The Cure of Graft by L. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 28, 1906

“The Cure of Graft”

By L. A. S.

IN a recent issue of The Independent Mr. W. H. Ghent, an author of several works on sociological problems, discusses the question of “the cure of graft.” “The ramifications of graft,” he states, “extend throughout all business,” and quotes this paragraph from Lester F. Ward’s “Pure Sociology:”—

Deception may almost be called the foundation of business. . . . There is a sort of code that fixes the limit beyond which this form of deception must not be carried. . . . But within those limits every one expects every other to suggest the false and suppress the true.

After a description of the extent of graft practised in the manufacture and sale of foods, and in some other lines of commerce, Mr. Ghent states in a single paragraph the only “cure” which he has to offer for the evil, his remedy being of a distinctly socialistic nature. He says:—

The incentive of graft is thus the individualist, competitive mode of production and distribution. . . . By no appeal to the conscience of the individual can grafting be eliminated. It can be eliminated only by a revolutionary change in the mode by which we make and distribute goods. The particular and competing interests of mankind must be merged in a common interest, and society, in its organized form, must take over to itself the production of commodities, making them not for sale, but for use, and distributing them to the users without individual profit.

There is another cure for graft in which we have more confidence than in this one, though it does not undertake to eliminate the evil from the business world, but only from certain individuals. That cure is God’s cure for the carnal heart. Socialism proposes to cure the evils that afflict society by reforming methods; Christianity reforms men. Socialism would set up a system under which the imps of lying and greed would be bound or would sit quiescent in the hearts of men, finding their occupation gone. Christianity recognizes that no such system is possible of realization, but that the only way for men to do good, to deal justly and love mercy, is to become good themselves by having the evil that is in the heart cast out. “Out

of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh,” and an evil heart will show itself in the life, in the dealings of man with man, in spite of any possible system of regulating the production and distribution of articles of commerce. No legislation or system of government can control the devil.

The world’s one hope to-day, as ever, is Christianity. L. A. S.