Quote

An interesting quote I ran across today by J Reuben Clark.

Eminent men and able men of great experience and wisdom are blaming the people for looking more and more to the Federal Government to meet their wants and to exercise governmental control over them, and this to the destruction of local self government, the rights of the States, and the rights of the people, all which are the basic factors of our social, economic, and constitutional life.

Might I humbly question whether the people are primarily to blame for this?

Nearly two thousand years ago, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, the Master miraculously fed 5,000 people. They immediately wished to make Him king. One who could feed them without their working for it, ought to be made their sovereign. This would solve for them the all important problem of earthly existence. Perceiving their thoughts and to avoid being dragged forth as the seeming head of a rebellion, the Master dismissed them and Himself fled their presence, going “up into a mountain apart to pray.” That night He crossed over to the other side of the sea , and the multitude learning of it, took ship and also crossed over, and came to Him again. They gathered about Him, deceitfully worshipping, declaring: “Of a truth thou art the Son of God.” But He discerning their thought and purpose, reproved them saying: “Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves and were filled.”

He then preached the great sermon on the bread of life, and the sacred record declares: “From that time many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him.”

He was useless to them, except as the gratuitous provider of their bread and meat.

So do multitudes.

If our Congressmen would stop the march of the people to Washington for their government and their substance, they should cease distributing the loaves and fishes from the steps of the Treasury Building across the road from the White House. You Congressmen have the absolute power to stop it; have you the courage? If it is not done, you, not the people, must take on the censure.

There is one principle as old as human government, indeed as old as human relations: He who holds the purse strings, rules the house, the nation, the world.

If Congressmen wish to restore local self-government, and the rights of the States and of the people, let them send back to the States, to the local communities, to the Churches, and to the children of indigent parents, where it belongs, the duty of caring for their own sick and decrepit and aged, their own unfortunate and underprivileged. Then the march on Washington will cease and the countermarch back home will be a Marathon.