Moral Decadence and Moral Principle
PRESIDENT NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER, of Columbia University, adds the following testimony to that given of late by other men of note, concerning moral decadence as a characteristic of the times:— Put bluntly, the situation which confronts Americans to-day is due to lack of moral principle. New statutes may be needed, but statutes will not put moral principle where it does not exist. The greed for gain and the greed for power have blinded men to the time-old distinction between right and wrong. Both among business men and at the bar are to be found advisers, counted shrewd and successful, who have substituted the penal code for the moral law as the standard of conduct. Right and wrong have given way to the subtler distinction between legal, not legal, and illegal; or better, perhaps, between honest, law-honest, and dishonest. This new triumph of mind over morals is bad enough in itself; but when in addition its exponents secure material gain and professional prosperity, it becomes a menace to our integrity as a people. This may be taken as President Butler's answer to the question whether the world—or this section of it—is growing better.