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George Romney Speech

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ADDRESS GIVEN TO THE BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY ASSOCIATED MEN STUDIES

ANNUAL MEN'S NIGHT

GEORGE W. ROMNEY

President, Detroit Stake, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

President, American Motors with an introduction by President Ernest L. Wilkinson

 

November 10, 1961

 

PRESIDENT ERNEST L, WILKINSON

 

This is a distinct honor to me, one that (as Brother Romney knows) I heard about only as I was leaving my office tonight. So I sent over to our very capable librarian and asked him to give me biographical material on George Romney. Further, at dinner tonight with President Romney I noted that most of the questions from the students had to do with the number of jobs, the kind of training, the variety of experiences which he has had. So, in view of those questions and the apparent interest, I am going to do the easy thing and read one of these biographical sketches which gives much more information than I could remember, with certain comments in between:

 

Brother Romney was born in 1907 in Chihuahua, Mexico, a Mormon colony, as many of you know. When he has five years old Pancho Villa expelled the American colonists from Mexico (known to us at the time as the "Mormon exodus from Mexico") and his family came to the United States by way of the Republic of Texas. Then they moved to Los Angeles where his father entered the contracting business.

 

In the 1921 recession, financial reverses overtook the family, and they moved to Idaho where they started over for the third time. Then when business was prospering again the real depression of 1929 came along and ruined the prosperity that his father had built up since leaving California. I am sure that these experiences have influenced the life of our distinguished speaker tonight.

 

Now I come to a sequence of jobs, in which I noticed there was an interest among some of the students. Brother Romney took his first job at the age of eleven, as a sugar harvester. (Now this was written, I assume, Brother George, by some Eastern journalist, who used the term "sugar harvester." I suppose we would say "topping beets" out here.)

 

Later he became a skilled lathe and plaster foreman. He then worked his way through the LDS Business College in Salt Lake City, followed by two years service in England and Scotland as a Mormon missionary. After a brief stay at the University of Utah, he went to Washington, D.C. We learned tonight from him how he got his first job in Washington, D. C. He went there thinking that jobs would be easy to get in that great metropolis. He called on a distinguished officer in the government--who subsequently became his father-in-law--and asked him where he could get a job. This man who was to become his father-in-law told him he did not have the least idea where he could get a job--not the least idea. However, if George would go out and find a job, he would try to help him get it.

 

George saw an advertisement in one of the Washington newspapers that a Senator was looking for a secretary. Well, George at one time 'had learned the finger system of typing and he had had, I think, four lessons in speed shorthand, so he applied for this job with Senator David I. Walsh of Washington. He said he got along all right for the first three days while the Senator was just dictating letters because, while he did not get all of the dictation, he had enough ingenuity to figure out what he was talking about and he would rewrite the letters. But the fourth day, the Senator got started dictating a speech, and he soon realized that George Romney’s training as a secretary was rather sparse. So, rather than discharge him, he gave him the job of becoming the tariff expert in his office, because in those days, Senator Walsh, as I recall, was the chairman of the tariff committee of the Senate--or at least had an important position in the Senate. So, by virtue of George's inability to be a secretary, he became a great tariff expert.

 

In 1930 he became an apprentice at the Aluminum Company of America. The next year he was sent to the company's Los Angeles office as a salesman. He returned in 1932 to Washington where, for six years, he was lobbyist for the Aluminum Company of America. In 1937-1938 he became president of the Washington Trade Association Executives. It was rather remarkable for a man to be elected president of that large group in the short time that George had been in Washington.

 

There in Washington he attracted the attention of men in the auto industry who invited him to direct the Detroit office of the Automobile Manufacturers Association of America--the large trade association for all of the automobile manufacturers in the country. He served as manager until 1942 when he became the general manager of the association, which position he held until 1948.

 

During that time he was also president of the Detroit Trade Association, director of the American Trade Association Executives, and, in 1946, managing director of the National Automobile Golden Jubilee Committee. As director of the major trade association of the automobile industry,

 

President Romney became the industry's chief spokesman during World War II.

