The editor of the Cleveland Press wrote a stinging editorial recently which has attracted wide notice. Aside from huge reader response, it was reprinted in forty publications, and first-paged in the August 27th issue of Time magazine. Louis B. Seltzer's thoughts, under the title "Can't We Tell Right from Wrong?" set forth in simple language the quandary of our time. In so many words he asks, "What Is Wrong?"
We abound with the things that make us comfortable. . . . we lead in everything — almost. . . . yet something is not there that should be. Why has a moral deterioration set in among us that brings corruption, loose behavior, dulled principles, subverted morals, easy expediencies, sharp practices? . . . What has taken away the capacity for indignation that used to rise like a mighty wave and engulf the corruptors — the corruptors of public office, of business, of youth, of sports? What is it? No one of us seems to know. But everybody seems to believe it is upon us. . . .
These words of Mr. Seltzer will do a lot of good. He makes us think, seriously, because we know that what he says is true.
We can of course go about our business, turn the page, and try to forget Mr. Seltzer and his editorial. But we may not be able to do this forever.
This globe of ours is not spinning around in a meaningless whirl, all by itself in space. And neither are the individuals on it. We are part of the picture, and the human family is an interdependent something, this side of 'heaven.'
" . . . thou canst not stir a flower without troubling of a star."
Nobody gets away with anything, eventually; and if this wasn't so then all the universe would be a mess and a mockery. One plus one will always add up to two, whether that figure is arrived at now or later.
This we feel is a partial answer to Mr. Seltzer, and a basis for a gradual reshaping of the fibre of us, and a reason for upright thinking and unselfish action.
(From Sunrise magazine, October 1951; copyright © 1951 Theosophical University Press)