Who was it said “I’d rather be right than be President”? How do we know when we are right? Perhaps that isn’t the main necessity. At least that is what one recent visitor to Waterville thinks. Last month this city was honored by a visit from the famous eighty-year old writer of sea stories, James Brendan Connolly, who has been continuously publishing his tales of the heroic G10ucester fishermen since 1902. All his life Jim Connolly has believed and has voiced in his stories the importance of that old-fashioned thing we call conscience. To him it is the voice of God in human life. In his fine story “The Traveler”, which won first prize of $2,500 in a contest conducted by Co11iers magazine, Connolly has one of his characters say something that is worthy of our attention in this day When we haven’t too high respect for conscience. This is what Jim Connolly wrote: “Even when you are wrong, you are right, if you believe it with all your soul. Because, for a man to do what he thinks is right, whether he be right. or wrong at the time, is to come to be surely right in the end.<\/p>\n
Now let us look at some other common things. How very common are words. From time to time, in this series, we hope to remind you of many common and some uncommon things about those sounds we utter to convey our thoughts, those symbols which we call words. Tonight let us think for a moment about simplicity in words. When I was a student in college and a member of Dr. Herbert Libby’s first class in public speaking, we were one day visited by Senator Herbert M. Heath. I shall never forget one thing he said to us. “Young men”, he said, “some of you think you want to be lawyers. Then watch your language. Don I t think you can sway any jury of Maine Yankees by saying to them ‘Last evening as the effulgent orb of day sank below the western horizon, John Smith departed from his domicile. I You say to that jury ‘Last night about sunset John Smith left home. ”<\/p>\n
The language used in government publications has long been subject to jibes from befuddled readers. Someone has said “The writer of a government bulletin uses words not to communicate, but to excommunicate, thought.” An amusing book called “Federal Prose” ridicules that sort of writing as it deserves. “Haste makes waste”, written in government style, becomes “Precipitation entails negation of economy.” “Jack fell down and broke his crown” would read “A youth, designated only as Jack, sustained, incident to a loss of equilibrium, a fracture of the cranium.” And that old gag “The old gray mare ain’t what she used to be” reads thus: “The female equine quadruped, described as senile and consequently grizzled, has suffered metamorphosis usually attendant upon the consecutive passing of periods of time.”<\/p>\n
While we are on the topic of words, did you ever think about loaded words, words that in themselves have come to carry the stigma of prejudice? The poet C01eridge once said “There are three classes into which all women Over 70 can be divided, that elderly lady, that old woman, that old witch.” A sign in a market window reads: “first quality sirloin roast”. Just change the words, but not the meaning: “first–class piece of dead cow “\u00b7Do you see what I mean? Words in themselves carry biased, emotional meanings that go far beyond their literal meanings. Coleridge’s three phrases could describe the same woman, according to the prejudice the speaker wanted to convey. The two signs in the window described the same piece of meat.<\/p>\n
Now these emotional meanings of words change with the times, and we need ever to be on our guard about these changes, which have very little to do with facts and very much to do with opinions. Today one of these loaded words is the word CAPITAL. So fiercely has capitalism, the industrial system under which we live, been attacked that there has come to be a prevailing suspicion that it is bad. This America of ours, suspicion says, this great giant Shylock of the Western Hemisphere~ has become the most hated of nations, all because of its capitalistic economy. They seem to overlook the inconsistency that life in the United States is so terrible that millions of people in other lands will go to any extreme to get around our migration laws and come to this awful capitalistic America. Ours is such a mean, inhuman, money grabbing land that the D. P. family which came to Portland last week cannot yet understand the hospitality~ generosity and friendliness they have received. One essential quarrel we have with the communist position is that it assumes inevitable class warfare~ worker against management, tenant against landlord, the have-nots against the haves. Now no sensible person contends that our present economic system is perfect. Of course there are evils to be corrected~ improvements to be made~ but it does not follow that the way to deal with them is other than the American, democratic way.<\/p>\n
Here are a few facts about what the capitalistic system is in the United States. A survey of our 120 biggest manufacturing companies shows only four in which any single person owns as much as 10% of the voting stock. In all, the 120 companies were found to be owned by more than six million stockholders, more than the total number of employees in all the 120 companies. Sixty-two of the companies reported that no one person held more than 1% of the stock. Five out of every six stockholders owned less than 100 shares. Capitalists, we are told, live on unearned money, called dividends and interest. By reaping where they do not sow, by neither toiling nor spinning these wealthy cutters of coupons run the country. But here is a fact. Seven out of every ten dollars paid out in dividends and interest go to people with annual incomes under $5,000.<\/p>\n