 

He often appeared before Congressional committees, helped to organize and became managing director of the Automotive Council for War Production, helped to create the Automotive Committee for Air Defense, was one of the organizers of the Detroit Victory Council, and served as employer-member of the labor-management committee of the War Manpower Commission for Detroit.

 

In 1948, the chairman of Nash-Kelvinator asked Brother Romney to join the company as his special assistant. He took that because he saw in it an opportunity to roam through the country, learning the "ropes," as he said, about every plant and visiting every department. And he took that job in preference to other positions which had much more high-sounding titles. He was elected vice president in 1950, just two years thereafter; executive vice president and director in 1953; and when the president of the corporation died (which was shortly after the formation of American Motors from the Nash-Kelvinator and Hudson merger) or shortly thereafter, in 1954, Romney was elected to succeed him as chairman and president.

 

At that time the corporation of American Motors was in the red, losing very, very heavily each year. He told me tonight that they devised immediately, I do not know whether to call it a "profit" or a "progress" sharing plan. It was based on the amount of reduction they could make in the losses--not on the amount of profit they could make, payable, however, when they finally turned those losses into profits. I thought that was a pretty good scheme because if they had not made the profits they would not have had to pay it.

 

So much for his industrial climb, the very recitation of which I think should be inspirational to all of you. Let me say also that George Romney has been a great inspiration to me, because he has not confined his activities to his work in the industrial field. In Detroit he is known as a great civic-minded statesman. Some years ago he was chairman of a citizen's committee to study the entire educational system of Detroit -a very, very large committee--and the fact that he was chairman of it shows the esteem in which he is held by the public spirited citizens of that city.

A few years ago, he could have had the support of either party--Democrat or Republican- in the state of Michigan, had he aspired or had he been willing to lend his name to be a candidate for the United States Senate, He declined both, and instead organized a citizens' committee for the entire state which he thought should take a new approach to politics. A second committee which he organized was the predecessor of a new constitutional convention committee responsible for the present constitutional convention in Michigan which is engaged in rewriting the constitution of that State. He is vice chairman of that constitutional convention.

And then, on top of it all--and we are grateful to him here for that--with all of his manifold responsibilities, he finds time to be President of the Detroit Stake of our Church.

So I am happy tonight to introduce to you one of the great men of our generation, industrialist, civic-minded statesman, educator, and religious leader--George Romney.

 

AMS MEN'S NIGHT EXEMPLARY MANHOOD AWARD PRESENTATION BY CLARK THORSTENSEN

Each year the Associated Men Students select a man who is outstanding in his vocation and also is an outstanding leader in the Church to which he belongs. In the past we have chosen such men as Marion D. Hanks and Vernon Law. This year, because of his work with the youth of the Church and also because of his work in the United States as a great industrialist and as a statesman, we have selected George W. Romney, president of American Motors and president of the Detroit Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to be the recipient of our Exemplary Manhood Award. I would like to read the citation:

 

AMS Exemplary Manhood Award

The Associated Men Students of Brigham Young University, in recognition of outstanding achievement in industry and distinguished service to all youth by dedicated observance of the principles and standards of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, are honored to present George W. Romney the AMS Exemplary Manhood Award.

President Romney, it gives me great pleasure to present you with this award on behalf of the Associated Men Students of Brigham Young University.

 

GEORGE W. ROMNEY

 

I appreciate this honor very much. I do not know what makes me a representative of exemplary manhood, but I am honored that as young men you would consider me worthy to be placed in the company of the young men who have preceded me.

 

I have no prepared talk tonight. I thought I might just reminisce a bit and then make a few comments about what I think lies ahead for youth in the way of opportunity and making the most of it. I haven't any doubt that every one of you is anxious to live a rich and meaningful life--an adventuresome life. As I look back to my boyhood, I realize that out of the books my mother insisted that I read, the people I met, the talks I heard, and the magazines I read, I began to develop some ideas of what I wanted to do. I think, like most young men, I was undecided when I was finishing high school as to whether I wanted to be a lawyer or a doctor or a business man, and it took some little time to resolve that.

