ustxtxb_obs_1974_03_01_50_00020-00000_000.pdf

A Public Service Message from the American Income Life Insurance CompanyExecutive offices, Waco, TexasBernard Rapoport, Pres. A Hunger For Common Moral Ideals by Father Robert F. Drinan Member of Congress, 4th Dist., Mass. One man said this: “No one really cares what a man does not do out of pity, charity or compassion. They do not even care much what he attempts out of pity, charity or compassion. They care mainly for what he gets done . . . by any means possible. This is a window on power, sad but true. The ancient Greeks did not put to death the losers in any of their many competitions while the Romans often did. History says that civilization came to its apogee with the Greeks. But the Romans got things done.” Our Company philosophy thinks there is a better way, and that Congressman Fr. Drinan’s way is better. It is enormously difficult at this time to articulate any fundamental moral convictions which all Americans share. The trust which Americans have in their government has been so shattered by the secrecy and scandal of Vietnam and Watergate that there appear to be no concepts or words by which we can communicate with each other about what we expect our society to be or to become. There is nonetheless a universal acceptance of the idea that truth .and trust do exist and that a government of freemen is not possible without a belief in both of these concepts. Dag Hammarskjold, speaking of truth, put it beautifully in his volume “Markings”: “Respect for the word to employ it with scrupulous care and an incorruptible heartfelt love of truth is essential if there is to be any growth in a society or in the human race.” Despite the fact that Americans are lost and bewildered, they yearn nonetheless for some common shared moral and spiritual truths. They want to trust each other and to care for each other. They want to bring redemption to their nation out of the moral chaos and confusion which has shattered all our lives. Martin Buber has written that the one way by which men can reconcile the presence of evil with the possibility of self-restoration is through love. Buber wrote that “love is responsibility of an I for a thou.” Buber indicated that the person who is regnerated or redeemed is the individual “who ventures to bring himself to the dreadful point to love all men.” In the formulation of a politics of resistance to global injustice and in the practice of the politics of reconciliation it seems more and more that nothing less than love between human beings can suffice. The presence of love will elevate a politics of protest and will make noble a global politics designed to be responsive to the wretched of the earth and to the entire human family’s desire for peace. Politics in American today must assume the role which U Thant attributed to the United Nations. The former Secretary-General said that “we must remember that U.N. peacekeeping is a highly moral and sophisticated concept. It relies on reason, local cooperation, skillful diplomacy, restraint and good faith.” In the next 100 days a love of truth and mutual trust among Americans is more essential than ever before. Regardless of what might happen after 100 days these same qualities will be essential in the next 100 days of our existence together as Americans. The role of love was described magnificently by the Jusuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in these words: “Some day, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we will harness for God the energies of love: and then for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire!”