The Epidemic of Graft by T.

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jun 6, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 22.

The Epidemic of Graft

By T.

THERE seems to be so much “grafting” throughout the country, that one is inclined to think it is epidemic. But is it? Have we not reached a condition that should be denominated “chronic”?

In talking with leading business men in various cities, they seem to be settled in the conviction that in order to do business nowadays you have to do a certain amount of grafting and bribing. At least if you do not directly engage in any of the execrable business yourself you have to submit to it in others in order to keep the currents of trade flowing smoothly.

For instance, at the present time the daily papers on the Pacific Coast are reciting each morning the progress in the prosecution of leading officials in San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, and San Mateo. Three of the foregoing named cities are leading centers of population situated around the southern end of San Francisco Bay. The fourth one lies so close to San Francisco as to be almost a suburb to that city.

Grafting in San Francisco has been odiously held before the public, not merely here on the Pacific Coast, but the matter has been of nation-wide discussion, for the last five years. And instead of the malady’s being cured it has spread to the adjoining cities of the great Western metropolis.

And this coast is by no means peculiar and alone in this unsavory business of grafting. The Eastern despatches and also the Eastern papers as they come to us day by day all unite in showing that the evil thing is altogether too general. We often laugh at the Socialist when he propounds his stereotyped question of “what shall be done for the ills of society;” but laugh as we may, the “ills” are nevertheless here, and the question is a disquieting one to every thoughtful individual.

When we inquire for the cause of all this lack of moral backbone; when we seek for the reasons why men will submit to the “hold-up” of the “grafter” and the “briber,” we should have no difficulty. This is the century of the “higher critic,” who has thrown his popular form of skepticism against the Bible; it is the century that is so grasping and intent in its pursuits for wealth, that it has no time to consider the old-fashioned and sturdy morals of the Ten Commandments; it is, furthermore, the century that has witnessed the wide-spread teaching that the Ten Commandments were abolished at the death of Christ.

The teaching that the Ten Commandments have been abolished has been largely inspired by the desire to get rid of the clear evidence from the Bible that the seventh day of the week is the Sabbath, and that the law concerning it is just as moral and just as obligatory as when it was spoken in divinely sublime majesty from Mt. Sinai. As the result of this teaching that God’s law is abolished, there has been a growing disregard for Sabbath observance, and folly and hilarity have taken the place of worship. And men who have been taught to disregard God’s law, have come to disrespect human law as a consequence of breaking away from the higher law of Jehovah.

When the general teaching is such that it leads the rank and file of the people to have respect for the Bible and the moral law of that divine Book, you may be assured that men will have too much respect for their manhood to allow themselves to descend to grafting and bribing. Their minds have been elevated by the precepts of Him who has said, “All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.”