I never had much of a yearning to become an engineer because during my early high school years, my mother, who was very anxious to see us develop ourselves, tried to encourage me to light on a goal. She said, "You know, Mr. So-and-so across the street is an engineer. And the great thing about engineering is that new things are coming along all the time and you never stop studying. You study all your life." I said, "Boy, that's not for me."

Having worked in my early youth as I did, and as Antone, my cousin here, did, I thought that at some point in my life I could finally find a spot where I could enjoy life and take things easy. But in any event, in that period of reading about other men and their lives and in reading about the world, I began to get the desire to equip myself to do something, and I crystalized certain dreams and goals.

One of the good things that happened to me in that period was that I met a good girl. I think, like you, I met all types of girls, but fortunately I fell for a girl who had very high standards and who motivated me in my desire to do something,

I know I did not have any particular ability. As a matter of fact, in the fall of 1954, when I was elected to my present position, one magazine sent a reporter to find out what people thought about me when I was your age. My coach said he had never seen anyone with so little ability try so hard. And I tried hard, but I didn't have much ability. A woman who knew me well through my youth said she thought I was about the least likely individual to succeed. I am sure they were making honest observations.

In addition to being interested in things and developing some ideas and goals, my missionary experience was a great thing, I was fortunate to go to Great Britain. This stimulated my thinking. At that point in history Great Britain was ruling the world. The British Navy ruled the world. The British were on the decline and the decline has continued. But at that point our freedom, the freedom of many other nations, and the enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine and other factors depended on the strength of the British Empire. The British had a world outlook. I went there at a time when those attitudes that have since caused a continued decline of the British Empire were setting in. There was religious indifference and apathy, a great deal of talk about socialism and the government doing this and the government doing that, debates about communism and the dole. The first general strike that Britain had ever experienced was in force when I landed there in October of 1926.

 

Preaching the gospel among coal miners, who, with their families, lived in one room, was a new experience, a new side of life. I was also fortunate enough to have the opportunity to meet some of the nobility of England and see the contrast. These things stimulated further thought.

The most important thing that happened to me on my mission was that I had to find out for myself what I believed. I was on my own, as I am sure those of you who have been on a mission realize happens. You cannot lean on the faith of your parents or your heritage, You have to know for yourself and find out for yourself, and this I did. As a result of that experience I formed convictions, beliefs, and had the great good fortune to have a wonderful mission president, President John A. Widtsoe.

 

At the end of my mission I went to him with my uncertainty as to what I should do in life. At that point it was law or business. He spent some time talking to me. As he was taking me down to the train in Liverpool, he said, "I have been doing a good deal of thinking about this, and economics today. I think if I were you I would go into the field of economics, "That impressed me and I had the feeling at the time that he was right. So I shaped my course in that direction. I came home with plans of going East to Harvard and of getting training in economics that way. I went East to Washington with the objective of eventually going to the Harvard School of Business Administration and graduating from that institution because I had no acquaintances in the East in the business, financial or economic area. It was a means to opportunity.

So I started on that road. When I got to Washington, as President Wilkinson has indicated, I did not have too much technical training. I had been so busy courting that girl in the summertime that I had had only six speed writing class lessons. I had not seen her for two and one-half years. But I did have something that you had to have, I had a willingness to try. I had confidence, and I went to the place whore I felt opportunity would exist, I had prayed as to what I should do. There was no uncertainty about the answer: I should go to Washington. So I went.

As it turned out, the opportunity I was looking far came at the end of a rich year In Washington. In that year, as a result of not being a good secretary, I got a better opportunity. As a tariff specialist, I was exposed to the economic system of the United States, with the top business men of the country coming in to explain their position under the tariff law. As a young man, I listened to them, with the responsibility of deciding what ought to be done, and making that recommendation to the Senator in a report and in a recommended statement of position.

