How Forcible are Right Words! – Sunday, September 17, 1944
Someone has said that those who speak or write have a grave responsibility in wartime. This is profoundly true—but it is also true without its limiting clause of time, because those who speak or write have a grave responsibility at any time, and at all times. If we may judge things to come by the past, during days which precede the deciding of public issues, we may expect considerable heat to be generated through the medium of ill-chosen words.
We may expect rumors to be started on their way seemingly with little conscience, and often with little substance in fact. We may expect to hear much calling of names and much tearing down of reputations. We may expect to see many closets broken into in an attempt to find long-forgotten skeletons—or, perhaps, to make some new ones where old ones are not to be found. In an effort to divert attention from themselves and their own records, many may be expected to point fingers at others and lay the blame elsewhere for deficiencies and errors. We may expect to hear much of whispering, wheedling, and whooping. And while all this may not be to our liking, it may give us some small comfort to remember that such things are not peculiar to our time.
This is a pattern long familiar, to which those who interest themselves in affairs of state have become accustomed. But notwithstanding this, one would surely be forgiven the hope that we might now have become old enough and wise enough to focus attention on basic issues and fundamental principles, without becoming lost in the smokescreen and barrage. And so, as we face the pressure of the days ahead, with all of their claims and counter-claims, the only safe and sane thing a free man can do is to sit back with dispassionate judgment, look at the record, observe the trends, decide what he wants, and act accordingly—and not be misled by late repentance or frantic promise. From the scriptures there comes to mind a phrase from Job: “How forcible are right words! but what doth your arguing reprove?” (Job 6:25).
When we hear “right words” and look at the record to see if the “right words” have been coupled with the “right performance,” then we may have some basis on which to proceed. And to all who would shape the thinking or direct the action of other men, let it be solemnly repeated, that he who speaks or writes, any time, on any subject, has a grave responsibility, and a sacred obligation to confine himself wholly to truth.
Heard over Radio Station KSL and the nationwide Columbia Broadcasting System, from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Sunday, Sept. 17, 1944. Copyright – 1944.
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September 17, 1944
Broadcast Number 0,787