Now what do dividends and interest represent? They represent profit. And, like capital, profit is today another loaded word, not in good repute. Is profit disgraceful? If it is, then more than two-thirds of the disgrace belongs to people whose incomes are less than $5,000. Before we decide that we must have a new American way of life, that capital and private enterprise cannot be adjusted to the modern day, let us at least be patient with the facts. Of course the facts are not all favorable to the present economy; of course there are things to be remedied. But one does not lightly sacrifice a limb to save a life. Or to change the figure, as we strive to clean up the wrongs in our economic system, let us not throw out the baby with the bath.<\/p>\n
Now let us turn to something even more common. Mark Twain said everybody talks about it, but nobody does anything about it. He referred to the weather. Did you ever see symbols of life’s deep meaning in such a common thing as weather? Just a week ago people in the Midwest were struggling through two feet of snow, cars were stalled on drifted highways, cattle and sheep were freezing to death on the western ranges. In Nebraska drifts rose sixteen feet high.<\/p>\n
On the same day the weather in New York was so clear and mild that people sat in the parks without overcoats. Skating was called off in the sunken plaza of Rockefeller center because the ice melted so fast. So indeed is life filled with contrasts, with joy and sorrow, with profit and loss, with pleasure and pain. It is only by contrast that we make any progress in work, in government, in pursuit of our ideals. How often we say of some savage tribe or some isolated community living under primitive conditions: “I don It see how they stand it. How ~ they live that way?” And the right answer often is: “They don I t know what they I re missing.” In other words, they have nothing with which to contrast their existence. The Russian government has apparently taken extraordinary precautions that their people shall not find out what life is really like in the capitalistic United States. The contrast with their own existence might be embarrassing to the Polieouro. It might put ideas into the heads of Russian peasants.<\/p>\n
I have an acquaintance who is probably one of the few survivors of the pre-war government of Estonia, that little Baltic republic which was swallowed by its big Soviet neighbor. Most of the leaders of the old Estonian government have disappeared. How my friend managed to escape is his own secret. But here is my point. He has told me how, in the early days of seemingly friendly Soviet influence, Russian soldiers stationed in the Estonian capital saw goods in the shops that could not be bought at all in Russia, and other goods that were absurdly low-priced, compared to their experience at home. For instance, these soldiers could not comprehend that there was no restriction on the number of pairs of shoes they could buy if they had the price, and the price was one-twentieth the price in Moscow. When these soldiers went home on leave, they told of the happy Estonians who had plenty to eat and wear. So the Russians stopped granting home leave, but they couldn’t stop desertions. One thing they could do ,and they had intended to do it a11 along. Th~y took over the country, lock, stock and barrel; they abolished private enterprise, the free economy, and advertised to the world that they had freed those slaves of capitalism, their beloved Estonian neighbors.<\/p>\n
Those people of Estonia have not forgotten though their leaders are dead. They know, by contrast, what is good and what is bad for them. There on the Baltic is one country where, some day,truth crushed to earth will rise again.<\/p>\n
Another common thing is religion. Anthropologists, those scientists who study all races of mankind in all places and all times, tell us that no people, however primitive, has ever been found to be without some sort of religion. Yet how jittery we are getting about mixing religion with education. A statement made last week by the Roman Catholic Bishops of the United States is worthy of attention by every serious person, be he Catholic, Protestant or Jew”,. The statement points out that the founders of our nation considered religious instruction of future citizens, impartially allowed without favoritism to any sect or creed,. as a proper and practical function of good government. The school was the meeting place of these helpful, interacting influences, church and state. By our Constitution their functions are separate. We will not tolerate a state church. But it does not follow that we should divorce our educational system from all religious influence. The recent decision of the Supreme Court, declaring all religious instruction in the public schools unconstitutional, may boomerang upon us some day as did the Dred Scott decision many years ago. Surely a way can be found — in fact, ways are already being found to teach in our schools those religious principles of life upon which all sects agree.<\/p>\n
Is leisure a common thing? Most of us think we have too little of it. Everyone knows that, if you want something done, ask a busy man to do it. Don’t ask a fellow who has plenty of leisure. He’ll tell you he doesn’t have time.<\/p>\n
How universal is leisure? The Social Committee of the united Nations General Assembly recently declared that rest and leisure are universal human rights. Why did they say so? Because in much of the world those rights are not recognized. But the declaration would have no point unless somewhere they were recognized. Nowhere in the world does the average man enjoy so much leisure in proportion to his working hours as in the united States. We have no concentration camps, no slave labor, no war prisoners languishing in hopeless drudgery.<\/p>\n
How much do we really prize our American leisure? And what is vastly more important, what do we do with it? It was a Chinese visitor to New York who once asked a searching question. His host, taking him downtown by subway, said: “We change to an express at .96th .Street, and we save six minutes.” “So”, said the Chinese, “and what do you do with it?”<\/p>\n
Year: 1948<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #3, broadcast on November 28, 1948<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35333,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6955"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6955\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}