 

The Aluminum Company of America then came along and offered me a new opportunity. As I look back, I am glad I took that opportunity. Again, I did it after a good deal of prayer and searching. As a matter of fact, before deciding to go into business I had talked to lawyers, businessmen, doctors, Dr. Widtsoe, and many others. I had made a determined search to decide what I ought to do.

Incidentally, in that period it did not look as though there was much opportunity in any of those fields. They were crowded with men of ability and capacity. What opportunity was there for a young fellow with no background? I say it was probably fortunate for me that I was not experienced. This is contrary to the experience of most. I do not cite this as an experience that might relate to anyone else, because I think everyone's experience is unique and individual. No two of us are alike, and I think each of us has to search out the answer to his own life.

In my case I am glad I was interrupted in my academic career, because if I had gone on in the pursuit of economic study in that period of the history of his country, I would have learned so many economic theories that were not true that it probably would have taken me the rest of my life to get them out of my mind. Furthermore, it helped me win the girl I had been pursuing for seven years. That was the biggest sale I ever made in my life, in terms of its good influence in my life.

Living in Washington for nine years, I was exposed to the views of men with respect to the government of the United States. I saw and heard things that I shall never forget. I saw one of the most colossal political mistakes in the history of America--a political mistake that still plagues us. In 1927, 1928, and 1929, the farmers of this country were greatly concerned because farm prices were relatively low in relationship to industrial prices. While there was general prosperity in the country, there was a price distortion. Many of the farmers of the country were saying, "Look, we have to sell on a world price basis, and yet we have to buy on a protected, domestic basis." This was because there was no tariff protection, to speak of, for agricultural products, but there was considerable tariff protection for industrial products. Many farmers were saying, "This is inequitable. This is unfair. If we are going to sell on a world price basis, we ought to be able to buy on a world price basis."

By that time our country had become the most powerful financial country in the world-the creditor nation of the world. Our position had completely changed from the beginning of the nation when we were a debtor nation. The unfortunate development was that the politicians bought off the farmers by starting agricultural subsidies under the McNary-Haugen bill. Then in 1929-1930 they proceeded to boost tariffs even higher--the exact opposite of what should have been done. This has plagued our nation ever since. Agricultural subsidy has grown. Certainly we are no closer to solving the agricultural problem than we were earlier.

There IS not time to follow this idea on through, but it is important. If you have some dreams, goals and aims, go where you can have the experiences that will enable you to realize those dreams and goals and aims, and have the courage to do it.

In Washington I knew men representing other industries, and knew exposure to government and exposure to other industries. In my reading In my youth I came across a statement by Theodore Roosevelt I never forgot, He said, "The surest road to success is to do your present job well,"

Since that first ad in the Washington Post, I have never had to ask for a job or an opportunity. I probably kid myself into thinking that it is a result of having done the "present job" well. In any event, after associating with men representing industry in Washington for seven or eight years, a man representing the automobile industry asked me to join that industry, This was quite a shift.

The Aluminum Company of America was a monopoly--it then produced all the aluminum in America. There was no greater security than employment with the Aluminum Company of America. You had a good job for life. Trade association work is more precarious, and the automobile industry is a highly competitive industry. They were, in fact, opposites. After much searching end prayer, I knew that I should take the job In Detroit, At thirty-two years of age, I arrived in Detroit the month that Hitler marched into Poland. I witnessed, as a result of being in the right place at the right time, the transformation of the entire automotive industry from a competitive producer of automobiles and trucks, to an all-out, voluntary, co-operative producer of armaments for the armed forces of this nation and its allies.

I was thrown into the middle of Walter Reuther's effort to take over the automobile industry at the start of World War II by substituting tri-partite government-union-industry management for separate managements of individual enterprises. It became my task to thwart that effort. This was done by making certain that the automotive industry employed the greatest for human accomplishment that had ever existed in the political, economic, and social field, namely, the voluntary, co-operative effort of people dedicated to a common purpose, and by that entire industry doing every conceivable thing possible to expedite the output of armaments. The effort to revolutionize the American economy at the start of World War II failed. It went quite a distance, incidentally, because the tripartite committee was set up by the government. Then the battle started as to whether that committee should have the power to determine and put into effect, or merely the power to advise.

