SELLING LUMBER 



147 



America the 

 "Pet of High 

 Heaven" 



years ago a man said to me: "Doctor, why is it we in America 

 here feel that we are the particular pet of high heaven; that God 

 Almighty has his hand with more love on the flag of the stars 

 and stripes than any other? Why," he said, "take Persia. What 

 is Persia today? Why Persia does not amount to that much 

 (snapping his fingers) in the policies of the world. But at one 

 time she was mistress of the world, three times the size of the 

 United States." Why, gentlemen, do you realize that? Last Feb- 

 ruary I made a jump from Seattle, in Washington, to Tampa, 

 Florida a straight jump, the longest trip I ever made on land. 

 Persia was three times the size of that; and Persia was so old and 

 rich in national life and history that it makes the United States, 

 he said, look like an infant and a pauper by comparison ; and 

 he said Persia had riches that we do not possess today ; Persia 

 could move rocks 150 miles that we can't move 150 inches. Per- 

 sia had colors that haven't faded, and we don't even know the 

 chemistry of that thing. There they are, as bright as the colors 

 on that jar (indicating), and yet they were made thousands of 

 years before Christ. And he said, "Where is that vast, powerful 

 old nation of antiquity? In the sands of oblivion. And what 

 brought her there? The old, old story. And it is time for us 

 to see. Goodness alive! Does God Almighty mean to treat us 

 like that? It is simply the old economic struggle, the internal 

 struggle between the rich and the poor, saturating every ramifi- 

 cation of society; in other words, the rich get richer and the 

 poor get poorer. It saturated society until caste was established, 

 not only in society, but by law ; and then when there was a little 

 pressure from the outside, Indian China, it fell, by reason of the The Lesson 



internal weakness and rottenness, and great was the crash thereof." 

 "Now," my friend said, "what do we see forming already in this 

 young government of ours? The same process of disease, dis- 

 integration, decay and death. On one side we have millionaires, 

 multi-millionaires, trusts and monopolies ; on the other side, trade 

 unions confronting all the different kinds of business, and many 

 of them highly organized. And it is ridiculous for us to cry 

 'Peace, Peace, Peace' to high heaven, when there is no peace ; and 

 if this breach grows wider right along, when there is a little 

 pressure on the outside on the walls of our government they will 

 crash and fall, just as surely as the walls of our honored and 

 loved forebears fell before us. Why, then, do we sit here and 

 flatter our hearts that we are the particular pet of high heaven 



in Persia's Fall 



