CIVIC INTEGRITY 253 



thing. There are societies for the prevention of almost every- 

 thing under the sun. People are engaged busily in the 

 very purpose of seeing what C shall do to D. Few seem to 

 think of seriously enforcing the laws which we now have, 

 and, what is far worse, fewer seem to think of earnestly, 

 seriously and reverently obeying the laws themselves and of 

 inducing their neighbor to do likewise, by that most powerful 

 of all persuasives, a good example. Loopholes and techni- 

 calities in the laws are eagerly searched for, and if these 

 fail there is a general protest, both in word and deed, that 

 the law is no good and ought not be enforced anyhow. 



Can any one doubt that two-thirds of our laws drawn so 

 stringently against commercial oppression, financial decep- 

 tion and greed, injustice between man and man in a thou- 

 sand ways, would be totally unnecessary if every citizen of 

 any importance at all would see that our plain old-fashion 

 common law — declarative of that still older-fashioned law, the 

 Ten Commandments — was strictly obeyed, and first set the 

 example of obeying it himself? One person in the resolute 

 imitation of the good example of Our Lady would go far 

 towards solving the problem. 



One cannot turn the world into a vast penitentiary where 

 the citizens are working under surveillance and menaced 

 at all times by severe penalties for infractions of discipline. 

 Love and hope, willingness and cheerfulness, make for far 

 better voluntary work and obedience, and produce nobler and 

 more lasting results. Making the world over by legislation 

 will never succeed. The individual must be furnished with 

 and in turn must furnish the incentive to do right. The 

 field for the Sodalist lies here. 



Then again there is the vast unoccupied field of civic bet- 

 terment. The relations of employer and employee, so dif- 

 ferent now from former times by the introduction of gigan- 

 tic capital and vast machinery, the management of large 

 municipal institutions from the City Hall down to the paving 

 of a street, the caring for the deficient in intellect or body, 

 the poor and the unfortunate, compensation for industrial 

 accidents resulting from the use of colossal modern ma- 

 chinery; the education of the young, especially in its religious 

 aspect, their moral, physical and mental well-being, and a 

 thousand similar problems demanded for their proper solu- 



