The Republican., 1963-05-16

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World Owes You Nothing
We are indebted to the excellent
weekly. The Republican, Oakland,
Maryland. for calling attention to
an editorial which appeared in a
local high school paper. Here are
excerpts from the thought-provok-
| ing piece, in the words of the
teen age writer, one Dick Gnegy:
Americas teen-agers are suf-
fering from an illusion. the idea
that the world owes them every
thing. 1t is not difficult to perceive
where this belief was given birth.
Today the teen-ager is confronted
With numerous examples of adults
being rewarded for nothing. The
government pays people who are
rot working and dishonesty in
every day transactions is condoncd
and rewarded A teen-ager can
hardly help but think that he de-
serves something also. This il
lusion has choked initiative and
destroyed self-pride. The teen
ager is no longer driven to higher
goals but merely waits for things
to be handed to him. The teen
ager no longer feels embarrasS-
ment when taking something for
nothing, but accepts it as the ma
tural course of events. Although
most teen-agers feel everything
should be handed to them on
silver platter, they soon learn
that is not the case. This may
come as a rude shock to tOday's
teen-agers. but THE WORLD
OWES YOU NOTHING. Teen
ayers owe all their efforts to the
word in which they live"
Big-Brother Government Cannot
Erdure-From earliest history, the
eventual end of every overgrown
and overcentraliZed government
has been collapse. When we OBJ
serve the alarming trend toward
Big : Brother Government today -
With the Federal government in
Washington reaching out its ten
tacles to control virtually every
facet of human endeaVOr, on the
farm, in the rural community, and
in the city-the pitfalls of over
grown and Overcentralized govern
nient comes into focus We see en-
phasis placed, not on leaving men
free to produce wealth, but on
hamstringing them, while conccn-
trating on the distribution of
wealth before it's produced. Have
we not reached the danger point
when those in power bcguilc them
selves into thinking that wealth
which is not being produced can
nevertheless be indefinitely dis
tributed? Incompetence grows with
the overextending of government
powers. We see here, with the
reaching out for more power, more
controls, gross incompetence lead
ing to sheer waste of tax dollars.
Inconsistencies abound. One agency
pays farmers not to cultivate land
while another promotes irrigation
projects to produce more crops.
| One agency encourages Small
Business to grow and become Big
Business, while another threatens
all kinds of dire punishment for
Big Business. One agency encour-
ages labor to demand higher pay
while another prevents the en-
ployer from making enough profit
to pay the higher rate One agency
broadcasts warnings to the world
about totalitarianism while another
promotes youth corps similar to
those under the regimes of Mus
solini and Hitler. The more func-
tiOns the centralized government
takes unto itself and the more
widespread and intricate its ac-
tivities, the more inconsistent
many of its policies become.
In the present dreary picture
there is one encouraging sign: the
increasing skepticism on the part
Of the people as to the competence
Of paternalistic government The
people are awakening and are
alarmed at the tend toward Big
Brother, "From-the-cradlc-to-the-
grave" Government. and this alarm
can be the beginning of their saliva
ton. The voice of the people will
be heard throughout the land, and
as result, the trend will turn
from overgroWth and overcentrali-
zation of government so that our
government can endure.
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