- Like every other wrong, it feeds upon itself. The very conditions it produces fosters and promotes its growth. At first directing effort and thought along material lines, ultimately the ideals become groveling. The purposes of a worthy life and the characteristics of a noble manhood are perverted. There comes a wrong idea of true greatness. There arises a false measure of manhood. That measure is wealth, and of all the grounds of distinction among men, wealth is the most sordid. Success is accumulation of wealth. Prosperity is getting rich. Whatever else a man may accomplish in life, if he remains poor he is accounted a failure. Yet to this pass, such a pass, have we come, that our national and age characteristic is that of material gain, commonly called commercialism. This was not the thought of our fathers who subordinated material gain to the development of noble manhood. This is a perversion of our American traditions, and is a menace to better development of the individual and of the state.
Wrong laws mislead the judgment and pervert the conscience.