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.