The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-04-20
DR. GEORGE Fl. DENNY'S ADDRESS ON
"THE BUSINESS MAN AS A CITIZEN
impulse quicken the public conscience


ippulset quicken the public conscience.
and elevate the public desire.
Supreme Need of Alabama
"The supreme need of Alabama, as I see
| it, is a larger spirit of devotion to the
/ immaterfal or If you choose. the spiritual
side of our life. On the material side
of things there can be no cause for pes
simism, or even for uncertainty. l have
no doubt that we are going to be rich
in things material perhaps not so dis
/ gustingly rich as some people known to
your guest of honor, yet sufficiently rich
to keep the wolf from the door. Gone
forever from our life are the days of
poverty and privation. Economically, We
| shall never again live our lives in the
past lenses of the subjunetive mood. We
have weathered every danger that has
| hitherto threatened our rapid march to
| Industrial power until today after all our
| discipline and all our trials, we stand
serene and confident on the mount of
| faith and opportunity.
"I'he one point of essential danger in
our business life TO-DAY is that, in the
very exhilaration OF our material
| triumphs. we may fail to preserve that
! ingrained conservatism and that profound
idealism that sustained US and energlzed
our purpose in those long forced marches
in the wilderness through which u
gracious and kindly providence has led
us into the land of promise Is there
man in Alabama who would forget that
past even in the blaze of a more brilliant
present? 1t is true that we have known
the discipline of stainless poverty. IT is
true that there have been days when
nothing was left but grim courage and
| great hearted hope. Yet, God being our
! witness, our fathers kept their self-re-
| spect And IL they refused to sell their
| birth right in that tragic era OF darkness
and desolation through which they We're
called to pass, who can douht that IN
| this new day of plenty and OF power,
strength will be given to us to welcome
our larger opportunity with gratitude
and with self-restraint?
| 'If you will permit me to say what is
| in my heart, | shall venture. i'll the brief
| time allotted to me. to stress just two
points which the high minded business
man who has regard for high civic ideals
| will everywhere and all the time incor-
| porate in his confession of faith
Love Thy Neighbor as Thy'self
81 The business man who mas regard
for high civic ideals will write, as the
! first article in his business creed, these
words; Thou shalt love thy neig1bor as
| thyself No man can devoutay utter
| these words who has failed to express in
! his life the sure conviction cash is sub
| ordinate to character. More than once
I have said that the most loyal son of
| the university of Alabama is not the man
| who STANDS on the SIDE lines III Il Hoiflent
| of victory, throws his hat into the air,
/ and shouts 'Hurrah for the University Of
/ Alabama but the man whose life is clean,
whose ideals are correct, and whose de-
| sire is service.
! Character, of course, relates to some-
! thing more than mere business probity.
! 1t is a matter of correct attitude of spirit
| without which the power to speak with
| the tongues of men and of angels profit
| eth nothing. Some one has suggested
! that our business men are stressing too
| largely such questions as these: What
shall / eat? What shall I drink?
! Wherewithal shall / be clothed? 1t Is
| a fact, believe, that success in money
| making is today, in many American COM
| munities, being set up as the ultimate
| test of a mans ability and worth.
| have learned in my experience as college
| president that even knowledge is ever
more and more being sought merely as
| a wage earning device. The better brains
| are, the faster they will find reasons for
| getting their salary raised is recent
observation by a self-made merchant to
| his son in college The money ideal has
| touched everything in our life from ~the
| dune store to the steel trust
His Bank Account
| "As many view the matter, the chief
| thing that determines the inheritance of
| a man is his bank account. The quanti-
tive standard has actually seized some