May I Have Another Cup OF Moral Courage
By Melvin J. Howard
What is the difference
between stubbornness and backbone you may ask. A man who stands for
principles in which you believe, has backbone; a man who stands for principles
in which you do not believe, is stubborn. But the true difference, is that
the stubborn man will not listen to reason. He will persist in a course he has
adopted simply to maintain his vanity. He won’t admit that he has been wrong,
though, he may know it in his heart. His notion of will-power is sadly false.
Will-power is consentaneous to the utmost spirit of conciliation. This
does not mean compromise. The man with backbone is willing to listen to
argument; he will keep his mind open. But he will not deviate an inch in
principle if he knows himself to be right. He will give in before a convincing
argument; he is big enough to admit that he can make mistakes, and even that he
has made one in this particular instance.
But he will never
give in because of mere lack of physical and moral courage. And moral courage
is the rarest of all the rare things of this earth. War has shown that millions
have physical courage. Millions were willing to face rifle and cannon,
bombardment, poison gas, liquid fire, and the bayonet; to trust themselves
to flying machines thousands of feet in air, under the fire of anti-aircraft
guns and the machine guns of enemy planes; to go into submarines, perhaps to
meet a horrible death. But how many had the courage merely to make
themselves unpopular and do the right thing? These pressures are several.
Lets take wealth and the inheritance tax. Certainly not popular to the living
heirs. Governments need so much taxes that ways have to be found to get them.
The inheritance tax is the one that generates the least effective resistance.
During life, income taxes now weaken the power of the fortune to accumulate,
and, at death, the government steps in to take the lion's share. The Vanderbilt
fortune is one in point. Until his death old Commodore Vanderbilt strode the
country like a colossus with his hundred million. His son William H. made it
two hundred millions. He owned the New York Central Railroad as a man owns his
corner store. But he found it wasn't healthy for one man to control a great
railroad. He found it to his advantage to sell a lot of his control. When he
died he left eight children. Eight children subject a fortune to a very enfeebling
division. But his sons, Cornelius and William K. got $50,000,000 each.
Cornelius' fortune at his death went to several children, but Alfred got the
bulk, $80,000,000. When he died it had shrunk to $35,000,000. It was split
$5,000,000 to his son William, $8,000,000 to the widow, and the balance to two
sons of his second wife. William K. left $100,000,000. It went to two children,
Consuelo and William Harold. The former withdrew her fortune to a ducal dynasty
in England. Among the various heirs, a good slice drifted into the hands of
Frederick W. Vanderbilt. He died in June, 1938. His estate, valued at
$72,588,000, was liquidated in 1939, and the Federal government and state of
New York took $41,2 72,000 of it in taxes. Bottom line you are not taking your money
with you. Of course today there are many ways to off set your tax liabilities.
But what I am trying to say is between your heirs and the government your going
out of this world broke buddy like it or not. So think of life’s gifts as
long-term leases you are only leasing these things while you are here. Once you
get that through your head you can start living your life now be a producer of
things. Contribute to society. Besides how many houses and cars do you really
need?
Say what you want about
John D. Rockefeller he made stuff he was not a promoter. When the Standard
holding company was dissolved it owned thirty-three corporations, and John D.
Rockefeller personally owned something more than one fourth of all the stock.
What it was worth, it is difficult to say. The shares when first sold on the
market immediately following the dissolution were valued at $663,000,000. Four
months later they had risen to $885,000,000.
They were probably worth
still more. For the Standard had never made any effort to inflate its values.
Whatever may be said of Rockefeller's fortune it was never made in stock
adventures in Standard shares. The shares of that company were never peddled
about. They formed the subject of no market operations. Rockefeller issued no
bales of stock to be listed on the exchange, manipulated to higher levels, and
then unloaded on the public. This was the method that Morgan employed and that
later became the curse of American corporate business. No stockholder ever had
any reason to complain against Rockefeller. As for consumers, he did strive to
make the best oil and to furnish unequaled service. He was the best employer of
his time, instituting hospitalization and retirement pensions. He paid the best
wages in the industry. His sins were the sins of the industrial warrior, the
sins of the ruthless competitor. His offenses were leveled against those who
dared to sell oil in an oil world that this great monopolist had marked for his
own. When he retired, the Standard Oil Company was the greatest industrial
corporation in the world. Its tanks were to be seen not only at every railroad
station in America but along the Ganges, the Yangtze, and the Amazon, wherever
boats or pipes or railroads or wagon wheels could carry his oil. Rockefeller
must be accepted as the greatest business administrator America has produced.
His immense wealth was the product of intense application to the business of
accumulation, to the habit of planning with infinite patience and then
executing these plans with indomitable fortitude, cautiously and slowly when
possible, with military like swiftness when necessary. Unlike the paper pushers
of his day like Morgan, he was no autocrat. Rockefeller possessed an
extraordinary capacity for acting with others. He made it a rule never to adopt
a decision on any important matter unless he had the unanimous consent of his
partners. He could spend years trying to convince them when his simple word
would have been law. His fortune belongs in the group of the Carnegies, the
Henry Fords—enterprisers who were producers and who got their fortunes by
creating wealth and retaining for themselves as large a share of it as they
could. They were wholly different from the group of today that shovel paper
around and uses various ponzi schemes to show profit were there is none. We
have suffered great losses at the hands of people who could not admit they were
wrong. Instead of admitting they were wrong they thought fraud would be a
better way out. This to me is the most ugliest of vain. I have come to the conclusion using the term experts is relative. There are only probabilities and
possibilities.
This universe is
constantly changing it is not static just because something works for a while
does not mean it will forever when will we humans get that through our heads.
Humility is the only true gauge of character arrogances has proven over and
over the downfall of man and society. America needs to start being producers
again that’s how we became a great nation we need more moral courage to do the right thing.
