Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1960-11-26

most empty.
Peter F. Snyder,
Assistant to the Secretary,
United States Department
Of Labor, 1898.
For some time now, there
has been quite a stir of SEN
timental sluSh concerning
what our country should do,
and what individual citizens
should do, to help the be-
nighted, less enlightened peo-
Piles Of other lands, who
might find themselves sick,
hungry and naked. Some peo-
pie seem to think that we are
not only failing to do our
share, but that If we do not
increase our efforts pronto,
these countries will fall into
the Communist orbit. That
kind of talk is bound to help
the Communist cause.
For those eternally cru
sading about what we should
do to assist others, or what
We can do to earn the plau-
dts of the world, why, oh,
why, do not those people just
go on to the places they wish
to help. and work from there,
and leave the rest of us here
to our vices?
When the United States
won its independence, it was
an undeveloped country. Did
the world, as it then existed,
rush us food and clothing
(Which many of our people.
ragged and ill-fed, needed
badly? Did the rest of the
n-fortunate countries help
us commercially to get rich;
did they make available their
vast universities in Europe to
help the United States be-
come better educated? In
short, did they help us in any
way to get started? Yes, they
did, but exactly in the oppo-
site way from what these So
called friends of the world"
wish us to do today. They
sent us their poor and OPP
pressed peoples to help form
our country. Not wealth, not
technical "know-how," not
surplus products. but just
simply the type of people
who arrived with just the
clothes on their backs, peo-
pie who, if the tide of immi-
grafton turned eastward to-
day and they found them
selves in Indonesia or Ghana,
would soon find Yankee, Go
Home" labels on their backs.
After we won our indepen-
pendence in 1888. we had to
prove that we could stand
on our feet unaided, a long,
hard struggle, punctuated by
three intervening wars, 1912.
1848 and 1861. This was the
kind of a crusade that made
men. And that type of man
made our country.
Now there is growing a new
line of thought, a dangerous
one to mankind: Those who
have nothing must be given
what they lack. That those
who wish freedom how're
CARELESS of how ill-prepared
they are for it, must be given
all the tools of government.
The proponents of such ideas
believe that these new ma
tons should not be forced to
endure the privationS which
their predecessors suffered.
But is this desirable? We
have been taught that the
most precious lesson a new
nation learns, is that it has
the strength to make its
mark in the world. precisely
as a f1edgling learns to do for
himself.
Are we to go contrary to
nature, and fall for a Com
munist bad-egg idea that
everywhere, the down-trod-
den, the dregs Of the world
are to. be given everything,
even, the arms to crush us
with, If they should wish to
do. so? This idea is not So
cialistic-the socialists said
that everyone who wished to
eat must work. The new idea
simply means-give 1t to
them without work. Socialist
writer's in their plays have
repeatedly pointed out what
happens when you get al
truistic. and give a bum much
more than he expects. The re-
suit is that he gets belligerent.
and starts to demand things
because his mind says that
you are only doing this be-
cause you have to-that you
are afraid of him, and what
he represents.
I like to think that we in
this country are afraid of no
one. We have always been