Askov American. [volume] (Askov, Pine County, Minn.) 1914-current, 1943-02-18


replenish. Once it was enough that
a man compete freely in business,
for the greatest possible personal
gain; now his, enterprise, still free,
must meet social standards and
must not tend toward concentration
of power unfavorable to the gen.
eral well-being of the community.
Once, an idle man was presumed to
be a loafer; now it is realized he
may be a victim of circumstances
in which all share, and for which
all are responsible.
The great civilizations of the past
were never free from widespread
poverty. Very few of them, and
these only during short periods, pro-
duced enough wealth to make posi-
BILE a decent living standard for all
their members, even if that wealth
had been equally divided. In the
short space of a few decades we have
changed scarcity to abundance and
are now engaged in the experiment
of trying to live with our new and
as yet unmanageable riches. The
problem becomes one not of produc-
ton but of distribution and of con-
sumption; and since buying power
must be earned, freedom from want
becomes freedom from mass unem-
ployment, plus freedom from perjury
for those individuals unable to work.
In our United States the Federal
government, being the common meet
ing ground of all interests and the
final agency of the people, assumes
a certain responsibility for the solu-
ton of economic problems. This is
not a new role for the government,
which has been engaged since the
earliest days of our history in devils
ing laws and machinery and tech
niques for promoting the well-being
of the citizen, whether he was a
soldier returning from war, or a
new settler heading west to seek
his fortune, or a manufacturer look
ing for a market for his goods, or
farmer puzzled over problem in
animal husbandry.
The beginning has been made. The
right to work. The right to fair
pay. The right to adequate food,
clothing, shelter, medical care. The
right to security. The right to live
in an atmosphere of free enterprise.
We state these things as rights
not because man has any natural
right to be nourished and sheltered,
not because the world owes any man
a living, but because unless man sue
ceeds in filling these primary needs
his only development is backward
and downward, his only growth
malignant and his last resource war.
All of these opportunities are not
in the American record yet, and they
are not yet in the worlds portfolio
in the shape of blueprints. Much of
America and most of the world are
not properly fed, clothed, housed.
But there has never been a time,
since the world began, when the
hope of providing the essentials of
life to every living man and woman
and child has been so good, or when
the necessity has been so great.
It can be done. The wealth ex-
lists in the earth, the power exists in
the hills, men have the tools and
the training. What remains to be
seen is whether they have the wit
and the moral character to work
together and to lay aside their per-
sonal greed.
We and our allies are fighting
today not merely to defend an hon.
orable past and old slogans and
faiths, but to construct still more
honorable. and rewarding future.
Fighting men, coming back from the
war, will not be satisfied with mere
guarantee of dull security-they will
expect to find useful work and a
vigorous life. Already moves are
being made to meet this unacceptable
challenge.
The first step, obviously, will be to
prevent the sort of slump which has
usually followed great war. War
is tremendously costly, in terms of
money. Billions are being spent in
order that we may win, The peace,
too, will be costly, and nothing is
gained by evading the. fact. But a
democracy which can organize itself
to defeat one sort of enemy is cap
able of sustaining the effort through
the days that follow. Work, in vast
quantity and in infinite variety, will
be waiting tobe done. We will have
the capacity to produce the highest
national income ever known, and the
jobs to keep men at work.
Freedom from want is neither
conjurer's trick nor madman's
dream. The earth has never known
it, nor anything approaching it. But
free men do not accept the defeatist
notion that it never will. The free
ing of all people from want is con-
tinuing experiment, the Oldest and
most absorbing one, in the labora-
tory, the one that has produced the