Loyalty… and Character and Conduct

Loyalty, like love, is not just a sentiment, and not simply what someone says, but something that is proved by performance, by character and conduct loyalty to principle, to family, to country; loyalty to self, loyalty to truth. “It is not enough o talk about the honor which characterized our ancestors,” said Frederick Stamm, “somewhere we must get the sense of loyalty to keep that honor. . . A parent. . . must find a way to inspire in the child a . . . loyalty to the family.” And “let the parent hold up before the youth in the home those fine qualities of citizenship upon which his . . . country was built.” “The best of us,” said William Bigelow, “need an exhortation to keep alive our loyalty to those [principles and] institutions” that have made possible what we are and what we have. “Loyalty is a force, not a sentiment; a course of conduct, not a creed. . . . ‘He that is not with me is against me,’ said the world’s greatest leader. It means active intervention when you see a law being flouted.” Loyalty is respecting, defending, supporting, living by law. “Action is the very essence of loyalty.” Indeed, one cannot conceive of loyalty to country without in fact defending it. As to self: It would be difficult to conceive of a person’s being loyal to self while doing anything which would destroy inner peace, offend conscience, or impair his highest possibilities, or which would cause him to be less alert, or foolishly to hazard his health. As to principle, as to truth: “. . .whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, . . . just, . . . pure, be loyal to them. And so we pause in loyalty and gratitude to our Founding Fathers who on a far-off day, did what they knew was right. Loyalty is no mere sentiment, but something of substance, of character, and conduct.