I shall never forget one or two of the experiences of that period, Let me relate them for whatever they are worth. In the fall of 1940, William S. Knudsen, who had been president of General Motors, was put in charge of total defense production for the United States government. His automobile competitors wanted to honor him at a meeting of the Automobile Manufacturers Association Board of Directors. They invited him to New York for that purpose on October 15, 1940.

Before they could honor him he said, "I was at the White House yesterday with the President and General Arnold, who is chief of the Air Force. General Arnold is just back from England. He saw the bombing of Coventry and Plymouth, and he has concluded that the side is going to win the war that has the most medium and heavy bombers. I have just visited all the aircraft plants in this country. They are already expanded from ten to twenty times what they were a year or two ago, and they cannot expand any further. The President has asked me to ask you to subordinate everything else to the manufacture of sub-assemblies for airplanes."

That afternoon, he took back to the President of the United States a commitment from the entire automobile industry that they would subordinate everything else to the manufacture of sub-assemblies for bombers.

At that time a little fellow by the name of Jimmy Doolittle, then a major, was sent into Detroit to help bring about a marriage between the aircraft industry and the automotive industry. At the end of the war I heard Doolittle again after the bombing of Europe and Asia. One of the things Doolittle said that I think has some pertinence to the current situation despite the fact that there is some difference is this: "I have seen the saturation bombing of European cities. I thought, before this war, that that would destroy any nation, and break it and defeat it. But I have found out that there is no limit to the adaptability of the human animal," He saw people in the midst of bombings and fires and destruction adjust and come back.

That period for me was an exposure to competition and co-operation. Our American economy is unique in its reliance on competition and co-operation. These principles have made it a distinct economy, different from the economies of Europe and Asia. One or two are beginning to move in our direction, but our economy is fundamentally different.

Out of my American Motors experience I have learned a lesson that I want to pass on to you. A friend of mine said to me a few years ago, "There is nothing more vulnerable than entrenched success." Don't look at people in the field that you want to go into and say, "Gee, what chance have I got? Look how entrenched they are in their success. "

 

You just remember, "There is nothing more vulnerable than entrenched success." Now, the reason that that hit me between the eyes was the same reason that things hit all of us between the eyes: It tends to relate to experience or something we believe. It meant a lot to me because, after all, here was a company on the ropes that had lost 31 million dollars in one year. Out of sheer necessity it forged a program that has reshaped the entire industry, in a situation where it was considered ready for buria1, against the largest industrial enterprises in the world, enterprises that are the essence of entrenched success, and who now are copying us. I do not say that boastfully. I say it simply to get across to you the fact that "the most vulnerable thing on earth is entrenched success" because it is at that point that people begin to relax, take it easy, and forget the fundamentals.

Let me reverse it a little. There is no nation on earth, present or past, that has ever enjoyed the entrenched success that this country has enjoyed. This country is the most outstanding example of entrenched success in history. Therein lies one of our perils. We think it is so good that it is always going to last. Yet what Thornton Wilder said is eternally true, "Every good and excellent thing stands moment by moment on the razor edge of danger and must be fought for." You will never arrive at a point in your life, I do not care what your field is, when you can say, "I have arrived. I am there. I can take it easy,” without slipping and sliding and going in the other direction.

One of our public relations fellows said to me about five years ago, when Buick was number three in the industry, "Gee, wouldn't it be great to have it made like Buick has it made?" They were selling 750,000 cars a year at that point, and since then they have slipped to eighth or ninth place. But, they have begun to make a little comeback, One of the great things about America is that nobody ever has it made. Everybody has an opportunity, contingent upon capacity and willingness, to equip himself for opportunity.

