Our Common Country/Chapter 18

The conservation of human resource is even more important than the conservation of material resource; but I desire to call your attention to the fact that one depends a great deal on the other, and that the two form a benevolent circle. This fact is forgotten by many persons. On the one hand, there are those with a strong sentiment to improve the conditions of the less fortunate or by a policy, even more wise, to prevent the development of unjust social conditions or low standards of health and education, and to maintain our position as a land of equal opportunity. So fixed do some of their ​eyes become on the human resources of America and on occasional misery and suffering, that they even become impatient with those who are working to build up, by industry, wholesome business enterprise and productivity, the material resources, and, consequently, the standards of living of our people.

On the other hand, there are other persons who, in the main, I believe, are not heartless or selfish but who are so intent on their tasks of manufacturing and commerce, driven perhaps by that impulse for creation which is so often misinterpreted as mere money-hunger, that they forget that the men, women and children about them, sometimes in their employ, are not mere commodities and are not even mere machines to be consumed, worn out, treated without love and tossed aside, but are human beings whose welfare in the end is so intertwined with that of every other human being that the imper​fections, the poor health, the neglected old age, the abused childhood, the failure of motherhood in any one of them becomes an injury and a menace to us all.

We must bring together the broadened consciences of those who concentrate their attention upon our business and our great enterprises on the one hand and see only the vision of prosperity, and on the other, those who find in their hearts and minds no vision but that of raising the standard of health and happiness of less fortunate human beings, where such standards have fallen below those which all Americans wish to see enjoyed by all Americans.

Service to America,—that must be the spirit of all our citizenship—Service, a willingness to serve intelligently, to train for humane service, to cleave to an idealism of deeds and honest toil and scientific accomplishments, rather than to serve by mere words.

I believe this spirit can be fostered best ​by uniting America. I believe it is best served by wiping away distinctions of class, creed, race or occupation which separate Americans from Americans.

I say, let us awake the conscience and intelligence of the social reformer, and even of the discontents, and the agitators who, sometimes, with fine zeal for the good of mankind, nevertheless go too far and do gross harm to mankind by spreading the idea that productivity, a day's honest work, American business, and commerce are somehow the symbols of evil, of oppression, of selfishness. These are not symbols of evil, nor are business and industry, expressing the toil of head and hand, the enemies of man's welfare. They are the sources of man's welfare.

We must awaken the conscience of the ignorant and the misguided to the fact that the best social welfare worker in the world is the man or woman who does an honest day's work. We must awaken ​their conscience to recognize that American business is not a monster, but an expression of God-given impulse to create, and the savior and the guardian of our happiness, of our homes and of equal opportunity for all in America. Whatever we do for honest, humane American business, we do in the name of social welfare.

But it is equally true that we must awaken the conscience of American business to new interest in the welfare of American human beings. It is not enough for America that her business and commerce shall be honest; they must also be humane. Men, women, and children of America are not commodities. To treat them as commodities is not only to forget the responsibility we owe to the brotherhood of man, but also it is to be blind to the fact that American business can not flourish nor the material prosperity of America be built upon a firm foundation ​until by just such work as by protection of health, by education, by the preservation of wholesome American motherhood and vigorous and happy American childhood, and a national humane spirit finding expression in enactment of law when need be—we insure the welfare of our human resources.

The belief which I would like to send to all Americans is my belief that we can not have the fulness of America until all of us turn again to love of toil and love of production, to respect for honest organization of effort and to a willingness to put all our shoulders to the wheel. But with it goes my belief that we can not have all that love, and all that respect, and all that willingness until throughout the organization of our industry and commerce there runs the flow of love of man.