Your ShelfYour Projects

Editorial

5%

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 11, 1912

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 89, No. 2.

Read the full edition

Editorial

By W. W. P.

The Disregard of Law

An article of more than ordinary significance entitled “How to Put the People Behind the Law,” was contributed to the November (1911) number of the North American Review by Rev. Percy Stickney Grant. Its general aim is best told in the article itself:—
The object of this article is to persuade the reader that nothing can be more threatening to a democracy than for the rank and file of the people to lack respect for their lawmakers, and to harbor suspicion of their courts. Serious possibilities confront a government which permits a schism between its classes. From animadversions against the law, the step is an easy one to violation of the law; from lack of confidence in legal methods, the way is not a long one to their overthrow. The activities of our courts, on the other hand, are not so far removed from popular feeling that dissatisfaction among the masses with the attitude of the bench can be allowed to continue with no fear of consequences. Supreme Court decisions have, in the past, been momentous, as many men now living can testify. The Dred Scott decision helped to bring on the civil war.
In explanation of the situation which we face, the writer of the article under consideration, in the introductory paragraphs declares:—
There is a good deal of English law-abidingness inborn in the old-time American, hence his astonishment and alarm when he hears his laws challenged as fundamentally unjust. But that is just what is happening to-day. Our laws are disparaged, even scoffed at, by large numbers of our fellow citizens.
Some testimony is introduced to show that there is a wide-spread feeling, amounting to a deep conviction, that there is an increasing lack of respect for law in this country:—
“Disregard for law is fast becoming an American characteristic,” is the finding of the National Education Association in a late report on a system of moral instruction for the public schools.
President Taft, in a speech at the Academy of Political Science, in New York, last spring, referred to the “lighter regard for law and its enforcement in America as compared with England, and a consequent less-rigorous public opinion in favor of the punishment of crime.”
Even the dean of one of our leading law schools in a speech before a body of lawyers, including President Taft, is reported recently to have said that “the free democratic government that prevailed here was neither free, nor democratic, nor a government.”
It is only necessary to follow the record of violence and crime which constitutes so large a proportion of the news of the day, to be convinced that a lawless spirit is finding expression in lawless deeds, many of which are of a most shocking character. The attention of the whole country has been given to the confession of the McNamara brothers, who have acknowledged that they were guilty of the wholesale destruction of property and life in the supposed interests of union labor, and there are some citizens of public affairs who are looking below the surface and are declaring that such outbreaks are nothing more than could be expected in view of the lawless methods employed by capital against labor. For example, a press despatch from Canton, Ohio, dated January 1, runs thus:—
Louis D. Brandeis, of Boston, in an address here to-night, declared that the country should not be surprised that the McNamaras and their allies resorted to violence to gain their ends, and that “big business” must give the rights of laboring men more consideration, or face a flood of socialism.
Perhaps more surprising than this is the attitude of the judge in Oklahoma who last week justified the action of the mob in lynching a Negro who had without provocation murdered a man who was furnishing him shelter. This judge approved of the administration of law by a mob, and therefore refused to order an investigation of its conduct.
These facts and statements testify most clearly that these days correspond to the days before the flood, when the earth was filled with violence, and are, therefore, a clear indication that the coming of the Son of man is near.
Writers and speakers who attempt to deal with this alarming condition of lawlessness, generally fail to recognize the underlying cause of this lapse from the normal plane of conduct; namely, the rejection of the authority of divine law. The submission of man to the will of God as expressed in his law is no arbitrary requirement. Man’s welfare here and hereafter depends upon the harmony of his will with the will of God. Any tendency toward laxness in this direction bears immediate fruit, and rapidly develops a condition absolutely incompatible with the stability of society and government.
That view of the Bible which disparages its authority as a rule of human conduct, and weakens its hold upon the consciences of men; that interpretation of the Bible which permits the customs and the traditions of the church to be substituted for the plain “Thus saith the Lord;” that definition of sin which makes it a mistake rather than a defiance of divine law; that skeptical attitude toward the prophecies of the Scripture which leads man to have little or no confidence in the plainest predictions concerning the world-wide catastrophe just at hand; that lack of reverence for the law of God which permits professed ministers of the gospel to travesty the decalogue,—all these factors in the case contribute toward the one result, the general disregard of authority both divine and human, and the exhibition of a spirit of violence utterly regardless of the rights of others.
The writer of the article in the North American Review suggests various possible remedies for what he recognizes as a very serious situation, but they all fail to reach the root of the difficulty. Mere intellectual enlightenment is not sufficient to restore to the public mind that regard for law which will be revealed in a quiet and peaceable life. The authority of God’s law must be magnified, a power from without must transform the mind, and the spirit of the Prince of Peace must rule in the heart, else rebellion against law can not be subdued.
In such a time as this it ought to be evident to every candid observer that there is the greatest need of such a proclamation of the gospel as will lead men to submit their wills to the will of God, and to become observers of his law. The people who heed this message are described as those “that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” In this message is found the only hope of the individual that he may be saved from the spirit of lawlessness, and may become a citizen of that kingdom that “shall stand forever.”
W. W. P.