Eric SloaneSelections #3

Dateline: 10 January 2014

Painting by Eric Sloane
(click to see enlarged view)

When America was young, there were lofty creeds and absolute trust in God, but our pace has been fast. We have become spiritually tired and we are now experiencing spiritual exhaustion. Our responsibility to God is regarded as obsolete while the need to worship man and material wealth becomes overwhelming. 

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Rebirth starts with redeclaration, so in praying for a renaissance of the American creed, it seems appropriate to redeclare the original American convictions. Here are those beliefs:

I believe that the moral strength of the nation is exactly as strong as the moral strength of its individuals.

I believe that “In God We Trust” was a profound statement of national commitment and, therefore, democracy without that commitment to God is a departure from the original American concept. Early American patriots were also Christian patriots.

I believe that the same principles that rule the conscience and the economy of the individual also govern the conscience and the economy of the government: I therefore believe that waste in any form is intolerable, and just as no family can long spend more than it earns, neither can a government do so. As frugality is part of family economy, so must it be important to national revenue. The practice of thrift is insurance against greed. Greed has no part whatsoever in the original American philosophy and all evidence of greed now should be abhorred.

I believe that self-dependence produces self-respect. Helping a man to be self-dependent is an admirable pursuit, but helping a man while taking away his initiative and independence is degrading. Permanently doing for a man what he can do for himself is completely contrary and destructive to the original American tradition.

I believe the dignity of work and the foremost pursuit of excellence should be the primary challenge of labor instead of its present constant goal of more pay for fewer hours. That principle is not only decadent to workmanship and demoralizing to the worker but within time becomes logically and financially impossible.

—Eric Sloane,
From the book,  Legacy  (1979)