BUSINESSMEN'S RESPONSIBILITY FOR RADICALISM

That was a fine, moving and memorable ceremony held Tuesday, December 7 at Riverfront Park to commemorate the 52nd anniversary of Japan's sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.

The veterans organizations involved did their usual good job of organizing the event. And as American Legion Post Commander Herb Nance stated, the ceremony could not have been put together without crucial manpower, support and planning from our local U.S. Naval Reserve unit, under the command of Lt. Commander Don Taylor. Commander Taylor also gave the principal address, speaking eloquently of the sacrifice represented by the 2,403 Americans who died that awful day, and of the lessons in preparedness we must never forget.

Afterwards, I was moved to approach the surviving vets, to tell them I would do whatever I can to make sure that my generation never broke faith with those who lived and died on the "... day which will live in infamy."

Those lessons are worth pondering as we watch an administration drastically cutting back on the military's resources, while expanding its mission around the globe. As Georgia's Democratic Senator Sam Nunn has stressed, that is very likely a recipe for yet another disaster.

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I was enormously impressed yesterday after hearing a superb Christmas program presented by the Central High School Chamber Choir at my service club. They are bright, clean, hardworking, good-looking, well-trained young people. You would be proud of them and the job they are doing under the direction of long-time choral music instructor Judy Williams.

You have a chance to see and hear them for yourself at their Christmas concert, next Tuesday evening, December 14, at 7:30 p.m. in the high school auditorium.

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Now is the time when candidates and potential candidates are making their decisions, both for next year's spring municipal elections, and for next fall's primary and general elections. It is good to see that sound city council candidates have already stepped forward in many Cape Girardeau wards, offering their judgment, time and talents for an especially thankless variety of public service.

Many names are floating, also, for potential candidates for county offices, and it's good to see some strong ones there, as well. Too many citizens seem to regard our republican form of government as a spectator sport. I urge you to get involved. It's a unique learning experience.

"Accuse American businessmen of being responsible for radicalism and they would indignantly deny the accusation. Yet, in one fundamental sense, they are responsible. They are responsible in the sense that they have utterly neglected to take part in the work and the organization which precede the choosing of candidates for political office. Local political organizations all over the land are conducted and controlled, as a rule, by politicians. ... Businessmen have shirked such responsibilities, leaving an untrammeled field to others less capable of carrying on the administration of government."

the late B.C. Forbes

Publisher Forbes has been dead many years, and he wrote in the vernacular of his time. Were he writing today, the late Mr. Forbes would have written and spoken, of course, of "businessmen and -women." The point he makes remains an important one today.

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"The highest reward for a person's toil is not what he gets for it, but what he becomes by it."

John Ruskin