All growth depends upon activity. Life is manifest only by action. There
is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and
effort means work. Work is not a curse, it is the prerogative of
intelligence, the only means to manhood, and the measure of
civilization. Savages do not work. The growth of a sentiment that
despises work is an appeal from civilization to barbarism.

I would not be understood as making a sweeping criticism of current
legislation along these lines. I, too, rejoice that an awakened
conscience has outlawed commercial standards that were false or low and
that an awakened humanity has decreed that the working and living
condition of our citizens must be worthy of true manhood and true
womanhood.

I agree that the measure of success is not merchandise but character.
But I do criticise those sentiments, held in all too respectable
quarters, that our economic system is fundamentally wrong, that commerce
is only selfishness, and that our citizens, holding the hope of all that
America means, are living in industrial slavery. I appeal to Amherst men
to reiterate and sustain the Amherst doctrine, that the man who builds a
factory builds a temple, that the man who works there worships there,
and to each is due, not scorn and blame, but reverence and praise.




III

BROCKTON CHAMBER OF COMMERCE