FREEDOM
 

         Otto Seyforth, who was president of the Chamber of Commerce
shortly after World War II and during the Korean War, said:

          “If we knew we were faced with the choice between freedom and
slavery, we would all choose wisely—if we knew.  But we often do not
know.  Day by day we make decisions which vitally affect our freedom
—without knowing or understanding that it is freedom truly that is at
stake.

          “Some say you can’t eat freedom.  By the same token you also
can’t faith and honor and decency—you can’t eat the consolations of
religion—you can’t eat beautiful music—you can’t eat the glory of a
sunset or faith in the goodness of God.  You can’t eat most of the deep
promptings of the spirit which are the real main springs of human
endeavor and progress.”

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         Tom Anderson, a prominent Tennesseean, told a story about a band
of wild hogs that lived along a river in a secluded area of Georgia:

              These hogs were a stubborn, ornery, and independent bunch.
     They had survived floods, fire, freezes, droughts, hunters, dogs, and
     everything else.  No one thought they could ever be captured.

             One day a stranger came into town not far from where the
     hogs lived and went into the general store.  He asked the store-
     keeper, “Where can I find the hogs?  I want to capture them.”  The
     storekeeper laughed at such a claim but pointed in the general
     direction.  The stranger left with his one-horse wagon, an axe, and
     a few sacks of corn.

             Two months later he returned, went back to the store and
     asked for help to bring the hogs out.  He said he had them all penned
     up in the woods.  People were amazed and came from miles around
     to hear him tell the story of how he did it.

             “The first thing I did,” the stranger said, “was to clear a small
     area of the woods with my axe.  Then I put some corn in the center
     of the clearing.  At first, none of the hogs would take the corn.  Then
     after a few days, some of the young ones would come out, snatch
     some corn, and then scamper back into the underbrush.  Then the
     older ones began taking the corn, probably figuring that if they didn’t
     eat it, some of the other ones would.  Soon they were all eating the
     corn.  They stopped grubbing for acorns, and roots on their own.  About
     that time, I started building a fence around the clearing, a little higher
     each day.  At the right moment, I built a trap door and sprung it.
     Naturally, they squealed and hollered when they knew I had them,
     but I can pen any animal on the face of the earth if I can first get him
     to depend on me for a free handout!”

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         As so many have said for so long, John Gardner being preeminent,
we must earn anew our freedoms, our ethics, our principles, and our
values.  Each generation must carry these forth and earn them for
themselves.  The free enterprise system, moral agency, and freedom as
a nation and an individual are all part of the fabric of this United States.
You cannot take away any one of them without shackling with strong
chains the greatest nation under heaven.

W. Somerset Maugham wrote:

        “If any nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its
freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values
more it will lose that too.”

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Harvey Jacobs, in a talk called “Freedom Is a Terrible Risk,” declared:

              In a Japanese novel of several years ago, the main character,
     wandering in a strange village, becomes trapped in the bottom of a
     sand pit.  Food and water are lowered to him, but no ladder.  He wants
     out desperately.  He begs his captors to let him go.  He tries to bargain
     with them, but nothing works.  Months pass.  The begging, the scheming
     becomes a way of life.  After a long time, he is granted what he wants,
     what he has been striving for with all his will, day and night, the
     freedom to come out of his pit and go on his way in complete freedom.
     Suddenly, he is afraid; he is alarmed by the prospect of facing the
     world without protection.  He could get lost, he thinks.  In his little
     pit he was at least sheltered from unknown harm.  Now he understands
     that freedom is not a reward but a terrible risk.
 

         There is a terrible risk in freedom and family and religion and all that
is worthy and good.  All things of value must be passed on to the coming
generation.

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 President Benson has declared that the glorious colors of the Stars and
Stripes will still be flying over the United States of America when the
Savior returns.

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 President Harold B. Lee said:

        “Men may fail in this country.  Earthquakes may come, seas may
heave themselves beyond their bounds; there may be great drought
and disaster and hardship, but this nation, founded as it is on a foundation
of principle laid down by men whom God raised up, will never fail.”

 
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