Nature still offers
her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our
doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of
the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange
of mankind's goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and
their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and
abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand
indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts
and minds of men.
True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the
pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they
have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure
of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false
leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully
for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation
of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision
the people perish.
The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple
of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient
truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which
we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.
Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the
joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.
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