Reenactment – Sunday, November 3, 1940
It is difficult for most of us to see beyond our own immediate self-interest. We are often inclined to suppose that anything is a bargain if it preserves for the present our comfort and convenience and our accustomed habits of living, in a material way; and for these we sometimes consider foolishly signing away things that must dearly be bought back later.
Bargain hunting is a costly business – especially when it involves the exchange of fundamental rights, wise traditions, and guarantees of freedom. Nothing is good enough to be bought at such prices, even when it is made to seem to be to our immediate and personal advantage. We are so constantly mindful of our material heritage, that perhaps something should be said concerning our intangible heritage without which none of these other things is worth anything.
From the patriots of generations past, there came to us a heritage of liberty – freedom of worship, freedom of speech, a voice in our own regulation, the right to choose our own leaders, the right to live our lives as free men, and to bequeath our children a land unfettered. These fathers gave us without price, but whenever we foolishly suppose that they shall remain forever with us, regardless of our indifference toward their maintenance, they shall vanish from us over night as quietly and surely as the darkness steals upon us. And any man or movement that promises to lead us to green pastures — with a rope around our necks — is reenacting an age-old drama that has been repeated times without number by overly- ambitious actors since before the foundations of the world were laid — a drama in which the unsuspecting audience suddenly wake up and find that what they have left is the rope — and the green pastures are still beyond.
It is one of those performances in which the audience, having paid to get in, find that they must also pay to get out. And all this is true no matter how acceptable in a personal way the chief actor may be or how persuasive his oratory. Whenever we yield in any degree or particular a fundamental right or a tradition of liberty, we have gone back on the road that has often been retraced with “blood and tears and toil and sweat.” There are millions who would now so testify to their unavailing sorrow — if the privilege of testifying were still theirs! And all this we should remember before we set aside any hard-won right of liberty or tradition of freedom — for any cause, real or imaginary, personal or otherwise. And whenever we are tempted to give up, for whatever emergency or expediency or temporary advantage, any element of this quickly perishable heritage, let it be asked of us, even as it was asked of an ancient people who once had and lost these things: “Have ye forgotten the captivity of our fathers?” (Book of Mormon, Alma 6:20)
November 3, 1940
Broadcast Number 0,585