Long ago I became convinced that very few of us really understand America. Very few of us have really thought through the fundamental things about the American system. I think we are too much inclined to take it for granted that the American Revolution has been completed, that we have arrived, that we have it made. We haven't. The American Revolution is in its very early stages. This is true politically, it is true economically, it is true socially, it is true religiously. And it is going to take some nonconformists in America to jolt America out of its lethargy and its smugness.

Let me be more specific. Politically we have been a free country, based on the inalienable rights of all people, for about 180 years or more, and yet there are millions of Americans who cannot vote because of race. Further, politically, we have accepted the old idea, that we need only two major political parties--yet the membership in those two political parties combined is less than the membership of the Communist party in Russia. And yet we look down our noses at the fact that five or six million people in Russian who are members of the Communist party run Russia. There are two million members of the Democratic and Republican parties combined. (We do not need a third party--that is not the solution. I am only trying to stimulate your thinking a little.) The two major parties in this country similarly have so few members and are similar in their structure and dedication to their primary purpose--which is to win elections. That is an important purpose. After all, there are two essentials in human government--leadership and principle. You have to have both. But the two major parties compete in determining who is going to be responsible for leadership. If you are going to be a leader in a free society, you have to be in office, because you cannot be a leader out of office. Consequently, winning the election has become the primary objective. Discussion of issues and problems that people do not understand is avoided because it will cost votes and may lose the election. Walter Lippman has pointed out in his book The Public Philosophy that there has not been a major political figure in this century in all the free countries who has been right too soon, who has been right before the people understood what ought to be done and has been successful. The exception has been Churchill.

The political practice is to follow, not to lead. The political practice is to avoid the issues: Let somebody else take care of the issues. Yet a free society depends upon the informed electorate. What good does it do to have 50 per cent of the people vote if they do not know what they are voting about? I would rather see 5 per cent vote if they were informed than 50 per cent if they were uninformed. If the political leaders and the political parties provide no real discussion of the issues of the day, then haw can the people be informed?

Henry Symonds points out that a free society depends upon an intelligent, relevant discussion of the issues. Issues and principles are more important than men and leaders. I do not care how capable a man is, if he is trying to use the wrong principles he cannot succeed.

This is a glaring deficiency in America. As a result of this situation, the pressure groups have excessive influence and money, and almost more people than in both parties. In my lifetime, I have not had an opportunity to vote in an election where there was a fundamental difference between the two major parties on the basis of basic principles. This country desperately needs at least one political party controlled by citizen members and dedicated to solving the problems of America on the basis of American principles.

 

What are some of the issues that I am talking about that are neglected and ignored? Let us take the farm situation. With much of the world starving, with two-thirds of the people in the world going to bed hungry every night, we sit here with our surpluses, trying to take land out of production fast enough to cut down the surpluses, We arc still trying to solve the agricultural problem on the basis of economic nationalism, at a time when one of the real problems we face is to help other nations of the world to achieve what we have achieved before their envy turns them against us to the point where they help to destroy us. I was kicked out of Mexico when I was five years old because the Mexicans were envious of the fact that my people--who, when they were down there, were just as poor as the Mexicans they moved among--went to work with irrigation and dams and other things and became prosperous. The Mexicans thought if they could just take it away from the Mormon settlers, it would be paradise.

The facts are, as the Doctrine and Covenants tells us, that the world has enough and to spare, and we have been blessed with the technology. Men like Roswell Garst grow more corn per acre than anyone else whom Khrushchev saw. Khrushchev wanted to find out how to reduce the labor in producing corn, and Garst said that with our modern agricultural technology there would be a surplus of food around the world if we would help other people to use our knowledge, coupled with this is helping other nations to duplicate what we have achieved industrially, so they can buy instead of just taking. That is a big area, but I simply mention this one point.

Let me mention another issue, largely neglected and ignored. The greatest economic threat to this country today is the excessive concentration of collective bargaining power on the part of unions and employers—Not just unions, but employers as well as unions. This has been brought about by laws passed in the 1930's that were good for the 1930's but are out of date and need to be balanced. This concentration of power is feeding the wage-price spiral, and we are pricing ourselves out of our own markets and world markets, and economic growth is stifled. The leaders of both parties say the answer is to give Washington more power. This is how far we have departed from the most fundamental political and economic principle of all--that if you are going to put ultimate power in the hands of the people, you must keep power divided.

