--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Willard Done collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 8 number: 9 published: 1905-07 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Willard Done, "The Fourth of July," *Improvement Era* 8, no. 9 (July 1905): 702–703.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0809unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera0809unse start_page: 702 end_page: 703 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1905-07) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0809unse publication_year: 1905 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1905, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # The Fourth of July paid the farmer for beets, for tomatoes, and fruits, would not be circulated among the people. Further, these home institutions, with many others that might be named, give remunerative employment to large numbers of home laborers who are paid fair wages. They do not wish to engage cheap labor, but the motto of our local employers, as demonstrated in the past, is to live and let live. Tbey do not study to employ foreign pauper labor, but give the first opportunity to people who reside here. The people may, therefore, well be loyal to our home institutions, and to the men who have invested their capital in them, not altogether selfishly, but often with a thought for the benefit of the public generally — a truth plainly demonstrated in the establishment of our co-op. mercantile institutions, factories, and places of amusement. Loyalty to home enterprises ends, if not in direct, petty advantage, certainly in an indirect, broad and great benefit and permanent profit to all. Is it not, then, better and wiser to patronize and uphold our own home institutions, than to labor against them by encouraging opposition that will tend to kill or discourage them, and leave the people in the hands of competitors who, when home organizations are once out of the way, will feed themselves fat upon the people who have been short-sighted enough to permit such ruinous conditions. Let the people, therefore, be loyal to themselves, and to their own interests, by abandoning the short-sighted policy of petty, temporary gain which ultimately is sure to end in permanent loss. Let capital and labor decide to be fair to each other, live and let live, and, as a result, both will prosper. These truths apply not only to the leading industries, and public utilities injthe hands and under the control of our citizens' in Sals Lake City, and this state generally, but they are pertinent to every settlement and^home industry in the neighborhood. Let us encourage each other, and be loyal to our own. Joseph F. Smith. THE FOURTH OF JULY. We have become so accustomed to the noisy and more or less mechanical celebration of the Fourth of July, that in many cases, EDITOR'S TABLE. 703 especially among the young, the true meaning of the national holiday has been hidden behind the smoke and noise and general hilarity. A little refreshing of the mind on this subject may serve to recall the thoughtless to a deeper appreciation of the day and its observances. Every holiday, or "holy day," is sacred to the event it commemorates;— set apart for the purpose of bringing that event anew to the mind. This is pre-eminently the case with the great day which signalizes the birth of a new nation, "conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." Hence they who celebrate it should do so with a reverent feeling; for the birth of such a nation was accompanied by pangs more than mortal, and the shedding of the noblest and most precious blood. When July 4, 1776, dawned, on the thirteen colonies, they were engaged in a death struggle with the mother country. The fundamental principle for which they fought was the equality of men and of nations, and the inalienable rights of all men to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." These rights, in their fulness, were denied the colonies by Great Britain; and her privilege of sovereignty over them was asserted by word and by war. The colonists resisted, and the warfare had raged more than a year. Hopes had been entertained, at first, that a reconciliation would be brought about, and the colonies remain subject to the parent government; but as time went on, and the breach was widened, this hope died out, and it became necessary for reasons to be advanced for making the separation complete, and permanent. Accordingly, the Declaration of Independence was formulated and adopted. A resolution declaring the United Colonies free and independent states was adopted on July 2, 1776, although the final action of signing and promulgating the Declaration of Independence, did not take place until July 4. By this action, the colonists declared themselves free and independent, capable and worthy of self-government; amenable to no other power but God's; possessed of every element which goes to make a sovereign nation. In the declaration, which was written by the great and talented Thomas Jefferson, were set forth at length the series of wrongs, oppressions, and tyrannies which had forced the representatives of the colonies to take this action. This