PURSUE HAPPINESS, OR SETTLE FOR LESS?

KENNETT, Mo. -- For the most part, America's Founding Fathers dealt in specifics when detailing transgressions by the British monarchy upon the colonists, although in defense of the throne at least a few of the alleged royal sins were actually blessings for the New World residents, who lived in a virtual tax-free society separated form collectors by a tumultuous ocean.

More importantly, however, was the insertion of an unusual phrase by Thomas Jefferson as he penned the Declaration of Independence, selecting three conditions among the document's "self-evident" goals: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is not difficult to understand the selection of life, and certainly the inclusion of liberty remains obvious to this day.

But what about the pursuit of happiness, which to some must seem a somewhat frivolous, even hedonistic quest when compared to the first two objectives? Did Jefferson mean that, once colonial independence had been won, emancipated citizens would be given free rein to pursue their happiness in whatever form or direction they desired? It seems rather obvious that the declaration's author meant to assure that each of us had "certain unalienable rights" that could only be guaranteed by the "consent of the governed."

The declaration's spirit, if not its exact wordage, promised a form of happiness that would come with freedom from anarchy, a quiet, internal calm that as long as the majority remained in charge there would be guarantees against anarchy that would, for the most part, be automatic, inviolate, resolute.

Jefferson's promise of the right of happiness has, however, been tested in diverse and unusual ways since July 4, 1776. Soon the nation will execute a very confused young man whose pursuit of happiness was the cruel death of innocent men, women and children, a deed he inexplicably has justified by his personal right to "life" and "liberty."

The explanation offered by Timothy McVeigh is an extreme example, although it has been offered on numerous occasions by a great many "patriots" whose obscene acts against innocent others far exceeded the realms of humanity. Lee Harvey Oswald felt justified in killing a president of our country with a logic that still escapes us after more than 37 years.

Thank God today's average, normal American has never envisioned the pursuit of happiness as the right of violence against his fellow citizens. For the most part, our sins against real or imagined enemies of society take a much more reasoned path, although some among us honestly believe society has no inalienable right to execute the most guilty. Others among us believe the innocent have the right to inflict supreme penalties when the crimes are extreme and serve to end the victims' own pursuit of happiness.

There is justification in arguing that Jefferson's invoking the right to secure happiness involved not only the rights of the individual, allocated to each of us regardless of our station in life, but also the obligation of governments to protect our liberties -- our right to live securely and to express ourselves freely as long as we deny no one else the identical right.

There are also many, and I unhesitantly claim membership in this group, who believe government should see to it that the productive remain productive and, indeed, grow stronger, but that there are two major groups that deserve more of government's efforts than they are receiving. The first consists of those who work for a living because they have to, people not poor enough to be desperate but not rich enough to be free from constant, daily even hourly, concern, worry, panic.

The second group includes those who are struggling to make it but, for whatever, cannot.

The rest I would leave to society as a whole, while challenging our great religious and philanthropic institutions to be involved with expertise and programs superior to Washington or Jefferson City or the county courthouse.

As for these at-risk groups, the marvels of technology are but a small dot on the gigantic screen of everyday living. Respected economists say more and more of our families are falling into a pattern of lean, even bare existence, hastened by inflation, a growing disparity of income and increasing demands of modern living. If this sizable underclass ever becomes a majority, the guarantees of Jefferson will become impossible for all the rest, while their indifference to other liberties will become much greater and more pervasive.

Most revolutions, including both our own and that of the French, include some degree of causation from economics, and the revolt against the monarchy of France was triggered by those citizens who were living a bare existence but had never enjoyed full return from their daily efforts.

There is evidence of this same societal divide in today's America, as personal bankruptcies increase and income differences grow more obvious between the technically trained and those without this advantage, creating yet another division that is dangerous to society as a whole. Never in the past century has this class variance been as obvious as it is today. The problem is noticeable in the growing public indifference toward our federal and state political forums, where neither the problem nor its answers register with the less affluent whose main concern in simply existing economically from one paycheck to the next.

These Americans, numbering, we fear, into the millions, have given up any pursuit of happiness, which is increasingly difficult to experience, much less visualize. Today they can only pursue existence. Tomorrow they may look for answers.

~Jack Stapleton is the editor of Missouri News and Editorial Service.