Woodrow Wilson said, "When we resist concentration of power, we are resisting the powers of death, because concentration of power is what always precedes the destruction of human liberties."

Lest you think I am pessimistic, let me say this to you. These problems I am talking about have developed as a result of our success.

America has had tremendous entrenched success, Each success creates new problems. You are going to find that, as you go through life, the further you advance, the more problems you have, the more responsibilities you have.

 

Walt Whitman has voiced this in these eternal words: "It is provided in the essence of things that from every fruition of success, no matter what, shall come forth something to make greater struggle necessary."

Things we did in the 1920's and 1930's to correct problems then have created new problems now, and we must deal with them. We desperately need a greater degree of political interest and activity to meet this situation.

Another thing that we are losing in America is a realization that what we have done politically and economically is linked to the spiritual principles upon which our country was founded. To be successful, as successful as you can be, with your background and your opportunity, you must have your knowledge in order, because unless you have your knowledge in order the more knowledge you have, the greater will be your confusion. The reason there is so much confusion and fear in the world today, as predicted as far back as the time of Christ, is that people have been listening to man-made doctrine and interpretations--intellectualism--for so long that they are confused. They do not know the relative importance of knowledge and that the most important knowledge is spiritual knowledge. A knowledge that God lives is the most important knowledge. If I had time I could show you how our political system, our economic system and our social system are all built on that premise--that if you destroy that premise, as it is being destroyed in this country in terms of real conviction and belief, you destroy the most essential thing to the preservation of freedom and all of the things that we cherish in the future that lies ahead of us.

Success is not a question of wealth or fame or power. Success is not a question of being a professional man instead of a skilled craftsman. It is not a question of what particular field you go into as much as it is a question of excelling in whatever field you go into. Any society that begins to look down its nose at the plumber and thinks him inferior to a lawyer or a doctor is wrong. It is better to be an excellent plumber than to be an indifferent and incompetent lawyer. One of the most important yardsticks of success is to excel and to master whatever it is you are doing, whatever the task is, because all tasks are important and necessary.

 

Another measurement of success is whether you are doing the best you can. It is not a question of judging yourself as compared to somebody else, but a question of judging yourself against your own potential.

 

Another yardstick of success, as far as I am concerned, is finding your purpose in life. I am as convinced that every individual has a purpose as I am that there was a purpose in the Church coming to this area. I believe you can be as certain of your purpose in life as Brigham Young was that the people should come to the Salt Lake Valley, and that it was the place.

As a matter of fact, the Lord has given us a success formula. In Section 90, verse 24 of the Doctrine and Covenants the success formula is this. The Lord says: "Search diligently." To search diligently, as I see it, means to read, to talk, to think, to set goals, objectives and dreams, and to aspire and to work at them. Do your part.

The Lord also says, "Pray always." Prayer is not the method of the lazy and the indifferent. Those who really pray are those who, having done all they can, are determined not to fail, and thus, they ask for help beyond their own resources to succeed, and to know what they ought to do. I want to say to you on the basis of personal experience that you can know for yourself what you ought to do as clearly as the heads of this Church know what is good for the Church, if you will search and pray and fast. In the major decisions of life it is worthwhile doing so.

The third part of that formula is to be believing. "Search diligently, pray always, and be believing." This means to be optimistic, to be confident, and to have faith. When you know what you want to do, do it. You never accomplish anything unless you have confidence and faith. If you believe you can, if you get a vision of what you want to do, you can do it. It will happen if you work at it, if you pray.

