The Character of Our Country

Some historians say there have been some nineteen civilizations rise and fall in

human history, and the principal cause for downfall was moral decay. Civilization and

survival, are, besides all else, matters of morals. If we have no sound moral foundation,

we have no safety, no assurance for the future.

So ^“Let us,” said Charles Sumner, “turn our thoughts on the character of our

country.”¹

Let us teach youth, decency, honesty, cleanliness in conduct by living so

ourselves. Let homes, parents, teachers, textbooks, entertainment and all else that is

offered – all that goes to make the man – be shaped and fashioned in truth and dignity

and decency – so shaped that youth can and will sincerely say my parents, my teachers,

the leaders and grown-ups that I lived with showed me. Except it be so, we shall find that

what we are sowing will rot as it ripens.

“… there is even now something of ill omen amongst us.” said Abraham Lincoln.

“I mean the increasing disregard for law… the growing disposition to substitute the wild

and furious passions in lieu of the sober judgment of courts,…”² “The world no longer

has a choice between force and law;” said Dwight Eisenhower, “If civilization is to

survive it must choose the rule of law.”³

“At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected?” Lincoln continued.

“I answer, if it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us;… If destruction be our lot we

must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through

all time or die by suicide.”²

What then shall we say for the fixture – what shall we say of what some would call

this twentieth civilization? It comes down, finally, to a question of character – the

character of each of us – “the character of our country.” We – even we here – hold the

power and bear the responsibility. “We shall nobly save,” said President Lincoln,”—we

shall nobly save or meanly lose the last, best hope of earth.”⁴