Evening star., 1940-12-20

Jay franklin. dollar sign from
our national calculations and ideals
represents what is possibly the
greatest Christmas present ever
offered to the Nation.
In money-economy like ours, it
is, of course, necessary that the indi-
vidual family should conduct it's
affairs with reference to the weekly
pay-envelope or the cost of food at
the corner grocery and the monthly
rent. Yet there is no one of us so
mean that he will not throw flnan-
cial caution to the winds and
incur debt to save the life of a sick
child or to meet the other emer-
gencies Of life. We have long since
learned, in our social order, that
happiness and welfare and health
and freedom are far more valuable
than money in the bank or sound
balance-sheet.
1t is also to be noted that it has
never been rule of any civilized
society to expect baby to earn its
keep or to kill off the old people as
soon as they cease to draw pay or
to pull their weight.
Harsh Doctrine.
Yet in our larger affairs we have
submitted to system which pre-
supposes exactly the harsh doctrine
that we reject in our family life and
our personal relations. We have at
various times professed to believe,
nationally, that we cannot afford to
feed our own hungry or to provide
work for our own unemployed, when
the plain fact is that no nation can
afford to starve or dishearten its
own citizens. We have professed to
believe that we cannot defend our
democracy and our freedom against
the dictators because we cannot
afford the cost of total defense.
We have even argued that We
cannot afford effectively to help
Great Britain and China to resist
an aggression which, if successful,
would expose us to economic, social
and political ruin. And we are even
now being told that we cannot
afford to pay minimum wages to
labor or to limit the hours of labor
at time when there are about
5000, 900 able-bodied American citi.
zens seeking work and unable to
| find it because no man has hired
them. And it is suggested that We
cannot pay the price of developing
the st. Lawrence in the interest OF
our national defense and industrial
power because it will take too long
and cost too much money.
This sort of doctrine is not free-
dom, but is rather a spiritual tyran-
ny of the most cruel and stupid
kind. Money Is good servant but
a bad master and when we stand
at salute it is not the dollar sign but
the stars and stripes which COM
mands our respect.
More Than Dollars.
Too long have the people of this
country-the patient, decent, good
humored American people-allowed
the issues of national life and death
to be reduced to the common de-
nominators of cash and credit. Ours
has been notorious as, the land OF
the almighty dollar. Now is the
time, by removing IS" from this
appalling equation, to make Amer
lea better known as the land Of the
Almighty.
This is the opportunity which is
| now offered us, as a Christmas gift
to the whole world. The only coin
which has permanent value as cur.
rency in an age which is now dawn
Ing Is the coin which expresses it.
self in such words as Courage"
honor" "tenacity." "self-sacriflce.
"neighborliness," dignity" and "loy-
atty" 1t is these which create and
maintain people: without these
all the gold and silver in creation
are mere masses of metal which
might well have been left undis-
turbed In the bowels of the earth.
So our national Christmas gift for
1910 Is the spectacle of a Nation
which has again launched the "evo-
luton of freedom" by emancipating
the hopes and ideals and necessities
OF men and women from the bond.
age of the dollars.
(Released by Consolidated News
Features, Inc)