PRELIMINARY
The basis of human happiness most be understood before one can
judge if the policy which our government has pursued is
calculated to afford liberty in the pursuit of
happiness—admittedly the most important of our inalienable
rights—as well as to determine whether the same should be
reversed.
Preliminary to the discussion of the original design of government, and
its gradual reversal of purpose, I want to present as briefly as I may,
some philosophies of life. This I deem important, for only as we
understand the basis of human happiness can we appreciate the wisdom of
the course which the United States pursued for more than one hundred
years, during which it attained the proudest position ever occupied by
any nation.
It is recorded that when the first parents were being expelled from the
Garden of Eden God pronounced this blessing upon the race: “In the
sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.” I have heard this referred to
as a curse, but the All-wise Father has never cursed the race. God
seems to be an individualist and not a collectivist. “Whosoever will,”
“The soul that sinneth it shall die,” and many similar passages are as
far removed from socialistic teachings as is possible. They are the
exact opposite. After some years of experience and much observation, I
feel justified in saying that, barring the promise of redemption, the
greatest blessing God Almighty ever pronounced upon the race of man was
when he said: “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.”
Then God promulgated a great commandment containing two injunctions,
the first of which the church seeks to enforce. It reads: “Remember the
Sabbath day to keep it holy.” The second, equally important and as
woefully transgressed, says: “Six days shalt thou labor.” I know people
who violate each of these injunctions. They break the Sabbath and will
not work the other six days.
We also read that when God had made the worlds and swung them into
space, he pronounced them “Very good.” It is but reasonable to believe,
and certainly reverent to say, that the Great Jehovah got divine
satisfaction and gratification from his creatorship, and his
sovereignty. When, in the fullness of time, He made man in His own
image, wanting to provide for man’s happiness, He harked back to the
thrill of creatorship and gave man the capacity for the maximum of
happiness from his creatorships, his sovereignties, his achievements.
One needs but little observation to recognize that achievement is the
basis of man’s material happiness. How often we hear men say: “This was
raw prairie. I made this farm.” “I planted this grove.” “I started this
store.” “I established this bank.” “I built this factory.” I remember
very well Sir Thomas Lipton telling me where, as an immigrant with but
fifty cents in his pocket, he spent his first night in New York City.
There is something more than a joke in the statement that “self-made
men are apt to be proud of the job.”
Nothing will develop manhood in a boy like giving him a pig, a calf, a
lamb or even a rabbit. My! how a boy will grow in self-respect when
permitted just to call a colt “his,” and to feel the resultant sense of
proprietorship. The establishment of gardens for boys, and the offering
of prizes for the best acre of corn grown by a boy, is the best “uplift
work” that was ever attempted. Until very recent years the public has
never sought to apply these principles of mental philosophy to the
development of manly character in the young.
As soon as the savage feels this divinely implanted impulse for
ownership and achievement, he is on the road towards civilization.
Then, as he advances, “individualism” becomes more marked and instead
of living in a hut, wearing braided grass and eating his meat and fish
raw, he improves his condition and inequality begins. Is civilization a
failure? It must be if socialism has any place in divine economy.