The Things That Are Unseen:
“In complete freedom of action the people oftentimes have a more effective remedy than can be supplied by government interference. Individual initiative, in the long run, is a firmer reliance than bureaucratic supervision. When the people work out their own economic and social destiny, they generally reach sound conclusions.”
–The Things That Are Unseen, Wheaton College, 1923
Speech to Society of the Daughter of the American Revolution:
“It is the righteous duty of society to assist the disproportionately weak and afflicted. That is the meaning of charity. The same duty requires the protection of the individual against crime and wrongdoing. That is the meaning of security. But the average run of the people must be personally responsible for their own affairs and their own success. Under our institutions they can not evade this duty by attempting to shift it upon the Government, for they are themselves the Government. Unless they discharge this obligation themselves, there is no one that can discharge it for them. To attempt any other method is to deny that the principle of freedom, equality and self-government is sound.”
–Address before the Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, 1928
Toleration and Liberalism:
“The Government can do much, but it can never supply the personal relationship that comes from the ministrations of a private charity…”
–Toleration and Liberalism, Omaha, 1925
Address Delivered to the Holy Name Society:
“We stand wholly committed to the policy that what the individual produces belongs entirely to him to be used by him for the benefit of himself, to provide for his own family and to enable him to serve his fellow men.
Of course we are all aware that the recognition of brotherhood brings in the requirement of charity. But it is only on the basis of individual property that there can be any charity. Our very conception of the term means that we deny ourselves of what belongs to us, in order to give it to another. If that which we give is not really our own, but belongs to the person to whom we give it, such an act may rightfully be called justice, but it cannot be regarded as charity.”
–Address Delivered to the Holy Name Society, District of Columbia, 1924
Address Before the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York regarding Government & Business:
“The New York Chamber of Commerce is not made up of men merely animated with a purpose to get the better of each other. It is something far more important than a sordid desire for gain. It could not successively succeed on that basis. It is dominated by a more worthy impulse; it rests on a higher law. True business represents the mutual organized effort of society to minister to the economic requirements of civilization. It is an effort by which men provide for the material needs of each other. While it is not an end in itself, it is the important means for the attainment of a supreme end. It rests squarely on the law of service. It has for its main reliance truth and faith and justice. In its larger sense it is one of the greatest contributing forces to the moral and spiritual advancement of the race.”
–Address Before the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York regarding Government & Business, New York, 1925
The High Place of Labor
“No matter what anyone may say about making the rich and the corporations pay the taxes, in the end they come out of the people who toil. It is your fellow workers who are ordered to work for the Government, every time an appropriation bill is passed. The people pay the expense of government, often many times over, in the increased cost of living. I want taxes to be less, that the people may have more.”
–The High Place of Labor, District of Columbia, 1924