--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 33 number: 9 published: 1930-07 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: "Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, “We Stand for the Preservation of Our Heritage Through Obedience to Law,” *Improvement Era* 33, no. 9 (July 1930): 612–613." source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera3309unse 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: improvementera3309unse start_page: 612 end_page: 613 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1930-07) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera3309unse publication_year: 1930 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 1930, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # We Stand for the Preservation of Our Heritage Through Obedience to Law We Stand for the Preservation of our Heritage Through Obedience to Law Miss Louise Barton, of Preston, Idaho, (Franklin Stake) won first place in the Gleaner Girls' public speaking contest with this address. — Editors. LONG before America was known to the European — before Europe itself was known to civilized men — long be- fore the days of Romulus and Re- mus or the Golden age of Greece, great multitudes of civilized peo- ple lived along the Nile, and in the valleys of Mesopotamia. They built canals, good roads, planted seeds, they domesticated animals. They wrote books, and built tem- ples of learning and worship. In some of the arts, they have never been surpassed; in some of the sciences they were right on the verge of great discoveries. For the time in which these ancients lived, their heritage was indeed a rich one. 13 UT all their great monuments to the brawn and brain of men have perished, and the little knowledge we have of them has come to us from the patient shovel of the archaeologist. History tells us that one civilization after an- other has risen and fallen, in each case leaving little of value to their successor — so little in fact, that whenever men began the upward climb once more, they were always compelled to start at the bottom. Such has been a large part of the history of mankind. So often has it been repeated that today men are attempting to prove that na- tions, like individuals, must be- come old, decay, and eventually die. Gloomy prophets are in our nation today prophesying that the seeds of death are among us, that people cannot long endure civiliza- tion, that the story of the ancients shall become the story of the mod- erns, that our own achievements added to that of our rich heritage shall all vanish away. ^ Happily however, there are also those among us who have great faith in the future, an intelligent faith which acknowledges the dan- gers confronting mankind, but de- nies the assertion that our civiliza- tion must perish simply because similar tragedies have repeatedly come upon all civilizations of the past. We should listen to these happier prophets before accepting the philosophy of the gloomy ones, for no one ever had so much to lose as we, no one ever had so much left to them as the Amer- icans of today. "XTOT only has much been passed -^ on to us but we were born into this world having a greater expectation of life. A generation ago, the expectation of life was but 40 years; today it is over 60. The marvels of asceptic surgery and the knowledge and practice of personal and public hygiene have given us these additional years of life. Many diseases whose very names struck terror into the hearts of our grandparents have been stamped out from all civilized communities. Typhoid and diph- theria no longer attack civilized man with the regularity of the sea- sons. Yellow fever and malaria are no longer controlled by the un- certain limiting factors of geog- raphy. Additional years of life would not have been a great blessing to many of the ancients. More life would have meant more years of slavery, longer subjection to cruel- ty, hope longer deferred. But it is not so with modern man. Our labor and suffering have not in- creased proportionately with the expectation of life. Modern sci- ence has created mechanical slaves for us. The old Periclean law of Athens granted each citizen the right to own 5 slaves. Every in- habitant of the United States has today at his disposal the power equivalent to 150 slaves, slaves that never get tired, that never rise up and massacre their masters; slaves that do not cry for food when they are idle; thus, men in every field of industry whether it be in agriculture or manufacturing, find themselves with more and more leisure time, leisure time in which to enjoy the pleasure of the automobile, the joy of the radio, the comforts derived from elec- trical appliances. Today these are all within the reach of the com- mon American, and yet the Cae- sars of Rome, in all their might and glory, were strangers to such comforts and delights. T\7EALTH, power and leisure v* have ofttimes brought des- truction to the lives of many promising young men and women. Operating alone and unguided by spiritual ideals and religious truths, they have often been the The Improvement Era for July, 1930 613 forerunners of national decay and ruin. But America did not have material prosperity and leisure time lavishly bestowed upon her un- accompanied by spiritual truths. Our national structure has been built upon the sure foundation of lofty ideals. The major set- tlements in the early days of America were made by emigrants who were fleeing from the intoler- ance and bigotry of the old world. Their ideals of religious freedom and universal brotherhood found expression in their early constitu- tions and charters, and finally were embodied in the Federal Constitu- tion— the greatest document ever written for the insurance of human rights and liberties. Domestic and foreign enemies claim that America is money mad and that she has forsaken the ideals of her forefathers; but this statement is untrue. All the world knows that America, the rich and mighty, was the friend to starving Belgium and to all the other un- fortunates of war-ravaged Europe. During post-war times her agents of mercy and salvation visited the suffering children of all European peoples, regardless of their nation- ality or their religion. In many cases she blessed the children of her late enemies. Millions of healthy young men and women living in Europe and Asia today have good reasons for being thankful to America, the generous — America, the land blessed with the richest material and spiritual heritage of any nation that has ever existed upon God's footstool. TF we are to deny the gloomy ■*■ assertion that our civilization must perish like all civilizations of the past, then we should keep in mind a definite plan for its preser- vation. Obedience to the law is the plan we should follow, for the civil laws of a nation are the ex- periences of that nation codified for the enlightenment of its citizens and for the protection of their lives and property. Obedience to the law will preserve our heritage, for our enemies are within our borders and not elsewhere. Modern science has made us immune from the dangers of savage or barbarous in- vasions. Neither should we fear England's naval supremacy or Ja- pan's rapid strides in Western culture. The world war proved that we are quite capable of cop- ing with any enemy that might rise up against us from outside our borders. The ones we have need to fear are those who call themselves Americans, but at the same time refuse to obey the laws of Amer- ica. They are the dangerous ene- mies . of our republic — they and they alone have the power to turn back the hands of progress; no one else can rob us of our heritage. A ND when we speak of the law- **• less we should not limit our observations to that ever-increas- ing army of drug-peddlers and wholesale rum-runners who fre- quently terrorize whole sections of our great cities and miles of our coast lines with the rattle of their machine guns and the roar of their bombs as they contest their strength and wits against the serv- ants of decent society. America has a greater enemy than these — he is Mr. Respectable citizen who does not kill or steal, but through his evil example of breaking the minor laws, which he finds dis- tasteful or inconvenient, he places all law in a state of contempt. It has not been so long since Americans had a respect for civil law which in many cases was akin to reverence. Citizens i were shocked when they learned that a member of a good family had broken the law; and the offender was immediately ostracized from decent society. But it appears that that day is rapidly passing. Parents break traffic laws with their families seated beside them in the car. Children know that their father received a silver hip- flask for Christmas, and he jokes at the dinner table about his new bootlegger. It is Mr. Respectable citizen of this type who must be convinced of the danger in his ac- tions if our heritage is to be pre- served. If his evil examples are continued without some voluntary check on his part he will soon rep- resent the majority of this nation, for his name is legion. JL HE final winners in the M Men and Gleaner Girls' public speaking contest have come into competition, directly or indirectly, with many hundreds of young people, all filled with a commendable ambition to win recognition. All were winners. They gained knowledge