INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY.
By G.
EVIL is propagated and encouraged in these days by the false theory that there can be lump righteousness in a community without individual reform. Dishonesty is encouraged by the theory that the individual is not responsible for the sinister methods of the corporation of which he is a part, however influential his part may be. Individuals may combine and carry on business on principles that no one of them would dare to adopt alone. They will be honored as parts of a great concern dealing with the public in a manner that would condemn and ostracize them in an individual capacity. It is this erroneous idea, becoming more and more popular, that encourages men to form great business combinations behind which as individuals they can hide while reaping the profits of dishonest deals, and behind which they can retreat when the law would "regulate" the transgressor or punish the transgressor. Behind this doctrine of community-reform or society-salvation, the individual may pose as personified honesty or innocence, making a scapegoat of the "system" or the community of which he is a part. As in business, so in politics, the offense of the individual is more or less condoned because it is the result of methods common to the party or the recognized method of his political associates. The evils growing out of this ignoring of individual responsibility is illustrated in a recent deliverance by the governor of Iowa. In discussing present-day conditions, he scores the great monopolies quite severely, and then lets down the individuals composing these great combines in the following manner: I do not accuse them individually of dishonesty, but the system reeks with falsehood, trickery, and corruption. It seems like a paradox, but it may be true that in the vastness of their operations the profits of dishonor flow clean and pure into the pockets of their saintly leaders, but, if so (I am not here to ask whether their money is tainted beyond sanctification), then let them pour their fortunes into the channels of atonement and leave the government to the common people. But the root of the whole iniquitous "system" is the individual. Never was "falsehood"4told that did not originate with some individual. Never was it repeated only as individuals repeated it, altho it may have been repeated in the name of some abstract "system." Never was "trickery" invented otherwise than by means of individual device, and no individual ever deliberately entered into its promotion without individual indorsement of its operation. Never did a business system become corrupt, except by the machination of some individual; and never did individuals continue in connection with the operation of a corrupt, dishonest enterprise without individual responsibility. How long will it take to reform any corrupt system of business if the individuals conducting it are immune from the law which its operation violates? If only a legal stick be shaken at the system, if only political oratory be hurled at it, and the individuals who conduct and are profited by it are not held accountable in any way, how long will it take to work any practical change? Is it any worse to rob the passengers of railroad trains without law, than to rob those who ship freight by car through evasion of law? How long would it take to break up a gang of train-robbers, if only the "system"—the "business"—were attacked and indicted, and the individuals operating it were honored politically and socially, and deemed immune from the penalty of the law? A prominent official of a great railroad system is given a high political position because of his knowledge of railroads affairs. The question of illegal business methods on the part of said company comes up for investigation, and this particular individual admits that he personally did the illegal act. But those whose duty it is to execute the law declare the individual exempt from prosecution; only the inanimate arrangement called the corporation can be dealt with by law, and the individual who did the unlawful deed is pushed on to still greater emolument. A poor man buys a quantity of old iron from some boys who had stolen it, and because he "received stolen goods"—profited by the theft—he goes to prison for a year. He would not have been convicted had he not acknowledged the purchase, but this was the penalty of a poor man's small profit from the "system." In such case the individual responsibility is recognized. In the case of some great corporation the method of operations may be such as to defraud thousands of people, may be in actual violation of law, yet the highly respectable people who receive the ill-gotten gains are accredited by executors of the law as beyond the law's penalty. Only the "system" is deemed illegal, not the individuals who conduct it or are interested in its profits. So long as men judge so partially, so discriminately; so long as men are held individually in high esteem while their combined actions are corrupt and criminal, there must be little hope of practical reform in either business, political, or social circles. And it goes without saying, that combination religion without individual reformation, individual purity of heart, can not be recognized in the Court of last resort—the judgment of the Almighty. It is names of individuals, of characters, not of churches, societies, communities, or nations, that are "written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world."