 
 table citizens. The war caught them. In all their business they stand 
 exposed. William II has been judged. The German Empire has 
 been judged." 
 
 All political judgment is judgment of others. What about God's judg- 
 ments? They are not judgments of fate. They are judgments that overtake 
 sin. Let us think of ourselves and insist that we shall be safe when his 
 judgments befall us. We have a foe that stalks high on the horizon. He is 
 our announced enemy. His armor glitters. We are not mistaken about him, 
 but he is not our only foe. We have secret ones, ones which we do not 
 confess. We wrong ourselves grossly. From what evils do we suffer most: 
 those which come to us, or those which we bring upon ourselves? When the 
 
 I 
 
 *Read his "Message to the Soldier Boys of 'Mormondom'," Improvement 
 Era, Vol. 20, July, 1917, pp. 821-9. 
 
96 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 
 
 manhood of a nation is at stake, is its redemption not the greater problem 
 that confronts it? The law of chastity is as imperative upon man as upon 
 woman. If men do not abide the moral law what shall become of woman- 
 hood when both join hands in the industrial life of the world? 
 
 Revelation. "These are they who are liars, and sorcerers, and adulter- 
 ers, and whoremongers, and whosoever loves and makes a lie. 
 
 "These are they who suffer the wrath of God on the earth. 
 
 "These are they who suffer the vengeance of eternal fire" (Doc. and 
 Cov. 76:103-105).