Show the old settler my dear san Jua ners from my fifth to my eleventh year my folks subsided mainly on what we produced from our milk our pork and eggs our fruit and vegetables we got from the land and we contrived to make much of our bedding and clothing and other things we had to use we made e exchanges and sold bu butter I 1 eggs and other items whenever e r T we e had them to spare 1 I got it definitely in my mind that people can and must support their own selves pay their debts and stand on th their air own feet that seemed to be one of the joys and privileges of life I 1 figured that any man could live it if he had a piece of ground my mother spun the yarn and knit all our stockings she made 0 our ur clothes that was the prevailing custom I 1 thought that was the right way to do thi things especially so because the sz scripture rip was quoted to us let your garments be plain their be beauty auty the work of your own hands since that time the industrial world has been completely revolutionized and that goes too 1 for I the social world the political world and the moral world they are distracted with new and and fantastic innovations mass aro production action and low costs have robbed millions of the freedom the they y once enjoyed enjoyed d now it is better clothing better houses better everything to be had at a fraction of what they used to cost attractive kinds of foo food d and an endless array of luxuries unknown to people 65 years ago but this new wonderful world imposed impose sr a kind of dependence and helplessness unknown to the days of hard work and simple tare fare people are dependent 0 on n the smooth functioning of a great wide complicated system which can be disrupted by the failure of any one of a thousand sources on which it hinges sprawling labor unions long tran lines specialized units of production division of labor monopolies and individual leverage on public affairs and utilities a world so interdependent ter that a breakdown in one part of it can para lize the whole system and men fit themselves into this system to take some part with which they can carry on only while the system functions and they are idled by tens of thousands it anything goes wrong what hat they have learned to do is nothing on which they can live if made to stand on their own feet and whenever the great big mill jumps a cog they are faced with with starvation with all these new and improved ways of doing thi things n g the principles of independence and safety from self support are the same industrial independence pen dence is as vital as political independence every man sho should id be able to produce with his own hands something that supports lite life every man should have a skill or a trade on which to lean when strikes wars or anything else paralyzes the world around him he should know how to live by the sweat af pf of his own face or he is a parasite people laugh at old Mahonda Ma hondas gandhi because he carried his knitting with him while lie he represented his country in the court of england his was the courage to uphold a vital standard he was earning his living every day and not eating his bread by the toil of the people he loved but by the work of his own fingers albert R lyman |