Rockingham is a beautiful town, its people are above the
average, in intelligence, and possess more of this world’s goods than most
people; but we are on an insane hunt for pleasures and on the wrong trail even
for that. In this mad rush for pleasure we have discarded our one-time good
community spirit, we have thrown it aside, as if to lighten our load in the
race to get that which will give us more to eat, more to wear, more to see, and
more that the Jones’s haven’t got. It is no longer a race to keep up with the
Joneses but a race to out-do the Joneses. When a project comes up that is
designed to better our community the best of us prey upon it with the idea of getting
all the personal benefit we can and, many times, it is at the expense of our
neighbors. The common good seems to have been forgotten. It is a rush for
personal gain, generally a money gain, with a belief that money can buy
happiness. It can not be exchanged for that commodity. Money buys things that
stimulate our desire for happiness and when the effect of that stimulant dies
down we are worse off than we were before. Happiness comes from a deed well
done; a piece of work well done; a kindly deed; even a kindly deed done with
money leaves a bitter tinge and happiness would be nearer complete if the money
could have been left out.
Several years ago, I was on the train, bound for Wilmington
and the train stopped at Lumberton. There was a very old woman in the seat
opposite me and she asked if this was Lumberton. I told her yes and she said, “I
was to get off at Lumberton,” and I asked her why she did not get off. She said
she could not walk; so I picked her up in my arms and took her off the train.
The conductor said, “Why I forgot that old lady.” There was no one to meet her,
so while the conductor held the train—still in my arms, I carried that old lady
several hundred feet to the waiting room and did not put her down until the
agent promised me that he would take care of her. It was after midnight. When
the conductor signed that train ahead and I swung into my seat, I felt much
better. Did I make that old lady happy? No. I relieved her distress and made
myself happy.
In addition to acts of kindness there is only one thing in
the world that can make a man happy. That is love of his work. I pity the man
who does not love his work. The grandest feeling in the world is to go home at
night thinking on the way, that you have done a good day’s work; done it well;
a little better than anyone else could
have done it—and then on top of that to get a good night’s rest and wake up in
the morning with an eagerness to get on the job again and see if you can do
even a little better today than you did the day before. Oh, how I pity the man
who considers his work a drudge and considers payday and Saturday afternoon the
only day worth while.
Our people do not appreciate large employers of labor as
they should. These men are real benefactors. A red-blooded, true man, does not
want anything given to him—he wants a chance to work and a fair pay for what he
does. Large employers of labor distribute more happiness than we realize. Ask
any man who was recently on strike and he will tell you how difficult it is to
loaf and be happy.
We should rebuild our community spirit. There are many ways
in which we can help. Our town council is doing lots of construction work and
we are indulging in lots of destructive criticism. Some of them are beginning
to feel like they have a thankless job. Let us back them up with constructive
criticism.
Our policemen receive almost no co-operation. Let us help
them by obeying the speeding laws, the parking laws and other laws that we are
continually breaking.
Let us discard that selfish personal gain policy and deliver
our influence to the policy that will bring the most good to the community. We
must improve our schools more, we must improve our church property. Let us
cultivate that neighborly feeling, which makes one feel so much better and the
world look so much brighter. Let us abandon that policy of banishing the
lawless and try to live so that they can not be lawless. Let us uphold the arm
of our solicitor and not convict him before he has been heard. May we all
realize what a mistake it is to think ourselves better than the other fellow.
May we keep our school athletics pure and not let our desire
to win smother our desire to be honest. May we enjoy the game but not let our
excitement interfere with giving our opponent a square deal and the game if we
can not win it fairly and as gentlemen should.
Screw up our courage and determine that we will fight vice
and the customs that have not yet become vices but have a tendency that way.
Fight them forever and a day or until they are completely banished from our community.
Pray that the thoughtless age will be made shorter. Try to demolish that idea
that the boys is all right; he can get along but the girl must be protected.
There is no protection for the girl unless the boys are made clean. Shame on a
town that will accept a man who has run away with another man’s wife and will
not accept the wife. Where is our community spirit when we will not act for the
common good.
And now with Francis Kimball, let us all say “a sacred
burden in this life ye bear. Look on it, lift it, hear it solemnly. Stand up
and walk beneath it steadfastly; fail not for sorrow, falter not for sin; but
onward, upward till the goal ye win.”
Let us remember that happiness is the reward of right
living, right thinking, right acting and that these then can not be right
without work and our community will benefit whether we will or no.
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