Hurting Business by T.

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · May 20, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 20.

“Hurting Business”

By T.

ONE of the greatest obstacles in the road of moral progress is the fear of “hurting business.” It goes through the whole range of trade, from the small dealer in the little village to the largest dealers in the great cities. If certain reforms are proposed that will require the united efforts of a large part of the truly well-meaning element of a community, we are at once met with the excuse of first this individual, and then that one, that he is afraid to do

anything, for “it will hurt my business.” You talk to the business men, and they will agree with you that certain base characters in society are doing things that are demoralizing and that are degrading to the community. They will agree to all of these things readily, but they say: “My hands are tied. I can do nothing about it, because if I did, this one and that one and the other one are customers of mine, and they are in some way situated so that if I would join in these reforms I should jeopardize my trade with these individuals.” And so men allow the evils to progress. They ought to see that by doing this, while they may be saving a little business to-day, they are preparing general disaster for their community in the days to come.

Photo by Paul Thompson, N. Y. The discontented and inflamed populace in Japan. The illustration shows mounted police seeking to keep order near parliament.

A class of Chinese who are studying the gospel under the direction of the missionaries. The missionary will hail with delight the acknowledgment, by this country, of the new Chinese republic.

When Mr. Langford, Mr. Heney, and Detective Burns were doing their heroic work in San Francisco a few years ago, undertaking to send to the penitentiary the grafters and traffickers in all sorts of crimes and vices, the cry was raised by business men all through the city, that they were “hurting business,” that they were retarding commercial interests by the course they were pursuing. This cry became so strong that finally the prosecutions were hushed up and broken off, and only a very few of the guilty men were sent to the penitentiary.

That half-way measure produced the results that should have been expected. San Francisco is again going through a general harvesting of criminals that have been doing in a lesser way the very kind of crooked work that was going on in San Francisco a few years ago. If the work in that time had been thoro, these evil-doers would have been so terrified by the strict justice meted out that they would not have dared to attempt what they have attempted and that is causing these prosecutions in San Francisco at the present time.

The half-way measures of dispensing justice, and the care for the dollar, together with the use of the dollar in bribery, etc., are rapidly placing our great cities in the hands of the most lawless element. The only thing that could correct this would be for men to stand strictly for justice and right, regardless of present pecuniary advantages, leaving the matter of dollars to take care of itself, until we would have clean communities and right-minded men in places of responsibility and power. The only thing that is saving the country at all from general ruin through this sort of thing is the fact that we have some strong men in leading positions in city, state, and nation, who absolutely refuse to be corrupted, and who are standing for truth and righteousness. Everything goes to show that Mayor Ralph of San Francisco is a man of that class. It is to be hoped that the leading men of that great city will not raise the cry that “it is hurting business,” and thus tie his hands in the good work that he is doing at the present time in attempting to rid the city of these criminals, a number of whom have been on the police force and in other responsible positions.

It will not be disputed, by any intelligent person, that the foregoing statements concerning the influence of the cold dollar give facts as we know them to exist throughout the country; and in view of these facts, how appropriate and applicable is the following verse of Scripture:

“But this know, that in the last days grievous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of self, lovers of money.”

Notice that the apostle calls us to “know”—not surmise, but to “KNOW”—that grievous times will come in the last days because of the fact that men will be both lovers of self and lovers of money. Men have always been lovers of self and lovers of money throughout the career of this world in sin; but here is a period brought to view when this love of self and love of money will become so wide-spread and so deep-rooted that it will make the times “grievous.”

Having reached the place that we put business ahead of morality, and dollars in front of righteousness, and our trade and commerce where it will block the progress of justice that is seeking to rid the world of such vices and crimes as the white slave traffic, drunkenness, gambling, robbery, and oppression, it is time to ask the question, Are we not amid those grievous conditions that are to mark the last days? This one statement of Scripture would not be enough to decide such a great question as that; but when we consider that this scripture is in harmony with the great voice of prophecy throughout the Bible, we ought to know that we are nearing the end of this world. In the past, nations have gone down whenever they have become fully corrupted. This has been the universal voice of history; and when the entire world becomes corrupted as it is becoming at the present time, and when every section is mad with the craze for money and the corrupting vices that grow out of luxury, we ought to know that it must all go down. There should be but one conclusion in regard to where we are standing in this time.