And look your opportunities are world-wide. America must take what she has accomplished and help other peoples to realize the same progress. To do that, those countries are going to have to have religious conviction--and I do not mean just one church's conviction. I mean basic religious conviction, a belief in the dignity of the individual. They are going to need men of the type of Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln before they can get Edisons and Fords, and men of that type. But we must help them do it. We must convince them we are prepared to help them do it. In my book, the young men of this Church in particular are getting the training that is needed to convince these people that we want to help them, not for our selfish ends, but for their good. This we must do. This, plus scientific developments, opens up opportunities to you fellows that are so far beyond those that were available to me that there is no comparison. The challenges are greater, the risks are greater. We are in a struggle for survival, the greatest struggle for survival the world has ever seen. This struggle is universal, except for military combat. So we have great competition in doing it.

 

One of the things I am most thankful for, and one of the things I have been most thankful for all through my life is this: in the big important areas, the big areas where we need to know what is right and what is wrong, the Doctrine and Covenants and the Book of Mormon have the answers. I could have taken time here tonight to relate to you how I have taken some of those principles and used them in the activities in which I have engaged, with great results, but let me just cite a few.

 

A lot of people say that things have changed since the Constitution was written and we need a new approach to today's problems. We know that the Constitution of the United States was divinely inspired. We know that its principles are the principles that are necessary to free men from all forms of bondage. We do not have to be in doubt on that point. Communism is challenging us in the economic area. What is right economically? The Doctrine and Covenants gives us the basic principles of God's economy---the United Order--and it is not communism. If you understand that, you will be able to see that the Constitution of the United States, and the economic freedom that we have, provide the opportunity to go without limit in building toward the economy of God the extent of our individual and collective capacities.

Many concern themselves about whether the world is going to be destroyed by fire and what will happen. What is the most important knowledge? These books tell us with no uncertainty that if we will worship the God of this land, we will not lose our freedom and we will not burn. To me those are big assurances in an ago when it is clear that the world could be destroyed by fire.

 

I could go on, but may I close by saying this: all of you are going to give your lives for something, whether you want to or not. Everybody gives his life for something. You can give it indifferently, as a result of no particular direction, or you can give it purposely, for goals and aims and principles. And principles are more important than people. When Joan of Arc was nineteen she had saved France. The British were about to burn her, but they said they would take her off the funeral pyre if she would recant. In Maxwell Anderson's play, she responds:

 

"Every man gives his life for what he believes. Every woman gives her life for what she believes. Sometimes people believe in little or nothing, Nevertheless they give up their lives to that little or nothing. One life is all we have, and we live it as we believe in living it, and then it's gone. [And let me insert, death is not the worst ending, and peace is not the absolute objective. As a matter of fact, any nation that wants peace and security more than freedom will lose its freedom and lose peace with it]

"But to surrender what you are and live without belief--that’s more terrible than dying--more terrible than dying young.”

 

And so she let them burn her.

Nathan Hale, at twenty-one, was sent by Washington to spy among the British to find out when they were going to attack New York and was captured. And as they were about to shoot him, the British said," If you repudiate your loyalty, we will make you a captain in the British Army." Nathan Hale said, "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."

When Patrick Henry gave his great speech, the greatest part was not "Give me liberty or give me death," The greatest part of it was when, he said, "I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death." This country desperately needs men and women who will speak out and who will say what they believe.

 

You can take the Gospel of Jesus Christ into any field of activity, and with it you can see imperfections and you can find ways to improve activity. One of the acid tests used to show whether we have been successful or not is whether we have undertaken to improve that of which we are a part. I do not believe we are going to be a success by isolating ourselves as a cup of salt in one spot and feel that we have savored the earth. I think we have to have a salt mine; I am all for that. But I think if we are going to savor the earth, if we are going to leaven the earth, and if we are going to bring back to America the conviction and the dedication that will save America and the Constitution when it hangs by a thread, then we have to seek out our place and go into it and make our mistakes and achieve our successes.

Bill Knudsen said once, "You know, you can't stumble sitting down.” Emerson said,

 

"It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own: but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."

The principles of this Church and my membership in this Church have never been a cause of embarrassment, have never been a problem, have always been an asset. The principles of this Church are the principles that are needed to produce the men who will be capable of saving the Constitution when it hangs by a thread.

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