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Show THE VOICE OF BUSINESS A principle worffh keeping is worth living up flo Bv Richard L. Lesher, President Chamber of Commerce of the United Statee One of the age-old criticisms of the National Chamber is that we have become too predictable. Our response has been that any large organization, by definition, is predictable. It is a competent com-petent management's responsibility to define, shape and carry out its organization's mission. Who is surprised, surpris-ed, for example when George Meany ' asks for more money for his members, or when the Joint Chiefs of Staff argue for increased defense spending when their mission is to protect the nation? But this question of predictability is especially true in the case of the Chamber. For our mission: "To ad- . vance human progress through an economic, political and social system based on individual freedom, incentive, initiative, opportunity and respon-sibiltiy," respon-sibiltiy," is really a restatement of those principles conceived by the Founding Foun-ding Fathers as the basis of our American society. Our predictability is another way of saying that we intend to be dependable; we intend to honor our birthright. Benjamin Franklin once remarked: "If a principle is good for anything it is worth living up to." I happen to believe that American's record speaks for itself. In this country, a fraction of the world's population with no monopoly monopo-ly on natural resources has created more new wealth - and given more away - than any other country in history. Just consider for a moment what America produces and contributes: con-tributes: An agricultural system that feeds and sustains millions of the world's hungry; miraculous medical breakthroughs that reduce win and eliminate crippling disease, and universities, industries and research centers that continue to attract the world's finest minds and produce technological discoveries that free us from drudgery and shower us all with the most abundant assortment of foods and consumer goods the world has every known. But how did it all happen? Was this unprecedented prosperity legislated from Washington.. .was it handed down by edict from HUD, ICC, FTC, DOT, or any of the other countless departments, depart-ments, bureaus, agencies and commissions commis-sions that make up the growing network of roots of Big Brother's family tree? Heavens no! Washington itself is a creation of our affluence. The seeds of that affluence were planted some 200 years ago in our revolutionary experiment experi-ment in self-government. The whole idea was to protect the freedoms of individuals, in-dividuals, not just from outsiders, but from insiders as well - and especially from those in office. And that's the only idea that has every worked. For as Irving Kristol has observed: "Where people are given the freedom to engage in economic activities ac-tivities for the purpose of bettering their condition, and most important, where the entrepreneur is given the freedom to innovate, then you get economic growth. Where such freedoms are restricted by government, govern-ment, you get relatively slow or no economic growth." And what is true here is true everywhere. That's why South Korea prospers while North Korea stagnates; and that's why in Europe, it is those in the East who always yearn to live in the West. Yet we're constantly asked, what about all our problems now1 Th people, for example, who spent'? and regulated us into our present ma of soaring prices and enem tages now say that only a massL' federal commitment can provirU tions. But how?. Will we be saved jJ Department of Energy Whicn!j $10 billion m taxes each year 1 producing a drop of oil, and which not even deliver its own mail' r estimates it loses at least 126,000, of mail every year (a stack rnore, twice as high as the Wash Monument) and it needs moreihg days just to deliver one letter offices in the same town. Compare that performance win voluntary activities during the past years of a somewhat smaller ore-. ore-. tion, the Wilkes Chamber of Conn, in North Wilkesboro, North Carol With the help of its members' a (that's right, profits), that Chamber, working with its Fomjj and the downtown North VYilksi Association, accomplished the (j ing for its neighbors: Sponsored si cell anemia clinics; provided thous; of dollars to a community college scholarships and physical additi spent thousands' to upgrade the 0 ty's medical delivery system inclj the recruitment of doctors; seems dustries and professions to provide jobs, and acted as a local sponsor, viding the matching funds for holt for the elderly program. So perhaps you will understand! say the National Chamber has noit tion of abandoning, nor 0! i apologizing for its mission. In fact rather like being called predict that's what promoting principles, pie and progress is all about. - t l A a 'Jit l J ; T-Qii CHILDREN AND ADULTS refreshed themselves on the 24thlr, paying fifty cents for three shots to let water come down on the head of the person in the John. |